Work Text:
Watch the world burn
Harry remembered the day he had found out about his parents’ death with frightening clarity. He remembered getting off the Hogwarts Express, he remembered laughing and joking with Hermione on their way off the platform. He remembered his initial joy at seeing both his brother and their old family butler, Jarvis, standing there waiting for him. And what he remembered most was his brother’s ashen, grieving face that greeted him with a sort of stony determination.
He hadn’t even really said goodbye to Hermione, he didn’t have the chance, as Tony just hugged him and refused to let him go. Tony wasn’t normally touchy like that. Harry hadn’t had to ask. Tony had flown out to London. Tony and Jarvis were there. Mom and Dad weren’t. It was all he had really needed to know.
He had never forgotten that pain, that emptiness, that hollow inside.
Then, later, when he had lost so many friends during the war, he had just felt numb. Like he was walking through candy cotton, like his head was always miles below water.
“So sorry for your loss. Thank you. Yes, so sad. They’d be proud. They fought for what they believed in. Yes, horrible. Still can’t believe it.”
A blur of emotions and colours and people and… and everything. Nothing really.
Then he had settled in. Become a dad. Become a husband. He had become… sloppy. He had let his guard down. Too set in his ways, in his family life, his home and relationship. He had become careless.
And then Johanna had told him his kids had arrived back via portkey. He had not been able to apparate into Stark Tower… and now he was kneeling over the broken form of his wife. Not knowing where to look and simultaneously unable to look away.
“Harry!”, Tony was shouting at him from afar, “Harry!”
But Harry wasn’t really listening. He just kept staring at Ginny. Thinking how she’d never smile at him again. How she’d never kiss him again. How she’d never wear that awful long skirt again under which Lily liked to hide from her brothers during hide and seek, how she’d…
No. No. No. It wasn’t true. It wasn’t. The war was over. They fought. They fought so this never happened again. They fought so their children did NOT have to go through this. No. He refused to accept this.
“We need you now, the world does. Come on!”
And somewhere in there, deep inside Harry’s bubble of grief and shock, Tony’s desperate plea for help registered with the fighter, the auror inside Harry. His reflexes took over. He didn’t have to look, didn’t need to think. His wand was inside his hand, before he even really formed that thought and it seemed to move on its own accord, killing his first attacker without Harry even really making that decision.
And with a sudden, unexplainable jolt he was back. No cotton, no bubble. He felt like… like he did, when he was still Harry Potter. And there was an anger inside him that he hadn’t felt in years. Gone. His life had gone up on flames and he’d be damned if he’d let the world follow.
Suddenly there was a man standing in front of him, tall, blonde, big and Harry realized he was staring at Steve, who was looking at him with an abstract horror Harry remembered from back when people at Hogwarts thought him crazy. It only made the anger burn brighter.
There was a huge, armoured alien flying overhead, Tony shooting at it.
Harry was still looking at Steve, when he raised his arm again and the space whale died instantly. It didn’t matter, if the life was big or small, not to the Killing Curse. With another flicker of his wrist, the whale shrunk down to not even the size of an apple, before it violently hit the floor.
“Harry?!”, Steve almost screamed at him over the fray, but Harry wasn’t really noticing it. Above him, there was a man speeding past on some sort of alien device.
“Harry, that’s Loki!”, Tony called and pointed upwards.
Harry had no idea WHO exactly Loki was supposed to be, but Tony’s hateful tone and quivering voice, made it fairly obvious to Harry that he was looking at his wife’s killer. He was fairly certain that he could spot a smug smile on that bastard’s face.
He cast a well practiced summoning charm, pulling Loki off his vehicle. He crashed onto the street with an audible thud, his staff clonking off.
When the man managed to pull himself up, the smile had vanished off his face.
“Harry Stark, I assume.”
Harry narrowed his eyes at him, not even deigning to reply.
“Your lovely wife is more conversational. Apologies. WAS.”
Harry hardly realized how he send curse after curse towards Loki, how Tony swooped down and got Steve out, how the aliens around them vanished out of sight, no one wanting to be caught in the crossfire of a magic battle. What he DID notice though, was the smile vanishing off of Loki’s face. Harry was, after all, a well-trained auror. Loki had obviously not expected him to be that much of a fighter or, Harry assumed, a real, honest threat to Loki.
Blocking, moving, cursing, even after his two years off the job, these things still came natural to Harry. Everything did, really, everything that could distract him from the pure darkness inside.
“Harry?!”, he could hear Tony shouting somewhere above him, but Harry didn’t care, didn’t listen. He had other things to do. This was, without a doubt, the hardest fight he had ever fought.
Loki’s next curse hit him square in the chest, forcing him backwards and to the floor. He had trouble catching his breath, a slight wheezing sound leaving his lips.
Loki walked towards him slowly, Harry could feel him moving behind his back. Like an energy coming towards him. He didn’t turn around, didn’t try to raise his head again.
“You are surprisingly abt.”, Loki’s voice started, “I honestly regret my prior actions, we could have made a great…”, but before Loki could finish his sentence, Harry rolled around, raised his wand and Loki was hit by three flying cars at once. Catapulting him off to the side and into a nearby building. Harry was back on his feet and standing before Loki, before the other man had even managed to disentangle himself from the cars Harry had sent at him. Harry didn’t even give him the chance to collect himself, instead rather fondly remembering the day Crouch had transformed Draco Malfoy into a ferret. With a jolt Loki was thrown upwards, before he hit the pavement again with such brutal force that it cracked under the impact. Later on Harry would never remember just how often he let Loki crash and he honestly, really didn’t care. All he could see then and there, was Ginny lying on the floor, broken, and he’d be damned, if he’d let her killer off easy.
“Harry! Harry!”, someone was shouting at him, “Stop! You’ll kill him!”, but Harry really didn’t care. Not until someone grabbed his shoulder and tried to turn him around.
Harry, always the fighter, reacted on instinct, throwing Steve Rogers back several meters, but the short interruption was enough for a big, tall, blonde dude to step between him and Loki.
Harry was prepared to swat the man like a bug, but he raised his arms in surrender.
“Please wait. I know we have not met before and you owe me nothing, but please hear me first.”
“Who are you?”, Harry asked, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“My name is Thor Odinson. That man you are attacking is my brother.”
That did not really make Harry more inclined to listen.
“Harry, buddy, please.”
Harry’s head moved to the side, looking at his big brother unseeingly. Tony wasn’t wearing his suit anymore, his face full of little cuts and bruises. For the first time in what felt like ages, Harry looked around. The aliens were dead, he realized, lying all around him. He had definitely killed some, but this… the portal was closed. Had he been so engrossed in his anger that he hadn’t noticed… anything. Yes. Yes, he had.
“I don’t care what happens to Loki, buddy, I really don’t. But don’t do this to yourself. You need to stop now.”
“I know my brother has wronged you…”, Thor started, but Harry interrupted him angrily.
“Wronged me?!”
“Not the right time, Shakespeare.”, Tony hissed, “Harry, come on. Let this go. That’s not you, remember?”
No, Harry thought, now Tony is just lying. This is exactly me. Always has been.
“This is war and he is a prisoner.”, Steve tried. Harry actually respected the man for budding in, the other people standing around, wide eyed and panting, didn’t seem too keen on getting involved.
“He killed Ginny.”, Harry told Steve hollowly.
Steve flinched. He hadn’t known that then.
“Ginny?”, Thor asked, his voice a lot less sure than before.
“My wife.”, Harry spat, “My children’s mother.”
“And he will be punished, he WILL, but not like this. Not at the expanse of you.”, Steve tried again. Harry could feel his raised arm starting to shake.
Carefully Tony walked over, lowering Harry’s arm and hugging him.
Harry felt numb, so numb, so tired. He buried his face into his brother’s shoulder, that strange scent of smoke and oil and… Tony.
The others were moving all around him, probably running towards Loki. Harry didn’t care anymore.
His legs gave away under his weight and Tony tried to hold him up, but in the end they both went down, sitting on the broken pavement of a New York street, not caring who saw them cry.