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Metal and Magic

Chapter 1

Beads of sweat rolled down Harry Potter's forehead. His breathing was ragged, and the stitch in his side was hurting with every step. He was running down the Atrium of the abandoned Ministry of Magic. Footsteps could be heard gaining on him from behind. Reaching deep within him, Harry summoned every last ounce of strength and moved his legs even faster. "In here!" one of the few remaining Death Eaters shouted. Harry took only a second to look over his shoulder and saw three masked men barreling toward him. Reaching into his pocket, Harry pulled out a circular glass vial filled with a dark purple liquid. He tossed it over his shoulder as far as he could.

The explosion was concussive. The shockwave knocked him forward, and he hit the floor hard. His body slid across the marble floor for almost ten feet before he came to a stop. He groaned for only a second before remembering the situation he was in. Rolling over onto his back, Harry pointed his wand, fully expecting to see at least one of the Death Eaters still coming for him. Instead, he saw smoke, rubble, and scattered body parts. The Death Eaters hadn't even had time to scream. Arms and legs were spread out across the floor, and the walls were peppered with spots of blood. Chunks of flesh and shredded clothes were stuck on the ceiling and sliding down the walls. Slightly sickened by the sight, Harry shakily got to his feet and ignored the ringing in his ears. He had a job to do.

The war hadn't ended as quickly as he had hoped, and sadly, a lot of good people had died. Of course, they took as many Death Eaters with them as they could. The magical community was in complete ruin, and only Hogwarts stood the test of time. At almost nineteen, Harry had spent the better part of two years looking for Voldemort's Horcruxes. Once they had all finally been destroyed, he had hoped to get his chance to face Voldemort. How things would end … He had no clue. By that point, he was just tired of fighting. When Voldemort discovered the loss of his Horcruxes, the bastard went into hiding. At that point in time, the war had turned in Harry's favor, and the Dark Lord had very few followers left. Seeing that he was more vulnerable than he had ever been, it was no surprise that he had hidden himself away from the world. Sadly for him, secrets never stay buried forever.

Harry received word from one of the last living Unspeakables. The hidden censors he had placed in the Department of Mysteries had detected a presence. Whoever it was, they were spending a lot of time in the Death Chamber. This immediately piqued his interest. No normal person would just go and hang out in that depressing room. Harry, Ron, and Hermione had gone to the Ministry for a bit of recon. Sure enough, about two dozen or so Death Eaters, which was all he had left, were secretly guarding the entrance to the Ministry. The Floo Network had long been destroyed, so the normal entrance was all that was left. Knowing Voldemort was in there and up to no good, they quickly put together a plan.

At dawn, the rest of Harry's supporters waged an all-out assault on the Death Eater guards while Harry snuck into the Ministry. As Harry used the lift to take him down to level nine, he only hoped that his friends were okay.

Metal and Magic

Voldemort cackled with glee as the tattered, fluttering Veil burst into black flames. As the flames engulfed it, he used a silver knife to slice a cut across his palm. When enough blood had pooled in his hand, he flicked his arm towards the flames and splashed some of his blood into the fire. The fire began crackling, and the heat intensified. When the room became boiling hot, the flames suddenly froze. They didn't turn to ice … that would have been ridiculous. No, they just stopped moving. They had frozen in time. Voldemort waited impatiently for something to happen. Just when he thought that he might have screwed things up, the flames flickered out of existence, and a black void replaced it. The room immediately went from boiling hot to ice cold.

"Yessss," he hissed excitedly, his breath coming out like a fog. He ran his hand along the outer surface of the stone archway and found the correct ancient runes that were nearly invisible in the low light of the Death Chamber. Tapping each one with his wand, they began to glow with light whiter than he had ever seen before. Then, the void let out a low hum, and the stone archway began trembling. This was it, he thought. "Let's hope this new world is better than this one," he said to himself. The only bad thing about leaving this shit hole was that he would have to start his plan for world domination all over again. He didn't give two shits about his worthless followers. They thought he was in there working on a weapon to destroy their enemies. Little did they know that they had always been brainless pawns.

The humming was so loud that it was starting to hurt his ears. He reached down and picked up his bag. He had pilfered as much as he could in preparation for his trip. There was no way in hell he was going to start over with nothing to his name. He turned toward the void, waiting for it to fully charge. Suddenly, behind him, there was a flash of light. He barely had time to turn before his free arm was sliced clean off. It dropped to the ground with a meaty thud that went unheard over the loud humming. He cried out in agony and dropped his bag. There was another flash, and his instincts kicked in. His wand was in his last remaining hand in an instant, and he parried the curse, not seeing the one directly behind it. A grapefruit-sized crater was ripped through his chest, and Voldemort stumbled to the side. Harry Potter was running down the stone tiers toward him. Voldemort cursed himself for getting caught off guard. He tried to fire back but was forced to avoid another curse, which sailed directly into the void and disappeared.

Metal and Magic

As Harry dropped down into the pit, he flicked the Elder Wand and sent another twisting curse at Voldemort. Blood was pouring from his chest, but he was still able to throw up a magical shield in time to intercept it. His shield shattered upon impact, and he dropped to his knees. There was no sympathy in Harry's heart for him. Voldemort had killed his parents and friends and had ruined countless lives. With as much hatred as he could, he fired another Sectumsempra directly at Voldemort's neck. The bastard still had enough life left in him to attempt to duck under it. He moved his head low, and the curse clipped the top of his skull clean off. Voldemort let out a pained wheeze and collapsed to the ground. Harry stopped short and watched as blood pooled from the top of his head. He then summoned the Dark Lord's wand and caught it from the air. Stuffing it into his pocket, Harry slowly walked over to the dying man. He stopped beside him and looked down. Voldemort tried to say something, but it came out with a wet gurgle. His breathing was very shallow, and his eyes looked glassy. Wanting to get this over with as soon as possible, Harry pointed the Elder Wand at him and hit him right between the eyes with a powerful Piercing Hex. The back of his skull exploded against the ground, and his head jerked violently. For good measure, Harry severed his head and piled the remains away from the humming archway. He flicked his wand again, burning the Dark Lord's remains to ashes. As he watched it burn, he was overcome with a sense of relief and satisfaction. No one else would have to die because of him. Before he could do anything else, the humming turned into a high-pitched whine. Harry spun around just in time to see the black void turn into a brilliant white light.

He was forced to block the light with his hand; it was so bright. The archway's tremble turned into a full-blown earthquake. The entire room was now shaking, and his only thought was to get the hell out of there. Harry turned to run up the stone tiers but was stopped by an unbreakable force. The high-pitched whine became a low-pitched thumping drum that sounded eerily similar to a heartbeat. His body was being magically pulled backward toward the swirling white portal. Harry dropped to the ground to avoid the torches which had been ripped away from the walls. They flew overhead and were sucked into the portal. Dust and pebbles were hitting his face, stinging and choking him. Harry was still being pulled back and dragged across the ground. Harry cried out in panic and clawed at the floor. He was able to get his hand into a crack in the stone floor, and he held on for dear life. Within seconds, his arm felt like it was about to be ripped from the socket. He knew he couldn't hold on for much longer. With nothing left to do, Harry pointed his wand and called out, "Expecto Patronum!"

The ethereal stag flew out of his wand and trotted around him, not affected by the portal's pull. "Hermione! I killed Voldemort!" he exclaimed quickly. "He created a portal, I think …" Harry winced in pain as his arm trembled and his muscles cramped. "I'm being sucked in … AHHH!" he cried out as his fingers burned. Harry attempted to apparate, but as he expected, the wards kept him from doing so. "Don't worry about me … I love you guys!" was the last thing he said. He shoved his wand into his pocket, and the stag disappeared through the wall to deliver his message. By then, the pull was getting even stronger, and Harry had no hope of hanging on any longer. Showing true Gryffindor courage, he let go and accepted his fate. Moments after being sucked in, the archway went critical, exploded, and completely destroyed the Death Chamber.

Metal and Magic

Harry suddenly woke from a dreamless state. He was on his back, laying on the hard ground. Blinking his eyes a few times to help regain his composure, Harry sat up in a flash when he remembered what had just happened to him. Looking around wildly, he saw nothing but pitch-black darkness. He knew he wasn't dead. The ache in his muscles told him that much. When going through the portal, he wasn't worried about dying. There was no way Voldemort would intentionally kill himself. The only thing he had ever been afraid of was death. That being said, Harry didn't know where the portal had taken him. Was it to a different place … a different time … he had no way of knowing. The air was stuffy and had an unpleasant smell, like when you re-entered your empty house after a long vacation. Harry stuffed his hand into his pocket and grabbed the Elder Wand. A moment later, the room he was in was filled with brilliant white light.

Calling it a room was a bit of a stretch. It looked more like a small stone chamber. To his right was a partially destroyed stone rectangle. Harry went in for a closer look. He was confused when he realized it was an empty sarcophagus. The lid was on the ground on the opposite side of the box and was cracked into three pieces. 'Definitely Egyptian,' Harry told himself as he studied the hieroglyphics … not that he could read them. The outside of the crumbling sarcophagus was filled with them, as were the walls of the chamber. Thankfully, the sarcophagus was empty. Forgetting about that for the time being, Harry looked around the chamber. Besides the stone box, everything else in the chamber appeared to be from the Death Chamber. There were snuffed-out torches and bits of debris on the ground. Seeing Voldemort's bag against the far wall, Harry rushed over and picked it up. When he turned around, he saw an exact copy of the archway from the Death Chamber placed against the wall he had woken up next to. The veil was missing, and it was severely cracked. It looked as though the slightest touch would cause it to crumble into a hundred pieces. Deciding to leave that for another time, all Harry's thoughts were about escaping the chamber he was in.

Most of the walls were made of massive stone blocks stacked perfectly atop one another. The only part that wasn't was a stretch of wall blocked by much smaller stone bricks that were comparatively poor in quality. 'That's my way out,' he guessed Apparating out would be too risky, and he had never learned to make a Portkey, so he had to do the next best thing. Aiming his wand, he slowly summoned the smaller stones away from the rest of the wall, only for the room to start flooding with sand. Thinking fast, Harry sent a powerful Banishing Charm at the flowing sand. It exploded outward, and he was rewarded with blinding sunlight. However, more sand quickly began filling the newly made hole. Clutching the bag tightly in his throbbing hand, Harry transformed into his Animagus form, which was that of a Common Raven. Transforming with his clothes and wand was always uncomfortable, but transforming with anything large was downright painful, Harry thought as the bag melded and fused into his skin. Unfortunately, he had no other choice. As soon as he was transformed, he flapped his wings and shot through the rapidly closing hole. Within seconds, his heart soared as he was back in the air where he belonged. Hermione theorized that his form was a bird because of his love of flying. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out, Harry thought as he banked with the wind current. Down below, all he could see was a sea of golden sand.

In his animal form, his senses differed from those of a human. He could smell the water close by and roughly knew its distance. Knowing that cities and towns were often located near water sources, Harry flew in that direction. After twenty minutes of hard flying, Harry spotted a winding river and followed it upstream. It took about twenty more minutes until he reached a large city. By then, the sun was beginning to set, and the city lights were blinking into existence. Harry circled the outer edge of the city until he found a place that offered some privacy. Landing in an empty alley, Harry transformed back into a human and winced loudly from the discomfort. He hated transforming while holding anything of significant size and only did it in emergencies. Harry leaned against a shop wall and took stock of his situation. He didn't know where or when he was, and the only possessions he had were his and Voldemort's wands, Voldemort's bag, and the clothes on his back. He had no idea if his friends were okay, and he wasn't even sure if he would ever see them again. Harry basically knew nothing. He had to fight off a sudden surge of panic and shock. 'I've been in worse situations,' he told himself and then took a deep breath. After his momentary episode was quelled, he came up with a quick plan.

'Step one … Find out where you are,' he told himself. As it turned out, it was easier said than done. Once he ventured forth from the alley, the people he passed were all speaking Arabic, a language Harry definitely didn't understand. Not only that, but all the signs and advertisements were written in the curvy Arabic alphabet. He had no choice but to keep walking. The people he passed seemed friendly enough. A few nodded as he walked by, but most chose to just take a quick glance at him. By the time he found his answer, the sun had completely set, and the only source of light came from the windows of buildings and the smattering of street lamps.

A large sign that looked fifty years past its prime read, "Grand Cairo Bazaar" in smaller letters underneath what he assumed was the same name written in larger Arabic. An address was written under the text.

"Cairo?" Harry asked himself. He was shocked that he had ended up in Egypt, but then again, he wasn't surprised. All of the previous signs pointed to it. You don't wake up next to an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus and expect to be in London, after all. With step one completed, he could now move on to step two. He had to get back to England.

Getting back to England was surprisingly easy for someone with magic. He simply went to the Cairo International Airport and made himself invisible in one of the bathrooms. Then he snuck on board the earliest flight to London. The only bad part was having to stay invisible the entire time.

Metal and Magic

"Shit!" Harry cursed under his breath. Every place he visited was different. Instead of seeing the Burrow, there was nothing but an empty plot of land where a few dozen sheep were grazing. Grimmauld Place still existed, but it was obviously owned by a Muggle family. A clean, shiny sedan was parked out front, and a smattering of children's toys was scattered across the front of the townhouse. The building itself looked to be in much better shape. There was no flaking paint and broken shutters. Overall, it was very well-kept.

Harry apparated to Privet Drive and found a similar result. The house was still there, but it was a completely different color. He knocked on the door to make sure, and an elderly woman he had never seen answered.

"Is Steve here?" Harry asked, making up a name on the spot.

"There's no one here by that name, young man. I think you might have the wrong address," the old woman told him kindly. Harry smiled back and nodded.

"Yes, I think I might. Sorry for the trouble, Ma'am," Harry nodded his head.

"It's no problem at all," she smiled back. "Have a good night," she said, slowly closing the door.

"You as well," Harry quickly added and left. It was another dead end.

The Ministry of Magic was non-existent, as was Platform Nine-And-Three-Quarters. Giving it one last shot, Harry apparated to Hogsmeade, but all he found was wilderness. The small magical village was absent, and the hulking castle, Hogwarts, was nowhere to be seen. They simply didn't exist, and it looked as though they never had. Harry sat down on a partially exposed boulder and put his head in his hands. It was as he feared. He didn't just travel to a different place or time … He traveled to a completely different reality. At least, that's what Harry suspected. What other explanation was there? Harry had no clue how to even attempt to get back to his home world. The archway in the tomb was broken and likely useless, and Harry didn't even come close to having the magical knowledge to pull something like that off. No, for all intents and purposes, Harry was stuck here. Still, he held out hope. Maybe he would find a way back at some point in the future, and even if he couldn't, at least his loved ones could rebuild without the haunting spectre of Voldemort looming over them. With nothing to do and nowhere to go, Harry sat there for a while, wistfully staring at the empty space where Hogwarts should have been.

When Harry stopped sulking and got to his feet, he accepted his situation and decided to make the best of it. Fate had dealt him a shitty hand more than once, and he always persisted. Harry was a survivor. He had survived Hogwarts' crazy adventures. He had survived Voldemort and his Death Eaters, and now he would survive this. By the time he stood, the night was well underway, and the air was crisp. He was about to leave when his foot hit something. Looking down, he saw Voldemort's bag at his feet. Harry had completely forgotten about it. "Let's see what he packed," Harry said to no one in particular.

Metal and Magic

Harry took a sip of tea and stretched out on the cushy sofa. With no money and no identification, there was only so much he could legally do. As such, Harry took a page out of Slughorn's book and began staying in Muggle homes whose owners had gone on extended vacations. He would stay in one house for a few days and then move into another. He always slept on the sofa and stayed out of everyone's rooms. He found it a bit too creepy to do otherwise. Harry placed his teacup down and flipped the page in his book.

If Harry thought that Voldemort's bag was going to be filled with gold and other treasures, he was very wrong. The git didn't even pack a magical tent. Instead, the magically expanded bag was filled with hundreds of spell, ritual, and potions books, not to mention an entire apothecary shop worth of ingredients and equipment. Still, Harry wasn't going to complain. The books held a wealth of knowledge that he could benefit from. Harry wagered that Voldemort planned to murder some innocent Muggle and take over his home. That sounded like something he would do.

Harry yawned and put the book down. There was only so much he could read in a night. The house he was currently in was very comfortable, and he would have to regretfully vacate it in the morning. He knew that he would have to figure something out. He couldn't do this for the rest of his life. It had been two weeks since his arrival, and for the most part, he had hidden himself away from the world. Harry told himself he just needed time to acclimate to his new situation. Two weeks was enough. Living in other people's houses and stealing food from the local grocery stores wasn't a very good long-term plan. Yawning again, Harry grabbed the remote and turned on the television.

"Dumb," he said as a crappy reality TV show came on, and he flipped the channel. "Boring," he stated as a snooker game popped up. He changed the channel again and came upon the evening news.

" … has been missing for over forty-eight hours. Billionaire weapons manufacturer Tony Stark and his military escort were ambushed in Afghanistan by suspected terrorist militants. The bodies of his escort were recovered from the site, but Tony Stark remains missing. Why he was in Afghanistan is unknown, and inquiries to the US Department of Defense have gone unanswered. Tony Stark's personal secretary, Virginia Potts, released a statement earlier today."

The scene then changed to a pretty woman with strawberry blonde hair looking tired and forlorn. Harry didn't pay much attention to her pleas for a safe return. He had his own problems to worry about. However, when she spoke of a reward, Harry put his cup of tea down and listened closer.

"... Stark Industries is offering a five million dollar reward for any information leading to Mr. Stark's safe return. You can remain anonymous, of course. If you have information to share, please get in contact with …"

Harry was paying close attention. Five million dollars could fix a lot of his problems. After the news report changed to something mundane, Harry ignored it and drank his tea. There was a chance that this Tony Stark character was already dead, but she seemed to think otherwise. Perhaps it was blind optimism or being in denial, or maybe she had information that the general public didn't. Either way, Harry was intrigued. He was used to living a chaotic lifestyle, so tracking down a wayward billionaire wasn't exactly out of left field for him. If done correctly, he shouldn't end up in too much danger. There was a very real possibility that he wouldn't be able to find out anything about the whereabouts of Tony Stark, but if that was the case, at least he was getting out of the house and doing something. It was better than sitting on the couch all day and doing nothing. The only problem was that Afghanistan was very far from London, and he wasn't even sure if there were any commercial flights to the war-torn country.

Something strange suddenly came over him. The last two weeks, Harry would fully admit that he was in some kind of funk. Now, however, he was starting to feel like his old self. For the first time since his arrival, Harry felt excited. He had something to do … a purpose. It wasn't exactly saving the world, but at least it was something to take his mind off the fact that he had lost everyone he loved. His body suddenly felt charged and energetic. Harry grabbed the phone book and found the number to Heathrow Airport.