Title: Stand by me.
Summary: Somebody else found the frozen Captain America before S.H.I.E.L.D. How would two abnormal and displaced heroes get along? Will their friendship change anything? What difference a better adapted and less uptight Steve Rogers could make? What difference, if any, will Harry make? (What will I do with all these 'what ifs'?)
Words: 5229.

Warnings, disclaimer, etc, etc, are in the first post.

AN: Gobsmacked, that's exactly the word to describe how I feel. I just can't believe the enormous quantity of people who put this story in their Alerts, or Favourites or who Reviewed! It's awesome! I answered all except those that had their PM disabled or didn't log in. Know that it's all of your fault that this is here today instead of after I turn in a worksheet I have pendind on monday.

Thanks to: Kimay, Junkie munkie, leza, obi, bettyboop, ShadowedHand and anons.

I hope this doesn't disappoint. Harry's past will come along slowly, mostly because a dump of information it's unattractive and very OOC even for my version of Harry. He has no reason to share anything with anyone, even if it's super-amazing Steve, xD

2. Warming up.

An impatient knock from the bedroom door direction snapped both men from the awkward silence that had descended. Biting back a sigh of relief Harry went to retrieve the food he had ordered Kreacher to prepare but had forbidden the elf from delivering. Harry always enjoyed a good laugh when he could, which was not very often lately, but it wasn't in his plans to kill Captain America via heart attack by allowing the old and cranky house-elf inside the room. If he was going to kill someone he'd do it with style, not that he intended to kill anyone, much less Steve Rogers.

Steve was equally glad for the reprieve from the uncomfortable silence. His eyes followed Potter's movement instinctively but his heart wasn't in it. Potter didn't feel like a threat, which, now that he thought about it, was the kind of thing he had been warned extensively about, the whole wolf in a sheep skin ramble. Nevertheless, his instincts had never failed him (with the notable exception of everything remotely woman-ish) so he would sit back and trust his host for now. It didn't hurt that he was intensively curious about the younger man too (1) or that he sorely needed any help he could get if he wanted to survive the future, his new present, whatever. Steve shoved those thoughts away before they could grip him again; he was not in the mood for another existential crisis, not when the last one had barely passed. He was exhausted enough as it was.

"No, I can carry them. I'll leave them outside for you to pick up. For Merlin's sake, go do something else Kreacher!" Harry's barely contained shout reached Steve ears but only one word stuck: 'Merlin?' What the hell...

Harry turned around, both hands full with a huge tray filled with dishes full to the brim, and if everything he had seen so far was as it seemed, then that was real silver. Steve made to get up but Harry stopped him before he even had the chance to fully seat.

"Stay there, I'm alright, I have this," he said and pushed the door close with his right foot in an impressive show of both balance and acrobatics. Only later would Steve realize that he had forgotten all about the conversation he had eavesdropped.

True to his word Harry made his way with no trouble and flawlessly deposited the tray in the empty bedside table. The soldier, who had followed every movement, ready to catch the tray if it fell, goggled at the layout of dishes in front of him. A full English breakfast, he recalled with a pang of nostalgia. To him it seemed like it was yesterday when Falsworth would complain about the food in the Mess Hall, daydreaming of the moment he would finally go home and describing in painful detail everything he was going to eat, breakfast in particular.

"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day; this, this atrocity cannot even be considered food!" Falsworth exclaimed in outrage.

"It's not that bad." Steve certainly had eaten worse. Falsworth gaped.

"When this is over you are coming with me, I will show you what a real breakfast looks like," he sniffed imperiously but dug in with as much enthusiasm as everyone else, much to Steve's amusement. He ate another bite of the tasteless gunk but this time he imagined he was eating a full English breakfast with his comrade. It would be nice.

Steve had to smile at the memory, bittersweet as it was now, like all of his memories. It was then that his stomach decided to remind him that, frozen in ice or not, he had not eaten anything for almost seventy years. It took every ounce of self control in him not to droll, but if Harry amused smile was anything to go by his attempt was met with failure.

"You look like a man who has seen Heaven, its angels and God all at once," said the black-haired man good-naturedly, it was this easy attitude that allowed Steve to crack a shaky smile in spite of his embarrassment and his previous thoughts. He wondered if Harry noticed. The green-eyed man took an empty plate and put a little of everything on it. He turned to his guest. "Serve yourself whatever strikes your fancy Captain."

Steve followed his example and scooped up a bit of everything into his own place, well, almost everything, he didn't think mushrooms had any place at breakfast table. Or anywhere else really. "Please, call me Steve, Captain- Captain it's not..." he trailed off, unable to put his feelings into words. He didn't need to try for the frown on his face said everything his words failed to convey. His friends and comrades, his superiors, Peggy, all of them had called him Captain once upon a time. It had been a matter of pride for him to have gained that rank, but it had also been a nickname of sorts, Steve Rogers, the little nobody from Brooklyn, Captain America. But he wasn't Captain America anymore, was he? He was a man out of time and barely anything else.

"Then you have to call me Harry, it's only fair I think." His only warning was a mischievous smirk and before Steve could blink the other had swiped a sausage from his plate. He could only gape at the action. "Eat or your food may just mysteriously disappear when you're not looking."

"It didn't look quite mysterious from here," the soldier deadpanned after recovering from the shock but he obeyed, arm curled protectively around his food in case of future theft. A mouthful later he couldn't help but hum appreciatively. "This is really good," he complimented. The warm food and the friendly atmosphere immediately helped him relax, the tension of the past hour slowly bleeding out of him.

"I know, and although I prefer to cook my own food Kreacher is awesome in the kitchen."

"Kreacher?" What a weird name. He really hoped things hadn't changed enough to warrant such names. That would be tragic.

"A servant of the family."

Ah. Steve blinked. Well, that actually explained some things. Like the financial status of his host, about which he had his own suspicions already so, unless everything was far more different than what he believed, Potter must have quite a bit of money. For starters, servants were not cheap, but good ones that stayed with a family for long enough to be considered part of said family? Those were downright expensive as well as rare. He absently munched on a jam covered toast, mindful of eating slowly. He didn't want a stomach-ache so early in the game. While it was good to know that he wasn't eating Potter out of his budget but that wasn't the really important question. What was he going to do after Harry's hospitality run out? That was the question that needed an answer. Harry's previous advice was solid, he had to learn and adapt (or die, but that wasn't even on the table for consideration). The problem? He had no idea of where to start or the resources with which to start a new life.

And then there were other, even more difficult to answer, questions: like how had Harry found him? He had mentioned a 'freak' mistake, but what kind of mistake landed one in the middle of the Arctic? And even if that was the case, he had been buried under the ice, how had Harry known where to find him? Steve knew he was missing facts, facts that he wouldn't get unless he asked.

He took another mouthful of eggs to hide the grimace that flashed through his face at the thought. It was an unavoidable truth that Steve Rogers sucked at asking for things he needed or wanted or both. It was a mixture of having been born into a poor family with nothing but love to offer him, which forced him to be independent and as self-sufficient as he could be early on, and being constantly put down by everyone else for most of said life, which made him unwilling to ask for things that wouldn't be given to him anyway. After being rejected too many times and with little space to manoeuvre, Steve chose the third option: to bludgeon his way into the things he really wanted, like enlisting into the army or getting inside a concentration camp where his only friend was being held captive.

That probably was the worst way to do things now but he knew of no other way so... He squared his shoulders and lifted his eyes, prepared to deliver the question that was gnawing at him while knowing that he would come off as rude, maybe alienate the only person he has had contact in seventy years...

He was not prepared to meet the amused visage of one Harry Potter; the man looked pinched, as if he was barely holding his laugher inside. He made a 'go on' gesture with his hands but whatever he was trying to convey with it obviously wasn't received.

"What?" asked Steve defensively, a frown of confusion etched on his face.

"No-nothing, it j-just..." Harry paused, took a calming breath and tried again "It's just that you've been glaring daggers at the poor plate for almost five minutes. It made me wonder about what kind of offense my cutlery could've done to you?"

"Oh." Steve blushed and ducked his head. Well, that was embarrassing.

He didn't have long to feel mortified though, because as fast as it came, Harry's sudden mirth left him; green eyes turned hard and deadly serious as he pinned the uncomfortable man with a Look. If the bond soldier harboured any doubts about the black-haired man's involvement in some sort of fight, maybe a war (he wasn't naive enough to believe that his war would've been the last one, but how he wished it had been), those doubts they were gone now, squashed by the weight of that look that somehow made him feel as if he was back to being a fresh recruit, a lamb ready for the slaughterhouse.

"I know you have questions and know that I will answer them truthfully," informed Harry before he paused to gauge the attentive and almost earnest expression on the blond face. "Keep in mind, however, that the knowledge I will disclose to give you the answers you seek it's probably the best guarded secret in the past four hundred years." Well, the 'best guarded secret' may be a stretch of the truth but totally worth if only to see the eagerness turn into utter seriousness that mirrored his own. Good, the last thing Harry wanted was for Steve to blab about magic and end up memoriless in a ditch somewhere. "If I believed that lying to you would be better in the end, I would," he admitted without shame. "But I won't."

A beat of silence passed. "...Why?"

That was the question of the thousand galleons, wasn't it? Harry had asked himself the same question over a thousand times in the two weeks it took him to remove the man from his icy prison. Why not lie, why bother? Harry had enough in his plate without having to deal with an out-of-place and out-of-time soldier from the untold bits of World War II. There were many reasons detailing why he shouldn't bother, primarily because it wasn't his problem, but like always in his case, logic lost. The reasons for that were various. Firstly, because of his trice-damned hero-complex that apparently hadn't died the bloody death he had believed. But mostly it was because he saw a bit of himself in the older man; he felt a kinship towards the Captain he hadn't realized he missed until the possibility of losing it made itself known in the form of a very cold feeling in the pit of his stomach. It was ridiculous, they weren't friends, they had never seen each other before and therefore it shouldn't matter to him if Steve walked out of his life without recollection of ever being there; the man would recover, he was a soldier and a good one at that. Problem was, it did matter to Harry, not only because of the moral repercussions but because he hadn't felt that kind of kinship with anyone since he defeated Voldemort.

It made Harry feel like the pathetic and love starved child he once was. It was not a place he cared to be again but alas, that exactly where he was sitting. Not that he would admit any of that to a virtual stranger. Maybe someday Harry would tell Steve everything, the things that had happened in his life and that had twisted him into the parody of a human being that he was, the things that eventually landed him in solitude, away from both worlds and part of none. That day was not today.

"Because I want to," was the honest but glaringly incomplete answer.

There was a pregnant pause in which they merely stared at each other, willing the other to back off, to give in. None did. Finally the Captain sighed and nodded his head in acceptance and what could possibly classify as understanding. Even though new questions burned at him, Steve wasn't as hard-headed as most soldiers he'd worked with back in his time, he knew that there was far more behind those simple words than what they admitted to, but he was also perceptive enough to know that any attempt at forcing the information from the back-haired man would land him nowhere, or what was more probable, on the streets. He desperately wanted answers, true, but he couldn't afford the luxury of antagonizing the only person he knew on this timeline.

Established the fact that there were questions and that they were going to be answered honestly, Steve decided to cut to the chase.

"How did you find me?"

Harry's lips twisted into an amused gesture that was almost a smile but not quite. "Straight to the most difficult question, yes?" Steve merely shrugged his shoulders, unrepentant, and waited. Still sporting some amusement Harry went over to an abandoned backpack and retrieved a strange device that he dropped into the wary Captain America's hand. "This is what took me to you."

'This' turned out to be a little, perfectly round object, no bigger than a baseball ball and no more impressive at first glance. It was black in colour and incredibly smooth except for a myriad of minuscule buttons, each one coloured different from the next. Steve held the device with the kind of caution one would give a ticking bomb. Fortunately for him he knew how to handle delicate objects, something that was sorely needed in an artist, so he managed to hold the thing without pressing any of its buttons. Up close the device didn't look any more impressive than from a distance only... Steve strained his ears, yes, there it was, a soft humming sound that came from the... eh, what was it anyway?

"What is this?" Asked Steve bemusedly, still listening to the oddly relaxing hum it released.

"It's a prototype of a magical tracking device," Harry said in a matter-of-fact voice that didn't betray any of his thoughts on the matter and did nothing to spare Steve from the shock that hit him like lighting.

The ball slipped from suddenly numb fingers, Steve reacted on instinct to catch the tracking device before it hit the empty dishes on his lap and released an explosion or something equally nefarious. He stopped dead on his tracks when he saw it hovering of its own accord mere millimetres from the plate. No, not from its own accord, it was Potter doing, who had produced a wooden stick from somewhere and was levitating the object, Potter who had his eyes fixed on him, waiting for a reaction. Steve gulped and stomped down the sudden fear and a little bit of childish excitement that was gripping his heart tightly. He couldn't afford such feelings right now. So magic existed, ok, great, wonderful, he could deal with that as he had dealt with odder things, Red Skull and a certain Cube to name two.

So magic, right-o... magic existed and apparently few people were aware of it. That had to be the secret Harry had mentioned. Steve certainly hoped so for he wasn't sure his mind would survive being short-circuited again so soon.

"Magic?" He knew he sounded stupid, the evidence was still floating in front of him, but he had to be sure and, ironically, his trust in Harry had only been cemented with this stunt. He wasn't a liar himself but Steve knew liars and you didn't get people to believe you if you didn't tell believable lies. Magic was so outlandish that it just couldn't be anything but true, ridiculous as it sounded even to him. That or the technology had advanced far more than he wanted to believe. He took note of that but waited impatiently for Harry's answer.

"Yes, magic exists." Harry relaxed a bit and levitated his prototype to his free hand. It seemed that whatever Harry had been searching for in Steve expression he found it for he continued to explain. "A long time ago magic was an important part of everyday life. Then shit happened" Steve almost face-palmed "and every community reacted by burying themselves so deeply that magic, nowadays, is no more than a myth to most."

"As you see, I am magical. I have, however, left my own community..." Harry trailed off, eyes sad and pained, his mind miles away. He blinked and the present returned just as the past faded away once more. "There was a war and afterwards... well, suffice to say that by the time I woke up from my own stunt with stasis the world had moved on without me, so I left."

"But idleness was destroying me so I decided to do something fun." Here Harry quirked a mischievous smile. "I became a hunter."

Steve, who had been listening intently to what little information Harry was sharing, frowned in confusion. "Hunter?"

Harry hummed an affirmative. "Mostly of lost treasures and lore," at Steve continued confusion he added: "you know, the kind of things that haven't been seen in centuries, things of legend and such, like Excalibur."

"Excalibur is real?" Blurted out a wide-eyed Steve before flushing bright red. Well, who could blame him? He, like probably everyone else in the world, had heard about the legendary sword. It didn't help that he'd been an avid reader of Knight Tales in his youth.

"I'm pretty sure it is but I haven't looked into it." Harry said and added something that sounded suspiciously a lot like 'too close to home' under his breath. Steve wisely decided to keep his mouth shut on that matter. "But you wanted to know how I got to you, didn't you?"

Steve nodded with the barest hint of reluctance. He had asked about that and he wanted answers, of course, but not even the super soldier could deny the childish delight he felt at the thought that magic was existed, that all those stories he had read as a child could've happened, once upon a time. If he had questions before, it was nothing compared to now. However Harry was right so he relented. Hopefully he would've time to ask other, less important but no less interesting, questions later.

The round device that Harry said was supposed to track magic was being held, none to gently, in long and pale hands. Harry had started working on the prototype after a particularly difficult day filled with dead-ends and disappointments. He clearly remembered the irritation at being denied access to some very important archives he needed to view, but that was practically the norm so he shouldn't have been so frustrated. Normally he wouldn't be, he'd rather return once it was dark and read to his heart's content. In this case that wasn't possible though, as the Catholic Church was very much aware of magic and heavily protected against it. Sadly, without the information he sorely needed, he was forced to abandon the hunt for the Seal (2).

That was not the first time he had reached a dead-end (many legends were actually just that, legends) but it certainly was the first time somebody had managed to block him intentionally. That was how, in his anger and frustration, he decided to create something that would be able to track what he wanted to find even if someone else decided not to share their information.

Creating the tracker ended up being just as complicated and difficult as the whole process to get an interview with the Pope had been, not nearly as impossible though. But Harry Potter was nothing if not stubborn so, instead of taking another hunt to distract himself from the Potter and Evans business and his own treacherous mind, Harry poured all his considerable ingenuity into his project. It was almost seven months later when he finished his first prototype, the same one he had in his hands right now.

Had everything gone according to the plan, the tracker should've connected to the magic of Earth and start looking from there. Sadly, it hadn't worked quite that way. It connected to Earth, alright, but to Earth as a whole, not just the magic. It can be said that it worked just as it was meant to work, with the added problem that instead of tracking only the unnatural or abnormal concentrations of stationary magic (as opposed to 'living' magic, which is the magic inside a living body, be it human or creature. Even if tracking hidden communities could be fun it wasn't what he was aiming for) the device connected to everything unnatural, abnormal or problematic on Earth. That meant that everything muggle was suddenly included in the equation.

Because there was no better way to test it, or if there was Harry was not in the mood to look for it, he had pressed a random button, a nice, green-coloured one. Apparently an aircraft buried in the middle of the Arctic was problematic enough for his device to pick upon, as he discovered when he appeared over two hundred feet from the ground. That had been the first and only test as of now. It could've been worse, he supposed. He could've been transported over an active volcano or into a den of basilisks or something equally nasty.

Harry made a mental note to find a way for the tracker to inform him of his destination before he was thrown head-first in there.

"So, each one of those buttons is a destination?" Steve asked, torn between being awed at the object and horrified that someone could be so careless. Not that he wasn't grateful, Harry's actions had lead to him being amongst the living again after all. Still, it didn't change the fact that Harry could've ended in worse places than a land buried in ice and surrounded by icy water.

"They are," Harry confirmed and turned the tracker in his hands for the nth time. He sent a trickle of magic into it, soon the humming sound amplified and the ball started to shrink, one by one the buttons disappeared until only a tiny black ball the size of a golf ball remained. He pocketed it. "There are more, of course," he looked at Steve in the eye and cracked a bitter smile. "The problems of this planet are countless."

It had been like that in the 40's too, so Steve had no other choice but to agree, as depressing as the thought was.

"How would you survive a fall that long anyway?" the Captain asked, not willing to inspect this world troubles just yet. Suddenly his blue eyes lit with something very like childish glee. "Can you fly too?"

Harry blinked once, twice, then, much to his manliness horror, he giggled. He managed to cover it up with a cough but the glint in Steve's eyes told him that it hadn't happened soon enough.

"No..." he cleared his throat. "No, just no, not without a broom and I didn't have mine with me that day."

Steve resisted the urge to go into yet another tangent about the 'broom' comment. The magical portion of the world was full of oddities it seemed. He was definitely going to be revisiting all those old books he had read as a child. Later, he decided. Instead he waited for Harry to collect his memories. Harry didn't disappoint.

Harry didn't know what, exactly, he had been expecting from his experiment. What he hadn't been expecting was to appear in the middle of somewhere very, very cold and a fair distance in the air to boot. He didn't even have his broom with him. Not that it would've been of any use considering the violence of the winds, with his luck it would've helped in killing him faster. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on who you asked, Harry had been in similar situations many times before so he knew how to keep a clear head.

He discarded apparition immediately. As useful as the wizarding method of transportation was, Harry hated it passionately. It always made him sick and he couldn't do it without proper concentration. He wasn't going to be able to visualize his destination and concentrate while falling to his death.

Without delay Harry started to cast spells on himself to slow his descent. It didn't work, at least not nearly as well as he expected for he was still falling to his death much too fast. His scowl deepened as he casted another warming charm and another Aresto Momentum (3) on himself. Okay, backup plan. Harry kept casting as many spells on himself as he could, it still didn't stop his fall but it slowed his descent enough to react just when he needed and not a second later.

"Bombarda Maxima," he shouted against the icy wind, wand pointed towards the rapidly approaching ice.

The effect was instantaneous. The explosion rocked the ice but most importantly, the concussive force of it counteracted the speed of his fall, it still sent him flying into another direction but the force of his collision with the ice was merely painful instead of deadly. He rolled on the snow and skidded a few feet before stopping altogether. In spite of the soul searing and bone eating cold Harry remained there for a few seconds in order to regain his lost breath and allow his frantic heart to slow down. Damn, that had been intense, even more that running away from animated corpses (those Egyptians had no imagination whatsoever). In the end it wasn't the cold that forced him to move but the tremors and ominous cracking sounds that the ice under him was making.

'Uh-oh,' Harry thought as he jumped to his feet. Just in time to see a crack as wide as both his arms coming straight to where he was standing. He got out of the way not a second too soon. All around him the ice was cracking and shifting and it was everything Harry could do not to fall into what would be a very wet death. 'How was I supposed to know that there was water down there?' The black-haired man cried in the safety of his head, he didn't need an avalanche on top of everything.

Finally he managed to jump over to a small iceberg, barely big enough to hold his weight, but safer than the rest of the still moving ice and the surging water. Harry applied a sticking charm on his feet and waited as it was the only thing he could do. After what seemed like an eternity things quieted and the dark waters stilled. He should have known it was too good to be the end of it. Harry was moving his numb feet, trying to regain some semblance of feeling in them, when something exploded in the middle of the newly formed lake, sending water in every direction, including his. It was a soaked, freezing and disgruntled Harry Potter who first laid eyes on the giant iceberg that contained an enormous, black Aircraft that looked much like an alien bird in the wizard opinion.

Incorrigible curious thing that he was, Harry couldn't resist the temptation of getting closer, after casting like a thousand drying and warming charms on his body and clothes, of course. The aircraft was impressive like few things he had seen before, all solid black and elegant angles. Using his wand to propel his tiny iceberg Harry surrounded the floating mountain of ice, but it was when he reached the nose of the plane that he froze in surprise, right before he cursed.

"Oh, you have to be shitting me!" Harry exclaimed, wide eyes riveted to the trapped figure inside the ice, the very human figure that looked as if he had been propelled from the cockpit before pilot (?) and plane froze together. But Harry wasn't quite thinking about that, he was too busy cursing Karma in his head, because this had to be Karma's way of getting back at him for stealing that cartoon about the bald kid (4) from Teddy like four years ago. He had returned it, damn it!

Still too damn curious for his own good Harry approached the giant icicle and sent a wave of magic into it. Imagine his surprise when his magic told him that the frozen man wasn't dead but merely sleeping. Any intention of exploring the black monstrosity left him right then and there, at the same time his inner hero reared its ugly head. Harry scowled at his inner idiot, I mean, hero, but climbed his way up all the same, intent of freeing the man, whoever he may be.

Harry Potter was many things, but heartless was not yet one of those.

"Thank you."

Harry scowl vanished as he was yanked from his memories. "Pardon?"

"Thank you," repeated Steve. "For saving me."

"Ah, well, I'm sure somebody would've found you, someday..." the black-haired man muttered, a dark blush staining his pale cheeks.

"Maybe," the soldier conceded, "but it was you who did and who rescued me, even when you clearly didn't have to, so thank you."

Harry blinked, as if confused by the praise, but looked away before Steve could identify the miriad of emotions churning in those emerald eyes. Then, without warning Harry stood and started to pile the empty plates on the forgotten tray.

"You should rest." Harry cut any possible inquiry with almost clinical precision. "It's summer yet you are cold. Your body hasn't recovered from the time spent on the ice, so you should rest."

Without further ado the wizard vacated the bedroom, leaving a bewildered Steve alone to ponder the oddity that was Harry Potter and his own screwed-up life. He had the funny feeling that he wouldn't get bored any time soon.

It was moments before he fell asleep that Steve remembered something Harry had said before. He was wide awake in seconds.

"Wait a second, Merlin was real?"

To be continued...

(1) I looked Steve's birthday up. He was born on 4th July 1922 and he was frozen on 1944 (in the movie), which makes him twenty two years old. I changed that. :) Harry is currently 24 and Steve 26. And if you are thinking that Harry's age is wrong, then you are right. He should be 31, how that happened, hmm? On purpose I assure you.

(2) He is referring to the Seal of Solomon.

(3) All the spells mentioned here exists in the HP books (I think).

(4) Harry is referring to "Avatar: the last airbender". For those who don't know, the protagonist of the cartoon, Aang, is found frozen in an iceberg.

Uploaded: 7/06/2012.