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The Ancient One gave Harry and Andromeda as much time as they needed to regain their composure. It was just as well she had. By the time their tears had run dry, Harry was empty, like a victim of the Dementor's Kiss. He was a hollow eggshell with no yolk or white inside; one wrong move, one rough jolt, and he would shatter into a thousand pieces.
As soon as they were ready, the Ancient One insisted on transporting them, along with Teddy, to an uninhabited atoll in the Indian Ocean, where the tent could be safely set up outside of the Mirror Dimension. She did this using a portal edged in spiraling gold sparks, the same magic she'd used to summon the tea setting earlier. Neither Harry nor Andromeda expressed surprise at yet another display of powers that weren't achievable back in their own world. They'd seen too much in the last few hours.
In the interim, Harry and Andromeda had taken stock of their magical supplies, aware that they were unlikely to replace things unique to their own world. For once, Harry's post-war paranoia had paid off. With Hermione's help, he'd created a magically expanded suitcase equipped with everything he could ever need in the event of a cataclysmic emergency: a library with copies of every magic book in his personal collection, including the entire Black and Potter family libraries, a pensieve, a potion brewing station with assorted ingredients, a greenhouse full of magical plants, a refrigerated case of creature parts, a safe-room for practicing spells, a cabinet of enchanted objects such as brooms, and modest living quarters.
There was also a vivarium for magical creatures, but it was empty—Harry wasn't a magizoologist, and therefore wasn't qualified to carry around a menagerie like the ones Luna and the Scamanders maintained. He did, however, have an unhatched, glossy blue-green egg, which had been a gift from Luna for his twentieth birthday. She'd found it abandoned in the wilderness while on a magizoology expedition in Greece and saved it from being devoured by a manticore. In true Luna fashion, her only reason for giving it to Harry was that she sensed it contained something he would need in the future, and none of the detection spells he tried could tell him what creature it came from or why it wouldn't hatch.
Stranger still, when Harry took the egg to Hagrid for analysis, Hagrid had gotten a funny look in his eye and insisted that this was something Harry needed to figure out for himself. Harry didn't have the heart to use Legilimency to learn more.
No House-Elves had accompanied them on their holiday in the Azores, and Harry did not dare hope that he could summon Kreacher from across dimensional realities, assuming Kreacher had even survived Dormammu's initial onslaught. They would have no special help except for whatever they got from the Masters of the Mystic Arts.
At least, Harry thought as he watched Andromeda pack up their tent with a wave of her wand, we won't have to start completely from scratch.
The Ancient One arrived on their little island just as the sun rose, her portal whizzing behind her. "Are you ready?" she asked.
Harry and Andromeda looked at one another. She was holding Teddy with one arm and showed no signs of outward tension. That was no surprise; she'd grown up in the household of Cygnus and Druella Black, with Bellatrix for a sister. She wasn't a warrior by nature the way Harry was, but she was strong. Whatever happened from this point forward, he knew he had nothing to worry about where Andromeda was concerned. Teddy was still asleep, his hair gray today.
Together, Harry and Andromeda followed the Ancient One through the portal, leaving the Indian Ocean Island behind.
They emerged underneath a freestanding gateway on a raised platform halfway down the wide edge of a vast, rectangular space encircled by red-brick buildings with brown-tiled, sloping roofs. Long halls connected pagoda towers of varying shapes to form a single, compound structure. A pair of square pits to Harry's left and right divided the central courtyard into longitudinal sections connected at their corners by narrow walkways. The tallest pagoda rose from the opposite end of the central avenue from the gate.
Turning around as the portal closed, Harry saw that the towers on the gateway side of the expanse weren't connected like the rest, and the resulting gap revealed a stunning view of the city of Kathmandu. Between them, the narrow walkway dropped off like a cliff. Looking down, he realized that the entire multi-level courtyard served as the rooftop for several subjacent stories.
When Harry turned back to the Ancient One, he saw that she'd stepped away from the gateway and was gesturing for him to do the same. Guessing that the structure served a similar function to designated apparition points in wizarding buildings back home, he hastened to join her, Andromeda on his heels.
"Welcome," said the Ancient One, "to Kamar-Taj."
With that, she led them down the long courtyard to the high tower. As they walked, she explained that though the temple of Kamar-Taj served as both the headquarters and the training ground for the Masters of the Mystic Arts, the organization's most important bases were the three Sanctums Sanctorum. They were built on natural convergences of mystic energy around which major cities had grown—New York City, Hong Kong, London—and stocked with enchanted relics. The Sanctums generated a ward around the entire planet that served as its primary defense against extradimensional entities. Each Sanctum was guarded by its own Master; the Sanctum Masters were the most important magic users in the world after the Sorcerer Supreme, which meant that Harry had to be introduced to them before his training could begin.
Bloody typical. Harry had become the center of attention in the magical community simply by existing. Again.
The entrance to the tower was a wide, tall gateway that radiated a mysterious-feeling, alien magic. As they passed through, Harry felt for the first time what he'd known to be true for the last twenty-four hours. No matter how superficially familiar it might be, this was not his world.
Inside, the Ancient One led them to a square sitting room with lofty ceilings held up by thin, ornately carved stone columns. The floor tiles formed a black grid on a red field, and the grated windows sloped upward to merge with the eaves of the slanted roof outside. The furnishings were minimalistic and deceptively spindly. Everything was decorated with eastern mazes and symbols.
Sitting on square cushions or in squat chairs were three sorcerers, whom the Ancient One introduced after inviting Harry and Andromeda to sit on a long bench. The tall, bald black man was Daniel Drumm, Master of the New York Sanctum. The long-faced Middle Eastern man with a thick beard was Sol Rama, Master of the London Sanctum. The petite Japanese woman was Tina Minoru, Master of the Hong Kong Sanctum.
All three Sanctum Masters glanced curiously at Andromeda and Teddy, but kept the better part of their attention on Harry, studying him openly. He resisted the temptation to fidget. Their scrutiny reminded him of how he'd felt when Auror Proudfoot interviewed him at the end of his first and second years.
"So," said Rama, "you are the new Host of the Phoenix Force. You were a powerful wizard in your own world, an alternate universe that has now been consumed by Dormammu. You instinctively tried to use your new powers to save yourself and those around you, and now here you are. A family of multiversal refugees."
Harry nodded wordlessly. Rama had listed each fact like it was a criminal offense.
Minoru flashed Rama a look of mild disapproval, then said, "We have on occasion dealt with multiversal refugees, but in most cases, we were able to send them home. Your home no longer exists. You have our condolences."
"Thank you," said Andromeda stiffly. Harry just nodded again.
"We have already discussed your situation, and no one has any objections to our arrangement," the Ancient One said, seating herself on a meditation mat she conjured from nowhere, "but the Masters have insisted that you tell us your story."
Harry raised an eyebrow. "My story?"
"We wish to understand why the Phoenix chose you," Drumm explained. "It is quite picky, and for it to bond with a multiversal refugee, much less one who can use magic, is unheard of."
Harry hesitated. He'd never told anyone his full life story before. Everything he'd told Ron, Hermione, and Sirius about his childhood had been explained in increments. Even Andromeda had only heard the stories in bits and pieces.
"Teddy shouldn't hear this," he said, looking at Andi. "He's too young to understand it."
She showed him a sardonic look, then tapped Teddy's head and very deliberately said, "Muffliato."
Harry sighed. "Fine. You'd better get comfortable, because it's a long story and needs a bit of historical context to understand."
He began with a history lesson, explaining the general background of his people and how they'd formed a separate culture alongside muggles, how Hogwarts had been founded as both a school and a fortress against muggle persecution of magic. He summarized the four founders and the houses they'd founded, how Salazar Slytherin had, in his paranoia, tried to persuade the other founders that muggle-raised witches and wizards couldn't be trusted, and that there needed to be a greater focus on the Dark Arts, leading to arguments and Slytherin's eventual departure from the school. He described the legend of the Chamber of Secrets, with particular emphasis on the concept of the Heir of Slytherin, and how wizarding aristocracy had reinterpreted Slytherin's paranoid distrust of muggleborns into blind disdain for anyone who wasn't a pure-blood wizard.
He summarized the centuries-long deterioration of muggle-wizard relations that culminated in the enactment of the Statute of Secrecy, and how the wizarding community had become even more insular, leading to even more bigotry. Having set the stage for the drama that defined his life, he proceeded to describe Tom Riddle, scion of the House of Gaunt and the Heir of Slytherin, whose reign of terror was the product of centuries of wizarding foolishness and cruelty.
"Voldemort wasn't the first wizarding terrorist who tried to take over the world, and it's a matter of debate whether he was truly the most powerful dark wizard in history, but he was definitely the most unhinged and vicious. He was mad, and that made him oblivious to some obvious truths of reality, but also cunning, virtually unbeatable in personal combat, and a master of psychological warfare. There were less than a dozen witches and wizards worldwide who stood the slightest chance of defeating him in combat, and he killed most of that lot personally. He and his followers focused on the British Isles, but the first Blood War affected the entire world. Anyone could be working for him, willingly or not. After a few years, people grew so afraid of him they wouldn't even say his name.
"Voldemort's reign of terror lasted for eleven years, and he almost wiped out an entire generation of witches and wizards. For all his rhetoric about pure-blood supremacy, he was happy to kill or torture whoever got in his way. He didn't give a damn about anyone except himself, and no one who earned his personal attention lived for very long. Many of his followers, the Death Eaters, raised their kids to be loyal to him as well, and to uphold his ideology while they were at school. Most Death Eaters were former Slytherins, so Slytherin House itself became associated with evil. The only person Voldemort feared was Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts. Voldemort couldn't kill Dumbledore, but he was too slippery for Dumbledore to pin down either, and with the Death Eaters dancing to his tune, it was only a matter of time before Voldemort won.
"This was the environment my parents went to school in. Things got worse each year, and many of their classmates joined up with Voldemort as soon as they graduated. When my parents graduated, they became some of Voldemort's worst enemies. Lily was a first-gen, and James was a pure-blood, but just barely. His family, the Potters, was quite old, but also small, never stood out in magical history, and never really bought into that blood purity nonsense—at worst, they wanted to avoid the drama of keeping or revealing the big secret to any muggle in-laws. Mum and Dad were both amazing magic users—not on Voldemort's level, but easily some of the best of their generation. He tried recruiting them despite Mum's heritage. They defied him to his face three times and lived to talk about it, which very few others could claim.
"But shortly before I was born, a Death Eater named Severus Snape overheard a witch giving a prophecy that described the person who would destroy Voldemort. Snape only heard part of the prophecy, which he immediately relayed to his master. Voldemort, being the brilliant but insane creature he was, believed wholeheartedly in the validity of the prediction and sprang into action to prevent it. Based on what Snape had overheard, he concluded that the prophecy alluded to two newborn boys, one half-blood, one pure blood. Of the two, Voldemort assumed that the real threat was me, because I'm a half-blood, like him.
"Fortunately, Voldemort's complete inability to comprehend human nature, and love in particular, was his undoing. Snape was in love with my mum, you see, even if it wasn't exactly healthy love. They were childhood friends until an incident at Hogwarts, when she realized he was planning to join the Death Eaters. Snape was just as gifted a wizard as either of my parents, definitely the greatest potioneer alive in his day, but he was also a stupid kid from an abusive household who wanted to be recognized for his power and intelligence. When Snape realized Voldemort was targeting Lily Evans because of the information he provided, he changed sides in a panic, became a spy for Dumbledore.
"My parents could hold their own against Voldemort, but even working together they couldn't defeat him—he was too powerful, knew much more magic than they did, and had decades of experience on them. With baby me and a prophecy to worry about, they had no choice but to stop fighting and go into hiding. What they didn't realize was that one of their best friends, Peter Pettigrew, had betrayed them and was a spy for Voldemort. Pettigrew had enough guts to pull off some daring stunts when he was under pressure, but in his heart, he was a coward.
"Acting on information only Pettigrew could give him, Voldemort came to our house on Halloween when I was one. My parents were completely caught off guard, never stood a chance. He killed my dad right away, but he offered to spare my mum, because Snape had asked him to; maybe he was feeling generous towards the man who he thought had guaranteed his victory. But Mum refused to step aside and offered her own life instead, and that's what sealed Voldemort's fate. When he killed her, he triggered a form of ancient magic that turned her sacrifice into the most powerful protective enchantment I know of.
"Voldemort's favorite spell, a lethal curse no one had ever survived in all of history, rebounded off my skin and turned him to ash. He would have died, but he'd taken steps to ensure his own immortality and slunk away as a disembodied shadow, his powers broken, while I got away with nothing but a scar. I became famous overnight, not because of anything I did, but because I lived when my parents didn't.
"The Death Eaters were so lost and confused without his leadership that most were easily caught in the aftermath, but many were wealthy aristocrats who knew how to play the justice system and escaped punishment by claiming they'd been cursed into helping him against their will. That lot were all interested in me, thinking they could either get revenge for their master or rally around me as his replacement—they didn't realize that my parents were the real heroes.
"I was supposed to live with my godfather, Sirius Black, but Peter Pettigrew used a mix of lies, animal transformation, and a Blasting Curse to fake his death and frame Sirius for his crimes. The Head of Magical Law Enforcement, Barty Crouch, was already looking for an excuse to get rid of Sirius, so he ate up Pettigrew's ruse without even bothering to investigate and sent Sirius to prison without a trial, over Professor Dumbledore's objections. Crouch was pressured into resigning after he caught his own son with a group of Death Eaters and sent him to prison too, but the damage was done.
"With Sirius incarcerated and the Ministry of Magic compromised, Dumbledore was the one effectively responsible for my protection growing up. Even then, though, the only person left who could legally raise me without arousing the wrath and suspicion of the wizarding community was my aunt Petunia, who happened to be estranged from my mum. Petunia and her whale of a husband hated magic, but they took me in because Mum's charm could be maintained as long as I called home the place where my family blood lived, with the added bonus of extending the protection to everyone else who lived there.
"Thus, I was raised by the Dursleys, pathetic idiots obsessed with being 'normal,' who thought they could squash the magic out of me by hiding its existence and keeping me as miserable as possible. They were wrong, of course. When Dumbledore found out what was going on in that house, he was furious, but he didn't want to break my mum's charm—and he was quite right, because without it I'd be dead several times over."
The admission ignited flames in Harry's heart. The Bond of Blood Charm had kept his mental connection to Voldemort closed until they'd met face to face for the first time, blunted the corrosive influence of the soul shard in his scar, saved him from Quirrell, and tethered him to life when he let Voldemort kill him in the Forbidden Forest. But were the long term gains worth the pain? If Dumbledore put so much stock in the power of love, why hadn't he searched for a variation of the spell that could function without forcing Harry to live with a blood relative?
The great irony was that while selfless love did indeed fuel the original enchantment, it wasn't the reason the spell manifested. Countless witches and wizards had willingly given their lives to protect their loved ones, but very few had managed to invoke magic that could give their sacrifice tangible power.
No, the entire enchantment had been predicated on Voldemort's offer to spare Lily's life if she let him kill Harry and her decision to explicitly offer herself as an exchange. Not Harry! Take me instead, she'd screamed. In taking her life, Voldemort had unknowingly accepted her as a substitute victim, which meant that all his subsequent attempts on Harry's life were effectively breaches of a magical contract.
The same thing had happened at the Battle of Hogwarts; Voldemort had explicitly declared that Harry's friends and allies would be spared if Harry surrendered his life, an offer Harry had accepted by willingly walking to what he thought would be his death. Voldemort had then proceeded to attack them again when they refused to bow to him, breaking his word, and the magic stirred up by Harry's "death" had reacted by protecting them from the worst of his spells.
"Mr. Potter?" Sol Rama prompted gently.
Harry blinked. He'd lost track of the story. Where had he been? Ah. Dumbledore and the Dursleys. "Sorry," he said. "If Dumbledore tried to legally interfere in my home life, I'd have been removed from the house forever and lost the blood wards. Instead, he arranged for one of my parents' friends to move into our neighborhood to look after me. That friend was a wizard named Remus Lupin.
"Remus was prohibited from having full custody of me because he was a werewolf, but he was one of the nicest blokes you could ever meet, and highly competent to boot. He couldn't openly confront the Dursleys without bringing the Ministry down on his head—werewolves were severely persecuted—but his presence scared them enough that they didn't dare openly abuse me. The Dursleys still neglected me and used the threat of legal action to keep Remus from telling me the full truth about my heritage, but I was always able to turn to him when I needed someone. It wasn't the best way to grow up, but it was bearable."
"All this because your godfather was imprisoned?" Master Drumm asked. "If the blood wards were so important, would you have been allowed to live with him at all?"
"Sirius and I were related through my great aunt Dorea, so yes, living with him would have kept the protection alive, if just barely."
Minoru chimed in, "And you had no other living relatives?"
"None. My grandparents and their families all died before or during the war, and my dad was an only child. Technically, all the pure blood families are interrelated, but those relations were all too distant to maintain the blood wards or were Death Eaters."
Harry paused, waiting for other questions, but none came. He continued. "When I turned eleven, I received my official letter of acceptance to Hogwarts. I didn't learn the whole truth about my past right away, but I did find out everything the Dursleys knew. In due course, I'd bought my wizarding supplies and was on my way to Hogwarts for the very first time. The years I spent there were… dramatic."
:::::
From his seat upon Hlidskjalf, Odin Borson could see anywhere in the Nine Realms with only a little focus, much like what Heimdall could do naturally with his enhanced senses. Still, he knew better than to think he could spy on the Sorcerer Supreme without her knowledge or consent. Everything he saw and heard as she and her disciples discussed Harry Potter and his life before the Phoenix Force only reached him because she permitted it. One flex of her will, and the hole in the wards around Kamar-Taj that allowed him to observe the conversation would close.
Odin had worked with three Sorcerers Supreme to defend Midgard over the millennia, and he had a particular liking for the Ancient One—he had originally found her moniker amusing at best and insulting at worst, given his own age, but eventually he grew to understand that it was less about her physical age than it was her mental age, the countless possibilities she lived out when she peered into the future with the Eye of Agamotto, or her journeys through branching timelines. It was a burden every bit as heavy as his own, if not more so.
As Harry Potter described the incidents that disrupted his magical education, Odin's one remaining eye grew wider and wider. Fighting a teacher possessed by Voldemort's wrecked spirit in his first year to protect a Philosopher's Stone. Killing Slytherin's monster, a serpent that could kill with its eyes, with a sword when it was unleashed by a Voldemort-possessed student in his second year. The confrontation with Peter Pettigrew and such horrid creatures as dementors in his third.
By the time he finished describing the Triwizard tournament and Voldemort's horrifying resurrection, Odin found himself wanting to have a frank discussion with Albus Dumbledore about split duties. You could be a teacher or a leader, but not both. When Potter described Minister Fudge's reaction to the news of Voldemort's return, Odin had to suppress the urge to throw Gungnir at a wall. What kind of leader buried his head in the sand and defamed a teenager? And that Umbridge woman… had she tried to pull any of her bilgesnipe tripe on Asgard, she'd have been stripped of her powers and exiled. The death of Potter's godfather sounded like a cruel trick of fate, on top of everything else.
Even by the standards of Phoenix Hosts, the boy's fortitude was astounding. Most people in his position would have been consumed by hatred for the world, yet Harry had determinedly pushed forward, determined to save people who didn't deserve him from a monster of their own creation.
It was at this point that Harry hesitated for the first time in his narrative. He didn't want to talk about how Voldemort had achieved his immortality.
"Why do you hesitate?" the master called Daniel Drumm asked. "We are charged with protecting our world from creatures and beings every bit as horrible as this Voldemort. You do not need to worry about us following in his footsteps."
Odin watched Harry carefully. His companion, Andromeda, put a hand on his forearm. "He's dead now. This knowledge won't hurt anyone."
"It'll hurt you," Harry told her flatly. "It still hurts me to even think about it."
"Sometimes," the Ancient One said, "to heal an old wound, you must first reopen it."
Harry was silent for a moment. He visibly fortified himself, as if preparing for a blow, then began to talk about the various mechanisms of immortality wizards from his world had discovered: the Philosopher's Stone, unicorn blood, potions made with Phoenix tears, physical augmentation rituals, essence transfer, canopic jars, phylacteries. But each of these methods had drawbacks and limitations that someone as thanatophobic as Voldemort could not accept.
Instead, Voldemort had settled on a practice so vile that most dark wizards, no matter how depraved or desperate, balked at the very idea of it.
Using magic to commit a true, deliberate, conscious act of murder—actual murder, rather than an act of self-defense or a mercy kill—without regret or remorse damaged a wizard's soul. It was possible, through the darkest of magic, for a wizard to take advantage of such damage to literally split off a piece of his soul and conceal it within an object prepared by dark magic: a Horcrux. As long as the Horcrux remained "alive," the wizard who created it would remain anchored to the mortal plane, unable to die, even if their physical self was killed. If they were disembodied, they would have an infinite number of chances to generate a new body for themselves.
The process of creating a Horcrux was, as Harry emphasized, a violation of life and magic itself, one that doomed the practitioner to a tortured existence no sane person would ever willingly endure.
Very few witches and wizards had ever heard of Horcruxes, and even fewer had created one of their own. Voldemort, deranged as he was, was the only wizard in history to create more than one Horcrux; Dumbledore initially suspected he'd made two or three. In fact, Voldemort planned to split his soul into seven pieces, for seven was considered the most powerfully magical number.
Tom Riddle's cursed diary was his first Horcrux, created with the murder of Myrtle Warren when he was sixteen and intended to be used as a weapon as much as a safeguard against death. The others were his grandfather's signet ring, three enchanted relics of the Hogwarts founders—Slytherin's locket, Hufflepuff's cup, and Ravenclaw's diadem—and, most unusually, a magical serpent named Nagini.
In creating multiple Horcruxes, Voldemort had driven himself completely mad and rendered his soul so unstable it was liable to break apart. It was this erosion of his humanity on such a fundamental level, combined with certain dark transformations he underwent to increase his power, that resulted in his hideous appearance during his reign of terror.
As his failures and successes both demonstrated, Voldemort was insubstantial in many ways, and all the more dangerous for it. By all rights, Harry had stood no chance against such a foe.
And yet… and yet.
After Dumbledore's arranged death at Snape's hands, Harry had found and destroyed the last of Voldemort's Horcruxes, an arduous quest he refused to describe in detail beyond the fact that it required him to break into the wizarding bank and culminated in a battle at Hogwarts itself. That battle saw the deaths of even more of Harry's friends and loved ones, including Remus Lupin and his wife. Yet, there had still been one more sacrifice to make, one that couldn't be avoided.
:::::
"No," said Andromeda, horrified. She hadn't known this part—no one had, save Ron and Hermione. "That's how you were able to… but that means—."
"Let me finish," said Harry as patiently as he could manage. He'd hoped to keep this a secret, but there was no concealing it now. Not here, not from the likes of the Ancient One and her cabal. He told them what he'd found in Snape's memories and what happened in the Forbidden Forest, though he was careful to omit the Resurrection Stone and his chat with Dumbledore's spirit, just as he had taken care to refer to the Elder Wand only as "Dumbledore's wand" when he'd goaded Voldemort into making his final mistake in the Great Hall.
The Deathly Hallows were too dangerous a secret, even here, even now. He'd been very careful to never hold all three at the same time, lest they react to one another and trigger some unknown magical transformation.
"How are you alive then?" Andromeda demanded. "I know how Nagini and Riddle died, but…"
Harry smiled. "As I'm sure you've all realized by now, Tom Riddle violated natural law so badly he might as well have climbed to the top of a mountain during a thunderstorm and held up a lightning rod. For all his power, he was practically begging magic itself to destroy him. Every decision he made, no matter how beneficial it seemed, came back to bite him in the arse.
"When he was planning his resurrection, he could have taken the blood of any number of witches or wizards who hated him. But he insisted on using mine so he could phase through my mum's sacrificial protection, protection which only lasted as long as it did because I lived with Aunt Petunia, horrid as she was. But it only worked partially; he could touch me and use magic on me without harming himself, but he'd bound his life to mine. I anchored him to life as a pseudo-Horcrux, but he did the same to me. So, when I let him kill me…."
"The shard of soul in your scar died, but you didn't," the Ancient One finished.
That wasn't quite right, but close enough. Harry nodded. He gave the short version of what happened next: tricking Voldemort into offing himself with a backfiring wand, his non-traditional career as an Auror, his studies of advanced magic, and his work reforming the British Ministry of Magic. "I don't know how Dormammu broke into our reality," he said. "But the Phoenix Force intervened and offered to merge with me. I don't know why it was looking out for me or why it thought I'd make a good host, but it was, and it did. So here we are."
"Modest to a fault." The Ancient One was looking at him with a mix of compassion and respect. "But, as is often the case, the being who least desires power is the one most suited to wield it. With your experiences, you understand life and death in a way no one else can, and with your magic, you can push the boundaries of what is possible for a Phoenix Host. Why it needs to push boundaries to begin with… well, we shall cross that bridge when we come to it."
"Oh, lovely," Andromeda muttered.
The Sanctum Masters looked at one another, then at the Ancient One, and then back at Harry.
"I think," said Master Minoru, "you will fit in quite well among us."
"Indeed," Sol Rama said.
"Welcome to the Masters of the Mystic Arts," Master Drumm finished.
:::::
From his office aboard the Helicarrier Theseus, Nick Fury contemplated a deceptively innocuous pager as if it held the secrets of the universe. The Golden Storm was beyond frightening, and the lack of a discernible explanation for what had caused it made his teeth itch with anxiety. What had triggered it? Would something like it happen again? What could he do to safeguard the world against a worse version of it?
He'd considered the possibility that it was simply the result of particularly violent solar activity, but his scientists had quickly shot down that idea. The lack of ionizing radiation or damage to the Earth's atmosphere suggested that whatever this was, it only affected modern technology, which suggested that it was a deliberate attack. No technology SHIELD knew of could cause an event like the Golden Storm. Fury's only recourse, then, was to assume that it was the work of aliens. He knew all too well how real the possibility of an extraterrestrial invasion was, and as far as he could see, humanity was hopelessly, hilariously outgunned.
Thus, the pager. Carol had told him to use it only in case of emergency. He wasn't sure this qualified, but then again, if it turned out this was an emergency, and he didn't call her….
Damn it all to Hell.
Fury tapped the sequence of buttons Carol had taught him and watched as the little screen lit up with her signature emblem. He knew the World Security Council would give him hell over this, but he also knew from experience that it was better to ask for forgiveness rather than wait for permission. Still, Carol alone wouldn't be enough. No single Avenger, no matter how powerful they might be individually, was ever enough. He needed an initiative, a team.
He set aside the transmitting pager and dialed up his secretary through the office phone, ordering her to prevent anyone from disturbing him for the rest of the evening unless it was an emergency. Once that was done, he privacy-sealed his office and fiddled with his computer. He spent several minutes unlocking the password and biometric firewalls that protected SHIELD's classified databases, then began surfing through the records for suitable candidates.
There weren't many. The only mutants he knew of who had the power and the training were all retired or imprisoned members of Erik Lensherr's Brotherhood of Mutants. Lensherr himself was believed to still be alive, though his whereabouts were anyone's guess, while the identities of the mysterious 'X-Men' who had opposed him remained unknown, even to SHIELD.
Not for the first time, Fury wished he at least knew their names, if only to consult them on the possibility of recruiting and training younger mutants. Even then, though, mutant numbers had been dwindling rapidly in the last few decades, as fewer and fewer people with the genetic potential were exposed to the right chemical or radiation stimuli. Fury was not going to experiment on human beings in the name of bringing the Avengers Initiative to life.
What about other types of enhanced individuals? It didn't matter to him where their powers came from as long as they didn't compromise the person's character.
Hank Pym was a no-go, as he was still bitter from his nasty falling out with Howard Stark and SHIELD, not to mention in his fifties. His wife, Janet van Dyne, was dead in the line of duty. Their daughter, though…. Hope van Dyne knew much more about Pym Particle technology than she liked to admit and had demonstrated that she was capable of getting her hands dirty. Perhaps she could become the new Wasp? Fury decided to flag her as a maybe.
Namor definitely had the power and the skills, but he was also volatile, mysterious, and unpredictable. He'd rendered the Allies aid during World War II, yes, but only after a great deal of persuasion from Captain America, whom he'd encountered by sheer chance. Similarly, Namor had been involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis, but only on behalf of his undersea interests, whatever those were. So far as SHIELD could determine, Namor only cared about what happened on the surface when it had the potential to affect his mysterious aquatic kingdom. Convincing him to commit to the Avengers Initiative in any capacity would be next to impossible without some sort of leverage. Another maybe, then.
Logan Howlett, though, gave Fury some hope. A World War II veteran rumored to be over two-hundred years old, Howlett was a mutant with superhuman strength, a truly astonishing regenerative healing ability, and knife-like retractable claws set into his wrists. After being captured and experimented on by the horrific Weapon X Program, the already dangerous Howlett had been brainwashed, subjected to brutal combat training, and had a vibranium-based metallic substance called adamantium grafted to his entire skeleton, making it effectively indestructible.
Since gaining his freedom, Howlett seemed to be aging at a tenth the normal human rate, hence the rumors about his birth date. No one dared bother him after what he'd done to the last military hit squad sent his way, and he seemed content to live out the rest of his life in peace. The man was abrasive, ferocious, and distrustful, but he was also known to be highly protective of children, whether they were mutants or not. He'd be difficult to persuade, but not impossible.
No other viable superhuman candidates presented themselves, so Fury decided to switch gears and focus on SHIELD's special talents. His thoughts immediately jumped to his favorite specialist: Clint Barton, a.k.a.: Hawkeye. Barton had no superhuman abilities per se, but his eyesight, ability to calculate trajectories, and physical condition were, quite simply, perfect. Training from a pair of professional assassins masquerading as circus performers had turned him into an astonishingly lethal hand to hand combatant and the world's best marksman, bar none, and he was very intelligent, despite never completing his high school education.
Barton had served on a Special Forces team in the Army for a few years before resigning in protest of an unethical mission and becoming a freelance assassin. SHIELD had recruited him only four months ago, shortly after Fury was appointed Director, but he was already a Level 4 agent and universally regarded as their most effective operative. With his bewildering arsenal of trick arrows and sheer competence, Barton's inclusion was a no-brainer.
Carol Danvers and Clint Barton for certain, Logan Howlett with a bit of patience, Hope van Dyne and Namor as potential 'maybes'. It was a more promising start than Fury had expected, but it wasn't enough. Who else was there?
Agents Bobbi Morse and Melinda May were currently the only SHIELD specialists in Barton's league, but they lacked his firepower and operational flexibility. The only assassins Fury knew of who could match Hawkeye were Black Widows, and the odds of one defecting to SHIELD were only slightly better than Captain America and the Red Skull becoming pen pals. Erik Lensherr had the power, skills, and experience to boot, and age didn't seem to have weakened him, but Fury wasn't desperate enough to trust a former terrorist, no matter how understandable his motives and regardless of whether the man had supposedly reformed. There was a reason people worldwide still feared the name "Magneto."
Fury sighed and put his head in his hands, planting his elbows on his desk. Why on Earth did he let Peggy Carter convince him to accept this job?
:::::
Kamar-Taj, it turned out, was a tiered, five-storey compound with multiple levels of towers, turrets, and courtyards. Unlike most of the residents, who stayed in modest suites lining the outer walls, Harry had been given chambers directly connected to those where Andromeda and Teddy would be living until their identities in this reality were established. Their shared turret stood between two small courtyards, one of which was reserved for their personal use.
It was a lovely place to bask in the mountain air, with a stunning view of the Kamar-Taj grounds and the city of Kathmandu. Atmospheric spells imbued into the rooftops kept out the elements, but everything beyond their reach was blanketed in snow. To the west, so close it abutted the compound's outer walls, lay the famous Swayambhu Mahachaitya religious complex. To the south lay Birendra Army Hospital.
If Kamar-Taj were a hotel, the private courtyard would have been a spot for relaxing after a long day, but Harry knew the real reason it had been reserved for him was so that he'd have a private space to meditate and exercise. It was also a place for him and Andromeda to speak in private. Harry sat on a backless stone bench and watched as she paced the courtyard, looking furious. The setting sun cast everything in dim, ruddy light.
Finally, the tension became unbearable. "If you've got something to say, then say it," Harry said. "I know from experience that bottling up your feelings isn't helpful."
She rounded on him, and the scowl on her face made her look so much like her mad sister that Harry had to suppress a wince. "Oh, there are several things I would like to say," she snapped. "We're trapped here in an alien reality we don't know nearly enough about, surrounded by strange magic and other powers, and one of those powers has decided it wants to use you as an instrument of its will. What were you thinking, accepting an offer from an unknown entity like that?"
"What else was I supposed to do?" Harry shot back. He knew she was lashing out because she was afraid, rather than genuine resentment, but her words had struck a nerve. "Let Dormammu just take us? If I hadn't bonded with the damned firebird, we'd be worse than dead. Or did you forget that?"
She made a noise of frustration. "You know I haven't. But I don't like it. I don't like any of this. How can you be so quick to trust these people?"
"I trust the Ancient One to do what she thinks is best for the world," he said, carefully.
"That's precisely the problem. She reminds me too much of Dumbledore, and not in a good way."
Now, Harry did wince. "You're not wrong, but this is different."
"Is it? Is it really?"
"Think about it. Dumbledore was fighting a shadow war against an immortal magical terrorist who had infiltrated all levels of our society, and the most important piece on his chessboard was a child who needed to die for our side to win. He did the best he could with what he had. Now, I'm an adult, and the Ancient One and I understand each other fairly well. We've both told each other our most important secrets. Plus, this Phoenix Force is notoriously volatile. She knows better than to try manipulating me while I've got that thing inside me; the risk if it backfires is too high."
"And if she decides to kill you, instead? Not now, you're too tender from your… fusion, transformation, whatever it was. If she wanted you dead now, you'd be dead. But in the future?"
"I doubt the Ancient One is the type to fear someone simply because they're powerful. I think she needs my help with something, even if she doesn't know what. But she'd be a fool not to have contingency plans. You can bet she's been working on those since before she came to get us this morning." When Andromeda didn't respond, he continued. "I haven't told you anything you couldn't figure out for yourself. What's this really about, Andi?"
She glowered at him for a few more seconds before her expression crumpled. "I've lost too much in my life, Harry. I had to fight tooth and nail to find love, and it was taken from me by my own sister. You and Teddy are all I have left, and now I'm going to lose you too."
He stared at her in horror. "What are you talking about? You're not going to lose me."
"Won't I? Your life doesn't belong to you anymore. You have to share your entire existence with a cosmic entity that cannot and will not ever understand what it means to be human. It will eat at you from the inside, burn you up in the name of its own agenda, whether you realize it or not."
"You don't know that," said Harry, but his words lacked certainty. "And I'm not going Dark."
"I'm not worried that you'll become a Dark Phoenix. I will never doubt your heart, Harry. But make no mistake. Your new purpose, whatever it is, will wear on you like rain on a mountain. There is no burden heavier than duty."
"You think I won't be there when you need me."
She shook her head. "No. I'm afraid you won't be there when Teddy needs you."
Harry shuddered. She had a point. He thought of Sirius, who had gotten himself thrown in Azkaban by recklessly pursuing Wormtail for revenge. He thought of Remus, too crippled by self-doubt to act without Dumbledore's say-so and too hampered by the Wizarding World's atrocious legal system to be there for Harry as much as he ought to have been. He thought of his parents and the ancient magic they'd invoked. They had all laid down their lives for him, but in doing so, they had left him completely, utterly alone.
Harry would not hesitate to lay down his life for Teddy or Andromeda, but that wasn't what they needed from him. They needed his presence, his support and attention. They needed him to be part of their family, not just their protector.
"I'm sorry, Andi," he said quietly. He stood up and approached her. "I can't ignore this new destiny, whatever it is. But I promise I won't abandon you in the name of duty."
They embraced.
"This isn't fair," she said into his shoulder. "Haven't we suffered enough? Haven't you done enough?"
"No, it isn't fair," Harry agreed. But then, life in general was unfair, and his life was about as unfair as it got. "But I'm going to make the best of it."
The Ancient One had told him that the Phoenix Force was a cosmic entity, with powers that were almost incomprehensible to mortals. It would take time to rebuild himself now that it was bonded to him, but once he did, well. Dormammu didn't kill everyone when he devoured a new universe—the ruler of the Dark Dimension was less of an annihilator and more of a conqueror. Not everyone under his power became a Mindless One.
For the sake of those survivors, Harry would do more than simply learn to use his Phoenix-infused magic; he would master it, as Dumbledore and Merlin had mastered their magic, as Voldemort had mastered the Dark Arts. He would climb the highest mountain, dive into the deepest ocean, explore the deadliest jungles if that was what it took. Then, once he had the power to tear the stars from the sky and hold them in the palm of his hand, he would use it to reach into Dark Dimension and rip his people free from Dormammu's grip.
Dormammu was beyond time and death as mortals understood them, but his time was coming.
:::::
"It seems," Odin said to the room, "that our past has come back to haunt us."
His family winced. They were sitting around a low table in his private study in the heart of Valaskjalf; Odin beside Frigga on one couch, Thor and Loki on the other, Hela by herself in an armchair.
"What will we do, then?" Hela asked. She was filing her nails with a knife she conjured, but Odin wasn't fooled by her nonchalant facade. He saw the wariness in her eyes, the subtle tension in her shoulders.
"For now, nothing."
"Like we did nothing the last time it took a Host on Midgard?" Thor demanded.
"It is not our place to babysit or order around beings who are not part of our kingdom," Odin said, patiently, "no matter how powerful they may be. But I will not allow this one to suffer the same fate as his predecessor. We shall watch and wait, and forge an alliance with him when the time is right. No more, no less."
Loki asked, "And how will we know when the time is right?"
"I suspect," said Frigga, "the opportunity will present itself soon enough."
Everyone focused their gazes on her. Even Hela ceased her nail filing.
"You've foreseen something?" Odin asked.
"I have. Midgard has been like a worm in a cocoon this last century. Now, as the time for it to emerge in its new form approaches, its fate balances on a knife's edge. A butterfly is most vulnerable when it first emerges from its chrysalis. This Phoenix Host will tip the scales."
The unspoken for better or worse resounded through the room like a cannon shot.
"The Ancient One allowed you to observe him?" Loki asked, looking at Odin.
"Yes."
"Well?"
Odin took a deep breath. "His name is Harry Potter, son of James and Lily. He is a refugee from another dimensional reality that has now been destroyed. He is also a wizard, born to magic."
Thor, Loki, and Hela gaped in open shock. Frigga merely raised an eyebrow, but, like Hela, Odin knew her well enough to see through her impassive mask.
Loki, naturally, was the first to recover his composure. "How is this possible?" he asked.
"Your guess is as good as mine," Odin admitted. "The Masters of the Mystic Arts understand the multiverse and its dangers better than I ever have. All I know for certain is that Potter's homeworld was an alternate version of Midgard with a population of wixen who took to living in secrecy to avoid persecution from the mundane population. It was consumed by Dormammu, the Cosmic Conqueror, but the Phoenix Force allowed him to save himself and those closest to him. His magic has been fundamentally changed by his merging with the Phoenix, so he will need time to rebuild himself."
"Is he… stable?" Hela asked, leaning forward.
"Relatively. Whether he will stay that way is another matter." Odin summarized the story Potter told the Sanctum Masters
When he finished, Thor said, "Most impressive. And most disturbing."
"Indeed," Loki agreed. "If he has been manipulated so heavily over the course of his life, he will not react well when he discovers that the Ancient One allowed us to learn this much about him without his consent."
"No, he will not," Odin agreed, "but he is no fool. He cannot afford to assume that his relationships with the protectors of the world are what they seem. I'm certain he's already deduced that the Ancient One is developing contingencies in the event he becomes a threat."
Thor's expression was grim. "Do you think we will be forced to fight him?"
"I hope not, my son. I truly hope not."
As anyone familiar with it can tell you, the Potterverse is rife with plot holes, poor life lessons, and worldbuilding goofs. In the spirit of verisimilitude, I'm offering what I hope are more realistic/palatable reinterpretations of elements that push my buttons: Harry's childhood, the sacrificial protection magic, Salazar Slytherin's dark legacy, etc. I'm also trying to give fair and mature interpretations of controversial characters like Dumbledore and Snape. I'm not interested in bashing either of them, but I won't shy away from their shortcomings either. Dumbledore's manipulations did ultimately save Harry's life, but the stain on his morals remains. Meanwhile, Book!Snape isn't nearly as heroic as Movie!Snape, and Harry's view of the man will reflect that.
On the Marvel side of things, I decided to write a more proactive response from Nick Fury, since he canonically started planning the Avengers Initiative well before he was put in charge of SHIELD. However, this does not mean his recruiting plans will work out. His ignorance about the X-Men is also a very deliberate choice. SHIELD's canon policies toward "enhanced individuals" were antagonistic and controlling, both before and after the HYDRA reveal. Nick Fury is one of the only people in the organization who sees superhuman beings as people, but he also tends to categorize everyone he meets as either a threat, an asset, or both. SHIELD may be better than the Sokovia Accords, but I can't justify a scenario where the X-Men, who are responsible for literal schoolchildren, would trust them. Mutants are not the primary focus of this story, but they do have a role to play.
Am I on the right track? Let me know what you think!