Thank you to everyone who reads this story, reviews it, and waits patiently for my late-a** to update!
Beta: Zerubel
Real life has been reaaaaally hectic lately, or I would have updated much sooner. As it is, I'm not gonna give you lots of excuses, and the chapter after this is finished, so unless something horrible happens to me, you'll see an update either next weekend, or the weekend after that, depending on how much typing I get done on the chapter after next (I like having a little bit ready at a time so I don't wig out).
I actually planned to post this yesterday, but my little sister sprained her ankle (she has to get checked in a couple days for them to be really sure it's not a hairline fracture), and between the incident itself and the hospital visit today, the fic slipped my mind. I just now remembered (it's a little past eleven on Sunday night- still technically the weekend!), so here we are.
This chapter and the one after it were really fun to write. They both turned out differently than I expected, but I'm pleased with them.
I've introduced some new characters in this chapter. Two of them are already included in the Marvel movieverse now, but the last one isn't, and it'll be a lot of fun to see how/if she affects the story to come.
Also, I have a question that was PM'd to me that I'd like to address here. Someone asked me if I planned to include the Bruce/Natasha bits that are in Age of Ultron- I do not. I love the characters, but not together. I DO plan to include Clint's family, so there won't be any Hawkeye/Black Widow stuff either. I'm not sure I plan to pair her up at all, for that matter, which I don't think will have an impact on this story one way or the other.
That done, here's the new chapter!
Enjoy.
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Harry's hands burned as he scrubbed. He was on his dozenth cauldron, and he'd been working at them for a long time. The cleaner had a very sharp, horrible smell to his sensitive nose, and he was pretty sure that a couple layers of his skin had been scrubbed away alongside all the gunk stuck to the cast iron. He sighed as he finally managed to get rid of the last stubborn spot, and then stood from his tall stool and the table he'd been working at to rinse it off in the sink and place it with the other ones that he'd finished. He bit his bottom lip as he examined his hands. The palms were bright red and sensitive enough to make him hiss. Even the black scales on the backs looked a little raw; to the point that he was bleeding slightly along the weird rough grey area where scale and skin met on one hand. He looked across the cluttered little back room of the potion shop to the stack of cauldrons that were left. Seven. Seven more to go.
"You can stop now." He jumped, startled, and looked to find his father standing in the doorway, his hair pulled up in a messy tie and dressed in work slacks with suspenders, and a white buttoned shirt with the sleeves rolled up. If his hair were shorter, he would look like he'd been pulled straight out of an office building in the 1940s. As it was, he did look rather natural and at-home between the stock shelves filled with various bottles and boxes of dried herbs, spices, and slimy bits that made up the bulk of potion ingredients.
"There's still mor-"
"Your hand is bleeding. I would think you'd like to stop before you wear your hands down to bone." Harry looked away, and Severus sighed. He came forward and sat down at the second stool. There was a little set up almost like a kitchen island in here, with a sink and some cabinets on the wall closest to it, that served as something not unlike a break-room for his father, Bruce, and the shop owner (a short, friendly older gentleman, with a bad back and crooked teeth who smiled a lot and had offered Harry a plate of cookies as soon as he came in). "Come and sit." He motioned to the stool the animagus had been using, and the younger wizard only just realized he had something in his hands when he set a small box (it looked like a lunch box almost) on the counter. Harry did as ordered and was told to hold his hands out.
The potion master carefully went about rubbing a soothing sort of cream into his hands that was cold and felt like lotion but disappeared quickly. It eased the raw burning considerably. When he was done with that, he put a yellow ointment on the spot where Harry had begun to bleed and wrapped a bandage around his hand. They were silent through it all, and while the atmosphere was considerably different, the situation was reminiscent of two nights previous, when Harry had patched Moo up.
"You should have told me immediately about the snake." The man had gone all morning simply ordering him about in a not-unkind voice (Get up and get dressed. We're apparating. This is the shop. The cauldrons are in the back there so get started.), and not saying a word about Tom. Now that he was finally bringing it up, finally confronting the situation directly, Harry didn't know whether to be relieved or even more nervous and tense than he had been since the evening before. "I want you to tell me why you didn't." It wasn't what Harry had expected him to say, and he floundered a moment in uncertainty. Then he looked down, anxious, and tried to explain.
"Part of it... Part of it was just that I was scared you'd be angry with me."
"I am angry with you. But more because you didn't tell me right away than because He's alive." Harry felt a lump grow in his throat. "... You said that was only part of it. What was the other part?"
"I-" He swallowed. "I didn't want to ruin things." He glanced up, catching a hint of confusion in his father's expression, and did his best to elaborate. "You've looked so happy. You- Ever since the war ended I've watched you change. You smile now. You laugh and joke like you never did before. You look so calm and content. You're even- You've mellowed. You don't get angry or stressed as often as before. You're so different now than you were back at Hogwarts and I just- I didn't want you to find out Tom was back, and have all the peace ruined for you. I want you to be happy, and I thought, if you knew he was back-"
"You thought I would regress."
"Yea." The former spy sighed again, and his expression softened considerably.
"I thought it might be something like that." He said quietly. "I'll admit, I'd much rather he was still dead, but-" He paused. "He's not the same person anymore, is he?"
"No. Psychosis and things like sadism... Those are... They're things that are wrong with a person's mind, their body, not their soul. And those things combined with how twisted his magic became... Those are the reasons he was the way he was. But he has a different body now," A body that didn't belong to him. "and his magic is more pure, so-"
"I understand, mostly. We'll need to discuss this more in-depth another time, but for now..." He took a deep breath "If you bring him back from Asgard with you I'd much prefer he remain with Stark, and if he must come home I'd like you to keep him in your, or Muhammad's, rooms. I'd like to adjust more to the thought before I'm forced to deal with him directly."
"Of course." Harry nodded sharply. He was hardly going to shove Tom's existence down the man's throat.
"For now I just have a few questions. I saw many things in his mind, and I think we need to talk about some of them."
"Sure, what-"
"King, Harry?"
"Oh, that... Well-"
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They'd spoken about a lot of things, and that afternoon, when Harry curled exhaustedly up on the couch, using Bruce as a pillow while they both read, he felt much better. He held the scroll carefully, hands still a bit achy. This wasn't really what he'd had in mind when he'd decided he wanted to spend some time with his eldest brother, but he was tired, so it would have to do. Muhammad was there too, sat across the room with one of the books he'd kidnapped from the library. It wasn't one Harry had read, but the Arab had an intent look on his face as his eyes travelled over the pages.
The animagus grit his teeth a little and determinedly looked away, focussing instead on his own reading. This rune scroll Moody had given him really was amazing. Harry didn't know who Moody's grandfather had been, but he liked the way his mind worked. There was so much complex detail in his ward configurations. He'd combined simple and complex concepts, adding in extra little twists and designs Harry would never have thought of. Like weather aspects. Some of these wards were designed to change the weather around the property they were set on, making it very mild, and then, when activated, would alter the weather to extremes, making it suddenly very hot and dry and then very cold and snowy. It would switch back and forth between them, which would distract the intruder long enough for the wards to hit them with other, more subtle spells, like one that would make them begin to feel ill, and another that increase the feeling of gravity on them (just the feeling of it, not the actual force) more and more over a long time until it became too great for them to move.
His wards included additives designed to keep out specific species too; vampires, werewolves, phoenixes, dementors, even house elves. And, from what Harry could see, his wards were designed with those additions as being pretty much standard. There were other things too, not just wards. A couple small rune designs for enchanting objects; simple things meant to keep an object from being stolen, or even picked up or used by anyone other than the owner. Not particularly unique, but useful all the same.
"-rry. Harry!"
"Huh?" He tilted his head back against Bruce's thigh to look up at the Doctor who met his gaze exasperatedly.
"You're as bad as Tony." His brow scrunched.
"What about Tony?" Bruce sighed and shook his head. He stood up abruptly and Harry grumbled as he was dislodged.
"We're going to go have dinner with him."
"Oh." He blinked. "I didn't know that."
"Well, it's him and the rest of the team, but yea. Everyone has different jobs and travels and stuff, but dinner at least twice a month keeps us close. We train together too."
"Train?" Harry paused. "You... I thought they brought you in as like a consultant like I was during the invasion. I didn't know you were actually part of the Avenger's Initiative."
"Just the Avenger's now, and..." He looked a little uncomfortable. "I figured they could use me." Harry read between the lines.
"And the other guy."
"Yea." He watched his brother carefully.
"Do you finally believe me then? About the Hulk?" Bruce shifted, bringing a hand up to rub his neck in discomfort.
"...I don't know, maybe. Tony built a safe room for me to transform, and Natasha's pretty good about calming him down... Only..."
"What?"
"You said he spoke to you. And she even confirmed that he did on the helicarrier. But he hasn't spoken to anyone on the team." Harry frowned.
"That's a little strange. Do you want me to talk to him? Try and-"
"Not now. If we call you back to Earth for a fight though, maybe then. Assuming the communicator works properly. For now just... Let's talk about it later alright? We should leave soon and you still need to take a shower. You smell like slugs and lemonade." He blushed and Moo snickered from where he was sitting, mouth hidden by his book but eyes twinkling over the top.
"It's that stupid cauldron cleaner."
"Don't care. You need to bathe. Hurry up 'cause I'm hungry." Harry grumbled and rolled up his scroll, tempted to hit the still amused Muhammad with it as he walked past him.
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It was... interesting... to see them all again. Romanoff and Barton both looked the same, though the former had straightened her hair, and seemed less... agent-y, agent-like? now that they weren't in the middle of a catastrophe. Barton's behavior was exactly the same, as far as Harry could tell, though he hadn't spent all that much time around him before. The only difference that caught his eye was the man's civilian clothes, as opposed to the black fighting suit he'd worn before (Romanoff too, had foregone the leather and was wearing jeans and a flowy green shirt with beading on the front).
Captain Rogers had let his hair grow an inch or two. It looked more natural than military, and all in all he seemed more... comfortable, than Harry remembered. He looked younger, and it was only then that Harry realized that, like himself and Muhammad, the Captain was only in his twenties. He was actually somewhat younger than the rest of the Avengers, who were all over thirty (at least as far as Harry knew). He'd been more... stressed maybe, more bogged down before, and Harry had picked up more on that old aura around the man than his appearance and assumed he was Bruce's age.
Tony was Tony and Bruce was Bruce, of course, nothing particularly new there, but there were a few faces Harry didn't recognize.
Two of them were black men. One of them was around Bruce and Tony's ages, or maybe even older. He was thin, with prominent cheekbones and large laugh lines. His skin was very dark, and his eyes were a little droopy, almost perpetually tired-looking. He was talking animatedly though, gesturing and grinning, telling some kind of story while Tony and Barton listened. The other one was several years younger, or at least he looked it. Harry pegged him being around Moo's age, though he couldn't be sure. He was slightly lighter skinned than the other man, and shorter, but with a fuller face. Harry wouldn't have called him bulky, but he certainly wasn't thin either. He wasn't doing much talking, but he sat on the couch next to Rogers with Romanoff across from them, the pair chatting quietly while he listened in.
The most notable new face for Harry, however, was a green one.
She was sipping from a wine glass, and listening to Tony's apparent friend's story, but stood a little apart from them. She was tall, beautiful, and very muscular. Her hair and skin were both green, the former dark enough to almost be black, while the latter was more of a bright, acidic color. She wore capri's and a tank top just a little too short to keep from showing the slightest line of skin, and she looked like a more attractive, female version of the Hulk.
The animagus immediately looked at his brother, eyes wide.
"My cousin. Long story short, I gave her a blood transfusion that month right after you left and there were some side-effects." The man explained quietly.
"And you couldn't have told me about this before we came here?" Harry hissed.
"Consider it payback for you keeping secrets." He winced.
"... Fair enough." Bruce grinned at him, the expression as mischievous as a fox (or one of the twins after a good prank).
"You took your time getting here." Speaking of Bruce's cousin... Her voice was deep, and despite the somewhat harsh tone she spoke with, her expression was good-natured. She smiled at them, dark green eyes twinkling, and Harry felt a little off-balance. The Hulk wasn't always the most coherent speaker, so by comparison... Well, Harry supposed however she was affected worked a bit differently.
...And also, she was very pretty, and pretty women still made him a little nervous, whether he was attracted to them or not.
"Sorry about that, Jen." She rolled her eyes at him and then looked down at Harry. She was even taller than Sif!.
"So, this is the little cutie you've been telling me about." She grinned at him, and he swallowed.
"All good things I hope." He managed to quip.
"Mostly." Bruce chuckled.
"Jen, this is my little brother, Harry. Harry, my cousin, Jennifer Walters. She's a lawyer. She just moved here from Los Angeles." They shook hands, and the wizard took note of her very strong grip.
"It's nice to meet you."
"You too."
"I didn't know Bruce had other family." She gave said Doctor a quick, indecipherable look before answering the unspoken question.
"My father and Bruce's mother were siblings. When she died we kind of drifted apart. Sent some letters here and there, over the years, and we finally met up a few months ago, for the first time in at least... ten years? I think." She waved a hand, gesturing at herself. "Obviously that didn't really go as planned, but it could have been worse. I'd probably be dead if your brother here hadn't donated his blood, unintended consequences notwithstanding."
"What happened?"
"I got shot. L. A. is a nice place, but not always the safest, you know? Especially when your dad's a cop." Harry winced.
"Ah." She smiled.
"It's not a problem. Things were kind of bumpy those first couple weeks after I turned green and grew two feet, but I've got pretty decent control now. Decided to move here so I could be closer to Bruce. If there's ever any problems I figure he's the best person to go to."
"Makes sense... So you can't change back?"
"I could, if I wanted. But honestly, I like this version of me better. It's different but-"
"It feels right." Harry smiled at her, feeling something of a kindred soul. It had been a little difficult trying to explain to Sirius (after the man's first few attempts at changing him back to 'normal' following his mistake with the animagus transformation failed) that he was perfectly fine to remain the way he was.
"Yea."
"I understand. I think you look good, if that means anything." He blushed. "You're very pretty. I- erm, I just mean, um-" All his confidence seemed to flee at once, and he could hear (and see, from the corner of his eye) Bruce stifling laughter beside him. Jennifer, Jen (it was alright to call her that if Bruce did, wasn't it?) laughed outright, and then smiled gently at him.
"Thanks kid." It should have been patronizing, being referred to as a child, but it made him feel better instead. It meant she hadn't taken his word-vomit and subsequent nervous rambling the wrong way. "I think you're the first person not to look at me like I'm crazy about it all." She swung an arm around his shoulders in a friendly manner, and he felt a little dwarfed beside her. "Come on, let's get you some wine." She guided him over towards Tony's bar, and let her arm drop long enough to pour a couple glasses for him and Bruce, then her arm was around him again. It was bitter, but not terrible enough to complain about, and he muttered a thank you. "So Bruce told me you two met in the middle east?" He nodded.
"In Oman. I was going to visit Muhammad's uncle and we, er, ran into each other."
"Muhammad is your other brother right?"
"That's right." It was Bruce who answered. "He's an asshole but he's family."
"Not the nicest thing to say."
"It's alright." Harry defended, grinning. "He is an asshole, but he wouldn't be himself if he wasn't. We love him anyways." Her lips twitched a bit at that, amused.
"Were you in Oman a long time?"
"A few months. Bruce was there longer than I was, and we travelled for awhile after that."
"Did you? Bruce told me he spent some time living in India, did you too?"
"No. We only stayed there a few weeks before we moved on to Africa."
"It must have been amazing. I've always wanted to travel the world but I've never been out of the country."
"It was great." His eyes brightened. "I have a place in Russia if you want to go there. It's in the middle of nowhere kind of, but there's some towns and stuff we could travel to from there. And if you ever want to go to England I'd be happy to take you." She smiled brightly at him.
" You know, I think you and me are gonna get along great. Family should, right?" He tilted his head at her.
"We're family?" She shrugged and winked at him.
"Well, technically. Bruce is family to me, and you're family to him. So we're cousins, more or less." Harry hummed, considering, and looked around her to his brother, catching the tail end of a deer-in-the-headlights expression. He grinned ferally, and leaned upwards towards Jen's ear. She leaned downwards a little in turn, too tall to really put herself at his level, and Harry gave her a conspiratorial look.
"I think Bruce would look very handsome with silver hair, don't you?" He whispered, and her grin grew to match his.
"We'll have to give him lots of grey hairs then." They simultaneously looked in his direction, his face even more horrified than it had been a moment ago, and burst into laughter together. Harry felt warm inside. They would get along well, he knew. The best sorts of friends were the ones you meshed with instantly upon meeting. Like Ron and him... But that had turned bitter, and he buried the thought quickly, not wanting to ruin the pleasant mood he was in.
"You guys are having entirely too much fun over here." Tony had finally made his way over, his friend in tow, and Harry realized most of those in the room were looking in their direction. He supposed they'd been a little loud. "This is supposed to be my party. You're not allowed to have more fun than me."
"I thought it was just a dinner?"
"If there's more than three people, it's a party." Jen rolled her eyes again, but Harry didn't think it was as good-natured as the first time. Her arm dropped from its place around Harry's shoulders, and a moment later the billionaire's had replaced it. "Come over here and meet Rhodey." He turned Harry around so the animagus was facing the one of the two unknown men that had been talking with Tony. Said man had a look on his face that said he was more than used to Tony and his antics, and he smiled politely at the wizard. "This is my best friend, James Rhodes, call him Rhodey, Air Force Colonel, amazing aerospace engineer, of course I could do better, all around great guy and annoyingly upstanding citizen. Rhodey this is my pet gnome and magic man, Harry." Harry blinked.
"Is that what I am, your pet?"
"I said friend, didn't I?" The Colonel gave him a deadpan look.
"You said pet."
"Did I? Oh. Well I meant friend. You know I meant friend, right?" He gave Harry a beseeching look, which the wizard ignored in favor of holding his hand out to Tony's best friend.
"Nice to meet you Colonel Rhodes." The man shook his hand, giving him a genuine smile in response.
"Nice to meet someone with some respect." Tony made a token note of protest they both pretended not to hear. "But you really can just call me Rhodey. It alright if I call you Harry?"
"Of course." Harry looked away to find that the other man had also come up, Romanoff behind him (Captain Rogers was watching them closely, but had apparently elected to stay on the couch), to introduce himself.
"Sam Wilson." Harry shook his hand. His grip was more gentle than Rhodey's or Jen's.
"Also Air Force." Tony cut in, only for Wilson to quickly correct him.
"Former."
"Harry Black. It's nice to meet you."
"You too." He paused. "Steve said you're not military."
"Nope."
"You carry yourself like it though. Been in a lot of battles?"
"Not many, actually." It felt like it sometimes, but when it came down to it, while Harry had certainly been through a lot of shit, he hadn't been through so many outright battles. There had been that time in first year, when he'd faced Voldemort over the stone, the time at the end of the tournament when he'd fought to escape the same Dark Lord and his Death Eaters, that disaster at the Ministry... He didn't feel like the day they escaped Hogwarts counted, but there had been the final battle, and then, of course, the battle for New York. There had been other conflicts and obstacles he'd faced, of course (like the basilisk and Sirius escaping jail and his encounter in India with that Nundu-like creature), but in terms of direct fighting against or alongside other intelligent beings, that was it. "About half a dozen or so." He gave Harry a strange look, but nodded.
"Not had any new fights to deal with up in Asgard?" Romanoff finally stepped forward, and Harry was sure it wasn't just his imagination that the room suddenly felt quieter. She was smiling at him, but it reminded him more of the way he himself bore his teeth right before he leapt and sank them into a deer's hide than it did anything even remotely friendly.
"No." Her gaze was expectant.
"Hmm." She didn't ask any questions, and he didn't offer any answers, and for several moments, there was a sort of stand off as they just stared at each other, she, unwilling to back down, and Harry's instincts demanding he not do so either.
"There's plenty of interesting stuff up there though." Bruce came to his rescue, wrapping an arm around him (he had barely noticed Tony had let go at some point). He put himself ever so slightly between the two of them, smiling at Romanoff. There was nothing unfriendly about it, but something in his brother's expression gave the animagus chills, and it was enough to make the redheaded woman take a half step back. "Tell Tony what you told me, about the moons."
"Moons?" Said engineer queried, eyes flicking between Romanoff and Bruce with just a small hint of nervousness.
"...There's three of them."
"That sounds interesting." Jen added. "Why don't we all sit down and you can tell us about it over dinner? The food's supposed to be here soon, right?"
"Uh..." Tony pulled out his phone, swiping his finger over it a few times before nodding. "Yup. Should be here any minute. Honestly I can't wait. I'm starving." Harry found himself with Bruce on one side of him, and Jen on the other, and being led over to one of the couches while Tony chattered away. The other conversations slowly resumed, and Harry relaxed as he went about telling them about the beauty of Asgard.
Yet every time he looked up, his green eyes met hazel ones.
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Dinner itself was, at least, not quite as awkward. Jen had taken the liberty of sitting herself down at the long table next to Harry, in such as a position where Romanoff was on the same side of the table as them and Jen's body completely blocked her and Harry from the sight of one another. Harry just knew she'd done it intentionally, and he felt grateful. Bruce was on his other side, then the Captain, at their end's head of the table, then Wilson. Harry would have expected Romanoff to sit with them, but Barton had planted himself down next to Jen and all but dragged his fellow agent into the seat next to him.
Next to her, at the other head of the table, was Tony. Then a cherry-blonde woman who arrived late that he'd introduced as Pepper, Rhodey, and two empty seats between him and Wilson. Harry knew one of them should have been for Thor (with maybe the one next to it being for Jane?), but the god of thunder wasn't present. Harry would have appreciated his presence. He was so loud and happy most of the time that him just being there lightened the mood of a room, such was his charisma. As it was, with the line of sight cut off between them, the tension between the animagus and female agent didn't spoil the mood, and Harry and the others at their end of the table (social bubbles seemed to have been formed somehow, with each end of the table carrying on their own conversations and behaving almost as though the other side didn't exist) spent most of the meal getting to know each other.
"A counselor?" Wilson nodded.
"I work with the veterans down at the VA hospital."
"VA?" The Captain gave him a funny look, and Harry was conscious of this being one of those probably-well-known subjects on which he was ignorant; but Wilson didn't look fazed.
"Veteran's Affairs. They look after health care and stuff for former military, particularly the older lot. It's not the best system, but they do a lot of good. I council veterans with PTSD." Harry opened his mouth to ask, but the man explained before the question came out. "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It's pretty common among people who've seen battle, or suffered any kind of trauma. Flashbacks, Nightmares, trouble with loud noises and things like that. There's more too it, symptoms that don't get talked about much, but basically it's just people who've been badly affected by their experiences. I give them a place to talk and work through things without having to resort to medication."
"PTSD..." Harry had never heard the term before, but the few symptoms Wilson listed were definitely familiar to him. He twirled his fork through his pasta thoughtfully.
His nightmares were few and far between these days, but he still had them, and in those first couple months after the final battle, there was hardly a night where he didn't. He hadn't had many flashbacks, all in all, but there had been a couple. He'd learned, in the beginning, to avoid bright flashing lights. They brought spellfire so vividly to mind that there would be moments where he was sure he was back on Hogwarts' lawn. It was the main reason they'd stuck primarily to small towns after their first venture into one of Russia's larger cities. He was alright now, of course. They couldn't live in a place like New York if he wasn't (that said, he had never been to town square, and intended to avoid going for as long as possible).
"Something wrong?" The captain's face was concerned.
"No, just... PTSD sounds familiar." Wilson gave him a knowing look.
"I don't only council veterans, you know." Harry nodded, giving him a polite smile, but had no plans to approach him about it. He was fine now, really. There was no need to see a mind healer, or the muggle equivalent.
"I have a veteran client who sees you." Jen cut in. "She speaks highly of you." Wilson smiled.
They spoke a little about Jen's job as a lawyer after that (she was a criminal attorney who primarily represented minorities like mutants and people of color), and some of the social justice work she did. Harry learned a lot, in one evening, about poverty rates, gun violence and rape statistics, and problems in the American education and justice systems. It was... Enlightening.
Harry was the sort of person who mostly paid attention to the things he could see. The things she talked about... Police discrimination, civil rights violations, unfair racial profiling... He'd never seen things like that with his own eyes. The very existence of those things hadn't much occurred to him. Oh he knew racism was a thing, of course. Between the way most purebloods viewed muggleborns and muggles themselves... And he knew enough about muggle history to know about his home country's, and this one's, past involvement in slavery.
But racism based on someone's skin color had felt, to him, like a piece of the past long gone by, not a present issue. He hadn't thought it was something that still happened, mostly because it wasn't something he'd personally been exposed to. Yet if the way Wilson nodded sadly along to much of what Jen was saying was any indication, it clearly was. He even had a few points of his own to make, from the perspective of someone who had faced that sort of discrimination first hand.
It made Harry wonder about Great Britain, and about the wizarding world there. He knew werewolves faced problems, and muggleborns of course... But how bad was it really? If the war was any indication... It was probably a lot worse than anything he'd seen with his own eyes (and he had seen quite a bit, or so he thought at least). He just didn't know. His knowledge of present issues, and these issues in particular, was so limited...
Lucius had told him he had power in the wizarding government. Notable levels of power. If things were bad there, worse even, than he had thought (and the next time he came to Earth, he would need to do some serious research), then didn't he owe it to people, as a decent human being (well, maybe not human, but still decent), to do his part to help? To change things and make them better?
Harry spent a good portion of the meal in quiet, troubled contemplation.
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He slept well that night, curled up in a tangle of bodies and limbs made up of himself, a bemused Bruce, a reluctant Muhammad, and two ecstatic redheads finally returned from across the pond. It was stiflingly warm and wonderful. Severus had even slept downstairs with them (though on the couch nearby rather than on their giant conjured mattress). Then, in the morning, it was time to pack up and head back to the tower in preparation of Heimdall bringing them back to Asgard.
"Don't be a stranger alright oompa loompa? Make sure you come back to visit soon."
"The fuck is an oompa loompa?" He wasn't sure what was so shocking about the statement, but a Tony staring at him with a dropped jaw was a Tony that wasn't talking. It gave him the time to give his brother and father their goodbye hugs before the billionaire snapped out of it long enough to give him a sort of half-hug of his own. "Whatever, just... Come back to visit soon so we can have a movie marathon. I've got some educating to do. And bring Thor!"
"Look after yourselves." Severus cut in, his eyes hovering over each of them in turn, his eyes flicking nervously (well, for him at least) in the direction of the black snake settled around the animagus' waist (his shoulders had been very stiff when he'd hugged Harry, clearly uncomfortable at being so near to Tom). "All of you." There was a chorus of 'yes sir's from Harry and the twins and a nod from Moo. The wind picked up around them.
"Good luck with that girl!" Bruce called. The potion master's head whipped up, and Harry heard him start to ask a question when the light came down around them. A moment later, they stood on the platform of the bifrost bridge, and Harry smiled gratefully at the dark-skinned Asgardian's timing. Said gatekeeper gave him a knowing look.
"Welcome back, King Black."
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It was a little disorienting, travelling between realms. Oh the travel itself was perfectly fine, but... The differences were startling. He'd noticed it when they'd gone back to Earth, and he hoped it was something he would get used to. One place had blue skies, but in the other the heavens were more of a purple. The moons, the stars, even the weather was different... And so too was the magic. Harry had grown more and more in-tune with the feeling of natural magic after the first time he'd connected with Mitera. Asgard was older, more powerful. It's magi felt more raw and wild. If he had to compare them, he'd call Asgard a restless tiger and Earth a calm mother dog. The whole thing made everything feel a little surreel, and Harry had to meditate and ground himself several times before the odd feeling faded away.
But he managed, and once he was sure he was completely in his right mind, the very first thing he did was open the communicator Tony had given him and call the man. There was a toning sound, not a ring but more like chiming, and then-
"Hello? Can you hear me?" He grinned.
"Loud and Clear, Tony." His voice was just a little staticy, but otherwize he came through well. The man whooped.
"Great! I knew it would work! Have you given Thor his yet?"
"Not yet. I should see him tonight or tomorrow though." It was morning then, the four of them (five with Tom) having just arrived the previous day. "I can give it to him then."
"Good, good. Make sure you keep it on you. We'll call if we need you guys, and it might be short notice. You'll need to come back for training at some point too."
"I thought I was just a consultant."
"Well, you were, when the Avengers was policed by Shield. But there's no more Shield. Just us. And technical member or not, if you're gonna be working with us, we gotta make sure you can work with us, you know?"
"I understand."
"It helps a lot if we all have an understanding of what everyone is capable of. Which is why..."
"What?"
"Well, you don't have to, but... I think you should tell the whole team the stuff you told me about. The whole giant demon cat thing." He twitched.
"It's not a-"
"I don't think anyone would care one way or the other, but if you're not hiding something like that, then you'll be able to fight at 100%. If you're always holding something back that could put the rest of us in danger." Harry bit his lip. He knew that.
"You really think they wouldn't-"
"We've got a guy who turns into a giant green rage-monster, a super-soldier born in 1920," Wait, what? "an assassin, and me, with my arc reactor and narcissistic tendencies. So no. I don't think anybody will mind."
"...I'll think about it Tony."
"You do that. Alright. I got work to get to. Talk to you later munchkin." He hung up before Harry could even growl at the nickname, and he was left staring uncertainly at the phone. He wanted, quite a bit, to rip off his glamours and never put them on again.
But things just weren't that simple.
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The second thing Harry did (after easing his stresses with a bath and a few hours tinkering with a rune project) was go to visit Loki. He hadn't been gone long, but it was important to him that Loki knew he was back. Something about the expression the god had wore when Harry told him he was going back to Earth for a bit had stuck with him. He think Loki needed to know the animagus wouldn't be abandoning him.
Entering the dungeons, however, came with something of a surprise; one that was notable enough to make him stop short a moment before continuing on. Oh, Thor had told him all sorts of stories about his brother, and this had certainly come up. Harry had been surprised when the god of thunder mentioned it, but he'd never questioned Loki about it, or witnesses the action directly.
Until now.
Loki sat at the small table in his cell, reading from a book. It was a familiar sight to Harry, or would have been, except that the man in question-
Was currently a woman.
Harry wondered how he should address Loki's shapeshifting, and then decided that the best course of action may just be to carry on and not address it at all. He cleared his throat, and the god, er, goddess, looked up, then back at her book, and then did a double-take. She smiled then, when she realized who was there.
"Welcome back."
"Thanks." Harry grinned at her, and transfigured himself a chair, since one hadn't been left for him that day. All in all, Loki as a woman was very similar in appearance to Loki as a man. Her hair was the same length, just past the shoulders, but wavier. Her jaw and eyes were softer in shape, and her hips were wider. There was the chest, as well, but mostly Loki looked much the same. Still tall and aristocratically attractive. "How've you been?"
"Better than I expected." She paused. "My mother has been to visit me."
"Has she?" Loki hummed.
"Odin lifted his ban, it seems." The look she gave him was a pointed one, and Harry said nothing. "Thank you for that."
"What makes you think I had anything to do with it?"
"Because in his visits, the Allfather has expressed to me the value he places in your opinion." That was surprising. Harry knew, on some level, that Odin cared about what he had to say, but he hadn't thought it was to such a point that the King of Asgard would tell others such.
"Ah, well, you're welcome." Loki smiled.
"I missed her."
"I know." She dipped her head, and a moment later Harry felt a familiar tingle of magic as the same privacy ward, or illusion, or whatever it was, went up around the guards so they could speak privately.
"I have some questions."
"Go ahead."
"When were you going to tell me you're married to my daughter." He choked.
"What?" He squeaked. "What in Merlin's name are you talking abo-"
"I'm talking about your position as King of Niflheim. One of the guards spoke on the subject where I was able to hear."
"I- Oh." He never had told Loki, had he? "No. We're not- Hel and I aren't married. We- I'm King, and she's Queen, but we aren't-" He fumbled, flustered and red-faced, but Loki looked understanding.
"I see." She stood from her chair, and then sat down cross-legged on the floor to even the level between them a bit. "Is she the reason you came here? Followed me and Thor to Asgard? Is she the reason you come to visit me?" So maybe there was a bigger difference between Loki's male and female forms. As a woman, the Liesmith's facial expressions were better controlled, but Harry caught the hint of accusation, and chose his words carefully.
"... She's the reason I came here, initially." Her face began to contort in anger. "But she's not the reason I've remained as long as I have, or returned from Earth." She tilted her head up, eyes hard, but expectant. "She wanted me to help you, somehow, and I didn't think I could. I'm still not sure if I have at all, or if I can. But I told her I would try, as best I was able, even if I had no idea what I was doing." He paused. "But... I like you." He spoke simply. "We've become friends. I never- I didn't expect that. I didn't think I would care about you at all beyond what I promised your daughter. But I do. That's why I'm here now."
"You lied to me."
"I omitted the truth. I never lied to you. Not once."
"And how often have you omitted the truth?"
"Only when I've had to... I don't like to lie, Loki, so I do my best not to. Everything I've told you about myself, everything I've said about our friendship... It's all truth. Completely." Her eyes were still a bit hard, but her face didn't look as angry.
"We're friends?"
"I think so, yes. And you? Are we friends, still friends, to you?" She was silent several moments.
"I'm angry with you." She told him, bluntly. "But yes, we're still friends." He felt relieved at that, and it must have shown, because she sighed, and her eyes softened.
"Tell me a truth you've never told me." She demanded suddenly. "That's your punishment, for your omissions. Tell me a truth you've hidden from me, and I'll forgive you." Well, Harry decided, he may as well throw all his cards in, at this point.
"I'm not human." Her eyebrows raised in incredulity. "I was born that way, but I'm not now. I haven't been in all the time we've known each other."
"Explain." So he did, as he had before, about the animagus transformation, and the mishipeshu, and further even, about his instincts. About Logan, and the twins and Teddy. Once he started he couldn't stop, and before he knew it he was walking back and forth, ranting about his anger that Logan might be able to control him the way he could Fred and George, in spite of the fact that he genuinely liked the man as a friend and comrade in battle. Unloading his fears about hurting someone he loved if he didn't have Mitera or Tom there to ground him (which he then had to explain, and that of course, brought up his lingering anger and sadness over Metis' death, and the way his slowly growing friendship with the former dark lord felt like a betrayal. By the end, he'd said much more than he had planned to, much more than was probably wise to tell a wildcard like Loki, and he slumped, exhausted and with the realization of what he'd done into his uncomfortable transfigured chair.
It was a great risk he'd just taken, a terrible gamble, trusting Loki to this extent- But Harry had let himself say what felt right to be said, and followed his heart the way he always had, and there was no taking it back now.
-And Loki had watched, and listened silently, until he was done.
"Show me." She ordered. He looked up at her. "What you look like, really. Show me." He glanced at the guards. "They won't notice." He hesitated, and then- In for a sickle, in for a galleon- he pulled off his glamour band. She studied him, her face unreadable, and then- "You look strange." He snorted.
"Oh, thanks so much for that."
"But it suits you. You look more like yourself this way." He met her gaze, not sure what she meant, but didn't question her. Abruptly with the slide of golden light down her body, from head to foot, she changed back to her male form, and he looked down at Harry with a strange expression. "I'm not an Asgardian." He told Harry, his voice only slightly deeper as a man than as a woman.
"I know." The light was there again, sliding over his form, but in it's wake it left blue skin and red eyes, and features framed by strange markings that Harry would swear were scars. They reminded him, slightly, of the paint the shamen back in African had painted on his, and the other men's, faces the night they danced and sang in worship to the Earth. Loki's red eyes, guarded as they watched for Harry's reaction, startled him more than the rest of it, but Tom's eyes were as red as Voldemort's had been, and it wasn't quite as jarring as it would have been several months before. "What do those markings mean?" He asked, and that clearly wasn't what the trickster had expected him to say, because for a moment he was clearly thrown, and then his eyes became wide, and childish.
Harry had never seen Loki look truly vulnerable before.
"...I don't know." He admitted quietly.
"They're not runes or anything? They look like some sort of pattern." He frowned, deeply curious. "They can't be natural. Are those scars or tattoos? They look old. Were those given to you as a child?" Loki shook his head, clearly gathering himself together.
"I... They're scars, I know that much. They... Were given to me as a baby, but I don't know the significance. My.. knowledge of Jotun customs and culture is very limited."
"Would there be anything in the palace library on it?" The god cleared his throat.
"Perhaps. I couldn't be certain."
"Do you want me to look for you? I- I mean, I'm curious, and they're your markings, so you must be too... Right?" Loki stared at him, his expressions clearer than Harry had ever seen them. He watched as the taller male came to some sort of realization, and then he saw him smile as warmly as he'd ever seen.
"I would like that." Harry nodded.
They spent the rest of his visit discussing less important things- How Harry's trip had been, whether or not he'd had any fun and the interesting things that had happened, Loki's visits with his mother and Odin and Thor while Harry had been gone, and a small, amusing story about one of the guards.
They both remained as they were throughout it, without illusions and comfortable in their skins.
And Harry decided it hadn't been a gamble at all, because he had placed great trust in Loki, but Loki in turn, had placed trust in him as well.
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For the record, I've been planning to include Lady Loki from the beginning, I just needed the right time to reveal that side of our mischief-making god. I suppose I can explain away her lack of appearance until now as either a trick on Loki's part, or an insecurity, or a little of both.
With the former, I happen to believe that Loki would feel very empowered in a female body. As a character who excels at manipulation, he would take note of how men underestimate women, and how people with misogynistic views are made off-kilter by a woman with obvious power. That's something I think he would take great pride in using to his advantage. On the other hand- Magic alone is looked down upon by Asgardians, and the shapeshifting... Well, I don't think many Asgardians would appreciate the ability as much as Loki does, and he's probably internalized that to a degree, and come to a point where he believes that knowledge of his shapeshifting (or at least his casual switching of his gender) is something that will automatically cause someone to see him in a bad light.
Something you need to understand about my version of Loki, is that regardless of what schemes and plans he's got going on, and what lies he's promoting, he genuinely likes Harry. He wants him as his friend, and I think his subconscious worry about how his shapeshifting would be viewed would help explain why he hasn't shown it until now.
Also, I'm sure there's a lot of questions about how/if his cell limits his magic, and I'll be addressing that within the next few chapters.
Other than that, the only thing I feel the need to talk about here is Jennifer Walters. She-Hulk is one of my favorite female superheros in terms of ability, but not so much personality. She's been portrayed differently depending on who writes her, so I'm planning to write her pretty much however I want. For those of you who've read the comics, she'll likely be a little different than what you're used to, for those of you who haven't, I hope you'll like her.
I'd like you not to take her words on family too seriously right now. She and Harry will get along very well, but she's not going to be part of his inner circle of family anytime soon, if at all. I think they'd be good friends, but she has her own thing going on. She doesn't have time to go running off with him to other realms or countries or whathaveyou no matter how close they may or may not get.
The only other thing I have to say about her is a question- Do you think she-hulk should be asexual, or gay? I don't want to make her straight partially for diversity reasons, and partially because in the comics she has a lot of weird relationships with men that never work out all that great and don't always make sense to begin with, and I'd like to avoid all that as best I can. Keep in mind I plan on introducing Scarlet Witch and Vision as an asexual couple later on.
Review friends! Tell me what you think, and I'll see you next time!
Sincerely,
Mr. Hate