A bit of a shorter chapter, this time. For some reason, I've been writing shorter chapters for this story than for CJWO. It might just be that I'm still in the beginning and the chapters will grow as the story gets more complex, or it might just be that this story paces itself differently. I guess we'll see. As the author, I know I'm technical the one in control of pacing and chapter length, but those of you who also write will know what a load of horseshit that idea really is. For those of you who don't write, trust me when I say this is like being in the driver's seat of an Autopia car. I'm almost as along for the ride as you are.

Thanks to all of you who reviewed the last chapter. I appreciate all of your feedback. I was nervous about writing a story for such a quiet section of fandom, but this has already received a stronger response than I expected.

Please show whatever support you can for Ukraine.

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

Chapter 3

Harry longed for the good old days, of about five minutes ago, when the weirdest thing he'd ever seen had been his godfather's red robot friend. Those had been happier times. Life hadn't made sense, but it hadn't been quite as crazy as it was now. Because now, he'd seen something even stranger than Red Tornado. That just wasn't fair. Life, even his screwed up life, oughtn't throw more than one bit of mind bending lunacy at him per day. At this point, he'd even settle for just one per hour.

"Take the stairs?" he moaned. "Take the stairs where!?"

The stairs were not, as he'd first thought, a single stairway. They weren't even a shifting maze of interconnected stairways like Hogwarts. If only they had been so mundane. Those stairs had followed the laws of physics, more or less. They'd at least agreed on the direction of down. Not so here.

The stairs Sirius led them to had no such decency. They branched and turned, rose and fell, forming a web of stone that stretched without end in every direction. Some ran sideways, rising from walls that became floors. Others ran upside down, ending in balconies with tables and bookshelves that stubbornly refused to fall. Still others jutted out at angles that made his head hurt and his eyes water just looking at. He saw loops of stairs that connected in on themselves and yet rose forever. Or perhaps they fell forever. He didn't want to think about it too long. He saw stairs that intersected other stairs, yet never touched each other. Stairs that faded in and out of view, both real and not. There was an order to it, he could tell; a great pattern just on the edge of seeing. It eluded him, though, along with any notion of how most of the stairs could be reached, let alone used. Gravity, it seemed, had given the whole lot up as a bad job and gone somewhere its efforts were more appreciated. Looking at the confusing tangle, he couldn't say he blamed it. Hermione had once shown him some drawings of impossible staircases in one of her books, and it had made his eyes itch. This reminded him of that (and, painfully, of her. Oh, how she would have loved to see this.), but worse. Oh, so much worse. These had the effrontery to actually exist.

"Welcome, Harry, to the Tower of Fate," Sirius said. "My home. What do you think?"

His mouth wanted to drop open, but he wouldn't let it. He'd stared slack-jawed at too many things in the past day, and he was frankly tired of it. If his whole world was going to tilt on its axis every few hours, he figured he could at least not look like an idiot when it did. "I think," he said slowly, "That if you don't stop acting all mysterious and start giving me some answers, I'll hex your arse clean off. I don't care how old you are, I'll do it, too."

Sirius had the gall to laugh at that, and Harry just about made good on his threat right then and there. He didn't though, and somehow found himself laughing a little along with him. It was hesitant, nervous laughter, but it was laughter all the same, and Merlin did it feel good. The towering mountains of shit he had to deal with didn't get any smaller, but for that moment, they seemed a little further away.

"What is this place?" He choked out.

Sirius just motioned for them to follow. "I told you, it's the Tower of Fate. As for what that means, that explanation is tied to all the others I know you're itching for. If you can forebear from hexing my arse off for a few more minutes, I'll answer your questions. I wasn't lying, though, when I said it was a nice day, and I thought we could talk on the roof."

Harry swallowed his questions again and followed with Red Tornado right behind him. If there was a pattern to the direction his godfather led them through the stairs, he couldn't discern it. Admittedly, most of his attention went to how they had changed orientations as they walked. Sometimes it was obvious, such as when he put his foot on a wall, and it suddenly became the floor. Other times, they emerged at one end of a staircase completely upside down compared to how they'd been at the start of it. Up and down switched directions so often he quickly lost all sense of which way it had been when they'd entered. The fact all the staircases, landings, and balconies were near identical didn't help. He thought he might manage to be the first person ever to get seasick from a staircase on dry land.

"The Tower is disorienting for newcomers, or so I am told," Red Tornado said all of a sudden. "Sirius explained the mechanics behind it, once, but they were beyond my understanding."

Harry eyed the robot warily, but decided it couldn't hurt to talk to it, at least. "Was he telling the truth? When he said he was a superhero, I mean."

That expressionless face turned to face him, and he got the uncomfortable feeling he was being measured somehow. Judged. There was no censure in that voice, though, nor any other emotion. "Sirius Black was, indeed, what you might term a superhero. He and I first met in the Justice Society, a predecessor of today's Justice League."

"I don't understand what any of that means, though." A sullen headache was building behind his eyes, and he couldn't keep all the petulance out of his voice.

"The Justice League is an international organization of heroes from around the world, working together to combat threats beyond any one person's ability to manage. The Justice Society was a less formal and exclusively American precursor to the League, primarily active through the 1940s. As for Sirius Black's connection to the two organizations-" Red Tornado paused and Harry thought, if it were human, it might have shrugged. "Your godfather will be better able to explain than I. It is not my place to share his story. Do not worry. It is only a short distance to our destination."

The robot began to walk away, but Harry called out after it. "Wait! You can't just say something like that and not answer questions."

"I have already explained. Sirius should be the one to tell you his-"

"Fine, fine," Harry interrupted, letting the impatience bubbling in his gut finally boil over a little. "At least tell me about you, then. I mean, you're a bloody robot. There's got to be a story there."

For a moment, Red Tornado just stared at him. Harry worried he'd accidentally offended the robot. Could robots even get offended? Maybe this one could. What did he know? Just as he was about to apologize and forget the whole thing, Red Tornado began to speak.

"Correction: I am not merely a robot. I am an android. I was created in 1940 by Professor T.O. Morrow. He intended for me to serve as a spy and eventual saboteur within the Justice Society. However, his plan was flawed. He gave me the ability to learn and grow, and therefore to alter my own programming. When he called on me to betray my teammates, I refused."

Harry gaped at the robo- no, android. There was so much packed into that statement, he couldn't even decide where to start. Eventually, his poor, tortured brain latched onto a random point and went from there.

"1940! You're-" he paused to do a quick bit of mental arithmetic "- 69 years old? That's crazy." He didn't know much about muggle technology in this world, nor his own for that matter, but even so, he would never have guessed there were talking robo- androids! back in World War II. "How…?"

"The Professor was an unrivaled genius," Red Tornado answered, correctly guessing the source of his confusion. "I have received several upgrades over the decades, but the majority of my systems remain as he designed them. It is a great pity he was insane. Some of his advancements remain a mystery even to this day. For example, no one has yet fully duplicated my powers. I have speculated Morrow used magic to achieve them, but I have no proof."

"Your powers…?" Harry trailed off at the sight of a literal red tornado dancing in the palm of the android's hand. It was only about six inches tall, but he could feel the wind tugging at his hair. "What is that?"

"The winds of this world are mine to command." Red Tornado's voice was as emotionless as ever, but there was a weight to those words that forestalled any more questions. Harry didn't think the android was exaggerating even slightly. Just what sort of crazy monsters had his godfather befriended in this world?

"Well, I guess that explains your name," Harry said lamely. There didn't seem to be anything else to say, though. He was talking to a muggle android from WWII with the sort of power wizards back home could only dream of. What was the appropriate response? Probably gibbering, he thought, but that seemed gauche. Besides, if the rest of the morning was any indication, Sirius was going to give him plenty to gibber over when they got to the roof.

"Hurry up, you two." As if the thought of him had drawn his attention, Sirius shouted down at them from a staircase far above them. He was upside down, and parts of him looked oddly misshapen, as if viewed through bubbled glass. "If you get lost, I'm not going to go looking for you. These stairs are hard enough on my knees."

Harry grimaced, but allowed the conversation to lapse. He thought too much time in this mind bending place would drive him mad even faster than his unanswered questions. Fortunately, after just a few more minutes, they came upon… something. An enormous golden bell, three times as tall as the robot, floating above a large stone platform. Sirius walked up and gave it a sharp rap with his knuckles. It boomed with the same lingering sound Harry had heard earlier and began to glow a bright gold.

"Follow me," Sirius said, and stepped into the bell. He phased through it like a mirage and vanished.

"After you," Red Tornado said, gesturing to the bell. Harry couldn't say if he was nervous or just being polite, and he wasn't about to ask.

"It's just like Platform 9 and ¾," he told himself, and walked through the glowing bell.

It really was just like Platform 9 and ¾, it turned out. A faint tingle washed over his skin, light briefly obscured his vision, and then he was outside in the sun. There was a stone floor beneath him, and crenelated stone walls ringed what looked like a large courtyard, all weathered and stained from centuries of rain and wind. In the center of the courtyard stood Sirius, and something floated in front of him. Harry moved closer and saw it was a strangely designed golden helmet. There were two large holes for eyes, but no opening for a wearer's mouth. It floated in a golden bubble of light, seeming for all the world like a harmless bauble. Looking at it, though, Harry could feel the brush of magic over his skin, raising the hairs along the back of his neck and sending a shiver down his spine. That alone was enough for caution. He'd only felt magic like that from Hogwarts itself.

"You are showing him the Helmet already?" Red Tornado's voice made him jump. How had something so large and heavy snuck up on him?

Sirius snorted, but didn't turn away from the helmet. "I know my godson, Red. There's no surer way of guaranteeing he finds out something he shouldn't than trying to keep it from him. If I don't tell him about it now, he'll probably wind up accidentally wearing the thing and starting a fight with Klarion before a week's gone. Besides, I trust him."

Harry flushed at his godfather's blunt assessment, but said nothing. Sirius had way too much dirt on him to deny anything. Whether he found trouble or trouble found him, the result was the same. He and trouble together again. It was almost romantic, except for the recurring nightmares and the frequent stays in the Hospital Wing.

Sirius finally tore his attention away from the creepy helmet and looked back towards the two of them. Spreading his hands, he gestured, and two armchairs appeared from nothing. He took one and motioned Harry to the other. Red Tornado stayed standing. "Well, ask away. And no hexing, either."

Harry stared into space, unsure of where to start. There was so much, so many questions, so many things that didn't make sense. Floundering, he grasped for the nearest and simplest one he could find. "What's that?" He pointed at the helmet. "And why are you both acting like it's dangerous?"

Sirius eyed the helmet again, a mixture of distaste and… longing on his face. "That is the Helmet of Fate. It's what made me a superhero." He grinned wryly. "I was Doctor Fate, Champion of Order, and Sorcerer Supreme of Earth."

Harry snorted at the pompous sounding titles, but didn't interrupt. He had more than his fair share of experience with fancy names, and couldn't exactly comment.

"The first thing you have to understand, Harry, is magic is different here than you're used to. Stronger, wilder, more flexible and varied, but also rarer. There's no wizarding community here like there is back home. When I first landed, it took a long time to find my footing. I didn't know what was and wasn't possible, but I had a goal. For five years after I arrived here, I was busy looking for a way back to you. Back to my home." His gaze became distant as he cast his mind back more than a century. "I learned a lot those first years from anyone who would teach me. Magic I never thought possible. Spells I'd have once sworn couldn't exist. None of it helped me get back home, though. Eventually, I heard rumors of a great magical power hidden in the Himalayas. The way people talked, it sounded like a god, so I tracked it down. When I investigated, though, I didn't find the way home I'd hoped for. But I did find the Helmet, along with my predecessor, a woman who called herself Shuimu. I thought to leave, to continue looking elsewhere, but she offered to help me. She knew something of my predicament and offered her knowledge and experience to aid my search." He snorted. "It didn't work, of course. Magic is different here, but even with all her knowledge, we never were able to figure it out. But I learned a lot, and she helped me come to terms with being stuck here. Soon enough, I was her apprentice. A lot happened, and most of it isn't important. What is important is that, five years after I first met her, she told me she was dying. Age had caught up with her, and she asked me to be her successor. Nabu agreed, and I accepted."

Harry listened with rapt attention as Sirius told a story too ludicrous to be anything but true. He explained the true nature of the Helmet and the ancient and powerful entity who dwelled within. When he mentioned again that Nabu, a Lord of Order (whatever that was) had chosen him to wear the Helmet, he had to snort.

"I'm sorry," he said at Sirius' bemused look. "But you? A champion of Order? It's a little…"

"Incongruous," Sirius suggested. Harry nodded. That was as good a word as any for arguably the most chaotic man he knew, a Marauder through and through, declaring himself a champion of Order.

"Don't be so quick to judge," Sirius said. "Nabu is a Lord of Order, but that isn't the same thing as being good. Order and Chaos in balance is what allows the universe to proceed as it should. True, if Chaos had its way, it would tear the universe apart and put it back together differently a thousand times every instant. But if it were up to him, Nabu might just wipe out all life on Earth in the service of Order. After all, a dead rock moving in a neat orbit around an unremarkable star is very orderly."

Harry gaped and eyed the Helmet with newfound caution. This time, something about those empty eyes made him shiver. They didn't feel so empty anymore. Something cold and hard stared out of those blank holes. It was like having a mountain glare at him. Sirius caught his glance and nodded approvingly.

"It's good to be wary of power, Harry, and those Powers more than most." He glanced thoughtfully at the Helmet himself. "Nabu may be the might behind Doctor Fate, but the host is just as important. It was my job to add… nuance, you could say. To be the one who understands humanity and Chaos and knows that their link isn't always bad. To give him a perspective he is no longer capable of seeing. Nabu ran the show, but I got to edit the script. Eventually, we were so in sync it was sometimes hard to tell who was in control."

"So, you're the angel on this Nabu's shoulder?" Harry still couldn't quite wrap his mind around the idea of his godfather being the voice of reason. This world was even crazier than his own.

"Was the angel on his shoulder." Sirius emphasized the past tense. "I'm retired now. Wearing the Helmet extended my life, but time catches up with everyone. Being a superhero is a younger man's game. I hung up my cape almost thirty years ago, now. Figured I could spend my golden years as more than just a coat for Nabu to wear."

"But… you still have the Helmet," Harry pointed out. Sirius nodded and looked thoughtful.

"Aye, that I do. Never felt right to pass it on. It's a lot of power; more than you can imagine. I couldn't hand it over to just anybody, and I never found the right successor. Then again, I suppose I didn't look too hard. Not after… well, suffice it to say it hasn't been my biggest priority." He eyed the helmet with something akin to speculation. "Nabu hasn't made a fuss about it either, come to think. Then again, it's not 1942 anymore. The world seems to have gotten on well enough without Doctor Fate."

"Perhaps," Red Tornado said, once again making Harry jump. He'd clean forgotten the robot was on the roof with them. "However, perhaps it is time for you to more actively search for a successor. The League is only so strong. Doctor Fate's return would be a welcome bolster."

Sirius chewed on his lip and shrugged. "Eh, maybe. But the League's got Giovanni to help cover the magical stuff. And like I said, it's not the war anymore. Most of the big threats are still sleeping off the headaches we gave them back then. Besides, it's not like I'm totally out of the game. I'll still step in if you really need me. I'm just not putting that Helmet back on. I'm too old for that."

There was something else, something he wasn't saying, but Harry didn't press. There was too much new information to digest already. He couldn't think of asking for more now. Maybe later. Whatever it was, Red Tornado apparently wasn't inclined to push either. He gave a slight nod and said nothing.

Sirius coughed and smiled thinly. "Enough of that for now, though. There are plenty of stories I'd still like to share."

He told of the wild adventures; of heroes, great and small, living and dead, famous and obscure. Of who and what he'd fought; things that made Voldemort look like a playful kitten. Villains too depraved for words. Beasts from the darker depths of time. Great spirits and wicked gods and a hundred other things besides. From time to time, Red Tornado would chime in, offering corrections, insight, or sometimes just a different point of view. Harry thought Sirius had asked the robot along not just to help explain things, but to offer silent support as he re-lived a tumultuous life. Not all of it was terrible, though.

"I had a family," Sirius said. The first glimmer of tears appeared in his eyes at that, but he pressed on. "My darling wife, Anna. She was a practitioner, too, and a sharp one. Not very powerful, but clever enough to make up for it tenfold. We met in 1923, and somehow I convinced her to marry me. Ha! Greatest prank I've ever played, that. I got to call the most amazing woman I've ever met my wife, and the mother of my children, and she got to deal with a dimensionally displaced old lunatic who spent half his time possessed by a stiff-necked god. But she always seemed to think it was a good deal."

Harry latched on to one particular part of what he'd just heard. "You had kids?"

Sirius smiled, and Harry wasn't sure he'd ever seen someone look so sad and so happy all at once. "Oh, yes, and grandkids, if you can believe it. I've still got a few descendants kicking about, but I try not to get involved. Most of them don't even know I exist, and safest they never learn. I know one's in London; last I checked, anyway. He got himself into a bit of trouble a few years back. Some sort of botched summoning, I think. I tried to help him, but he wouldn't have it. Wouldn't even talk about it, and claimed he didn't want anything to do with me."

The tears Harry had glimpsed earlier didn't fall, but as he spoke, Sirius withered like a tree in winter. For the first time, the weight of years was obvious on him. Hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, and lines like an old map all ghosted across his face in time with the remembered hurt. Harry almost asked what had happened with his children and grandchildren before he caught himself. Sirius had very deliberately glossed over those details, and even Harry's curiosity knew better than to pry into something like that. Not now, anyway.

"It was not your fault, what happened," Red Tornado said. Harry thought he was referring to more than just this troubled descendant in London. "Even you are not omnipotent. It does no good to regret not solving an unsolvable problem."

Sirius shuddered and pursed his lips, but nodded. "Thanks, Red. You're a better friend than you give yourself credit for." He took a moment to compose himself, and when he had, he once again could have passed for a fit man of 65. "Anyway, after Anna… passed, I relocated to America. The Tower's been here ever since."

"Wait, we're in America?" Harry asked. The landscape he could see from where he sat looked heavily wooded and vaguely mountainous, but nothing about it had screamed America to his eyes. Then again, he'd never really thought much about America, so he wasn't sure what to expect, especially not 13 years in the future in a completely different world.

"Mmhmm. Northern bit of Maine, if you want to know, but the Tower can move wherever it needs to. I like it here, though. Nice views, private, no neighbors- what? What's that look?"

Harry smirked. "You really are an old man. Next you'll be moaning how kids these days have no respect."

Sirius scoffed in mock outrage and vanished his chair from under him with the flick of a finger. Half expecting the response, Harry managed to turn his fall into a clumsy roll backwards. For a moment, they stared at each other, searching for weakness. Then, simultaneously, they laughed.

"Oh, your father would be proud of you if he'd heard that one," Sirius said. "Your mother, too. She never missed an opportunity to take the piss out of someone who deserved it, did Lily."

Harry smiled at the comparison. He heard himself compared to his father almost weekly, but his mother? She came up not even a quarter as often. He treasured any tidbit on her like a starving man treasured even the meanest scraps.

Sirius conjured another chair for him, and they kept talking. He had more than a century of stories to tell, after all, and Harry soaked it all in. Anything was better than thinking about the grim truth hovering over him like an asteroid. He wasn't going home. Sirius had looked for decades and found nothing. He was never going home.

The thought was too big, too painful, too unreal to process, so he pushed it aside in favor of listening to Sirius. He talked for hours. At some point, shortly after sunset, Red Tornado excused himself and flew off in a literal red tornado. Sirius kept talking, though, until it was fully dark and getting chilly.

"So, what do you think?" He asked as he wrapped up a story of his first battle with something called Wotan. "About everything, I mean."

Harry paused before answering. His thoughts were still a disorganized whirl, with confusion and anger fighting for space with amazement and happiness at seeing Sirius alive and whole. "It's… a lot," he said finally. "I mean, this place is crazy!"

Sirius nodded. "It is at that. Crazy, but also amazing."

"And we can't go back?" Harry knew the answer, but he still had to ask. He refused to surrender that last little bit of hope without a fight.

"No," Sirius said, old pain in his eyes. "Traveling to other worlds, other universes, is hard enough. Possible, but only just, and dangerous besides. Finding our specific world amongst all the others only makes it harder. But even if we did manage that, and I've never even gotten that far, it wouldn't matter. Like Death said, the Veil has rules. So far as I've been able to figure, when we passed through it, we were barred from going back. Whoever built it tapped into some major Powers. If Death herself couldn't break that rule, then it's unbreakable."

Harry doubled over as if punched. He'd known the answer, known it before he even got out of bed. But hearing it from his godfather really drove it in. Home was lost to him. His friends were lost to him. Nausea twisted his stomach, and he only just turned his head in time to avoid puking all over his shoes. Hot tears burned his cheeks as his stomach rebelled, and blood pounded in his ears. He didn't even register Sirius standing up and walking over before he felt a firm hand on his back, and a familiar voice next to him. The words were lost among the rushing in his head and the sounds of retching, but the tone got through. Comfort. Understanding. Reassurance. Sirius was there, and he wasn't going anywhere.

Eventually, his stomach emptied. He gagged once more, this time on nothing, and slumped back. The pounding in his ears slowly lessened, and he could make out what Sirius was saying.

"-there. Easy. Just breathe. It's alright, just breathe. You'll be alright. I'm right here, Harry."

"I'm sorry," Harry rasped, his throat raw and stinging from bile. He tried to spit the foul taste out of his mouth, but it didn't work.

"Don't worry about it." Sirius waved a hand and the stinking mess vanished. Another wave, and then he was handing him a glass of water. Harry took it gratefully and washed his mouth clean of the rancid flavor of vomit. He didn't trust himself to stand yet, so he sat back onto the stone floor and caught his breath.

"Better?" Sirius asked when he'd stopped panting.

"Yeah." He looked at where the puddle of sick had been. "Sorry."

"I said don't worry about it." Sirius' eyes were still worried as he looked at him. "I'm the one who should be sorry. I've been taking this way too fast. I didn't mean to overwhelm you like that."

Harry shook his head. "No! I wanted to know. I needed to know. It's just…"

"I get it." Sirius squeezed his shoulder and refilled his glass with water. "It was hard for me to come to terms with it, too. It took years. But I promise, I'll be here for you. We're family, Harry, and I'm going to make sure you have a home here. Okay?"

Harry nodded and sipped at his water. "So, what now?"

Sirius stood and helped him to his feet. "Now, we see about getting you settled into the Tower. Tomorrow you can pick out a room for yourself, and we can figure out what you're going to do. I suppose we'll also have to figure out school."

"School?" The thought of something as normal as school was more than a little baffling. School was something that happened to people who hadn't just fallen across time and universes.

"You're damn right, school. I'm your godfather, which means it's my job to raise you with your parents gone. And that means school. Magical and muggle. And you will be getting good grades." He must have seen Harry's lost expression, but he continued pitilessly. "From what I remember, Dumbledore always said you were brilliant, but didn't apply yourself properly. Well, trust me, that isn't going to fly anymore."

Harry could only look on in shock. He felt as if he were watching the whole conversation from afar. Was he being… parented? He'd never been parented before. It was strange, but not unpleasant.

"Your parents were both great in school, especially Lily," Sirius continued. "Don't get me wrong, your dad was clever, but she was an absolute genius. I'm not about to let their son slack off on his education. So get ready, because tomorrow we start getting you up to speed."

"I- but it's summer," he protested. There was a sense of vast, cosmic unfairness closing in around him. "I just finished school."

"Ha! You've got at least five years of muggle schooling to make up for, and a whole new world of magic to learn." Sirius grinned maniacally. "Trust me, by the time I'm through with you, you'll be the best damn wizard your age the world has ever seen."

Harry eyed him warily. 'I knew he was crazy, but this?' He thought. When he saw the look in Sirius' eyes though, the warm softness he dared to hope might be love, he sighed. 'Well, I suppose there are worse things.'

OoOoOoOoOoOoO

Congratulations to all of you who guessed Sirius was Doctor Fate. It wasn't too hard to figure out, but then again, it wasn't meant to be. The other prevailing theory was that Sirius is watching the Tower for the Doctor which, given he is mostly retired, is also mostly correct. So, well done all of you. But wait, I hear you saying. Where is Kent Nelson? Don't worry. I haven't forgotten about him. You'll have to wait for his story until chapter 6, though.

By the way, for anyone who's curious, Sirius' wife Anna is actually based on a real DC character with ties to Doctor Fate named Anna Fortune. She was a magic user and a blonde, but aside from those traits and her name, that's the only real connection between the comic book character and this version. I might go into more detail on her in the future, but for now she'll remain mostly a mystery. As for Shuimu, she is named after a legendary figure from Chinese mythology. To my knowledge, she has never appeared in any DC or Marvel comic book.

Leave a review to let me know what you think, and goodbye until next time.