A look into Tony's point of view of recent events. Even though I wrote all the chapters in order, this one was in my head from the moment I decided to write this fic. Technically, chapters 6, 7, and 8 all go together but they would have been too much in a single chapter, so I'll try to get the next chapter out quickly.

Thank you to all the comments, kudos, and favorites!

"JARVIS, find me everything on Harry Anthony Evans from Little Whinging… or Chard England. Born to a Lily Evans on July 31st, 1998."

The moment Tony saw the scrawny, couldn't-be-over-twelve-year-old, kid sitting on the table in Bio-Lab 12, he knew the kid was his. No, he didn't feel any biological connection drawing him to the kid. Tony didn't have a paternal bone in his body. Simply put, in person the kid looked more like a green-eyed version of Tony in his early teen years than he had in the picture. Of course, expecting the paternity test to be positive and actually seeing it displayed in all its glory on the big screen of his best conference room were two entirely different monsters. Thank God for Pepper and her ability to stay in control under pressure because Tony wouldn't have been able to function with the lawyers had the kid… his kid… Harry… stayed there while they signed the transfer of custody papers.

Which, in itself, was strange. This man, Severus, a supposed friend of Lily's but whom her son referred to as "Professor" or "Snape" had everything primed and ready for them; as much as Tony's lawyers had, making the whole thing rather simple. Suddenly, with a few signed agreements for privacy on all accounts, and an odd pseudo-threat not to capitalize on Harry's identity, he had a son. An almost fifteen-year-old son who grew up with his aunt and uncle until their mysterious death landed him on Tony's doorstep.

Dinner had been an interesting affair. Tony and Harry shared their love of bacon on pizza, Tony told stories about his old boarding school and college days, and they all had a few good laughs at British lingo. By the end, Harry seemed at ease for the first time since Tony saw him through the Bio-Lab mirror, proving, as always, that Pepper was right in her suggestion to hold off on any serious "getting to know him" talk had paid off. That was what tonight was for because, in Tony's extensive experience, people withhold the most vital information, anyway. A fact he, unfortunately, believed relevant to Harry after seeing whatever attack he had at the end of dinner.

Tony had wanted to follow Harry into his room, but Pepper stopped him. Whatever had happened, Harry didn't seem surprised by it nor did he want to discuss it. At least, not yet. At some point, if Harry didn't offer the information first, Tony would have to nudge him about it. That was what fathers did, right? Except for his, of course. When Tony broke his arm after falling off his "self-improved" bicycle, Howard Stark barely looked up from his notebook. He simply muttered something about learning how to fix the problem for his next prototype. Tony had never wanted to become a father for fear of becoming Howard, so taking an interest in his son's mysterious medical condition seemed as good of a place to start as any.

Which was how he found himself down in his workshop at one o'clock in the morning asking JARVIS to find whatever he could about Harry. And to Tony's surprise, JARVIS delivered the request at record speed.

"I've placed all the files found for Harry Anthony Evans born to Lily Evans on July 31 1998 in London, England onto monitor three."

"That was quick." Tony spun his chair to face the monitor and physically startled at the whooping three images on his screen: Harry's birth certificate filed on August 14th, 1998, his passport application and subsequent passport issued last week, and a one-way flight he boarded from Heathrow to LaGuardia — including security footage of him and the Professor at the airport and then at outside some shitty hotel in Queens. "Uh, Jay? Why are there only these three?"

"That is all there is, Sir."

"Not suspicious at all." Tony ran his hand down his tired face. "This might be more complicated than I expected."

"You know?" Pepper said from behind him right as Tony was about to expand his search parameters. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, looking at the screen over his head. "When I said you should wait to get to know Harry, this isn't what I had in mind. And yet, I am more surprised than I should be."

"I couldn't sleep–"

"Obviously."

"–so I came down here to tinker a bit. Figured I'd work on fixing the trajectory issue on the propulsion system of my new suit. It was off by a smidge in testing last week." He twisted the chair to face her. She had her rose gold robe tied around her and a glorious cup of coffee in her hand, which she placed on his desk. "But it just so happens that tinkering doesn't help when the distraction is my long-lost fourteen-year-old son sleeping on the other side of our home."

A chair slowly rolled up to Pepper. She sat down with a whispered "Thanks" to DUM-E.

"And all this–" she referenced the documents on the screen, "–will help you sleep?"

Unable to ignore the judgment written clearly on her face and the disappointment in her voice, he broke down, falling into his typical pattern of swift — borderline manic — talking.

"Don't you find it all a little too convenient, Pep?" He practically spat at her, his mind moving a thousand miles per second. "This creep shows up… after lurking around us for days, breaks into our floor–which by the way should be impossible and I can't find any explanation for. But he shows up with a kid… a kid he says is mine… whose mother I hardly remember and she didn't want me to have, by the way… and he has an answer for literally everything. The birth certificate, pictures, custody paperwork, all wrapped up in a nice little package, and off we go." He snapped his fingers for emphasis. "Just like that. Happy family. Done."

Pepper's head swayed from side to side, but Tony knew better than to assume he had convinced her. "I mean, yeah, it was cleaner than I would have thought. He didn't seem to want anything like the others did, except for Harry to be with you."

"A bit too altruistic for my liking. No one does something for nothing."

"But Tony," There was the voice… the voice where Tony knew he'd lost her, "the circumstances don't change the results. Unless you think he somehow hacked into your network–"

"Impossible."

"Then Harry is your son, regardless of how he got here or why." Her hand resting on his knee tightened. "He's here now, in a foreign country without a soul in his corner. He needs you."

"And I get that," Tony reasoned because he did understand. Even for his level of skepticism, it seemed hard to believe a fourteen-year-old was behind something nefarious. And yet… "I can't shake the feeling he's hiding something. You saw him today at lunch. He paused to think before almost every answer. Then he looked over at Dracula half the time when he spoke. And then the Count just, what, leaves? Doesn't wait to make sure the kid of his 'good childhood friend' is safe?

"Something's not right with them. I thought maybe Harry ran away, but there aren't any missing persons reports matching his description. Actually, there's nothing on him at all, which further supports my suspicion." Feeling himself slipping, Tony took a deep breath. "I can't help him if I don't know all parts of the equation. I just… I need to know either what's going on or to find the proof that nothing is."

Pepper nodded. Not her 'you make a good point' nod, it was more of an 'I see I won't change your mind so I'm going to step away' kind of nod. To Tony, it felt like a half-win, and he'd take whatever he could get.

"Just remember what I said last night. Innocent until proven guilty. Don't forget he's a fourteen-year-old, probably scared but too proud to admit it, kid who didn't ask for any of this. You're all he has, Tony, and you know what that feels like." She stood and tucked the chair beneath the table before leaning over to place a soft kiss on his cheek. "Don't stay up too late."

God, he hated how Pepper knew exactly the right thing to say to force him to question his actions. Sitting at the desk, reading over his kid's birth certificate for the umpteenth time, he debated closing it all down for the night and doing it the old-fashioned way by actually talking to his son. All he knew was Harry had lived with his aunt and uncle, who recently died too, after Lily had died in a car accident — at least that was what Harry told them over lunch. Yes, he seemed hesitant to talk about it, but to Pepper's point, the kid had been through a lot in a short few days.

Except Tony knew himself well enough to know he wouldn't sleep until JARVIS told him Harry had nothing to hide.

"JARVIS?"

"I take you will not heed Miss. Potts advice?"

Tony ignored the sass he'd gotten used to years ago. "Try Lily Evans in the UK. Use her picture as a reference for facial recognition to narrow the scope down."

Lily's search took JARVIS longer to compile, and after he transferred the information to Tony's computers, Tony had to adjust the criteria until he found Lily Evans of Cokeworth, born on January 30th, 1978. Using her information, he discovered her birth certificate, primary school records, Harry's birth certificate, and a marriage certificate to someone named James Potter dated January 15, 1999, around six months after Harry was born. There were no secondary or postsecondary school documents and no work history. The final document associated with her was her death certificate, which listed a house gas explosion as the cause of death on Halloween 1999. A completely different story than the car accident Harry described, and if the boy and professor lied about one thing, there was almost certainly more to find.

"Jay?" Tony questioned his partner-in-crime. "Anything about a gas explosion in Chard?"

"One, Sir, but it does not provide any other information on the cause. Two were deceased, James and Lily Potter, and one minor child survived. His name is not listed."

Talking out loud to himself as much as to JARVIS he asked, "So why does Harry think his parents died in a car accident when Lily's cause of death is a gas explosion? And what are the odds a toddler survives something like that?"

Tony stood and began making digital notes on the screen with his StarkPen, connecting lines between documents in a vain attempt to connect the pieces.

"Ok." He took a step to review his work, albeit limited, thus far. "Check out the husband. Uh… James Fleamont Potter. Who the fuck gives their kid the name Fleamont? You know what? That's unique enough, put Fleamont in as a parameter too. All in the UK."

"Working on it, Sir."

With a sigh, Tony took a sip of the warm coffee. The gesture basically proved Pepper's acceptance of his research. Why else would she bring him caffeine to keep him awake and fuel his mind?

"James Fleamont Potter has pulled up no new results," JARVIS announced, and even he sounded confused by the revelation. "Merely the same article on the home explosion in Lily Potter's file and the marriage certificate."

"That's impossible," Tony muttered. "Birth certificate?"

"No, nothing, Sir," JARVIS responded. "Nor did I find anything on Fleamont plus Potter."

"How does someone without a government-issued birth certificate get a marriage certificate?"

He crossed James Potter off his list and began summarizing what little he had to go on, primarily Lily Evans' sufficient records until the summer after she turned eleven. There was nothing else until Harry was born, followed by her marriage to a ghost and their strange deaths. Somehow, Harry's side of the board was worse. But Tony kept returning to the names Lily Potter neé Evans, James Potter, and Harry Evans.

"For fun," Tony eventually said out loud, "try searching Harry Potter and add facial recognition from every ATM, traffic camera, and museum in England using the picture the Count brought us."

With no adoption papers, it seemed like a long shot at first, but Tony remembered how the Professor mentioned Lily heavily implied Harry was her future husband's child — not boyfriend, he noted. She obviously used her maiden name on Harry's official birth certificate, however, it didn't mean she didn't parade him around as a Potter.

This time, JARVIS did not disappoint. "I found a Harry James Potter from Little Whinging, Surrey, also born July 31, 1998. He matches a reverse age rendering of Master Harry."

"Bingo."

Pages of documentation popped up onto his screen at the same time JARVIS summarized them, "There are custody papers for Harry Potter filed under the guardianship of a Mr. Vernon Dursley and Mrs. Petunia Dursley neé Evans beginning on November 2nd, 1998 and ending on July 2nd of this year when the guardianship was dissolved."

Tony listened intently as he virtually flipped through the birth certificate, primary school records, a few police records he shuffled to the side to review later, and several videos from security cameras showing a small child vaguely matching Harry's description. All the while something nagged at the back of his mind.

"There's definitely some odd shit going on here, Jay," he said to kick-start his problem-solving mode. "For one, Harry Potter's birth certificate was issued on November 1st, the day after his par — Lily died, and the day before his aunt and uncle took custody of him. Yet none of these alarming police records are for a toddler in their care on that day, and there are no hospital records at all. Where was he on the day between the gas leak and showing up at his aunt's house? And who generated the certificate under Harry Potter on that day?

"Moving onto his childhood, where are his records after elementary school? That's the UK equivalent to what we have here, right? So where did he go to school after age eleven? I doubt it's a coincidence that age matches when Lily's records end."

"There are no other school records, Sir. Public or private." JARVIS responded, mistaking his rhetorical question as Tony pointing out a potential mistake on JARVIS's end.

"What about the boarding school in Scotland?" Tony asked, pulling the printed records from the large folder his lawyers left him. "How come they aren't up here?"

JARVIS practically sighed. "It is possible they were not filed electronically."

Tony didn't believe that for a second. Like all records nowadays, these were typed, not handwritten, and anything on a computer had the potential for JARVIS to access.

"Let's switch gears for a second," Tony shook his head, preparing for the shift. "Give me all you have on the Dursleys' death. The aunt, uncle… and did the cousin die too? Lemme guess, a car accident? Because it's always a car accident used as a cover-up."

"Actually, Sir, there are no records of their deaths."

"Too soon?" Tony guessed. Despite what Tony liked to believe, JARVIS had his limits. He couldn't find what didn't exist yet.

"You misunderstood, Sir," JARVIS corrected him. "There are likely no death records because Vernon Dursley's security badge was used to enter Grunnings Drills this morning. I confirmed his identity on the security cameras outside of the building."

All the blood instantly drained out of Tony's face as a giant picture of Vernon Dursley's pudgy face appeared on Tony's screen; a perfect match to the security badge flashing right beside it. "What an ugly human being. Things are getting worse here, Jay. How is this possible? Seriously, I'm out of ideas here… tell me something good."

"It's worth mentioning that you were told the Dursleys could no longer care for Master Harry, not that they were deceased," JARVIS explained and played the audio recording of his conversation with the vampire the night before. On it, the professor said, clear as day, that they could not care for Harry any longer and it was Pepper who made the assumption they had died. Notably, Severus Snape did not correct them.

Tony paced because if he didn't move he was likely to jump in his suit and fly to England to talk to — or hold hostage — these Dursleys. With each pass by his workstation, he rapidly fired questions to absolutely no one, "So what's the deal here? Was my kid kidnapped? Because I'm having a hard time connecting dots that don't lead straight to that conclusion.

"And if he was kidnapped, by whom? The not-dead aunt and uncle? It certainly might explain why they haven't reported him missing yet. You can't exactly file a missing persons report for the kid you kidnapped thirteen years ago. Or did Dracula kidnap him from them? But, again, why no missing persons report? Not to mention, how would he get through customs with a kid not his own? And who kidnaps a kid and then drops him off with his father? Seems excessive to me."

Once again, JARVIS answered the rhetorical question, "Perhaps a friend of said child's mother who wishes to ensure her son is with his recently discovered father?"

"Obviously."

"I don't think I have to point out the condition of Master Harry in these pictures?"

"And yet you just did."

Tony halted his frantic movements to examine the picture JARVIS highlighted on his screen, followed by three more in the background. The first picture looked like it was taken outside of a library. Harry couldn't be more than seven or eight years old in it. The picture showed him walking in alone, wearing a shirt at least four sizes too big — making his thin frame appear even thinner — and sporting bruises at the fringe of his shirt cuff, near his neck of all places, that looked suspiciously like fingertips when Tony enhanced it the best he could. The other two pictures, one from outside his school and the other at the public zoo, weren't any better.

Not needing to see anymore, he swiped those away in favor of the police records, which held the report of the Dursleys finding Harry at their doorstep the morning of November 2nd — who leaves a toddler at a doorstep in November ? — followed by four separate reports filed on behalf of Harry's school for suspicious injuries; two at the age of eight, and one each at the ages of nine and ten. The first report included a note of future random inspections; Tony found no evidence that any had actually occurred. The second and third cases went frustratedly uninvestigated, and the last investigation was ruled "caused by typical brotherly conduct" between a smaller Harry and his same-aged, but substantially larger, cousin. The police gave the cousin a warning and no further reports were received. Tony, of course, did not miss the convenient correlation between no additional reports being filed and Harry's school records abruptly ending. Because the reports came from Harry's primary school, if Harry stopped attending school, the reports would stop as well.

What none of this explained was why Harry seemingly vanished in the summer of 2009 — if Tony discovered those people had locked him in a cellar, no one could keep him from flying there and ripping their limbs apart — or how he showed up at Tony's doorstep this morning.

Ultimately, he came to the only conclusion that made sense.

"OK, so here's what I have. This 'good friend' somehow discovers that Harry is being mistreated by his aunt and uncle. At best, they were neglecting him—those clothes look like damaged hand-me-downs from his whale of a cousin and he's definitely underfed or possibly even being withheld food—and at worst, they were abusing him, based on the school's documentation of consistent injuries. So… the good friend decides to take him to the father he somehow just uncovered.

"He fills out all the papers ahead of time without the Dursleys' explicit knowledge. Or perhaps he bribed them into voluntarily giving up their custody. They didn't seem to particularly care much about Harry, so passing the buck wouldn't bother them too much. Or maybe he blackmailed them. I'm sure we can find some dirt on them that anyone can use to keep them quiet. I probably wouldn't break a sweat looking for something." He pinched his tired eyes closed to think. "You know what? Search for the vampire. Severus Snape, was it? And add facial recognition if you need to… that nose is unique enough, it's bound to pull up something good."

But if this 'good friend' suspected abuse, why didn't he go to the authorities? Where was he all these years while the abuse was happening? And if this friend wanted Harry safe, why wait until after Harry went missing, for all intents and purposes, for the last four years to finally take action? Did nobody notice when the kid fell off the radar? Did anyone care enough to check?

"I found several records for a Mr. Severus Tobias Snape of Cokeworth, England confirmed by facial recognition," JARVIS reported. "I'm sending them to screen four."

Tony swiped his hand across the data on Lily Evans to copy it down to the set of screens on the other end of the workbench and rolled his chair over there to review the new information JARVIS found. Cokeworth came up as Lily's hometown too — a wretched place based on the satellite images Tony pulled up alongside the information — and according to the files, Severus and Lily went to school together.

"Well, at least that checks out," he muttered. "The first thing that does."

Except, similar to Lily and Harry's records, Severus Snape became a ghost the fall after turning eleven. Tony did not believe in coincidences, and if he did, this would have to be the largest coincidence in the galaxy for it to not be related in some way. The rest of Severus Snape's records revealed nothing to help him. He had a birth certificate for a home birth in Cokeworth to Tobias and Eileen Snape on January 9th, 1978. Like Lily, he had no employment records, not even as a "professor" at the school Harry claimed to attend.

"Sir," JARVIS interrupted his rambling thoughts, a welcome interruption, or so Tony assumed a bit too soon. "I have a partial match on a newspaper image from March 1998 suggesting Severus Snape was involved in an explosion of an unknown source at school in Guildford."

"Bring it up, Jay," he demanded just as the article appeared on his screen. The headline called it a domestic terrorist attack with an explosion on a science building killing a teacher and seven students, and injuring twelve others. He didn't read the news article. He didn't have to when a picture said a thousand words, and the picture beneath the headline depicted the side of a demolished building with students, teachers, firefighters, and paramedics standing in front of it. And there in the back, slightly out of focus, watching from the tree line was a younger-looking Severus Snape in an all-black dress — dress being the best term Tony could think of to describe the garment — partially hiding behind a tree; not unlike someone sticking around to watch the outcome of his handiwork.

"What the fuck is my kid a part of?!" Tony exclaimed.

Trying his hardest to put the pieces together, he kept coming up blank. None of them fit snugly enough to explain the situation in any logical manner besides his kid being kidnapped by a man who belonged to some sort of domestic terrorist group. A man who was with Harry this afternoon… in his bedroom… all alone.

"I need to know what they talked about this afternoon," he concluded. "JARVIS, give me the audio from Harry's room starting right before his esteemed professor went to say bye-bye."

"My bedroom privacy protocol–"

Tony slammed his hand into the desk so hard the screens shook. "Override, on my authority, JARVIS. Consider this a life-threatening emergency."

"Ok, Sir."

Tony fell, more than sat, into his chair and closed his eyes, rolling his neck and taking pleasure in the cracks and pops that came from the action.

"I'm sorry, Sir," JARVIS eventually broke the heavy silence. "I'm afraid I've encountered an error in retrieving the recordings."

His eyes snapped open. "Error? What kind of error?"

"The recording file does not exist."

"That's impossible," Tony said, clicking away at the keyboard to access the raw files himself. But JARVIS was right. No recordings were taken after Harry entered his room with Pepper. Baffled, Tony pressed back in his chair trying to figure out what he was experiencing. "Do you know what I need?"

JARVIS didn't miss a beat in replying, "To speak with Master Harry regarding his history?"

"No," Tony turned down JARVIS's perfectly logical reasoning. "I need Rhodey."

Using his feet to propel him, Tony found his phone and urgently typed out a message — you have a fourteen-year-old nephew and I need a favor . Come ASAP — to the person he could always count on to help him solve his middle-of-the-night queries; even if the other man pretended to hate his role.

"Sir?" If JARVIS had a human body, Tony knew he'd look nervous as he called for Tony's attention again.

"What is it, Jay?"

"I think you should know that Master Harry is wandering the private floor and I do not have a protocol for your teenage child wandering in the middle of the night. Might I suggest–"

"That we have a middle-of-the-night chat?" Tony asked, excitedly, knowing good and well it wasn't anywhere near what JARVIS wanted to suggest. Still, he sent Rhodey his message, cleared the data on his screen by placing it into a secured private folder on his private server, and reopened the work he'd been trying to do before his impromptu research project started. "I think that's an excellent idea, Jay."

To the guest reviewer who said Harry not telling Tony about magic was strictly a plot device, yes it is and hopefully a well executed one in a few chapters :)