Harry never wants today to end. It's like it's his birthday. This is even better than what Dudley got to do on his birthdays. Dudley never won a dragon.
Sirius says Harry's dragon is a toy, so they won't have to worry about feeding it or if it has a wee in the house. And it won't burn the house down, because it breathes fake fire.
"He looks real," Harry hugs the dragon, and it wraps around him in a hug. None of the other cuddly toys they've won seem real; they don't even move.
Harry yells "This is the best birthday ever!"
"It's not your birthday, it's Steve's. Or, it was." Mr. Stark tells him. Harry doesn't even have time to say he knows that before Mr. Stark promises. "But your birthday will be even better. I guarantee it."
Then Mr. Stark goes back to telling Dad how he'd build the coasters and other rides to be bigger, better and faster.
"Are you making me a coaster for my birthday?" Harry asks. "One I can ride?"
Before Mr. Stark can answer, Jarvis' voice comes from the phone in his pocket. "Sir, you have another call. "
"It can wait." Mr. Stark replies.
"Sir, I must insist. "
Mr. Stark sighs and pulls his phone from his pocket. He doesn't put the speaker on, but Harry can hear Fury the pirate on the other end. "I want to know why you're at a goddamn fun fair when Loki's out wreaking havoc."
"Geez, I thought Steve would be the one on my case about Loki desecrating national landmarks." Mr. Stark rolls his eyes. Steve glances over, and Stark waves a hand. "It's nothing, Cap."
Steve lifts his eyebrows.
"My brother is up to mischief." Thor says knowingly.
Steve frowns in disapproval. "You said he'd be on his best behavior."
Mr. Stark seems to just be making Fury angrier, but he just grins wider as Fury's voice gets louder.
Thor shouts toward the phone. "I will put a stop to my brother's antics!"
He sets down the pile of cuddly toys, spins his hammer and rockets into the sky.
"There, Thor's on the case." Mr. Stark hangs up and smirks. "Does he even know where he's going?"
Harry's sad to see Thor go. Now how will he race the coasters? He looks at his new dragon. "Can you fly?"
The dragon spreads its wings, but when Harry tries to sit on it, it can't lift him up.
Harry misses Thor even more. Even when they're just walking, Thor's really fun; he's cheerful, smiling bright like the sun even though he controls lightning like Storm.
Dad says it's time for them to go, too.
"I don't want to go." Harry says, but Dad's face doesn't change. Harry can't order him around anymore. So he tries begging. "Just one more game? Please?"
Mr. Stark snorts. "We all know you'll keep asking for one more game until it turns into ten more. Besides, we'll have our arms full with this zoo."
"But there's a fishing game!" Harry says. It looks nothing like Go Fish, but maybe he can use magic to pull the fish out and win a grinning cuddly shark.
"You can play it next time." Mr. Stark says.
"Tomorrow?" Harry asks.
Mr. Stark laughs. "Maybe not that soon."
"Will you make me one?"
"You could make that with a stick and some string." Mr. Stark scoffs.
Loki doesn't pick them up, but Sirius apparates them back to the X-Homeschool in turns. Harry feels a bit ill after. Steve looks like he might throw up a bit, but he doesn't.
Loki's already there, grinning at the telly. The boring rock faces are now all Loki faces, grinning and making faces. Then it shows a huge Loki statue with his arms spread wide.
"You're not turned to stone." Harry's relieved, but confused about where the stone Lokis came from.
Steve frowns at the picture on the telly, then begins to tell Loki off for ruining landmarks.
Loki doesn't look sorry at all. "I made them better."
"You can't replace Christ the Redeemer." Steve scowls. "You may call yourself a god, but that statue-"
Mr. Stark interrupts. "I'm surprised you're not focused on Mount Rushmore, being Captain America and all."
"I'm helping your friend." Loki sweeps his hand at Dad. "They won't have time to debate his innocence if they're debating mine."
Sure enough, the guy on the telly is going on and on about how Loki's probably still trying to take over the world, and how the Avengers didn't stop him this time.
"Stop watching this shit." Mr. Stark says. Harry loves saying that word.
Mr. Stark tells Jarvis to shut off the telly before remembering Jarvis doesn't control stuff at the X-Homeschool.
Harry grabs the huge Hulk toy and asks where Doctor Banner is. Jarvis can't say where to find people in the school, so Harry has to go looking for him.
The school feels empty without the big kids. Even when they're all in class, he can peek in and see them, even if what they're talking about is dull.
Harry lugs the Hulk toy around until he finds Doctor Banner in the lab with Beast.
Harry knocks, because Dad says dangerous stuff happens in labs and he doesn't want Harry getting hurt. The doctors don't blow stuff up as much as Mr. Stark does, though.
Doctor Banner smiles at him, though his smile changes when Harry shows them the Hulk toy. Harry glances at Beast, knowing how it feels to not get gifts. "Sorry, I didn't see a Beast one, even though you're all fuzzy like a teddy."
Harry runs back to grab a different cuddly toy for Beast, and hears Steve telling Loki off again. "You blatantly disrespected our God."
"Nobody's my god." Mr. Stark says.
Steve glares but doesn't answer him, too busy with Loki. "Promise me you'll fix it."
"So naive." Loki chuckles. "You'd trust a promise from the God of Lies?"
"We could get Logan to carve a new one." Mr. Stark suggests, grinning wide like this fight is fun.
Harry drags the other dragon, the Charmander thing, by its fire tail and puts it in Jubilee's room. When he goes back down to get something for Kitty, he hears Steve still going "I'm not saying the presidents were gods, but you aren't more important than they are!"
Forgetting Kitty's gift, Harry grabs the toy dog and stomps up the stairs. Dad and Sirius follow him up.
"What's wrong?" Sirius asks, then looks at Dad. "Was he always like this?"
Does he mean Steve or Harry?
Harry sits at the top of the stairs and hugs the toy. Today was such a fun day, and now they're fighting. It's not fun, even though Mr. Stark seems to think so. Steve's probably going to kick Loki out, and Thor still isn't back.
Sirius turns into Snuffles, and Harry drops the toy to hug him instead. The toy dog tumbles down the stairs.
"Steve's just blowing some steam." Dad sits next to Harry and puts his arm around him.
Steve doesn't kick Loki out, and Thor returns by dinner. As they eat, he tells them the story of flying to the rock faces and finding them exactly as they were before.
Loki gives Steve a little joking bow, but Steve still looks mad.
Harry likes his own story a lot more, and he tells it to the doctors and Professor. "Thor helped me beat the Cyclone and we played magic games to win toys. Only they win medals in the Olympics."
Harry turns to Loki, who looks like he's planning trouble. "Are you going to prank the Olympics?"
Steve frowns even harder at Loki.
"Are you going to fight again?" Harry asks, frowning right back.
"Surprised you didn't punch him, punk." Dad says to Steve, who forgets about Loki or eating for a bit and just looks at Dad.
At least he's not punching Loki.
Some people on the telly are really scared of magic, like Harry used to be. One woman says she knows how it feels to be Dad and have her memories erased.
"You have no idea how he feels!" Steve scolds the telly, seeming angrier than Dad, even though Dad's the one who had his memories taken.
Sometimes it seems like nobody gets along. Some mutants think they're better than everyone else- Grandpa'fessor's friend- who everyone calls Magneto except for Grandpa'fessor, who calls him Erik- is one of them.
Grandpa'fessor says people hurt Erik.
People hurt Dad, and Dad thinks he's worse than others. Harry can't figure out why, because he thinks Dad's the best.
Grandpa'fessor visits Erik in a plastic prison a lot, and he brings the wooden board and pieces from his office every time.
Some wizards think they're better than Muggles, and some even think Muggles should all die. Harry learns that when Sirius reads the paper.
Harry wishes everyone would just get along. He used to fear all wizards and witches, back when he was a little kid. Now, he's almost five, and he knows better.
Grandpa'fessor thinks everyone should get along too, and says so on lots of telly interviews. For all the people who don't get along, he says, there are people like their family; magic and mutants and people with no powers who are all just as important as each other.
Magic is great. How else would people fly brooms or have moving toy dragons?
Loki pulls a golden egg out of somewhere. Harry's moving toy dragon decides to keep it, and won't let anyone touch it.
Maybe Harry should name this dragon Dudley. It acts like him.
The dragon's neck moves like a snake. It doesn't listen when Harry tells it to give the egg back. Harry can't talk with snakes or dragons.
Sirius bets Harry can't steal the egg from the dragon, so Harry bets he can.
The dragon breathes fire at Harry when he gets near. It doesn't hurt like real fire, it isn't even hot, but Sirius says he has to try again.
Harry tries throwing balls for it to chase, but the dragon doesn't like playing fetch like Lucky and Snuffles do. It only likes its golden egg. It would probably play fetch with its egg, except it won't let anyone throw it.
After some thought, Harry gets his Invisibility Cloak from Sirius's room, but trips before he can sneak next to the dragon.
"Perhaps you should use your fists of Hulk to beat it away." Thor tells him.
Harry points to Dad. "He's my fist."
Sirius says getting Dad to do it would be cheating.
Harry climbs on his motorbroom and zooms at the dragon. It breathes fire, but he turns away from it. He goes round and round the dragon. It roars and then launches off after him.
They play a game of chase, diving and soaring and turning like when Harry and Thor raced the Cyclone.
Finally, Harry swoops down and steals the egg. Thor, Dad and Sirius all clap for him, and Harry beams.
"I did it! I won an Olympic game!"
"This isn't in the Olympics." Sirius tells him. "It seems like something that could be in the Triwizard Tournament."
"What's that?"
Sirius explains that the Triwizard Tournament is like the Olympics between three magical schools.
"When I'm older, I'm going to race a dragon and win the Triwizard Tournament."
"The real Triwizard Tournament is a lot harder, a lot more dangerous." Sirius' voice changes from a warning to bitterness. "I thought you didn't want to go to Hogwarts."
"I don't. But I'll win anyway."
"He just said it's dangerous." Dad says.
Sirius shrugs. "So is Quidditch."
"So is living with me." says Mr. Stark as he strolls by.
"I'm always in danger." Harry points out. He has been, ever since he was a baby.
"It's my job to keep you safe." Dad sort of growls it like Logan would. "To minimize the dangers, if I can't eliminate them."
"Good job! You get a promotion! A plus!" Harry cheers. Then he adds, "You can't say I can't play Quidditch, or you'll get a D minus."
Harry's not really sure why As are good and Ds are bad, but he's heard enough from the big kids. Except Sirius talks about different letters, Os and Es and Ts.
"You don't tell me what to do anymore." Dad's face grows more stern. "I'm the dad. That means I'm in charge."
Uh-oh. He's heading towards trouble and Dad might take his brooms away.
Harry grins and holds his arms as wide as he can. "I can tell you to hug me! Please?"
Dad shakes his head and murmurs "I can't say no to that."
Tight in his Dad's arms, Harry asks "Are you going to say no to Quidditch?"
Dad huffs a breath against Harry's cheek. "You can fly, but try to be safe."
Harry cheers, wiggling out of Dad's arms.
Later, when he flies off a balcony and dives towards the ground, Dad grumbles about being surrounded by punks with no sense of self preservation.
One night, Mr. Stark and Steve put on fancy business suits to go to a party for Harry's Hope.
"Why can't I go?" Harry asks. "It's for my hope! I hope we go to the Olympics. Are you going without me?!."
"Of course not. This will just be a bunch of boring people." Mr. Stark says, like he doesn't even want to go. "It's not even a fun party."
"It's not my birthday party." Harry nods before he realizes "You mean smoking drinking grownup parties."
"Those are the fun parties, but I don't smoke!" Mr. Stark says . "I don't have healing lungs like your dad and Logan. I already have a heart condition. I don't want to add black lung on top of that."
"So you value your lungs more than your liver." Steve says.
Harry's Grandpa'fessor rolls up. He's always wearing a suit, so Harry doesn't know if he's going to the grownup party until he says "Harry's Hope is our new charity to help kids who are being mistreated, as you were."
"Is it going to be another homeschool?" Harry looks around the X-Homeschool.
"We'll help fund more abuse shelters, fund foster families. Train people to spot abuse before a brainwashed super soldier shows up." Mr. Stark nods at Dad. "It'll help mutant kids, magic kids, muggle kids."
"No child should be mistreated." Steve adds.
Thor's heavy footsteps approach. He looks weird in a business suit. "Children are cherished on Asgard."
"I certainly felt cherished." sneers Loki, who doesn't seem strange at all in a suit.
Grandpa'fessor turns his wheelchair towards the door and says "Shall we, gentlemen?"
Mr. Stark sighs and mutters something about having kids around ending the fun party years.
"Birthdays are every year!" Harry calls after him.
Even without going to the party, Harry gets to go out and do fun things far more often than he ever expected.
The next day, they go back to New York City to visit a museum full of dinosaur bones, a giant T-Rex skeleton and a huge stone head that doesn't look as real as the stone president heads that Loki messed with.
Steve makes Loki promise not to bring anything in the museum to life.
Grandpa'fessor, Doctor Banner and Beast come along this time, and they know lots of things about all the things they see. Mr. Stark keeps interrupting to share stuff he knows.
There are halls full of stuff about stars, which Sirius says is a class at Hogwarts but the others seem to know more.
Sirius knows the most about magic history.
Ms. Romanoff comes too, but not the Bartons. Harry still can't call her Auntie Nat, like Lila does.
There are other families with children. Some of the other families stare at them more than the stuff in the museum. Harry, Dad, Steve and Doctor Banner don't like being watched, but Mr. Stark seems used to it.
Dad watches everyone else, instead of the dinosaurs.
Children crowd around Beast as he explains stuff. A few families leave the museum in a hurry, dragging their kids away like Beast might attack, or get attacked.
Doctor Banner sort of hides at first, but an older girl in a Hulk shirt finds him anyway and asks science stuff that Harry doesn't understand.
Harry sees another girl tug on her mum's hand and point at the T-Rex. "Mom, you won't get in trouble if you make it move."
"I'll still get in trouble." sighs her mum.
"But everyone knows about magic. Please?! Make it move! Make it move!"
Harry and a few other children join the chant. "Make it move! Make it move!"
Sirius is the one who takes out his wand and waves it. The T-Rex skeleton raises its head and roars. Harry cheers and a few children scream, even after it stops roaring.
"That's why I wasn't going to do it." the mum tells her daughter. Sirius puts his wand back in his pocket.
"I must say, magic can make museums more interactive." Grandpa'fessor says as they head for another exhibit.
"So can robots." Mr. Stark replies.
There's a hall with things called sarcophaguses, which Harry can't quite repeat the name of. Mr. Stark says there's a mummy inside, a dead body all wrapped up.
"My mummy?" Harry asks. The painting on the sarcophagus doesn't have red hair or Harry's green eyes.
"No, these are from Egypt." Sirius answers, though Harry doesn't know what that means. Mr. Stark projects the world from his phone, and Jarvis makes glowing spots to point out England and Egypt and here.
"One of the very first mutants was from Egypt." Grandpa'fessor shares. "En Sabah Nur took the moniker Apocalypse."
Sirius says there are cursed tombs in Egypt and says the muggles must have found some that weren't cursed for the museum.
Harry turns back towards the sarcophagus.
"Did my mummy become a mummy?"
"No." says Sirius. "They were buried. I haven't even visited."
His voice catches and he clears his throat, staring at the wall.
Harry studies the mummies.
"Are they older than Thor and Loki?"
"Yes."
Ms. Romanoff says she saw lots of dead bodies as a kid, but never like this.
That night, Harry gets to sleep under a blue whale, even though it's not a Night at the Museum event and the rules say kids have to be six. Mr. Stark refuses to sleep under the whale, saying it's too much like those Leviathan things they fought.
"Are we going to get attacked?" Harry asks.
"We're ready if we do." Steve says.
When Harry wakes up that night, he's sure that armed guys with guns are in the building, but the dark is still and quiet. He reaches around for his glasses.
Everyone else is awake too. Steve is drawing something on paper. Dad and Sirius sit with him under the blue whale. Dad runs his fingers through Harry's hair.
"You beat the bad guys already?" Harry smiles.
Sirius smiles back sadly. "I think you had a bad dream.".
"I'm surprised Loki didn't send the mummies to scare us." Mr. Stark says.
Steve doesn't look up from his drawing, but he frowns. "Don't give him ideas."
"Can we get hot cocoa?" Harry wriggles out of his sleeping bag and into Dad's lap.
"The cafe's closed." Dad answers.
Mr. Stark scoffs. "Have you forgotten I'm a billionaire? I literally just bought out Coney Island for a day. Getting hot chocolate delivered to the Natural History Museum at 3 am is nothing, and far from the most outlandish thing I've done, if you ask Pepper."
Soon they're sipping mugs of steaming cocoa and tea under the big blue whale, and Harry wishes he woke up here every night.
I actually have an ending planned for this story (usually I don't), and I'm planning on covering it next chapter.