One quick note about a change of canon - Yaxley did not trail on Hermione's sleeve, so they still have Grimmauld place as a base - they just don't like to use it much because of Snape and the diluted Fidelius charm, etc... but no Yaxley.
And... I think that's it. Enjoy!
Tony was all ready to get cracking on the bank heist, but, as usual, the wizards – even when it was their plan in the first place – had other plans.
"If we're going to be working here," Hermione said, looking around the living room, "We're going to need some protection."
"We've got plenty of protection," Tony retorted, but Hermione merely rolled her eyes. "From normal attacks, yes, but there's nothing stopping You-Know-Who from just Apparating in here and killing us all. He knows who you are now –" There was a very audible gulp from Clint at these words, "—And it's a distinct possibility. Really, it's only a matter of time," She finished.
"Another dire proclamation," Tony said, resisting the urge to roll his eyes as well. "Do you actually have any ideas to fix it, or should this just be filed under the 'we're doomed' category?"
It was always doom and gloom with these wizards. If it wasn't an immortal sorcerer, it was an immortal sorcerer with an unbeatable wand. And now, as Hermione had so brilliantly pointed out, Voldemort knew the Avengers were on Team Harry. And unlike the mysterious wizards, they probably weren't going to be very hard to find.
Okay, so the wizards definitely had a point. Some more – preferably magical – protection would be good.
"We may not have an all-powerful wand, but we can definitely cast a few protective spells around here," Hermione said, rather sourly. As Tony had quickly found out, she didn't like people underestimating her magic. Ever.
"But will our normal spells be enough?" Harry asked. "If he knows where he's going, our spells aren't going to keep him out. They can hide us, but not if he has the address and knows exactly where we are. The spells won't do anything if You-Know-Who comes knocking."
"Then what do you suggest?" Hermione asked, even more sourly.
"We could call in help," Ron said, surprising Tony by speaking. The ginger-haired wizard usually didn't have much to contribute when the conversations strayed to strategizing. Tony was also surprised by the suggestion – he didn't think three on-the-run wizards would have many contacts.
"Who?" Hermione asked.
Harry didn't answer for a moment, apparently thinking hard, but then he said, "Well, Lupin for one. He's bound to know some useful spells. Kingsley, if he can. Anyone else we can contact. If we meet at Grimmauld Place, it probably won't be too dangerous." Harry turned to Hermione. "Can you do that speaking-Patronus spell?"
Hermione, looking rather put out, said, "I've been practicing, and I think so."
"Good."
Harry turned expectantly to the Avengers, looking rather pleased with himself. Eyeing Harry's grin, Bruce said dryly, "Please don't say you actually expected us to understand all that."
Harry opened his mouth, then shut it again. "This is something a lot better shown than explained," He finally said.
"You've been saying that a lot lately, but I haven't noticed any decrease in the confusion level," Tony responded. There hadn't really been any change in secrecy, so far as Tony was concerned – and any explanations they got tended to make things worse.
And, unlike Fury with his normal databases and files, there was nothing to hack to find out more about the wizards, no magical repository of information that he could link into and investigate. Instead, three incredibly non-talkative wizards were his only source of information. Not exactly an ideal situation.
"We're in this together, right?" Harry said, turning sharply to look at Tony. "We all want to defeat You-Know-Who. We're not trying to keep you in the dark –" Tony snorted, "—But we can't say everything. We don't know everything. We're just doing the best we can."
"We'll give you an entire magic 101 class, if it will make you happy," Hermione said waspishly, "But perhaps during a time when the world isn't under siege from You-Know-Who."
"Okay," Steve said, cutting across Tony before he could retort. "We all –" Steve glared at Tony as he said this, "understand there is a better time to have this conversation."
"Preferably after you guys get that magical shield up," Clint added.
Tony was tired of the endless procrastination, but the information wouldn't much matter if Voldy showed up and green-lasered them all. So Tony - grudgingly - did not argue further.
"Right," Harry said after a moment of awkward silence. "So Hermione is going to see if she can contact a few people who know of protective enchantments – and, since it might take awhile, we're going to a safe house, where You-Know-Who… probably… can't enter."
"But can we do Side-Along Apparition with them, if they're Mu—if they're not wizards?" Hermione asked Harry skeptically. "I've never heard of that being done before."
"Well, Dedalus Diggle said he was going to Apparate with the Dursleys, and they're about as non-magical as you can get," Harry replied. "Besides, they need to be there. If Kingsley or Lupin manage to cast a Fidelius charm, someone's going to have to be Secret-Keeper."
Harry was learning – he started to explain the Fidelius charm right away, instead of waiting for Steve to question it, Clint to complain about it, or for Tony to mispronounce and/or make fun of it.
"A Fidelius charm is the best spell to hope for, to protect this place," Harry said. "It makes the entire building completely invisible and impossible to find – unless the Secret-Keeper tells them where it is. And that includes You-Know-Who. Unless the Secret-Keeper tells him personally, he can't find it."
This Fidelius business sounded like good news.
"If we can cast it – you all need to decide between yourselves who should be the Keeper," Harry said seriously. "Whoever it is will have all of your lives in their hands – one word to You-Know-Who and everything's over. I'm not saying this is the case here, but…" He paused. "… My parents put their faith in the wrong person. It cost them their lives."
Silence. No one knew what to say. Tony had a feeling someone should say something, but what? In the end, Harry was the one to break it, gravely continuing his explanation. "But so long as the Secret-Keeper says nothing, the protection is impenetrable. "
So that was the catch - The mansion would safe, but only if that one person could keep their mouth shut. A rather scary proposition, when it came down to it – that was a huge burden to slap onto somebody. Tony understood and definitely agreed that it had to be done, but… it wasn't going to be fun to make the choice.
"Think about it," Harry said. The topic apparently finished, he turned to Hermione and said, "We need to send out those patronuses. Now that You-Know-Who has the Elder wand, we don't have much time."
"We don't have much time, Elder wand or not," Hermione snapped, but she drew her wand. Closing her eyes, she adopted a look of extreme concentration. Tony leaned forward, watching, as her wand glowed silver at the tip. A plume of smoke suddenly erupted from the wand, forming itself into a shining silver otter. The otter floated in the air for a moment, peering at the Avengers with its misty eyes, then turned and flew straight into the closed window, passing through it as though the metal and glass wasn't there. Two more otters followed a second later.
"If they can, I asked them to Apparate straight to Grimmauld Place," Hermione said.
"Then we need to get over there," Harry said. "This place isn't safe anyway." Harry stood up. He tended to look – and definitely sounded – awkward whenever he addressed the Avengers as a whole. "I think you'll want to come with us," He said. "So we can work out how to best protect this place."
"At least let me get some more coffee before we go anywhere," Bruce said, standing up and grabbing his mug from the table. He was almost to the door when he paused and turned back around. "This Grimmauld place… how are we getting there, by jet?"
Harry actually laughed. "It's time you all have a taste of magical travel. It won't exactly be… pleasant, but we'll get there much quicker."
"What do you mean, 'won't be pleasant?" Clint asked immediately.
"Nothing dangerous, just… not comfortable," Hermione said in a soothing tone. "Don't worry. You'll get used to it after awhile."
Judging by their tone, Tony didn't think it was something he really wanted to get used to.
"One thing," Harry said slowly as Bruce disappeared through the door. "I know that Loki is currently... helping you all, but this might not be something you really want to involve him in. I don't know how his magic of works, but it'd be bad news if he somehow messes with the Fidelius charm."
There was no way in hell Loki was coming along, Tony was very decided about that. However, leaving Loki alone in the house wasn't a good idea either.
"Okay, who wants to play babysitter? Because Mr. Liesmith isn't coming with us."
Steve and Natasha threw Tony surprised looks at his harsh tone – Tony ignored them. He was not going to get into his qualms with the god of lies right now.
"I'll stay," Clint said immediately. His hand was on his bow and was clearly looking forward to shooting Loki if he showed the faintest hint of… well, anything really. Tony frowned as he stared at the overeager archer. It didn't seem like much of an upgrade, leaving a sorcerer and an assassin alone in the house…
"I'll stay as well," Natasha said, shooting Clint an almost exasperated look. Catching Tony's eye, she said, "We'll keep things in control. It'll be fine."
Natasha didn't have the same crazed hatred that Clint had – and Clint either liked Natasha or was very scared of her, for he listened to her more than anyone else. Whatever the reason, Tony was glad of the advantage.
Bruce came back, draining his cup of coffee as he came. Then the wizards were in the greatest of hurries, standing in the middle of the room and holding their right arms out. They instructed Tony, Bruce, and Thor to hold tight onto their forearms and turn as they did – someone would come back and pick up Steve after the rest were dropped off.
Out of all the spells Tony had seen so far, this was definitely the weirdest.
Bruce and Thor immediately went over, but Tony hesitated. Leaving Natasha and Clint alone with Loki and the threat of Voldemort still didn't seem like the best plan, but it would have to do. "Don't kill each other," Tony said to Natasha, then went to the middle of the room with everyone else. Feeling awkward, he took Harry's proffered arm. Bruce was hanging tight to Hermione, whereas Ron was being crushed by Thor. Steve stood with his arms crossed, silently watching, but there was a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. Looking around at the strange scene, Tony couldn't blame him.
"Ready?" Harry asked. Unsure of what he should be ready for, Tony simply nodded. "Hold on," Harry reminded him, then stepped forward, turned, and –
Holy shit!
He had to be dying. The world had been extinguished, there was darkness surrounding him, but worse, so much worse than the darkness was the pressure – he was being squeezed from all sides, so tightly he was going to be crushed alive. Tony tried to fight off whatever was attacking him, but he couldn't move, couldn't fight, couldn't breathe –
Then, just as suddenly as it had come, the pressure lifted. Light flooded his awareness, and Tony was standing in front of an unfamiliar doorway, with a golden serpent for a knocker. Tony staggered and nearly fell over, still gasping for breath. Harry caught Tony in a firm grip, keeping him from falling off the doorstep as he tapped the door with his wand. "Don't fall off the doorstep," Harry whispered. Tony tried to regain what was left of his balance as there was the sound of many locks being undone - then the door slowly creaked open of its own accord.
Tony stumbled through, closely followed by Harry. Through half-closed eyes, Tony saw Hermione and Bruce appear from nowhere, Bruce looking red-faced and dizzy – but thankfully not angry.
Tony turned his attention back to himself. The pressure seemed to have shrunk his lungs – he couldn't seem to get enough air no matter what he did. This was magic, for crying out loud. Why did it have to be so damned unpleasant?
Still, they'd travelled hundreds of miles in the span of a few seconds. He could deal with the side effects for that trade-off.
Harry was still waiting by the door – a few seconds later, Ron and Thor materialized on the doorstep. Harry ushered them in, sent Hermione out, then closed and bolted the door.
Unlike Tony and Bruce, Thor looked supremely unaffected by the compressing mode of transportation. A little bewildered, but that was about it. Ron, on the other hand, was red-faced and clutching his arm. Undoubtedly Thor had followed the command 'hold tight' to the best of his abilities, not taking into account the he was holding onto someone's arm. Having felt Thor's misjudged strength more than once, Tony could more than understand Ron's expression. Thor, of course, was blissfully unaware.
Finally able to breathe somewhat normally, Tony straightened up and took a look around.
For all its secrecy and safety, it was a dingy place. Spiked, forboding-looking lanterns lined the walls – thick gray cobwebs clung to them like some sort of disgusting cotton candy. Faded green silk was used as wallpaper, and, unless Tony was very much mistaken, there were a bunch of decapitated elf heads hanging from the opposite wall.
Charming.
Bruce, having recovered from the Apparating as well, was looking up at the cobweb-coated lights. An enormous black spider rappelled down as Bruce looked, hovering a few inches above the doctor in a calculating sort of way. Bruce carefully stepped out from under it as Ron whimpered.
"You guys might want to invest in some bug spray," Bruce said conversationally, still eyeing the spider. His casual tone was ruined, though, by the yelp that followed a few seconds later. An enormous rat skittered across the floor, mere inches from Bruce's foot. "And some snap traps," he added.
A loud crack announced the arrival of Hermione and Steve. Steve, it was very clear, did not like Apparating very much. Unlike Bruce, he was very green-faced and looked as though he was about to be sick. Hermione carefully let him through the doorway as Harry re-bolted the door.
"What the hell was that?" Steve shakily asked as soon as the last lock clicked.
"Apparating," Harry replied matter-of-factly. "Fastest way to travel, but not the most pleasant."
"'Not pleasant?' If that falls under the category of 'not pleasant,' I don't want to know what you magic types consider horrible," Tony said.
"We don't want to know," Bruce said, as Hermione opened her mouth to answer. He looked around the dank entryway. "But where are we?"
Hermione, perhaps put out that she couldn't answer the first question, quickly supplied the answer. "This is Grimmauld Place – ancestral home of the Blacks and Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix."
"Nice title," Tony said with a nod. Before he could say more, two loud cracks echoed through the room.
"We've got company," Harry said, looking at once nervous and excited. A quick peek through the glass confirmed that it wasn't Death Eaters knocking. Tony stood back as Harry went to – once again – unbolt the door and let the new wizards in.
The Order of the Phoenix would be a lot more fun if J.K. Rowling hadn't killed off half the characters D:
Oh, and I haven't forgotten about Mrs. Black/Dusty Dumbledore, but let's just say the spell sets off in the hallway, as opposed to the entryway where they're all loitering.
And Gringotts is comingggg :D
Thank you as always to my readers and reviewers - you guys are and always will be awesome!
