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Chapter Text

The Battle of New York had ended a week ago, and as it so often does, life moved on. Clean-up crews - most, if not all, bankrolled by Tony himself - worked tirelessly to get the city back in order. People returned to work. The world tried to get back to normal. Whatever passed for normal these days.

Life moved on.

Most of the Avengers had taken up Tony’s offer of moving into the Tower, though it was the Tower or SHIELD for most of them, so he probably seemed like the lesser of two evils. A whole floor vs a bunk at SHIELD? Who wouldn’t pick the Tower?

Again. Life moved on.

Tony, though. Tony hadn’t left his lab in five days. Not to sleep. Not to eat. Not for anything. Pepper had tried to get into the lab more times than he could count, Rhodey had tried twice, and even Steve had tried quite a few times, but he hadn’t let any of them in. He knew it wasn’t healthy, but in the lab, alone, was the only place he truly felt safe. He hadn’t been able to get the image of the Armada out of his head. Thousands of ships, perched, waiting, ready. That, on top of the whole, flying a nuke into an alien wormhole with the full intention of not coming back. Well, maybe sequestering himself up in the only place he felt safe wasn’t actually that bad.

Ok, no. He definitely had some PTSD that he should probably deal with. Not that he would. But acknowledging the problem was the first step to fixing it, so well done Tony.

Huffing at his internal monologue, Tony turned back to the upgrades he was making to the Mark XVIII. Honestly, he was thinking about scrapping the whole thing and starting from scratch. That would probably be smarter. Not to mention designing and building the suits took more brain power than just upgrading them. Less space taken up by spiralling thoughts of alien invasions and passive suicide.

Right. Time to design a new suit.

“JARVIS, start file Mark XIV.”

“As you say, sir,” JARVIS replied, opening up the screen as Tony slid to a new workbench, abandoning the Mark XVIII.

Getting completely lost in the design process, Tony would completely deny the shocked squeak he’d made when JARVIS interrupted his thoughts.

“Sir, I believe there is…”

Tony cut him off with a slight growl. “Jesus, J, if someone is trying to get in, you know I want them sent away.”

“No sir, no one is trying to enter.”

Raising an eyebrow, Tony replied, “Well, what’s the damage then, J?”

“I seem to have found something in SHIELD’s files.”

Tony sighed. “What did you find, J?”

JARVIS seemed to hesitate for a moment, something so uncharacteristic that Tony automatically sat to attention. “It’s about Operation Sunflower, sir.”

“I love you, Tony.”

“I love you, too.”

“Hey! I’m feeling very left out over here!”

“My hand is literally on your ass, fuck nut.”

“You’re so mean to me, why do I put up with you?”

“Because you luuuurrrvvvee us.”

“Merlin help me, I do.”

The memory crashed over him like a tonne of bricks, and considering Tony had actually had a wall fall on him quite recently, he knew in excruciating detail what that felt like. This was worse. Far, far worse.

“Are you sure, J?” Tony croaked.

“I wouldn’t have said anything if I wasn’t sure, sir.”

“Show me.”

JARVIS hesitated. “Sir, I wouldn’t recommend reading this alone. Might I suggest bringing Miss Potts in?”

“No, J.” Tony snapped. “Show me.”

JARVIS hesitated again, before pulling the file up on the screen.

MACUSA Records - Confidential.

Clearance - Level 9 - Directors eyes only.

What. The. Fuck.

Honestly, Tony couldn’t even be proud of himself for apparently hacking into Fury’s files because he was so confused. What could they have possibly done or been involved in that their file was Clearance Level fucking 9? And what the fuck was MACUSA? Something dark twisted in Tony’s stomach. Was any of it real? Furiously squashing down those thoughts with a shake of his head, Tony read on.

Lily Evans Potter 

• DOB 30 January 1979

James Fleamont Potter 

• DOB 27 March 1979

DOD 31 October 2000

12 years.

They’ve been dead almost as long as he’d been looking for them. 

“Sir, I’m calling Miss Potts.”

Tony could barely make out the words JARVIS had said over the ringing in his ears. There was a tightness in his chest that he could only compare to when Obie stole the arc reactor. 

Apparently, it was possible to die from a broken heart.

SMACK!

Tony’s head swung to the side with the force of it. Honestly, he felt his fucking brain move around in his head. “WHAT THE FUCK?!”

“Sorry, god I’m so sorry but you weren’t responding and you weren’t breathing and I thought you were dying, I’m so sorry, Tony.”

Tony actually huffed out a laugh, slightly hysterical, but a laugh nonetheless.

Pepper collapsed onto the floor from where she was kneeling in front of him. “Fucking hell, Tony. I don’t remember the last time I saw you that worked up. What happened?”

“They’re dead, Pep.”

It took a second before understanding lit up in Pepper’s eyes. Understanding and then heartbreak.

There were only two people in Tony’s world who knew about his relationship with Lily and James. Rhodey, obviously. He’d known about it from the start and had helped him pick up the pieces of this life when he’d lost them. And Pepper.

Pepper found out almost by mistake. She’d only just started working for him when Obie had called him back from the UK. She reminded him a bit of Lily. Fiery, strong-willed, and didn’t take any of his shit. Honestly, he probably would have fallen for her in another life. 

Six months into her working for him, Tony had run off back to the UK to try and find Lily and James. Obie was apocalyptic, and poor Pepper was left to deal with it. 

But when a month passed with literally no trace of them - not Lily, not James, not even Sirius, Remus, and Peter, or Marlene, and Alice - Tony had to give up. And he was completely shattered. He didn’t even remember going back to the US. It was like he’d blocked the whole thing out. 

The next clear memory he had was honestly very similar to what had just transpired.

He’d been in his office and something had set him off, and the next thing he knew, Pepper had smacked him across the face, whilst sputtering out apologies.

He’d ended up spilling his guts then and there to a very shell-shocked Pepper. And she’d practically been his best friend ever since.

Pepper moved to sit next to him, putting an arm around him and pulling him closer. Tony went easily, resting his head on her shoulder.

“I’m so sorry, Tony.” She whispered into his hair. “How did you find out?”

“A fucking SHIELD file!” Tony choked out.

“Were they…” Pepper trailed off.

“Spies?” Tony huffed. “No idea, only got to the fucking date of death before I lost it.”

“Sir,” JARVIS interrupted softly, “I would recommend finishing the file. It contains some rather startling information. And now that Miss Potts is here like I suggested earlier…” Wow, Tony didn’t realise JARVIS could sound that pissy. 

Pepper snorted and Tony huffed out a laugh. “Yes, J. You’re always right and I should always listen to you.”

“Thank you, sir. I’m glad we can agree on something.”

Tony took a deep breath, standing up and steeling himself. “Ok. Let’s do this.”

“Are you sure?” Pepper asked her hand on his shoulder, helping ground him.

Tony took another deep breath and turned back to the screen trying desperately to not look at the DOD.

Associates:

Sirius Black

• Azkaban Prison - Prisoner Number 390 (MACUSA can not find records of Sirius Black’s trial)

Remus Lupin 

• Location unknown presumed alive

Peter Pettigrew 

• Presumed dead

Marlene McKinnon 

• Confirmed DOD 16 June 1999

Alice Longbottom 

• Resident of St Mungo’s Permanent Spell Damage Ward

Mary McDonald 

• Location unknown presumed alive

Anthony Stark 

• No Maj - unaware

“Tony… What the fuck are we reading?” Pepper asked with a shaky breath.

Tony swallowed, staring blankly at the screen.  “I have no fucking idea.”

Information passed from British MoM. MACUSA agents were unable to confirm the validity of the information first-hand. 

The British MoM reported to MACUSA on the 1st of November 2000, the death of the Dark Lord known as Voldemort. According to the British MoM, on the 31st of October 2000, the Dark Lord known as Voldemort attacked the home of the Potter Family in Godric’s Hollow (located in the West Country of England, MACUSA agents have confirmed the almost total destruction of the house). The Dark Lord known as Voldemort was able to kill both Lily and James Potter before apparently turning his wand on the child known as Harry Potter.

“They had a baby?” Tony choked out, tears streaming down his face, imagining how beautiful Lily and James' baby would have been if some megalomaniac hadn’t killed him.

“Have a baby, Tony! They have a baby, he’s still alive!” Pepper practically squealed, hitting him on the shoulder. “Keep reading!”

According to the British MoM (again, MACUSA has not been able to confirm this first-hand) when the Dark Lord known as Voldemort turned his wand on Harry Potter, the curse reflected, destroying the Dark Lord known as Voldemort.

The British MoM have hailed Harry Potter as their saviour, naming him The Boy Who Lived. According to the British MoM, Harry has been hidden away for his safety.

“JARVIS,” Pepper asked hesitantly, “is there a file on Harry?”

“Yes, Miss Potts.”

“Show me.” Tony breathed reverently.

There was shockingly little in the file, barely five lines and a photo that Tony felt his heart crack just looking at.

MACUSA Records - Confidential.

Clearance - Level 9 - Directors eyes only.

Harry James Anthony Potter.

Location unknown at this time.

Born 31st July 1999

“Anthony? They named him Anthony?” 

“JARVIS,” Pepper said, so business-like, that Tony snapped to attention involuntarily, “Can you isolate Harry from that photo.”

“Of course, Miss Potts.”

“Age him up.” 

“What?” Tony questioned, but Pepper just waved a hand at him dismissively.

“Done.”

“Compare it to photos of Tony at that age.”

“Pepper, what are you doing?” 

Pepper completely ignored his question, waving her hand again and shushing him.

“Done.”

“How similar, JARVIS?”

“I’ve found five separate markers that indicate paternity.”

“Show me the photo, JARVIS.”

Tony stopped breathing. It was clearly a generated image, but it was like looking into the past. Harry James Anthony Potter was very clearly a Stark, or to be more specific, a Carbonell-Stark.

Harry clearly had Lily’s beautiful green eyes, and he had Lily’s nose, but the rest - that was all Carbonell-Stark. He’d inherited Maria’s chin, Tony’s cheekbones, and the signature Stark jaw. He looked like the best parts of Tony and Lily.

Tony blinked.

“That’s my son,” Tony said quietly, staring at the picture in complete awe. “Pepper that’s my fucking son!”

Both Pepper and Tony stood staring at the picture in silence for a moment before Tony snapped out of it.

“Find him J!” Tony pleaded, borderline hysterically. “Search everywhere and find him. Fucking Skynet protocol, J!”

Pepper was already frantically typing away on her phone, doing god knows what, but Tony imagined it was probably something he was going to need very soon.

“I found him, sir.”

“Tell me,” Tony demanded.

“Harry James Anthony Potter, born 31st July 1999. Placed with Petunia Dursley and Vernon Dursley, 1st November 2000. Attended Little Whinging Primary School. Currently attending boarding school in Scotland, a Hogwarts School of the Arts. No social media presence. No cell phone listing. Current address 4 Privet Dr, Little Whinging, Surrey.”

“No social media presence and no cell phone?” Tony repeated in confusion, what almost 13-year-old doesn’t have a fucking phone? “Did you find any pictures, J?”

A beat and then, “Yes, sir.”

“Well?” Tony clucked in impatience, “Show me!”

Another beat. “Yes, sir.”

The pictures that appeared in front of him were not what Tony was expecting, and suddenly, with alarming clarity, Tony realised why JARVIS had hesitated.

These were not photos of Harry, no, just photos he happened to be in the background of. This was not the happy child that Tony was expecting. This was….. awful. 

“J,” Tony choked, “Why does he look like that?” 

To compare him to the Tony that came out of the cave in Afghanistan would not be a stretch. He was so skinny, knobbly knees and elbows visible even in the horridly oversized rags that he seemed to be wearing in every photo. Rags that clearly belonged to the fat elephant child that appeared in most, if not all, of the photos that Harry was glimpsed in the back of. He looked angry and far too world-weary for such a young kid. Jesus fucking Christ.

Tony couldn’t breathe. “Pepper!” He gasped. “Why does he look like that?”

“Tony, I need you to breathe, focus on me, and breathe, ok? We’re going to fix this, we’re going to get your son and then we’re going to rain holy hell down on whoever kept him from you, ok?” Tony nodded against Pepper’s shoulder where she’d pulled him into a hug. “I’ve already got the lawyers working on it, the jet’s getting fueled up, and you’ll have a flight plan by the time you arrive at the airport. Happy’s on the way, so go have a shower and I’ll have your bag packed by the time you’re out and ready to leave.”

“What would I do without you?” Tony chuckled wetly.

Pepper smiled. “Crash and burn, obviously. Will that be all, Mr Stark?”

Tony laughed. “That will be all, Miss Potts.”

Tony hated to admit it, but the shower did him a world of good. It helped him organise his thoughts and questions.  The thought of anything but his son had crashed out the second he read the words Harry Potter, but with time to organise himself, by God did he have questions. First and foremost was fucking magic. Because spell damage and dark lords and deflecting curses, that sounded like every fucking fantasy book that he’d read as a kid. Apparently James and Lily had magic, magic that they’d kept hidden from him. And clearly, his son had magic too, which he needed to come to terms with quick bloody smart. Were they like Loki? Holy crap, did he have sex with Gods? No, that wouldn’t make sense. It was probably more likely an underground secret society. It would explain why Tony hadn’t been able to find them, they’d been hidden by magic. It also explained a lot of the weird shit James had said when they were together. Lily had clearly been more familiar with the, what did the file call it, oh right, no-maj world. Honestly, looking back on it, Tony had noticed something a bit other about James and Lily, he was just too in love to care.

Tony stepped out into his room, towel wrapped around his waist, and unfortunately not at all paying attention to his surroundings.

“Ah, Stark?”

Tony would deny the high-pitched scream until his dying day. “Jesus Christ on a pogo stick! Rogers, what the hell are you doing in here?”

The blonde Adonis known as Captain America blushed bright red, seeming to look everywhere but Tony. “Your…” he waved a vague hand at the ceiling.

“JARVIS?” Tony said with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes! Your JARVIS said you were out of the lab and that I could wait in here to talk to you.”

Tony rolled his eyes, imagining the smug expression JARVIS would be sporting if it were possible.  Walking over to the bed, Tony grabbed the outfit that Pepper had laid out for him and put it on. “Ok, Captain Spangles, I’ve got clothes on now, so you can look at me without offending your delicate sensibilities.”

“I don’t have delicate sensibilities,” Steve huffed, “it’s just not proper!”

“Weren’t you in the Army?” Steve blushed again and Tony laughed. “So what’s up, Capsicle?”

“I just wanted to make sure you were doing ok. You hadn’t come out of the lab in a while and you weren’t letting anyone in.”

Tony gave an exaggerated gasp. “Captain America, worried about little ol’ me. Why I never!”

“Stark.” Oh, there was the Captain America voice.

“I’m fine, Cap,” Tony said with an eye roll.

“Well, that’s um, good? I’m glad?”

Tony laughed. “Maybe try to sound more convincing for the press conference.”

Steve snorted, and Tony smiled. “Going somewhere?” Steve asked, pointing to the bags that Pepper had packed for him.

“Yeah, I’ve got to go to England for a bit,” Tony replied, running a hand through his slightly damp hair.

“England?” 

“Yeah, something I have to take care of.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

Tony tilted his head, studying Steve hard. He did seem to be sincere. Why was anyone’s guess. It’s not like they got along all that well. To be fair, most of Tony’s problems with Steve stemmed from his many issues with Howard. Tony wasn’t really sure where Steve’s issues with him came from. It was probably SHIELD's fault, but he couldn’t be sure. 

So throwing caution to the wind and hoping to all hope that he didn’t regret this, Tony said, “I have a son.”

“A son?” Steve's shock was palpable.

“Yeah, was a shock to me too.”

“How did you…”

“Find out? Fucking SHIELD file.”

“Language!”

Tony snorted. “Again, weren’t you in the Army? And didn’t you grow up in Brooklyn? You can’t trick me, Brooklyn Boy. I reckon you’ve got a bigger potty mouth than me.”

Steve actually laughed. “That’s Captain Brooklyn Boy to you.”

Tony threw his head back and laughed. “So you do have a sense of humour hidden under all that spandex! I knew it!”

Steve smiled. “So, you’re going to find your son?”

Tony nodded. “Lily and James,” he choked a bit on their names, “were killed, 12 years ago, and I think he’s in a bad situation.”

“Lily and James?” Steve asked, with an unintentionally adorable tilt of his head.

“My son's parents.” Steve looked more confused than Tony had ever seen him. “I was involved with both of them, Rogers.”

Steve coughed awkwardly, “That’s um… that’s ok nowadays then?”

Tony was about to snap something very uncomplimentary but something in Steve’s eyes made him swallow his anger. “Yeah, Steve. It’s ok now.” He replied softly, putting a hand on Steve’s shoulder.

Steve swallowed hard, his throat spasming slightly around built-up emotion. “Good. That’s good.”

Tony squeezed his shoulder once, before letting him go.

“Wait, what bad situation?”

Tony blew a harsh breath out of his nose, clenching his fist. “I think the people he’s with now are abusing him.”

Steve clenched his fists as well, and Tony could literally see him filling with that righteous Captain America anger.

“Tony, are you ready? Happy’s here.” Pepper interrupted as she pushed open the door. “Oh sorry Steve, I didn’t know you were in here.” 

“No worries, Miss Potts,” Steve replied with an easy smile.

“It’s Pepper, Steve, we’ve talked about this,” Pepper replied with a smile and a shake of her head. “Tony, it’s time to go.”

Tony nodded, grabbing his bags and walking to the door before stopping and turning around, hoping again that he wasn’t making a mistake. “You coming, Captain Brooklyn Boy?”

***

Harry Potter was in a bad fucking mood. There were not many people in the world that he hated more than the Dursleys. Voldemort, obviously. Professor Snape was pretty up there but didn’t quite hit the mark. But Aunt Marge? Oh Aunt Marge, Harry fucking despised. Her and her fucking dog. Ripper was a beast from Hell. And having met an actual Cerberus, Harry would say he was uniquely informed on actual Hell Beasts.

The only way Harry managed to make it through the week was by being out of the house as much as humanly possible. The downside of that was having to put up with Dudley’s gang more often than not, but Harry would rather face Dudley’s gang 100 times over than spend five bloody minutes with Aunt Marge.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, Marge had pretty much demanded Harry’s presence for her final dinner. She was a vindictive shrew of a woman, whose favourite pastime was talking down to people, particularly Harry. Honestly, Harry was surprised that Marge and Petunia didn’t get along better, given their favourite hobby seemed to be the same thing.

“You mustn’t blame yourself for the way the boy’s turned out, Vernon.”

Ah wonderful, looks like Harry had tuned in at just the right time. 

“If there’s something rotten on the inside, there’s nothing anyone can do about it.”

Merlin, like she could talk about rotten on the inside. Harry took a deep breath, attempting to tune the conversation back out. 

“You see it all the time with dogs.”

Don't react. Don’t react. Don’t react.

“If there’s something wrong with the bitch, then there’s something wrong with the pup.”

Oh, that fucking…

The shattering of Marge’s wine glass echoed through the house. Petunia jumped up, shooting a dark glare at Harry, attempting to clean up the red wine staining the pristine white tablecloth.

“No worries, Petunia, I have a very firm grip,” Marge said with a laugh.

More like very fat hands, Harry thought darkly.

“Now Petunia, what did you say the boy’s father did?” 

Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out. 

“Nothing, he was unemployed.”

Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out. 

“As I expected! A no-account,”

Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out. 

“Good-for-nothing,”

Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out. 

“Lazy drunk who-”

“He was not,” Harry said softly, though the venom in his voice was impossible to miss.

Marge swung around to face Harry, something like victory swirling in her eyes. “What did you say to me, boy?”

“I said he wasn’t unemployed, nor was he a good-for-nothing, or any of the frankly ridiculous things you just said. And honestly, you’re one to call someone a drunk, given the amount of wine bottles currently in the bin.” Harry turned to Petunia, a vindictive smile on his face. “Better watch out, Auntie, or the neighbours will start to talk about what a lush you’ve become.”

“Why you little!” Marge jumped up, looking like she was about to take a swing, but before she could, the doorbell rang, the clang sounding like a death knell throughout the house. 

“Get the door, boy!” Vernon barked, whilst Petunia muttered something about inconsiderate people ringing the doorbell at all times of the night.

Harry took a deep breath and cracked his neck before walking to the door. 

Throwing it open, expecting it to be one of Dudley’s merry band of assholes, his jaw practically hit the floor as he took in the incredibly well-dressed man standing in front of him.

“Holy shit! You’re Tony Stark!”

Tony bloody Stark stood in front of him, a playful grin on his face. “Is this a bad time?”

Chapter Text

If Harry could list the top five people he would have never expected to be at his door, Tony Stark wouldn’t have even made the list. Because the thought was so unbelievably ridiculous that his name wouldn’t have even entered his mind. Nevertheless, here he was, in a suit that probably cost more than everything in the house combined… possibly even the house itself.

He would blame the shock on his poor situational awareness. Growing up with the Dursleys had taught him to always be aware of his surroundings. He was practically a master at ducking and weaving out of the way of a stray fist, Dudley in general, and on more than one fun occasion, a swinging frying pan. So it was more than a little shocking to him when Dudley managed to shove him out of the way, and into a wall.

“MUM!” Dudley screamed, as Harry rubbed his arm and rolled his eyes, but not missing the dark looks Tony Stark and the tall blonde man he was with were throwing at Dudley. “Iron Man is at the door!”

“Dudley, this is no time for your jokes!” Petunia snapped, before actually looking at the door. “Tony Stark!”

“Yes, yes, it is wonderful to see me,” Stark said, with what was definitely a practised press conference smile. Harry snorted, and Stark turned to him, giving him a much more honest smile. How odd.

Marge and Vernon had waddled their fat arses into the hallway by that point, practically gaping open-mouthed at Stark. Harry would have made fun of them if he didn’t know for a fact he’d looked exactly like that not five minutes ago.

Petunia collected herself first. “Mr Stark! Please, come in, come in.”

“That sounds… great.” Harry was pretty sure he was the only one who noticed the pause. “Before I do, however, just a couple of things, NDAs and the like. You know how it is.” Stark said, straight to Vernon, making the man puff his chest out in pride. He looked ridiculous.

“Of course, of course, no problem at all, Mr Stark.” 

The blonde man, who looked vaguely familiar, stepped forward with a stack of papers, handing them out to the Dursleys. Harry held his hand out expectantly, but the man just winked at him before returning to Stark’s side.

“Steve Rogers!” Harry blurted out when he finally realised why the man looked so familiar, before blushing bright red and stuttering out an apology. “I’m sorry, that was so rude.”

The looks the Dursleys were shooting him could strip paint off the wall, but Stark just threw his head back and laughed. “You got government named, Spangles!”

Petunia quickly bustled Harry out of the way, going to hand the NDAs back to Stark, but was intercepted by Rogers.

“I don’t like to be handed things.”

“He doesn’t like to be handed things.” They both said at the same time.

Harry didn’t miss the look of victory on both Stark and Rogers’ faces when they saw the signatures on the NDAs, making something uncomfortable twist in his gut.

“Excellent!” Stark said with a grin, “Harry, front and centre.”

Merlin’s saggy ball sack…. 

“Yes, sir?” He asked with a frown, only belatedly realising he’d never told him his name.

Stark grimaced as Rogers snickered. “Just Tony is fine, kiddo.”

Harry’s face screwed up a bit at being called kiddo, making Rogers’ snickers turn into a full-on laugh.

“Shut up, Spangles.” Stark… Tony grumbled. “Anyway, Harry and I are just gonna have a quick chat outside. Steve-o, you’ll stay and explain everything to…” a dismissive wave and an unmistakably disgusted look, “them.”

“Now just wait one minute!” Vernon blustered, but Rogers stepped in and clapped a hand down harshly on Vernon’s shoulder.

“I’ll be happy to explain everything to you, Mr Dursley. Don’t you worry about a thing.” 

Harry didn’t think he’d ever heard something so ominous in his life… which was saying something. Vernon had turned quite an interesting shade of white, and the grimace on his face suggested that Rogers was squeezing his shoulder quite tight.

Harry really didn’t want to be here for whatever the fallout of this conversation would be, so despite every sense in his body practically screaming that something was wrong, he followed Tony out of the house.

“So, Harry….”

“Yes, sir? I mean, Dr Stark. I mean, Tony. Bollocks.” Harry stuttered, turning bright red and hiding his face in his hands.

To be fair, it’s not every day you meet Tony fucking Stark. Harry had been borderline obsessed with the man’s career since he could read. Robotics had always fascinated him. That and engineering. He’d joined the robotics club in primary school because it was run during lunch and he could get away from Dudley, and the Dursleys wouldn’t know. He had an incredible knack for it. Mr Davis, the maths and robotics teacher, was one of the only teachers who’d never believed the Dursley’s rhetoric about him.

Once, Dudley had gotten a state-of-the-art robotic toy for his 8th birthday, he’d ended up sitting on it and breaking it. Harry managed to steal it out of his second bedroom, take the thing apart and rebuild it from the ground up.

Their mutual love of Tony Stark was one of the first things Harry and Hermione bonded over after the troll incident, it was something that annoyed Ron to no end. Once, during one of their discussions about Stark Tower, Ron made the somewhat fatal error of asking ‘why would energy need to be clean?’ And then fell asleep during the subsequent two-hour lecture Harry and Hermione had given him. To be fair to Ron, basically everyone in the common room had fallen asleep too. Fred and George had tried to hire them to get the Gryffindors to sleep every night. 

Tony just laughed. Taking his hands off his face, Harry was slightly taken aback by how softly Tony was looking at him. “So I imagine you’re a bit confused about why I wanted to talk to you?”

“A bit?” Harry snorted derisively, before stilling in mortification.

Tony laughed a bit before sobering and taking a breath, muttering under his breath to himself something that sounded like, “Should have written this down.”

“Right,” he said after about a minute of silence. “Guess I should start at the beginning. So, I knew your parents.”

“You? Knew my parents?” Harry asked incredulously. “You know they’re dead, right?” He blurted out before grimacing, a look that was mirrored exactly on Tony’s face. A little bit too exactly.

“Yeah,” Tony said softly, “I found out a couple of days ago.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry said, despite how odd it felt to offer condolences about his own parents' deaths. 

Tony smiled sadly, looking like he wanted to put his hand on his shoulder but thought better of it. They stood in silence for a while before Tony continued.

“I’d been looking for them for a long time, about 13 years when I found out. I found out by accident as well, which was… yeah, not great.” 

Harry listened, trepidation filling his entire body, and the sick feeling in his gut coming back with a vengeance.

“Imagine my shock, when the first shred of information about Lily and James that I’d seen in 13 years, was in a top-level clearance file, in a top-secret government organisations file.”

Harry stilled completely. “Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes,” Tony replied, smiling sardonically. “And let me tell you, the whole magic thing, not as shocking as it should have been. It actually explained quite a lot. Honestly, for a while there, I was a bit worried James had grown up in a cult.”

Harry found himself laughing despite himself. Tony smiled brightly, seeming quite pleased with himself.

“So,” Harry said after a moment, “you found out they were dead and immediately jumped on a plane to see me? Why?”

Tony sighed. “This is where things might get a bit messy. So I didn’t just know your parents, we were… you know… together?” He finished with a grimace.

“You don’t sound super sure about that,” Harry replied with a raised eyebrow.

Tony just raised an eyebrow in return, “I was trying to be delicate but I can go into excruciating detail if you’d like. I’d be more than happy to.”

“No! No!” Harry replied quickly, flapping his hands in front of his face as if he could physically hit the thoughts away.

Tony threw his head back and laughed. “Yeah kiddo, that’s what I thought.” He sobered quickly though. “Look, I’m just going to rush this out because there is literally no delicate way to say it, but I’m about 94% sure that you’re my son.”

“Piss off.” Harry blurted out.

Tony snorted. “Yeah, that’s about the reaction I was expecting.”

“Are you fucking with me?” 

Because seriously, what the fuck else could this be? Maybe a fever dream? 

“No kiddo, I’m not fucking with you.”

Harry’s mind was going at 1000 miles an hour, this literally could not be happening right now. Of all the absolutely mental things that had happened to him, this was somehow at the top of the list. And then in a second, all thoughts bar one ground to a screeching halt.

“What did you make the Dursleys sign, Dr Stark?”

Tony managed to look both smug and sheepish at the same time. It was actually quite a fascinating expression. “So it really was just a standard NDA, I just added a little something extra….”

“Which was?” Harry asked, his arms crossed.

“God, you look just like Lily when you do that. Ok, ok, it might have been a termination of Guardianship rights.”

“WHAT IN THE EVER LOVING FUCK?!” Harry screeched. “You can’t do that!”

“I think you’ll find I very much can.”

“But you don’t even know if I’m actually your son yet! What happens if you’re wrong!”

“I’m almost positive that I’m right, but even if I’m not, Harry, I don’t care! If I’d had my way I would have married them! You would have been my son anyway! And you can not tell me that you like living here! Come on, Harry! I was in there for less than five minutes and I could see that the way they’re treating you isn’t right! For fucks sake, just looking at you I can tell something isn’t right!”

Almost immediately Harry shut down. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.” He said, in the practised tone he used when someone even mentioned the Dursleys in his presence. “And even if that was true, that wasn’t your decision to make.”

“You don’t have to lie to me, you don’t have to protect them.” Tony’s voice was almost pleading and he hated it.

“I’m not protecting anyone.” Harry hissed.

“Then look me in the eyes and tell me you’re happy here. Look me in the eyes and tell me they don’t hurt you and I’ll tear up the papers right now.”

Harry tried. He really really fucking tried, but when he looked into Tony’s eyes and saw nothing but genuine concern and worry, he just couldn’t lie. Especially not if he turned out to actually be his father. And pretty instinctively, he knew Tony wouldn’t believe him anyway.

“I have some friends here that can run the DNA test quietly,” Tony said softly, “but know that no matter what the tests say, I will look after you, ok?” Harry nodded, desperately hoping that this wasn’t a colossal mistake. “Ok. We should probably go check on Cap 'cause I’m not convinced he’s not going to kill those people and I wasn’t able to get diplomatic immunity for him on such short notice.”

Harry actually laughed, making Tony beam.

Luckily Rogers hadn’t murdered the Dursleys, but Vernon was sporting a pretty vicious black eye. Rogers had just shrugged and said, “he tripped and fell into my fist.”

Tony tsked. “What a clumsy man.”

Vernon looked like he wanted to argue, but the combined glares of Tony, and Rogers made him whimper. And not to be vindictive, but it made Harry feel great.

“Go grab your stuff, Harry.” 

Harry nodded and headed up the stairs.

“Why’d you punch him?” Tony asked quietly, but not quite quietly enough for Harry not to hear.

“He called him a freak. I took exception.”

Tony snorted. “Right you are, Cap.”

***

Well, that went about as well as Tony was expecting. Steve was right though, he should have written what he wanted to say down. 

Once Harry had dragged his depressingly small amount of belongings down the stairs (Tony had already messaged Pepper, who’d agreed to get Harry enough clothes for both the Tower and the Malibu house, and deck out his room) they’d left the house pretty quickly. Which was good because literally another minute in that house and Tony might have gotten the suit out.

Both he and Harry were understandably awkward around each other. So the car ride back to the hotel was currently completely silent. And, well, Tony had never done well with silence, so he blurted out the first thing that came into his head.  

“Do you like music?” 

Tony grimaced, what a fucking stupid question. 

“Do I like music?” Harry asked with an amused quirk of his eyebrow.

Deciding to run with it because at least they were talking, Tony replied, “Yeah! Like AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath! You know, all the greats!”

Harry hummed, looking like he was actually thinking quite hard about it. “Yeah, I mean, they’re fine. Personally, I prefer Fleetwood Mac, The Beatles, Elton John, and Queen. Fleetwood Mac is my favourite band, though.” 

“I met Stevie Nicks once,” Tony replied without really thinking.

Harry swung in his seat to give him his full attention, his eyes shining in a way that actually made Tony a bit jealous. “Was she as amazing as I imagined?

Tony laughed. “Better.”

They spent the rest of the car ride debating whose favourite bands were better and why. Steve interjected a few times when he actually knew the songs. Apparently, Clint and surprisingly Natashlie were getting him up to date on pop culture.

The drive back to London felt infinitely quicker than the drive in, probably because he wasn’t spiralling down a rabbit hole of thoughts of his son and what state he might be in when he got there. Instead, his son was next to him, and they were having an actual conversation. He tried so hard not to compare him to himself and Lily, and James, because he knew how much he hated being compared to Howard, but some moments were harder than others. His eyes sparkled just like Lily’s did when he explained something he was passionate about. He talked with his whole body, just like Tony did. And even though he knew it wasn’t biologically possible, his grin was all James. Tony could tell he was his own person though, for all he reminded him of his parents, everything was so perfectly Harry.

And he was amazing.

Tony was sure that he looked a bit psychotic, just grinning at him like a loon for the entire hour-and-a-half car ride, but honestly, he was far too happy to care. 

He hadn’t lied to him when they talked at the Dursleys. He wouldn’t have cared if he was Lily and James’, or his and Lily’s, or even his and James’ (he wasn’t entirely sure if that was a thing magic could do, but it was fun to imagine either way) he would consider him his son no matter what the tests revealed. But sitting side by side, it was pretty clear to anyone with eyes that this was his son.

They pulled around the back of the hotel and were let in the back entrance and straight up to the penthouse suite.

“Welcome back, sir, I see your endeavours were successful.”

“J, this is my son, Harry,” Tony said, happiness practically oozing out of him.

“Oh my god! Is that…?”

“This is…” Tony started, but Harry basically steamrolled over him.

“JARVIS! Completely one-of-a-kind artificial intelligence interface, I can’t believe I get to meet you! This is the greatest day of my life!” Harry, quite literally, squealed.

Tony (and Steve for that matter) were stunned. “You know about JARVIS?”

Harry looked sheepish for the first time since they’d met. “So full disclosure, I’m actually a huge fan. I’ve read basically every paper you’ve written since MIT. I’ve been obsessed with engineering and robotics since the first grade and your work is absolutely groundbreaking.”

Tony felt himself choke up. God, could his son be more amazing?

“Do you mind if I ask JARVIS some questions? As long as it’s alright with JARVIS too?”

Tony couldn’t do anything but nod. Completely overwhelmed by the look of utter happiness on Harry’s face.

“He reminds me of you,” Steve said quietly as Harry peppered JARVIS with questions, his eyes alight with wonder.

Tony smiled. “Yeah. Better though.”

“Oh, no question,” Steve replied with a smirk and Tony snorted.

“So if Tony created you, that makes you like his kid, right?” Harry asked with a tilt of his head.

“I suppose so, young sir,” JARVIS replied, sounding slightly amused.

“So, that makes you like my brother, then.”

“If you want me to be, then I would be happy to be your brother.”

“Excellent, I’ve always wanted an older brother. Ron is constantly annoyed at me for stealing his. He says they like me better.”

“Well, obviously they have excellent taste, young sir.”

“Nope, if you’re my brother, you have to call me Harry.”

“Of course, Harry.”

“This is the happiest day of my life.” Tony choked out, actual tears starting to form in his eyes.

“God you Starks are something else.” Steve blurted out. The look of confusion on his face was so funny that both Tony and Harry broke out in hysterical laughter.

“Actually, that reminds me,” Harry said, when his laughter had died out, “do you have a phone I could borrow?”

“Do I have… Do I have a phone? Of course, I have a phone! What kind of question is that?” Tony sputtered, pulling his StarkPhone out of his pocket and handing it over to Harry, who took it with a smile and a quick ‘thank you’.

***

Harry took the phone and quickly put in Hermione’s number, thankful that she’d made him memorise it before they got off the Hogwarts Express.

“Um, it’s going to be an international call, is that ok?” Harry asked, belatedly remembering that Hermione was in France.

“Yes?” Tony replied, like he couldn’t figure out why he was asking, which… probably fair. Harry sort of forgot who he was talking to.

“Hello?” Hermione picked up after a few rings.

“Mione? It’s Harry.”

“Harry? Did you get a phone?” Hermione asked, confusion evident in her voice.

“No, I’m just borrowing someone’s.”

Hermione gasped. “Are you ok? Why are you borrowing someone’s phone? Did you run away? Do you need me to get you? Can you get to St Pancras? I’ll get my parents to buy you a ticket to Paris! We’ll come and get you from the station and you can come and stay with us! I’ll get my mum now!”

“No! No! Hermione! I’m fine! I promise I’m fine!” Harry practically shouted, trying to calm down his manic friend before she accidentally apparated to England, which honestly, Harry wouldn’t put it past Hermione to figure out how to do. 

Tony and Rogers were chuckling, obviously having been able to hear Hermione all but screaming down the phone.

“Merlin, Harry! Don’t scare me like that!”

“I didn’t even say anything!” Harry yelped defensively.

“Well, I’m sorry if getting a call from you out of the blue is cause for concern, Harry.” Hermione huffed, and Harry grimaced. She might have had a point there.

“So…” Harry started, dragging the word out.

“Oh Merlin, what have you done now?”

“First of all, rude. Second of all, this was totally, 100%, not my fault.”

“You’re not filling me with confidence here, Harry!” Hermione muttered.

Harry took a breath. “Long story short, apparently my parents were in a triad, turns out I have a living parent and he somewhat legally kidnapped me.”

“IT WAS NOT KIDNAPPING!” Tony shouted, though he was smiling, so Harry didn’t think he’d actually offended him.

“You did come willingly, Harry,” Rogers interjected.

Tony threw his hand up and the two high-fived, making Harry laugh.

“Harry,” Hermione hissed dangerously, “what the fuck ?”

“Surprise?”

Chapter Text

It took Harry a solid five minutes to calm Hermione down, at one point having to pull the phone away from his ear because of how loud she was yelling.  Tony and Rogers were no help at all, they were laughing so hard they had to hold each other up. Really though, he could understand Hermione’s reaction. He probably could have floated the whole thing a lot softer. 

Merlin, he hadn’t even told Hermione who his father was yet. 

Yeah, that was going to go brilliantly, he thought sarcastically.

Harry was right. 

The phone went completely quiet. So quiet in fact that Harry was worried the line had dropped, or Hermione had hung up.

“Are you kidding me?” Hermione asked quietly, before screeching, “ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?”

Tony plucked the phone out of his hand and said, “Definitely not kidding.” Tony frowned before holding the phone back out to Harry. “I think she fainted.”

Harry grabbed the phone back, frantically calling for Hermione and trying to remember the emergency number for France.

Hermione groaned, “I’m fine, I’m fine. Please warn me next time one of the people I admire most in the world is going to talk to me.”

“Ah…” 

“Oh, what now, Harry? Is Margaret Carter there too?” She said sarcastically.

“No…. But Steve Rogers is.”

“I hate you. I hate you so much.”

He and Hermione hung up not too long after that, Hermione having confirmed for the umpteenth time that he was actually ok and didn’t need to get smuggled to France.

“Hermione a big fan of Aunt Peggy then?” Tony asked when they’d hung up the phone, obviously having heard the tail end of the conversation.

Harry smiled. “Oh yeah, that’s actually how I knew who Rogers was. Hermione’s vision board is basically just all Margaret Carter.”

“You can call me Steve, Harry,” Steve said with a smile, and Harry nodded.

“Not the whole Captain America thing?” Tony asked, waving his hand in Steve’s direction.

Harry just shrugged. “I’m British.”

Steve chuckled. “Are you hungry? We did interrupt your dinner.”

Harry was about to say no when his traitorous stomach rumbled loudly.

Ignoring his blush, Tony just smiled. “J, order room service. Cheeseburger for me, Carbonara for the Cap, and…” Tony frowned, narrowing his eyes at Harry, before exclaiming, “Got it! Tomato soup and a grilled cheese for Harry!”

“It’s like his superpower,” Steve said to Harry when he saw the shock on his face. “He can always guess what food people want.”

“Hey! My superpower is that I’m Iron Man!” Tony pouted, making both Steve and Harry laugh.

“It’s not really a superpower though is it?” Harry said with a shit-eating grin. “It’s just a fancy suit.”

Tony gasped dramatically, “Just a fancy suit? Just a fancy suit! I have never been so insulted in my life! JARVIS, do you hear this insult on my character!”

“Sir, I have been with you a long time, and I can assure you that is probably one of the least insulting things anyone has ever said about you.”

“BETRAYED!” Tony yelled, falling to his knees dramatically, as Steve and Harry howled with laughter.

Harry had long ago given up on the idea of family, well, of blood family. Of someone coming and taking him away. He used to wish for it desperately, in the quiet of his cupboard, when it all got too much, he used to beg and plead for someone to come and take him away, for someone to care for him, to love him. He’d given up somewhere around his 7th birthday. Well, at least, he thought he had. 

He knew, realistically, he’d gone with Tony far too easily and far too quickly. 

He’d offered him basically no real evidence, spun what could have just been a very good story and Harry thought ‘Yep! Let’s go! This definitely won’t go badly for you like everything else in your life!’

But Harry wanted a family. That’s all he’d ever really wanted. Isn’t that what every orphan truly wants?

Was that what Tom Riddle wanted?

Nope! Nope! Definitely not thinking about the diary right now. Think about literally anything but the diary.

Harry huffed, rolling over in the frankly disgustingly soft bed. He’d been tossing and turning for what felt like hours but was probably only 20 minutes. He just couldn’t get his mind to stop running. There were definitely similarities between him and Tony. But how much of that was just wishful thinking? He’d always been told he looked like his father. His hair, his face, his ego (thanks, Snape).

To be fair, looking at it objectively, no matter who his father turned out to be, it would be very easy to find James’ features in him. Tony and James looked very similar. 

Merlin, his mum really had a type, didn’t she? And apparently, Tony and James’ types were themselves.

Harry giggled to himself, rolling over again, but this time with a small smile on his face.

***

“Sir?”

Tony woke up with a start, before seeing that it was still completely dark outside and groaning, “What, J?”

“It appears Harry is having a nightmare. I have attempted to wake him up, but…”

Tony didn’t even finish listening to what JARVIS had to say before he was up and running towards Harry’s room.

He barrelled into the room, not really sure what he should be expecting.

Harry was whimpering, tossing and turning, gripping the sheets like a lifeline, tears streaming down his face. He was making shockingly little noise for someone in the throes of a nightmare. 

Not really sure what the best course of action was, but desperate to comfort his son, Tony lightly gripped Harry’s shoulder, shaking him slightly.

“Harry,” he said softly, “come on, bambino, it’s just a nightmare. You’re ok. You’re safe.”

Harry awoke with a gasp and a cut-off scream, gripping his arm tightly, almost like he was trying to fix some kind of injury. 

It was only then that Tony noticed the frankly terrifying scar that he was gripping. It looked like someone had jammed an entire pole through his arm.

Tony tore his eyes away as Harry asked, “Tony?” Seemingly coming back to himself.

Tony swallowed, vowing to ask about the scar later. “Sorry, Harry. You were having a nightmare.”

“Oh.” He said with a frown. “I’m sorry if I woke you, I’m normally really quiet.”

Well, that was concerning.

“No, no, you didn’t wake me. JARVIS was concerned, so he woke me.”

Harry frowned. “You didn’t need to do that, JARVIS. I would have been fine.”

“You were most certainly not fine, Harry,” JARVIS said sternly. Tony snickered to himself, having been on the receiving end of a stern JARVIS. “It is my duty to make sure that you are whole and healthy.”

Harry gave a tired smile. “Thank you, JARVIS.”

“You are most welcome.”

“Do you want to try and get back to sleep?” Tony asked softly.

“No!” Harry blurted before blushing slightly. “No. Just… not yet.”

Tony reached out to brush his hair away from where it was stuck to his forehead, only to stop dead when Harry flinched violently.

“Sorry, I’m sorry.” Harry stuttered.

“Don’t apologise, kiddo,” Tony replied, trying to act like his heart wasn’t breaking in two. “How about this, we’ll order some hot chocolate from room service and watch a movie?”

Harry smiled tentatively. “That sounds nice.”

“Great!” Tony smiled. “J, you know what to do. What’s your favourite movie, Harry?”

Harry frowned. “I don’t really know. I haven’t seen that many movies.”

Tony gasped dramatically, gratified when Harry laughed at him. “Well, that’s just a travesty. We’ll have to change that! I would say we should watch Star Wars but I can never watch just one so that’s out. And all of my other favourite movies are probably not age appropriate, though I still think The Godfather is a classic for any age…”

“Absolutely not, sir!” JARVIS said indignantly, making Harry laugh brightly.

“I know!” Tony exclaimed. “We’ll watch Death Becomes Her. It was Lily’s favourite movie.”

“Really?” Harry asked, his question taking on a reverential tone.

“Yeah,” Tony said happily. “Personally, I think she just had a crush on Meryl Streep.”

Harry grinned happily, grabbing his glasses off the bedside table and following Tony out into the TV area.

Once the hot chocolate had come, and the movie was set up, Tony grabbed the duvet out of his room and laid it across both of them, before settling into the couch next to Harry.

It was only about 20 minutes in that Tony thought that Death Becomes Her , whilst being a great movie, might not be the kind of movie a 13-year-old boy would want to watch. He turned to ask Harry if he wanted to watch something else, but Harry was watching the movie with such happiness, that Tony was almost taken aback, wondering what about the movie had the kid so enthralled.

It took a shockingly long time for Tony to realise why. Tony had said it was Lily’s favourite movie. Tony doubted that the Dursleys ever had anything particularly nice to say about Lily and James, so the movie must have been something that connected him to Lily.

Tony made a promise to himself to tell Harry every little thing he remembered about Lily and James, wanting him to be as connected to them as he could be.

“You know,” Tony said casually, “I probably should have figured out the whole magic thing when we first watched this movie together and James said ‘I don’t think there’s a potion that does that, right Lils?’”

Harry laughed brightly and Tony grinned. “What did mum say?”

“She elbowed him in the stomach and told him not to be a moron.”

***

Harry woke up early, as was pretty standard for him. What was not standard, however, was to wake up on a couch, wrapped in what had to be a duvet made of actual clouds, with his head in someone’s lap. It took a solid couple of minutes for Harry’s brain to reboot enough for him to realise something was weird, only to completely come back online quite abruptly. Harry sprung up, but unfortunately, in his haste to get up, he got completely tangled in the duvet, tripped over his feet and face-planted into the ground.

“Ow.” Harry groaned, but in no way whatsoever attempting to get up. What he really wanted was to sink into the floor in embarrassment and never get back up again.

“Holy shit! Fuck! I mean shoot! Dammit.” Tony swore coming over to help Harry up off the ground. “Are you ok?”

Harry nodded, rubbing his nose and pushing his glasses back up. “I’m fine, I’ve had much worse.” On reflection, Harry realised that was probably not the right thing to say. 

Tony’s whole face darkened. “Well, we’ll definitely be discussing that later.” Shaking his head as if to clear his thoughts, Tony continued, “Anyway, let’s get some breakfast and then we’ll head over to my friend's clinic. Where’s the Cap? I’m surprised he didn’t come running out to all that noise.” 

Harry blushed as Tony grinned at him.

“Captain Rogers went for a run approximately 20 minutes ago, I estimate he will be back in about 35 minutes.”

“Excellent,” Tony said with a clap. “Spangles is always starving when he comes back from a run, so we’ll order now and it should be ready when he gets back. J, three full English’s. Scrambled for me and the kid, sunny side up, with extra bacon for the Cap, and get one of those stupid juices he likes. Coffee for me and tea for the kid.”

“Steve was right, it really is a superpower,” Harry said with awe.

“I’m glad something I’ve done is impressive to you,” Tony grumbled playfully.

Harry grinned. “Oh don’t be like that, Tony. I’m also very impressed by JARVIS.”

“Thank you, Harry,” JARVIS said as Tony groaned dramatically.

Steve did, in fact, get back just as the food arrived, a fact that Steve was clearly very happy with. Honestly, Harry thought if the man had any less self-control he’d have done a happy dance. Harry also wondered if the kitchen literally dropped everything they had going on when Tony sent an order down because getting three full English’s in a restaurant in 30 minutes was insane. Or at least, Harry assumed so, what with all the complaining Vernon did about wait times in restaurants.

Harry was genuinely surprised at just how much food Steve could put away. He knew the man was a super soldier but the only other people he’d seen eat the same amount were Vernon and Dudley, and they certainly didn’t look like Steve. 

Harry ended up, more or less, just picking at his food. The Dursleys hadn’t necessarily starved him (Harry was very intently not thinking about last year after the Dobby incident) but he definitely had never had enough to eat. It made summers all that much harder, after getting used to eating three square meals a day at Hogwarts and then having to go back to whatever the Dursleys deigned to feed him in a day. And with only a month left until Hogwarts, Harry’s stomach was pretty used to not getting much.

“You alright, Harry?” Steve asked in concern, looking at his plate.

Harry nodded. “Just not super hungry.”

Both Steve and Tony frowned, and Harry groaned internally, knowing this was definitely going to be added to the list of things Tony would want to talk to him about later.

“Ok, kiddo. We can get something else when we’re out if you need it.” Tony said, his smile looking just a little bit forced. “Do you want to get dressed and then we can head out?”

Harry smiled and nodded, quickly getting up and heading to his room. He grabbed the nicest things he had out of his trunk, which was, quite depressingly, his school pants, school shoes, and the least baggy of Dudley’s old shirts. He didn’t end up looking too bad, in his opinion. He was certainly no Tony Stark, but at least he didn’t look like - what did Aunt Petunia call him? Oh right! - a ratty vagrant.

“J,” Tony said when Harry walked back out of his room. “Remind me while we’re out to take the sprog shopping.”

“Hey!” Harry called indignantly.

Tony waved him off. “And the Cap as well. He can’t keep living in the same five shirts and one jacket.” Tony turned to Harry. “It’s more for his benefit than yours, kid. Plus, I really like shopping.”

Harry knew he was lying, but he appreciated the effort if nothing else. “I can pay for myself.”

Tony laughed. “Don’t stress, bambino. I’m literally a billionaire.”

“Well, I’m…” Harry frowned. “You know, I actually don’t know how much money I have.”

Tony frowned. “What do you mean you don’t know how much money you have?”

“Well, the Potters are old money. At least according to what I’ve heard. And I’ve only seen my vault once but it was pretty bloody full.”

“Hang on, hang on. What do you mean vault?”

Harry shrugged. “My vault at the bank. With all my gold in it.”

Tony looked like his brain was blue-screening. “Gold?”

Harry snickered. “Yeah, the Wizarding world is weird. Their currency is gold galleons, silver sickles, and bronze knuts.”

“Harry,” Tony said seriously. “You must take me to this bank.”

Harry laughed. “Let’s see what the DNA test says first. Maybe this is all just an elaborate scheme to steal all my gold for the Iron Man suits.”

Tony threw his head back and practically cackled. “Cheeky little shit.”

“Tony! Language!” Steve called, stomping out of his room. “Harry is a child!”

Harry scoffed. “Steve, I go to boarding school. I can guarantee there is nothing that Tony can say that I haven’t heard before.”

“Honestly, old man,” Tony said with a shake of his head, as Steve continued to glower at him.

They took what Harry had dubbed ‘the Secret Billionaire elevator exit’ - to Tony’s eternal amusement - to where a car was already waiting, when suddenly, out of nowhere, Harry was dive-bombed by an irate white missile.

“I’m fine! I’m fine!” Harry yelled as Steve and Tony looked ready to attack. “It’s just Hedwig. She’s my friend.” Hedwig hooted pompously, settling herself on Harry’s shoulder, after smacking him in the face with her wing one last time.

“That’s an owl. You have an owl on your shoulder.” Tony said, as Steve just sort of stood and stared.

Harry stroked Hedwig’s wing. “Yeah, this is Hedwig. She’s my best friend.”

“Right well, we’re lucky the hotel is pet-friendly. I’ll go talk to the front desk when we get back and see if we can get her a perch or something for the room. I don’t know if she’ll like the car, but she can follow us? Or wait for us to get back?”

Harry beamed. “You good to wait here, girl?”

Hedwig let out a soft bark and flew back up into the tree she’d originally been waiting in.

“That was an owl,” Steve said, more confused than Harry had yet seen him.

“Yes, obviously it was an owl. Keep up, Cap.” Tony said, sniffing arrogantly, as Harry laughed and followed him into the car.

“Oh, piss off, Tony.”

Tony gasped dramatically, throwing his hands over Harry's ears. “Language, Spangles! There are little ears present!”

“I hate you.” Steve deadpanned.

“Yeah, yeah, I hate you too,” Tony replied, but Harry didn’t miss the little happy smile Tony was trying to hide. Interesting.

The car ride to Tony’s friend's clinic was pretty quick, even with London traffic. Tony spent the whole ride making them listen to Black Sabbath. Steve was wholly unimpressed, which Tony seemed to take as a personal insult. Harry was pretty sure Steve was just winding Tony up. Despite not knowing them for very long, Harry was convinced their entire relationship was just winding each other up.

They eventually pulled up to an incredibly fancy-looking office building. Tony ushered both Steve and Harry through to the elevator quickly, pressing the button for the top level.

“Dr Troy is one of the best geneticists in London, possibly in the Northern Hemisphere. I met him at a conference, I want to say, six years ago now.” Tony explained, leading them through the pristine white office, and through to one of the labs.

Harry wished he had about 12 more pairs of eyes as he tried to look at everything they walked past. The labs were completely state-of-the-art, and Harry was practically itching to see just about anything.

Tony must have guessed what was going through his head because he said, “If you want, I’m sure Dr Troy will let you watch when he’s doing the testing.”

Harry beamed at Tony as he directed him into one of the labs.

“Hi Harry, I’m Dr Troy. It’s nice to meet you. You can call me Mark.” The man held his hand out for Harry to shake, which Harry did with enthusiasm.

“Tony said you might let me watch you do the testing. Is that ok? It’s just so fascinating.” Harry blurted out in excitement.

Mark smiled and nodded. “Absolutely, I’ll walk you through it step by step. Although, I’m not even sure we need it. He reminds me of you the first time I got you in the lab.” He directed at Tony with a laugh.

Tony smiled and ruffled Harry’s hair as he blushed, but honestly, he was too excited to be properly embarrassed.

“We'll do a cheek swab and a blood test. How are you with needles?” Mark asked.

Harry shrugged, “I’m not sure. I’ve never had a blood draw before.”

Mark frowned. “What about vaccinations?”

Harry shook his head. “Not since I’ve been with the Dursleys.”

Mark looked over to Tony who was already typing away on his phone. “I’m already on it, Markie.”

Mark nodded. “Ok, roll up your sleeve for me.”

Harry nodded and rolled up his sleeve.

“Great, and make a fist for me. Excellent. And pump your fist.”

Harry followed his instructions as the man looked at his arm.

“Ok, little sting.”

Harry hissed a bit, but that was more from shock than anything. Really, it was nothing compared to having a basilisk fang shoved through his arm.

“Great job, Harry. Give me a second and we’ll get the cheek swab.”

Harry watched as the man collected a couple of vials of his blood and took them over to his station, frowning slightly in thought.

“You alright, Harry?” Tony asked quietly.

Harry nodded. “Just wondering if my blood is going to be different.”

“Because of your magic?” Tony asked, and Harry nodded. “Is magic in your blood?”

Harry shrugged. “I’m not sure. I mean, all the terms for different magicals seem to revolve around blood.”

“What do you mean?”

Harry was about to answer when Mark came back to do the cheek swab. With that done, Harry turned back to Tony. “So my dad, James I mean…”

“He was your dad, kid, never ever doubt that,” Tony said softly and Harry smiled.

“Dad was what they call a pureblood.”

“Well, that sounds…”

“Horrible? I know.” Harry said with a frown. “It gets worse. So purebloods are people who descend from almost purely magical bloodlines. Apparently, the purebloods hold most of our high positions of government. I’m a half-blood. I guess? I mean I definitely was when I thought James was my dad. I had a pureblood father and a muggleborn mother. I think I’m still technically a half-blood because Mum was magical.”

“Hold on, what’s a muggleborn?” Tony asked genuine horror on his face.

“Oh, she didn’t have magical parents.”

“I thought they were called no-majs?”

Harry frowned. “That must be an American thing. Honestly, I kind of prefer that. Muggle kind of sounds…”

“Like a slur?” Tony finished with a raised eyebrow.

Harry huffed. “Yeah. There’s a certain faction of purebloods that really don’t like muggle… no-maj borns. They call them mudbloods.”

“Harry, that’s….”

“Disgusting. Trust me, I know,” Harry replied with a sigh. Draco spitting ‘You’ll be next, mudbloods’ playing in his mind.

“Harry,” Mark called. “Come on over, I’ll show you what I’m doing.”

Harry grinned brightly, practically bouncing over to the station.

***

“Did you hear all that?” Tony asked, turning to Steve, who was wearing a similar expression to the one Tony was sure he was wearing.

“Yeah, I did.”

“Did it sound like…?”

“Yeah, it sounded exactly like that.”

Chapter Text

The results were a match.

Which, in retrospect, wasn’t a surprise to anyone in the lab. But there was something about seeing it confirmed in front of him that almost caused Tony to stop breathing.

He had a son.

A flesh and blood son.

Jesus fucking Christ.

“Congratulations, Tony,” Steve said from next to him, clamping a strong hand down on Tony’s shoulder, unintentionally helping him ground himself.

“So,” Harry said with a grin, “looks like it wasn’t kidnapping after all.”

Tony barked out a surprised laugh before pulling Harry into a tight hug. Harry stiffened at first, and Tony almost let him go, but after a moment, he felt Harry relax and wrap his arms around him just as tightly.

“Reckon it’s too late for a gender reveal?”

Harry laughed, but Tony felt his hands tighten on his jacket, so Tony just held on tighter. When Harry finally pulled away, everyone pretended not to notice him wiping the tears from his eyes. They also pretended not to see Tony do the same thing, which he appreciated. 

Steve and Mark were talking, most likely to give him and Harry the illusion of privacy, because really, what could a world-renowned geneticist and a man who was born before Watson and Crick's double helix DNA model have to talk about?

Not that Tony didn’t appreciate it, but Steve still had a flip phone for Christ's sake.

“Are you ok?” Harry asked him in concern. “This must be a lot for you.”

Tony snorted. “I’m pretty sure that’s supposed to be my line, kiddo.”

Harry just raised an eyebrow at him, and Tony sighed. “I promise I’m good, Harry. I’m really, really good. It’s just…” Tony trailed off.

“It’s a lot seeing it actually confirmed, even though you knew realistically what the results were going to be and now you’re worried that you’re going to fuck up being a father?”

Tony blinked. “Yeah. That.”

Harry snorted. “Yeah, I get it. I feel the same. I mean obviously, I’m worried I’m going to fuck up being a son, rather than fuck up being a father but the point stands.”

Tony laughed. “You’re ridiculous, kid. Come ‘ere.” He pulled Harry back into a hug. “We’re gonna be fine.”

Tony felt Harry nod against his chest. He carded his hand through Harry’s hair, mentally going through all the things he would need to do and talk to Harry about before they went back to New York.

“I’ve got to give Pepper a call, and send her the results so she can get everything squared away with the lawyers,” Tony said after a minute.

“Who’s Pepper?” Harry asked, before furrowing his brows. “Also, get what squared away?”

“Pepper’s my CEO. Used to be my PA. All around brilliant woman who I wouldn’t be alive without and the single scariest woman I’ve ever met. And I’ve met your mum. And Natashlie, who’s a literal assassin.”

Harry just blinked at him, looking a little lost.

“Don't worry, munchkin. You’ll meet her soon.”

“Hey!” Harry yelped indignantly. “I am not that short.”

Tony snorted. “Yeah, you are. You get that from me. Sorry about that.”

Harry just rolled his eyes. “The lawyers?”

“Oh right!” Tony said, clicking his fingers. “So, the Dursleys technically signed guardianship rights over to me, but the lawyers need the paternity tests to get custody all squared away, and then there’s getting you dual citizenship, cause, you know, I’m American, and I live in America. Which actually we need to have a chat about.”

“Right…” Harry said, drawing out the word in confusion.

“Obviously, I live in America and given you’re my son, I want you to live with me. But you do have a life here so we should probably figure out what we’re going to do.”

“I have to go back to Hogwarts,” Harry said with conviction.

“Right, your boarding school in Scotland, which I’m assuming is not actually a boarding school for the Arts?” Tony said with a raised eyebrow.

Harry nodded his head. “It’s just the no-maj cover. Hermione told me about it. I didn’t even realise there was a no-maj cover, but, with the technology boom, apparently, it was becoming too obvious that a bunch of kids' records just went missing after their 11th birthday.”

“Smart. So three options. Option one. You come to New York full time and we try to find an arts school for you in the US.” Harry violently shook his head and Tony nodded. “Yeah, I didn’t think you’d like that one. So option two. I buy a place in London, and we live there whenever you have holidays.” Harry hummed, and Tony continued. “Option three. We live in New York or the Malibu house, and you fly back when you have school. Which would you prefer?”

Harry furrowed his brow again, thinking hard. “Can we try option three? And if it’s too difficult we think about option two.”

Tony smiled brightly. He was secretly hoping for option three. Well, he really wanted option one but that was pretty unlikely. “Sounds great kid. I can get everything squared away on my end. Do you know if there’s anything that needs to be done on your end?”

Harry tilted his head in confusion. “My end?”

Tony laughed. “Yeah, kid. Is there a US version of your government?”

“Oh!” Harry said, slapping his forehead. “Of course! I’m an idiot. I’ll probably have to get in touch with MACUSA. I’m not sure how though. Hermione might know, or Ron. I’ll ask.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Tony said with a smile, ruffling Harry’s hair as he yelped in indignation and tried to flatten his hair down. “I’m going to call Pepper. I won’t be too long and then you and I are going shopping.”

Harry groaned and Tony grinned at him, turning and walking out of the lab.

Pepper picked up on the second ring.

“It’s a boy!” Tony announced down the phone.

“Oh, Tony.”

“Pepper,” Tony said in concern when he heard her sniffing, “are you crying?”

“Shut up! I’m happy for you, you asshole.”

Tony smiled. “Thanks, Pep.”

“What’s he like?” Pepper asked excitedly.

Tony smiled even wider. “He’s absolutely fucking brilliant, Pep. You wouldn’t even believe it. He even knew about JARVIS before I introduced them. He’s like a little mini-me, but better… and with magic.”

“Oh, Tony.” There was definitely no mistaking the tears in her voice now. “He sounds great.”

“Just wait till you meet him, Pep.”

“You talked about moving to New York with him then?”

Tony nodded, even though he knew she couldn’t see him. “Yeah, he wants to stay at his boarding school, but he’s agreed to move to America when he’s not at school.”

“That’s great! The lawyers are just waiting on the paternity test result and then we’ll have everything set for you when you get back. You’re flying home tomorrow then?”

“Yeah, I’m taking the kid shopping today, we’ll do a quick tour of London and we’ll be on the plane first thing in the morning.”

“Sounds like a plan. Send me lots of pictures.”

“Of course! What do you take me for?”

Pepper just laughed. “Bye, Tony.”

“Bye, Pep.”

***

“You alright, Harry?” Steve asked as Tony walked out of the room.

Harry smiled. “Yeah, Steve. I’m good.”

Steve tilted his head, looking out the lab at Tony with a soft smile on his face. Interesting. “He’ll be a good dad.”

Harry nodded. “Yeah, I think he will be.”

Steve squeezed his shoulder, winking at him as Tony came back into the lab.

“Alright! Who’s ready to go shopping!” Tony exclaimed, with a manic smile on his face.

Harry didn’t know who looked more fearful, him or Steve.

“Honestly, Tony, are clothes supposed to be this tight?” Harry asked, coming out of the change room, trying very hard not to tug on what Harry assumed was a ridiculously expensive shirt.

Tony had dragged him and Steve, practically kicking and screaming, to what he proclaimed was his favourite shop in London. It had a security guard and the clothes didn’t have prices on them. Harry felt poor just looking at the building . Steve looked just as uncomfortable as Harry as Tony pointed out outfit after outfit for their personal fucking shopper to take to the change rooms.

Harry knew that Tony was rich. Objectively. But there’s a difference between knowing and seeing. 

The second they’d walked into the store, they’d been ushered to a private area in the store, offered food and drinks, and introduced to their personal shopper. The change room was practically the size of a small house, and to Tony, this just seemed like an everyday occurrence. 

It was mind-boggling.

And, as Tony reminded him constantly, this was only the first store.

Tony rolled his eyes. “Yes, Harry, clothes are supposed to be that tight.”

“I look like someone put clothes on a bow truckle,” Harry grumbled.

Tony raised an eyebrow. “Kid, what the hell is a bow truckle?”

“Magical stick insects would probably be the best way to describe them.”

Tony rolled his eyes again. “You don’t look like a stick insect. Sure you haven’t got muscles like Mr. Super Soldier over there, but you’re no stick insect. Now, shoo, back to the change room. You have more stuff to try on. Mush!”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t!” Tony called as Harry stomped back to the change room.

Harry didn’t want to know what the total for his and Steve’s clothes ended up coming to, which is why he stayed very far away from the counter, and if the way Steve’s eyes practically popped out of his head was any indication, he was right to do so.

“Tony, it’s obscene!” Steve hissed, as someone from the store carried all their bags out to their car.

“Spangles, I could buy that store out five times over and it wouldn’t make a dent in my accounts. Just shut up and take the clothes.” Tony retorted with a wave of his hand before turning on Harry, who was wishing more than ever he’d brought his invisibility cloak. “Mini-me, when did you last get your eyes checked? You need better glasses.”

Harry shrugged, “I’ve never gotten them checked. Aunt Petunia just brought these home for me when I was like 7.”

Steve looked horrified and Tony looked apocalyptic. “Right, optometrist next.”

Harry just shrugged again, because Tony was probably right. And at least he actually needed glasses, and it wasn’t Tony just spending money for the sake of it.

The optometrist was horrified when she saw Harry’s glasses. Apparently, they were just standard reading glasses that Petunia had picked up from a chemist. Honestly, Harry was surprised she even went that far out of her way. He’d always assumed she’d just picked them up at a charity shop bin. 

His eyes turned out not to be quite as bad as everyone assumed they would be, the prescription was very simple, and the optometrist said he’d be able to walk out with new glasses today, which Harry was pretty happy about.

What Harry was not happy about, was being dragged around the store by Tony as he held up at least 45 different frames to make sure they ‘suit his face shape’ or something ridiculous. Steve looked like he was five seconds away from breaking into hysterical laughter. Oh, Harry was going to get him back for this. 

Tony ended up picking some classic black Ray-Ban frames. Harry thought it made him look like a hipster douche, but Tony just shushed him.

“As the only one with any semblance of style here, I get the final say.”

“Hey!” Harry and Steve exclaimed at the same time, but Tony just waved them off.

They left the optometrist about an hour later, and Harry was pleasantly surprised by just how much better he could see out of his new glasses. It would probably help the headaches he got when he read too much as well. And Quidditch. Couldn’t forget about Quidditch.

“Hey Tony,” Harry said with a mischievous smile in Steve’s direction. “Don’t you reckon Steve needs new shoes?”

“You are absolutely right, Mini-Me,” Tony said with a grin. “I know the perfect place.”

“Why would you do that to me?” Steve hissed.

Harry smiled. “You laughed at my pain, Steve. Not very Captain Righteousness and Apple Pie of you.”

“Traitor.” Steve ruffled his hair, as Harry tried to hit his hands away. “Hey, Tony, maybe we should get Harry a haircut.”

“Don’t you touch my hair!” Harry exclaimed before Tony could even open his mouth.

“But Mini-Me!” Tony whined.

“No.”

“Please! Just a trim? I promise!”

Harry could see this was an argument he wasn’t going to win.

“Fine.” He ground out before rounding on Steve. “I hate you.”

Steve just ruffled his hair again. Bastard.

Tony kept to his promise. Mostly. In a sort of roundabout sense. In a way that unfortunately Harry couldn’t get mad at because technically it was just a trim. And a wash. And styling. Really, Harry should have cleared up the loopholes. He lived nine months out of the year with Fred and George, he should know to check for loopholes.

“I look like a posh wanker.” Harry said through clenched teeth as they left the salon.

Tony pouted. “You look like me.”

Harry grinned. “My point still stands.”

Tony just rolled his eyes, not really arguing the point. “Alright, time to go! We’re burning daylight here, kiddos and we’ve barely gotten started.”

Steve and Harry gave each other commiserating looks.

“Once more unto the breach,” Harry muttered under his breath, making Steve laugh loudly.

“I heard that Mini-Me!”

Despite his threats, Tony didn’t actually drag them all over London to go shopping. They only ended up going to another three stores, all as ridiculously expensive as the first.

He did, however, drag them all over London to go sightseeing.

Steve had - unsurprisingly given the fact he was born poor as dirt in 1918, and had only left the country to go to war and then went into the ice for 70 years - never been to London. And Harry, despite having grown up in Surrey, had never been to London apart from to get the train to school. Which meant they were both being subjected to Tony’s idea of sightseeing. Which was to do everything the tourists do but without any wait times because ‘I’m Tony Stark, I don’t wait in lines, lines wait for me.’ Ok, he hadn’t actually said that, but it was what Harry had inferred. And by the look on Steve’s face, it was what he inferred as well.

The London Eye, The Tower of London, The British Museum, The Globe. Every single one, they would jump the queue completely and they got their own personal guide. They’d even gotten a private tour of Buckingham Palace. They didn’t meet the Queen, which Harry was pretty thankful for, because he might have just passed out then and there, and that probably wouldn’t have been the best look. And Tony probably would have said something offensive and gotten them all kicked out of the country. Or beheaded. 

Tony bought an obscene number of things from the gift shops. They all seemed to be themed in some way, so Harry assumed they were for the rest of the Avengers. He’d tried to make Steve wear a shirt that said ‘I went to the British Museum and all I got was this fossil’ with a picture of a dinosaur footprint on the back, before deciding it would be much funnier if he got the same shirt made but have it say the Smithsonian. Apparently, there was a Captain America exhibit there. Steve looked like he wanted to throw Tony through a wall, and Harry was pretty sure Tony had already put an order through if the shit-eating grin on his face was anything to go by.

Despite the almost uncomfortable displays of wealth, Harry actually had a really good day. Probably one of the best days he could remember, which if he thought about it, was pretty depressing.

They ended up eating dinner out, given it was well past 8 when they’d finished all their sightseeing, before heading back to the hotel. Tony called ahead and had them set up a perch in the room for Hedwig, which the hotel was happy to accommodate. It made Harry wonder just how wild a request from Tony Stark would have to be before they said no.

They arrived back at the hotel, and Hedwig swooped down again - this time far less aggressively - and landed on Harry’s shoulder, happy to follow them into the elevator and up to the room.

***

None of them noticed the mangy-looking black dog watching from the bushes. The dog only watched for a moment, its eyes softening slightly before it gave a decisive nod, and started its long journey north.

Chapter Text

“Tony!” Harry called as he finished packing up his frankly horrifying amount of new clothes. Tony ended up having to buy him an extra three suitcases to fit it all.

“Yeah, munchkin?” Tony replied, popping his head into the room.

Harry rolled his eyes. “Can I borrow your phone again? I want to call Hermione before we go.”

Tony tossed Harry the phone, which he caught easily. “Nice catch. Remind me to get you a phone when we get home.”

“I don’t need a phone, Tony. Plus it won’t work at Hogwarts anyway.”

“What?” Tony yelped. “What do you mean it won’t work at Hogwarts?”

Harry sighed. “Magic and technology don’t work well together.”

“Nah ah!” Tony replied childishly. “I call bullshit. I’ve seen you use plenty of technology just fine.”

Harry hummed. “It’s more like it doesn’t work around high concentrations of magic. Like, ok, think of it like this,” Harry said, trying to think of the best way to explain it, “so I can use a phone, or a tablet, or a TV just fine on my own. But if I get mad or upset and my magic flairs, it will just fry whatever I’m using. Which has happened a few times. So, somewhere that has a high concentration of magic, like Hogwarts, will just fry any kind of technology that comes near it.”

“No way,” Tony said, shaking his head. “I don’t accept this. We have a month until you go back to Hogwarts, right?” Harry nodded. “I’ll have a phone that works around magic for you by then. No way in hell I’m letting you go to school if I have no way to contact you. We’ll work on it together.”

“Ok,” Harry said softly, feeling pretty overwhelmed. He’d never in his life had someone who wanted to stay in touch with him so much that they were attempting to break the laws of magic. But, he guessed, if anyone could do it, it would be Tony Stark.

Tony came over and kissed the top of Harry’s head. “I’ll make it work. And then I expect you to call me every day.”

Harry laughed wetly. “Alright.”

Tony nodded. “I’ll leave you to make your phone call.”

“Thanks, Tony.”

Harry quickly typed in Hermione’s number.

“Harry?” She answered on pretty much the first ring.

“Hey, Mione.”

“Everything ok?”

Harry smiled. “Yeah, everything’s good. I’m just calling to let you know I’ll be in New York for the rest of the holidays.”

Hermione squealed. “Oh, Harry! Are you going to Avengers Tower? That’s so exciting.”

“Yeah, I think so. We’re leaving for the plane in about an hour, but I have a question, do you know how I can contact MACUSA? I’m assuming I have to announce myself or something.”

Hermione giggled. “Announce yourself?”

Harry groaned. “Shut up, you know what I mean.”

“I don’t know exactly what you’ll have to do, but I imagine if you just send a letter with Hedwig they’ll come and talk to you, or they’ll at least tell you who you should talk to. I know they’re located in the Woolworth Building, so maybe just address it to MACUSA, Woolworth Building? Hedwig should be able to get it there no problem.”

Harry sighed in relief. “Thanks, Hermione.”

“No worries Harry. Before you go…” She trailed off nervously.

“What’s wrong?” Harry asked concernedly.

“Nothing! Well at least, nothing yet, I don’t think. It’s just, I got a letter from Ron.”

“From Egypt? Poor Eroll, he only just dropped me a letter.”

Hermione laughed. “No not from Eroll, thank Merlin. I don’t think he would have survived the trip. He said he used Bill’s owl.”

Harry frowned. “He must have been pretty desperate to get you a letter.”

Hermione sighed. “Have you seen the muggle…”

“No-maj.” Harry interrupted.

“What?”

“Sorry, it’s the term the Americans use. I just prefer it to muggle. Sounds less… you know.”

“Yeah,” Hermione said with a heavy sigh. “Anyway, have you seen the No-Maj news at all, about the escaped prisoner.”

“Sirius Black, right? Vernon was fuming they didn’t say where he escaped from.”

“That’s because he escaped from Azkaban.”

“He’s a wizard?” Harry yelped.

“Yeah. Ron heard his dad talking to his mum about it… Oh, Harry,” Hermione sniffed like she was trying to hold back tears. “The ministry thinks he’s escaped to come after you.”

“WHAT!” Harry yelled. 

Tony and Steve almost immediately burst through the door. “What happened? What’s wrong? Are you ok?”

Harry laughed, borderline hysterically. “Oh, I’m just great! Apparently, I’ve got an insane wizard convict after me! Just what I bloody well need!”

“WHAT?” Tony and Steve yelled at the same time.

“Hermione, I'm putting you on speaker. You explain it.” Harry passed the phone to Tony and sat down heavily on the bed, putting his head in his hands.

“Please explain, Hermione,” Tony said through gritted teeth.

“Hello, Mr Stark. Mr Rogers. I don’t know if you’ve seen the news, but there was a prisoner who escaped recently, he’s magical. Our friend Ron, his dad works for the ministry, and Ron overheard a conversation between his parents, and the ministry seems to think that this man has escaped to come after Harry.”

“What’s the prisoner's name?” Tony asked, and Harry had to look up because Tony’s voice sounded weird .

“Sirius Black, sir.”

“Hermione, I’m going to have Harry call you back.”

Tony hung up the phone quickly before sitting down next to Harry and putting an arm around him. “I don’t want to lie to you kid, but this isn’t going to be easy to hear.”

“What could possibly be worse than having an insane prisoner out for my blood?” Harry scoffed.

Tony winced. “I knew Sirius.”

“Excuse the fuck out of me?” Harry exclaimed. Steve must have been just as shocked because he didn’t even scold him for his language.

“Harry…” Tony sighed. “Sirius was James’ best friend.”

Harry laughed hysterically. “Of course he was. Of fucking course he was. My dad was best mates with a prisoner who’s now out for my blood.”

Tony rubbed his face. “I don’t know why he went to prison. It wasn’t in the SHIELD file, just that they couldn’t find any records of his trial.”

Harry frowned. “Why couldn’t they find any record of his trial, that seems weird, right?”

Tony shrugged. “I don’t know, kid. It could be any number of things. Could be the ministry not sharing information, or it could be confidential. State secret type things. A lot of no-maj war trials are confidential. But I’ll see what I can find out, ok?”

Harry nodded.

“Give Hermione a call back, and then we’ll head to the airport, ok?”

***

As soon as Tony had shut the door to Harry’s room, Steve grabbed his arm, stopping him in his tracks.

“What the hell is going on, Tony?”

Tony sighed, rubbing his forehead. “I don’t know, Steve. I spent almost as much time with Sirius as I did with Lily and James. I don’t know what the hell he could have done to end up in prison, or why the hell they think he would be coming after Harry. James and Sirius were practically brothers, I can’t imagine him doing anything to hurt James’ son. And he is James’ son. As much as he’s mine.” Tony finished, having caught the look in Steve’s eye.

Steve nodded before frowning thoughtfully. “You think there’s something going on.”

“Yeah, I do. And I’m going to find out what.”

“Tony,” Steve said, voice filled with something that sounded like trepidation. “Have you thought about what you’re going to tell SHIELD?”

“About what?” Tony replied, mind still reeling about Sirius.

“About Harry.” 

Tony spun around, fire in his eyes. “Nothing. I’m going to tell SHIELD nothing, and neither are you.”

“Of course not, Tony,” Steve replied easily, making Tony relax a bit. “But you’re taking him to New York, to the Tower. Fury already knows who he is. You’re not going to be able to hide him forever.”

“I know,” Tony sighed. “I know. I just want to put it off for as long as possible. God knows what Fury will do when he realises Harry is my son. Probably try and recruit him for the Avengers or something ridiculous. I don’t trust him, Steve. Not with Harry.”

“I get it, Tony,” Steve said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I’ll talk to Clint and Natasha. Don’t worry, he won’t hear it from us.”

Tony smiled, putting his hand over Steve’s and giving it a quick squeeze. “Thanks, Steve.” 

Taking a breath, trying to push all thoughts of Fury out of his head, Tony started on his mental checklist. The plane was ready to go when they were, Harry’s emergency passport had arrived this morning (thank god for Pepper because he hadn’t even thought of that), he was packed, and they’d gotten an appropriate air travel cage for Hedwig. What else was there? He just couldn’t shake the feeling he’d forgotten something.

“Oh shit!” Tony exclaimed, eyes widening in panic. 

“What’s wrong?” Steve asked, seemingly looking around the room for a potential threat.

“I forgot to tell Rhodey.”

Steve raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t tell him you were coming home?”

Tony all but whimpered. “I forgot to tell him I was leaving.”

Steve’s eyes widened. “Oh shit.”

Tony practically ran back into Harry’s room to grab his phone, thanking every deity that he’d finished talking to Hermione.

“Honey Bear!” Tony called exuberantly when Rhodey picked up the phone.

“Tony,” Rhodey replied in a clipped tone. “It’s 3 in the fucking morning.”

Tony pouted. “You’re mad at me.”

Tony could actually hear the eye roll. “Why would I be angry with you, Tony? It’s not like you flew a nuke into a wormhole, saved the world, locked yourself in your lab for a week and then flew off to England without telling me. Nor is it 3 in the fucking morning. ”

“I know, Platypus, I’m sorry. I just… wait, hang on. How do you know I’m in England?”

Rhodey sighed. “Pepper told me.”

“Did she tell you why?” Tony hedged.

“No,” Rhodey huffed. “She said you’d have to tell me that yourself.”

“Right,” Tony sighed, kind of wishing Pepper had just told him. “I, um, I found something in SHIELD’s files. Files that I definitely got legally and not by hacking SHIELD.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Tony!”

“Yeah, I know, I know,” Tony grumbled before steeling himself. “It was about Lily and James.”

Rhodey softened immediately. “You found them?”

“Yeah. 12 years too late.”

“Oh, Tony. I’m so sorry.” 

Tony sighed. “Yeah.”

“Hang on,” Rhodey blurted. “You found Lily and James in SHIELD’s files?”

“Oh it gets better,” Tony replied with a dry laugh. “They were magic, Sour Patch. Fucking magic.”

“Like Loki?” Rhodey asked apprehensively.

“Nah,” Tony replied, shaking his head. “Doesn’t seem like it. They’re not Gods, it’s more like a genetic mutation. And way more common than I expected.”

“Jesus. Ok. Well, that explains why you couldn’t find them.”

“That’s what I said!” Tony blurted out in excitement.

“So, not to be insensitive, Tones, but why did you go to England if…”

“They’ve been dead for 12 years?” Tony said blithely, and he could practically hear Rhodey wincing. “Hang on, I’m going to video call you.” 

Tony hung up quickly before calling out to Harry. “Harry come here, I want you to meet your uncle!”

Harry ambled out, seemingly looking around for the mysterious uncle.

Tony laughed. “Video call, kid.”

Harry blushed as he made his way over to stand next to Tony, as he set up the video call with Rhodey.

“What the hell, Tony?” Rhodey said before his eyes practically popped out of his head as he noticed Harry on the screen.

“Rhodey, meet my son. Harry.”

Harry waved. “Hiya!”

Rhodey fainted.

Harry frowned. “Was it something I said?”

***

Harry really liked Rhodey. Once he’d gotten over the shock, he seemed genuinely excited to meet him. And wasn’t that a trip, someone not biologically related to him being excited to meet him for something other than being The Boy Who Lived. He was very stubborn about being called Uncle Rhodey, especially over Tony’s idea of Uncle Platypus.

He promised to meet them at the airport when they landed. Tony told him to talk to Pepper because she was already going to be there.

“You didn’t tell me that,” Harry said with a frown.

“I’m pretty sure I did.”

“I’m pretty sure you bloody didn't.”

“God it’s like seeing double,” Rhodey said with a laugh, and Tony and Harry both turned back to the screen with identical raised eyebrows, making Rhodey laugh so hard he fell over.

They talked for a little while longer before Steve reminded them they had to leave for the airport. With a quick goodbye to Rhodey, they left the hotel for the airport where a private fucking jet was waiting for them.

Fucking rich people.

However, it did explain why they would be arriving basically as the plane was scheduled to take off. Harry had mentioned to Tony he thought that you needed to get to the airport at least three hours before an international flight to get through security and find the gate. Tony had just looked at him like he was insane and said ‘That’s why I have my own plane.’  Steve had just given Harry a look before they rolled their eyes at each other.

Fucking rich people.

Harry had to admit though, it was a bloody nice way to travel. 

“We’ll be landing about 12:30 pm New York time,” Tony said once they were up in the air. “Happy will be picking us up from the airport with Rhodey and Pepper, and then we’ll head over to the tower, how does that sound?”

“That’s fine,” Harry said with a smile.

“Capsicle, do you know if Birdbrain and Natashlie are out on missions?”

Steve rolled his eyes, “No. I know Natasha is definitely at the tower. I’m not sure about Clint though.”

“Ok, well Brucie-Bear is definitely in the tower. I don’t think he ever actually leaves the lab.”

“Like you’re one to talk,” Steve replied with a roll of his eyes and Harry laughed.

Harry spent most of the plane trip just listening to Steve and Tony bicker. They really were like an old married couple.

Harry ended up taking a nap for the last couple of hours of the trip, hoping it would help combat the jet lag somewhat, getting woken up just as the plane was getting ready to land.

As they walked off the plane, Harry saw three people waiting for them by a massive SUV. He immediately recognised Rhodey, who was smiling and waving. Harry gave a shy smile and a wave back. The woman in the middle must have been Pepper, she definitely gave off a ‘touch me and I’ll kill you without messing up my manicure’ vibes - something that Harry knew to be very difficult, he’d once let Lavender paint his nails and he’d smudged it in the first two minutes. The other guy must have been Happy, he certainly gave off bodyguard vibes.

“Tears for your long lost boss?” Tony said teasingly, as Pepper swatted his shoulder.

“Yes actually, I’m hoping this one is better than the current one.”

“Rude!” Tony exclaimed with a grin.

Pepper just rolled her eyes before turning to Harry with a smile. “It’s so good to finally meet you, Harry. Tony won’t shut up about you. I’m Pepper.”

Harry shook her hand with an easy grin. “Tony won’t shut up about you either. Apparently, you’re the scariest woman he’s ever met.”

Pepper threw her head back and laughed. “I’ll take it as a compliment.”

“I think it was meant as one.” Harry said at the same time Tony said, “It was definitely meant as one.”

Pepper laughed again.

“Ok, ok, stop hogging them,” Rhodey said with a grin, coming up and giving Harry a quick hug. 

“Hey, Uncle Rhodey,” Harry replied with a smile.

“We should get going,” Pepper said, “the press has been like a pack of wolves since you disappeared and I don’t want them catching wind that you’ve touched down before we can get back to the Tower.”

“Right you are, Pep. Alright, mini-me, capsicle, in the car. Vamanos, or whatever.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Harry said, rolling his eyes but getting in the car anyway.

“Thank you.”

“Wasn’t a compliment.”

Tony grinned. “Was to me.”

The drive to the Tower was surprisingly quick. Harry had always heard horror stories about New York traffic, but the drive wasn’t actually too bad. In truth though, it could just be because the city was still in cleanup mode. The damage from Loki’s invasion was clear and it broke Harry’s heart. Especially because Loki was such an important figure in his world. Fred and George literally had an altar for him. It was going to hurt having to tell them what he did. Harry himself had been fascinated by the Trickster god long before the invasion. And it almost felt like another adult in his life letting him down. Which, realistically, was an insane feeling to have, but Harry had always felt really connected to Loki as a god. Outcast, misunderstood, lost. So seeing the destruction first-hand hurt more than he cared to admit.

Pepper and Rhodey were good distractions though. They wanted to know practically everything about him, but Tony was pretty excellent at redirecting questions when he noticed Harry getting uncomfortable, which he really appreciated.

The closer they got to the Tower, the more the car seemed to fill with tension, which Harry didn’t really understand. At least, he didn’t understand it until they got to the tower.

“Harry, duck,” Pepper said. Her tone of voice reminded him of Professor McGonagall so much that he ducked without question.

That’s when the camera flashes started.

Ah. That was why everyone was tense.

“The windows are pretty heavily tinted,” Pepper said as they pulled into the Tower’s garage, “but I didn’t want them getting any photos of you until you’re ready. Ok, Harry?”

Harry smiled gratefully. “Thanks, Pepper.”

“Welcome home, sir,” JARVIS said as they entered the lift.

“Thanks, J. Drop the Cap on his floor and then take us up to the penthouse.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Hi JARVIS,” Harry said with a grin.

“Hello, Harry.”

Rhodey and Pepper both looked surprised. “You got him to call you Harry? I’ve been trying for years to call me James, instead of Colonel Rhodes.”

“He’s my brother, he has to call me Harry,” Harry said with a bright smile as Rhodey and Pepper both laughed.

Harry said a quick goodbye to Steve as the elevator pulled up to his floor before it continued up to the penthouse.

Honestly. Rich people.

The elevator doors opened and Harry literally felt the breath get knocked out of him. It was absolutely beautiful.

“Welcome home,” Tony said softly.

Harry turned and smiled up at him. Home. Wow.

Harry let Hedwig out of her cage and she happily flew around the penthouse for a moment before settling on the perch someone (he assumed Pepper) had set up for her.

“Let me show you your room,” Pepper said with a smile. 

Harry just nodded, feeling more than a little bit overwhelmed, before following Pepper down the hallway.

“Tony’s room is here, just across from yours if you need it,” Pepper said, pointing to one of the rooms. “My room when I stay here is just down there, next to Rhodey’s. We’ll all be here for at least the next couple of days to help you settle in.” 

Harry just nodded, emotion almost choking him. Pepper seemed to understand because she just smiled and directed him to his room.

His first thought was that it had to be a mistake. This wasn’t a room. It was practically bigger than Gryffindor Tower. What the hell was he going to do with all this space? The bed was bigger than any bed he’d ever seen in his life, like it was custom-made to be as bloody big as possible, which, if he thought about it, might have actually been true. It was far and beyond the nicest place he’d ever been in his life.

“Do you like it?” Tony blurted out. “If you hate it we can change it.”

Harry just shook his head and choked out,  “It’s brilliant.”

Pepper smiled. “The bathroom is through that door,” she said, pointing to a dark wood door, “and the closet is through there,” she finished pointing to the double doors on the other side of the room.

“Tony,” Harry forced out through gritted teeth as he opened up the doors to the closet. “There are already clothes in here.”

Tony smiled brightly. “I know! Pepper went shopping for you!”

“Then why, in the name of all that is holy, did we have to go shopping in London !”

Tony looked sheepish for a second. “Bonding?”

Harry just put his head in his hands.

***

“Sir, Captain Rogers, Agent Barton, and Agent Romanov are all requesting entrance. It appears Captain Rogers has informed them about Harry.”

Tony sighed. “Might as well make it a party. J, ask Brucie to come up to the penthouse please and ask Harry to come out as well if he’s finished grumbling about the closet.”

“Dr Banner says he will be up in a moment, and Harry has told me to tell you, quote, ‘I will never stop grumbling about the closet, you ridiculous, insane, wanker. And when people start eating the rich, I’m coming for you first.”

Tony barked out a laugh. “J, please remind Harry that he is now just as rich as me.”

“He says to tell you to ‘shove it up your arse’.”

Tony laughed again. “You’re so mean to me, munchkin.” He called out as he heard Harry stomping down the hallway.

“Maybe it’s because you keep calling me short!” Harry yelled, just as the doors to the elevator opened and Clint, Nat, Steve, and Bruce all stepped out. “I’m not that short!” Harry stopped dead when he saw that they weren’t alone. “Um, hello?”

“Tony…” Bruce said in concern. “Have you made yourself a British clone?”

Tony threw his head back and cackled. “Not quite Brucie-Bear. Meet my son, Harry. Harry, this is everyone.”

Harry just waved awkwardly as everyone (bar Steve, who was looking way too amused) stared at him. Leaning over to Tony, he asked apprehensively, “Are they gonna talk, or just stare at me?”

Chapter Text

Clint was the first to snap out of his shock, which surprised Tony. He assumed it would have been Natasha.

“Hey, Harry,” He said with an easy grin, offering Harry his hand. “I’m Clint; it’s nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, too.”

Natasha was next, offering a hand as well. “Natasha. Nice to meet you.”

“Oh! You’re the assassin.” Harry said, shaking her hand before turning a shit-eating grin on Tony. “You know he’s scared of you, right?”

Tony yelped. “I am not scared of Natashlie!” 

It was a lie. He was very scared of Natashlie. He would just never admit it. Ever.

Natasha just laughed. “You and I are going to get along great.”

Bruce held his hand out with a smile.

“I’m…”

“Dr. Bruce Banner!” Harry interrupted excitedly. “I read your dissertation on molecular dynamics of Protein-Ligand Interactions. Hermione’s going to be so jealous I met you! She thinks your work in nuclear physics is fascinating. It’s a bit above my head, honestly.”

“But a PhD dissertation about biochemistry isn’t?” Natasha muttered.

“Aren’t you like 11?” Clint asked with a raised eyebrow as Bruce just stared at Harry in shock.

Harry frowned. “I’m 13.”

“Isn’t he great!” Tony exclaimed proudly.

“It’s nice to meet you, Harry.” Bruce finally said when he snapped out of his shock. “I’m happy to answer any question you have about my work if you’d like.”

Harry beamed. 

“I told you,” Steve said smugly. “There’s two of them.”

Harry just stuck his tongue out at him. 

“J, order us some pizzas, you know the ones. And get the garlic knots that Brucie likes and a Nutella and Strawberry pizza for dessert.”

“What the fuck is a Nutella and Strawberry pizza,” Harry exclaimed, screwing his face up in disgust. 

Natasha laughed, putting an arm around Harry and directing him to the couch. Neither she nor Tony missed the slight flinch. Nat looked over with a raised eyebrow, and Tony mouthed ‘later’. She gave a quick nod and turned back to Harry. “You’re in for a treat, Harry. Nutella and Strawberry pizzas are amazing. ”

“So tell us about yourself, Harry,” Clint said excitedly after he’d literally launched himself over the back of the couch to sit down. “Also, what’s with the owl?” He asked, pointing to Hedwig.

“I thought you could use a friend, birdbrain,” Tony replied with a grin.

“Ha ha, you’re hilarious, Stark,” Clint replied sarcastically.

“That’s Hedwig. She’s Harry’s pet.” Hedwig gave an indignant hoot. “Sorry, she’s Harry’s friend.” Hedwig gave a happy bark before going back to grooming her feathers.

“Can she understand us?” Bruce asked, looking at Hedwig in fascination.

“Hedwig is very smart,” Harry replied with a soft look in her direction.

“Amazing,” Bruce breathed, and Hedwig seemed to puff up at the praise.

“So you have an owl, that’s… fun,” Clint said, though it was clear he was confused. “So, tell us about yourself!”

“Um, ok,” Harry replied, looking around at everyone. “My name is Harry, um, I’m 13. I have an owl?” Tony almost started laughing at the completely lost look on his son's face. “I’m not sure what you want to know. Sorry.”

“What’s your favourite subject at school?” Natasha asked, and Tony could see the panic on Harry’s face.

“Um, erm, I don’t…”

“Harry goes to an alternative school.” Tony cut in before turning to Harry and saying quietly, “You can tell them if you want, but you don’t have to. It’s your choice.”

“Um, I’m a wizard. So I go to a magic school.”

Tony didn’t miss the way that Clint stiffened, and he was ready to absolutely kick his ass if he said anything. But Natasha just put a hand on his shoulder, and he relaxed a bit. Unfortunately, Harry hadn’t missed the interaction, and he looked devastated.

“I’m sorry.” He said quietly, moving away from Clint. 

Tony was about to wring Clint’s stupid fucking bird neck.

“Oh, kid,” Clint said sadly, reaching out to stop Harry from leaving. “It’s not your fault. I just had a bad experience with magic during the Loki invasion. But that’s not on you, ok?”

Ok. Looks like he’d have to save the neck ringing for another time.

“My magic is different from Loki’s, if that helps at all? He’s a god. I’m… I’m just Harry.”

Natasha smiled. “Well then, just Harry, what’s your favourite subject at your fancy magic school then.”

Harry brightened. “Honestly, it’s all so cool. I think probably Charms or Transfiguration at the moment. It would be Defense Against the Dark Arts, but my last two teachers have been absolutely shocking. And History of Magic is fascinating, but I have to self-study that because the teacher is a ghost that only really talks about the Goblin Rebellions. I would absolutely love Potions if the Potions teacher didn’t have it out for me. Herbology is great as well, but this year, we start our elective subjects. I’m taking Runes and Divination, so that will be great. I wanted to take Arithmancy as well, but I could only do two, and I figured Arithmancy is just a lot of maths, which I’m good at, so I could probably just study it on my own…” Harry stuttered to a stop as he saw everyone staring at him. “Sorry, I was rambling.”

Natasha just smiled. “Sounds amazing. How come your last two Defense teachers were so shocking?”

“Oh,” Harry said with a laugh. “So Gilderoy Lockhart, he was the teacher last year, turns out he was actually a fraud. He was taking other witches' and wizards' stories and erasing their memories and then publishing the stories, saying he did it. And Quirrell…” Harry trailed off, looking around as if he just remembered who he was talking to. “Um… he was just a bad teacher.”

Well, that wasn’t sus at all.

Tony was about to open his mouth when he saw Natasha shake her head minutely. Tony frowned, but Clint had already started talking.

“What about friends? I assume you have more friends than just the bird.” He said cheekily.

Harry rolled his eyes, his posture relaxing a bit. “I’m friends with pretty much everyone in my house, but my best friends are Ron and Hermione.”

“House?” Tony asked because Harry hadn’t mentioned that before.

“Oh, um, the school is broken up into four houses. Gryffindor, that’s my house, Slytherin, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff.”

“How do you get put into the houses?” Natasha asked, and Tony narrowed his eyes.

“Well, you get sorted. It’s sort of like a personality type thing. So, Gryffindor is known for bravery and chivalry. Slytherin for cunning and ambition. Ravenclaw for smarts. And Hufflepuff’s are loyal and hardworking.”

“Are you friends with people in other houses?” Natasha pushed.

Harry furrowed his brows. “Um…”

“Sir,” Jarvis interrupted. “The pizzas have arrived.”

“Great!” Tony said with fake enthusiasm. “Birdbrain, Natashlie. Come help.”

“But…”

“Now!”

“You two were interrogating my kid,” Tony growled when they’d walked far enough away from the lounge area. “Just because he didn’t pick up on it doesn’t mean I didn’t. What the fuck guys, he’s 13.”

“We weren’t interrogating him, Tony,” Clint said, raising his hands in front of him. “Not on purpose, anyway.”

“I was.” Natasha piped up. “I didn’t plan to,” she continued with a roll of her eyes when Tony puffed up in anger, “but two seconds into that conversation, I could see there was something wrong with that school of his. I mean, come on, the way he shut down about that Quirrell guy. He’s hiding something, Tony.”

“Of course he is!” Tony exclaimed. “He’s known you for all of five seconds! Why should he trust you? Was what he said about the school fucking weird? Yes! But that doesn’t give you the right to interrogate my son.”

“Tony,” Natasha sighed.

“No!” Tony barked. “He’s my kid. And he has had a rough fucking go of it, and I will not let you hurt him in any way. He’s already pretty cagey around us, and I won’t let you make that worse. So you either stop interrogating him, sit down, and shut up, or you fuck off back to SHIELD, and I won’t let you back in the tower when he’s here.”

“You’re right.” Clint sighed. “I’m sorry.”

Tony turned sharp eyes on Natasha, who sighed and nodded. “Won’t happen again.”

“I’m not fucking around, Natasha. Not about my son.”

***

“They were interrogating me, weren’t they?” Harry said with a raised eyebrow in Steve’s direction the second Natasha, Clint, and Tony left the room.

“What? No! Of course not!” Steve said unconvincingly.

“You’re a terrible liar, Steve.”

“I’m sorry, Harry,” Bruce said sadly, “I don’t think they can help themselves, honestly. Natasha especially. It’s her job.”

Harry just shrugged. “Well, I hope she does a better job at work than she did with me. She was glaringly obvious.” 

Steve snorted, and Bruce looked like he was covering up a smile.

“Are we continuing with the interrogation?” Harry asked with a raised eyebrow when Tony, Natasha, and Clint walked back into the room with the pizza.

“It wasn’t…” Tony started to say with panic in his eyes, but Natasha cut him off.

“How did you know?” She asked with a sharp grin, which Harry returned.

“You were very transparent.”

Natasha smiled what seemed to be an actual smile. “I was right. You and I are going to get along great.”

“PIZZA!” Tony yelled, and Harry turned to look at the quite horrified look on his face. Everyone else just burst out laughing.

Natasha ‘call me Nat’ was right. The Nutella and Strawberry pizza was fantastic. Whoever came up with it deserved an Order of Merlin because they were clearly a wizard.

Speaking of wizards.

“Tony,” Harry asked, “Do you know where my school trunk is?”

Tony nodded, swallowing his pizza. “It was brought up with the rest of the suitcases, so it should be in your room. How come?”

“I need to write a letter, and my quills and parchment are in my trunk.”

“You need to write a what and your what and what are what?” Tony yelped, like the lack of technology in the sentence was a personal affront.

Harry just rolled his eyes. “I need to contact MACUSA. It’s America’s magical government.”

“So call them!” Tony exclaimed like it was the easiest thing in the world.

“Do you have their phone number?” Harry asked pointedly as Tony pouted.

“I could find it.”

Harry rolled his eyes again. “No, you couldn’t because they don’t have one.”

“How are you going to send the letter?” Natasha asked, looking genuinely intrigued.

“Hedwig will take it, won’t you, girl,” Harry replied, and Hedwig hooted.

“You use an owl as a messenger bird?” Clint asked in fascination.

Harry smiled. “Yeah. It makes breakfast at Hogwarts very interesting.”

“All the more reason to get a phone working,” Tony grumbled. “I haven’t sent a letter since the invention of the internet.”

Harry was pretty sure everyone in the room rolled their eyes.

To whom it may concern;

My name is Harry James Anthony Potter. I am a British wizard who has recently come to America to live with my biological father, Anthony Stark.

I have all the correct documentation on the No-Maj side if you need to see that. However, my concern is that I’m not sure what the procedure is on the Wizarding side. I plan to live here in New York when I am not at Hogwarts.

If you could send me the relevant information that I need, I would appreciate it.

Regards

Harry Potter

“This look ok?” Harry asked, showing the letter to Tony.

Tony whistled. “Damn, Mini-Me, you have worse handwriting than I do.”

“Oh, piss off,” Harry grumbled. “You try writing with a quill.”

***

Tony was not expecting Wizarding communications to be quick, given the fact they had to send letters with fucking birds, and not to mention it was the government. So he was more than a little bit shocked when, not even a day after Harry had sent his original letter to MACUSA, JARVIS informed him of Hedwig returning with an unknown owl trailing behind her.

The unknown owl followed a very disgruntled-looking Hedwig through the window JARVIS had opened for her and onto her perch. Tony watched in amusement as Hedwig literally turned her back to the random owl. Hedwig must be the most hilarious bird Tony had ever met.

Seeing that the bird had a letter, Tony reached out for it, only to yank his hand back quickly when the thing tried to bite him.

“J, can you tell Harry that there’s a bird here with a letter. Tell him the fucker tried to bite me.” Tony said petulantly.

Harry walked in with a very amused look on his face. “It’s because the letter isn’t for you, nosy. Owls are fiercely protective of their mail.”

“Well, thanks for telling me,” Tony grumbled as Harry grabbed the letter from the now-willing bird. 

“Well,” Harry said after a moment. “It’s a good thing we went shopping. We’ve been ‘invited’ to present ourselves to MACUSA as soon as possible.” Harry handed the letter over to Tony to read.

Tony wouldn’t have necessarily called the letter threatening, but there was certainly an undertone of ‘you won’t like what happens if you don’t show up’, which Tony was not best pleased about. He never did well with orders, but this wasn’t anything Tony had dealt with before. So he figured if there was ever a day to start taking orders seriously, it would be from a secret magical government that probably had the ability to make his son's life very difficult.

“What’s a portkey?” Tony asked, scanning the letter again.

“This, I would assume,” Harry replied, holding up a keychain that said I Love New York. “It came with the letter. I’ve only ever read about portkeys. It’s basically just a way to travel from one place to another instanously.”

“Of course it is,” Tony said with a huff. “Fucking teleportation.”

Harry frowned, his eyes locked on the arc reactor glowing under Tony’s shirt. Now, Tony wasn’t usually too self-conscious about the arc reactor, but the way Harry was looking at it worried him. That and the fact it was the first time Harry had even seemed to notice it. “What’s wrong, Mini-me?”

“I don’t know if the arc reactor is going to work around magic, and I have literally no way to test it because I can’t use magic outside of school.”

“Ah,” Tony said with a frown. “Well, it stopped Loki from being able to mind control me, so that’s a good sign, right?”

Harry hummed. “Loki’s magic is different from my sort of magic, just like my sort of magic is different from the Masters of the Mystic Arts.”

“Hold on,” Tony interrupted. “What the hell are Masters of the Mystic Arts?”

“It’s a different kind of magic user, to an extent. The Wizarding World, Wizarding Britain especially, sees them as a bit of a joke, but I think they’re fascinating. So, like, I’m born with my magic, right? My kind of magic, you either have it or you don’t. Masters of the Mystic Arts aren’t born with an innate power; there are definitely people born more suited to it, but all in all, it’s just regular people who learnt to harness cosmic energy to use for,” Harry hummed like he was searching for the right word, “I guess the closest explanation would be matter manipulation. Most of the information I’ve come across is heavily biased, so I took it all with a grain of salt.”

“How have I not heard of this?” Tony asked, more than a little bit frustrated. He hated when there were things he didn’t know.

Harry shrugged, “It’s pretty concentrated in Nepal, but there’s definitely a sanctum in New York. Pretty sure there’s one in London, too.”

“As much as I would love to keep talking about this, and I really, really would,” Tony said, “We do need to get ready for this meeting.”

“But what about the arc reactor?” Harry said worriedly.

“You said MACUSA is in the Woolworth building, right?” Harry nodded, and Tony continued. “Ok, I have backup reactors, so what we’ll do is give one to Happy, and he can wait outside the building. On the off chance …” Tony stressed, because Harry did not look happy, “that the reactor fails, I get about 10 minutes before there’s serious problems, so you can run out and grab the spare one.”

“But wouldn’t it just fry again the second I walked back into the building?”

“Ah,” Tony didn’t think about that. “The letter said the portkey is two-way, right?”

“Yeah?”

“Easy!” Tony exclaimed. “Just pop me back here, and we’ll put a new arc reactor in. And then we’ll make the wizards come to us.”

“I don’t like it,” Harry said with a frown.

Tony sighed. “I know, kid, it’s not the greatest plan ever, but it’s the best one we’ve got at the minute.”

Harry looked like he was going to argue, but eventually, he just nodded. “Alright.”

“Great!” Tony said. “Let’s go meet some wizards!”

Tony was genuinely shocked about just how much Harry looked like him when he put on a suit. Harry had grumbled about not having any formal robes because, apparently, that was the standard in the Wizarding world… fucking robes. Tony had managed to get him into one of the nicer suits that he’d bought Harry in London, and by god, did he look just like Tony, right down to the petulant expression at being forced into a suit.

“Well, don’t you look sharp,” Pepper said with a smile when she saw Harry and Tony dressed up.  Harry just pouted, making Pepper laugh, probably having seen the exact expression on Tony’s face. “Where are you two headed?”

“JARVIS,” Harry said with a grin.

“ We’re off to see the Wizard! The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. We hear he is a whiz of a whiz if ever a whiz there was. ”

Judy Garland's voice floated through the penthouse, and Tony laughed so hard he had to hold onto the couch for support.

“You’re hilarious, mini-me. Seriously, absolutely brilliant.”

Harry grinned at him happily.

“We’re going to see the Magical Government,” Tony told Pepper when he’d finally stopped laughing.

Pepper breathed in deeply through her nose and rubbed her temples. “For the love of god, please be respectful, Tony.”

Tony gasped dramatically, “I’m offended you think so little of me, Pep!”

“What’s going on?” Rhodey asked, popping his head into the lounge area. “I heard Judy Garland.”

Tony snorted as Pepper turned to Rhodey. “Tony is going with Harry to meet their Magical Government.”

Rhodey groaned. “Please, please, please don’t act like you normally do.”

“Oh ye of little faith.”

“Please don’t get me kicked out of the country.” Harry pleaded.

“Betrayed by my own son!” Tony wailed dramatically.

Harry sighed. “Well, it was nice knowing you all. Let’s go, Tony.”

Tony grinned and grabbed onto the keychain. 

“MACUSA.”

Tony had never in his life felt anything as awful as a portkey, and he’d been tortured for months in a cave in Afghanistan. He and Harry landed practically on top of each other on a cold, hard marble floor.

“First time using a portkey?” Someone asked from above them.

“What gave it away?” Tony asked sarcastically as he pushed himself up off the ground, holding a hand out to Harry to help him up.

“Does it get easier?” Harry asked.

“You get used to them eventually.” The stranger said with a smile. “Hi, my name is Lana West, I’m the Senior Aide to President Whitfield.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” Tony said with a charming smile. 

Harry didn’t say anything, too busy staring at the arc reactor.

“It’s doing fine, mini-me, we’re all good,” Tony said with a more honest smile in Harry’s direction. 

“Are you sure?” Harry said with a frown.

“I’m sure.”

Harry nodded before turning back to Lana with a sheepish smile. “Sorry, ma’am, I was worried about the arc reactor failing when we got into the building.”

“Ah,” Lana said sheepishly. “We actually didn’t think about that when we invited you here. It is quite fascinating that it didn’t.”

Tony scoffed internally. ‘Invited’. Sure.

“You know about me, then?” Tony asked.

“Mr Stark,” she said with a grin, “We may be Magical Americans, but we are still Americans. So yes, we know who you are. If you’d like to follow me, the President is waiting.”

Harry and Tony turned to each other with raised eyebrows before following behind Lana.

“Reckon it’s you or me that’s worth talking to the President?” Harry leaned over, whispering to Tony with a grin.

“$50 that it’s me,” Tony replied.

Harry held out his hand, and they shook. “Deal.”

Lana walked them through the halls of MACUSA. It was a stunning building, one Tony would very much have liked to explore, given the time. Unfortunately, now was not the time. They were led through to what Tony assumed was the magical equivalent of the Oval Office, given how similar it looked. Tony wondered which one came first.

“Harry Potter,” President Whitfield said, standing up to greet them. “Welcome to MACUSA.” 

Tony slapped a $50 note into Harry’s outstretched hand.

Chapter Text

“I have to say,” President Whitfield said with a smile, directing both him and Harry to sit down. “There was actually a bet running about whether your letter was a prank.”

Harry frowned. “Do people often prank the government?”

President Whitfield laughed. “No. But there’s a first time for everything. And someone claiming to be The Boy Who Lived and the son of Tony Stark seemed like a stretch to a lot of people.”

“I have all the appropriate documents to prove it,” Tony said, not at all liking the way the President had said that infernal title. He pulled the documents out of his briefcase and handed them over. “That includes the paternity test, termination of guardianship rights from his previous guardians, transferral of custody orders, and the documents from the no-maj immigration office, along with the submitted documents for Harry’s American citizenship.”

“Well, you are on the ball, aren’t you, Mr Stark,” President Whitfield said, taking the offered documents. “We don’t have much to do with the no-maj side, in truth. Until recently, we were completely segregated. So we do have our own procedures we’ll have to go through.”

Harry nodded. “We assumed so, that’s why I sent the owl.”

“Understandable. Now, Mr Potter, are you sure you want dual citizenship? I can’t tempt you to become a purely Magical American citizen. I’d love to rub it in Fudge’s face.” President Whitfield said with a laugh.

Harry smiled. “Sorry, ma’am. I like Hogwarts too much.”

“Ilvermorny is a brilliant school, Mr Potter. And after that business at Hogwarts last year…”

Harry stiffened, and Tony frowned. “What business?”

“Ah,” The President said with a frown. “I fear I may have gotten you into trouble, Mr Potter.”

“Harry,” Tony said seriously. “What business?”

“It really wasn’t that big a deal,” Harry said.

“Ah huh,” Tony replied sceptically. “Does it have anything to do with the giant scar on your arm?”

“Maybe,” Harry said sheepishly.

Tony sighed. “We’ll talk about it later. You said there are some procedures we have to go through?”

The President smiled. “Nothing too odious, I promise. Just some paperwork to fill out, and we have our own version of the paternity test.”

“So basically the same as the no-maj side then,” Tony replied, trying very hard not to roll his eyes.

“I suppose so.”

Tony took a deep breath, so far wholly unimpressed by the Magical Government. He really hoped the British Government was better, no matter how un-American that felt. “Ok, let’s do it.

The paperwork turned out to be a lot more odious than the no-maj side, but that might have been because Tony had to do it himself. Which sucked . He really should give Pepper another raise because she just did all of his paperwork for him without complaint. Yep, definitely giving her another raise. And a very big Christmas bonus. Maybe a nice new pair of shoes. 

Also, Harry was not wrong about writing with a quill. That shit was hard. No wonder his writing looked like chicken scratch. Surely, a fountain pen would work just as well as a quill. 

Making a mental note to buy a bunch of fountain pens for Harry and to carry one himself any time he had to deal with wizards again, Tony looked over to see how Harry was going on his section of the paperwork.

“What’s wrong, munchkin?” Tony asked when he noticed Harry staring at the parchment with a frown, the quill hovering just above it.

“Do you want me to change my name?”

“No?” Tony said confusedly, “Harry’s a good name.”

Harry snorted and rolled his eyes. “Stark, Tony. Do you want me to be Harry Stark?”

“Oh,” Tony said a bit stupidly. “I mean, of course, I’d love you to have my name, but I’m not going to take James’ name from you. He’s your dad just as much as I am.” 

Harry smiled at him. “Ok.”

“If it helps, all your American Citizenship papers are under Potter-Stark, but that’s mostly just because my name carries a whole lot of weight behind it.”

“Potter-Stark,” Harry said quietly, almost like he was testing it out. “Harry Potter-Stark.” He smiled again and nodded decisively before writing Harry James Anthony Potter-Stark.

“Do you know if I’ll have to change my name with the British Ministry as well?” Harry asked.

“No,” President Whitfield replied. “The Ministries are pretty connected, especially when it comes to dual citizens, so it will be automatically changed with the British Ministry.”

“Ah,” Harry said with a wince.

President Whitfield laughed. “Yes, I imagine The Daily Prophet will have a hold of it by the end of the day. The British Ministry is leakier than a colander.”

Well, there went Tony’s hope of the British Ministry being better than the American.

Harry sighed. “I’ve got to write to Ron before he gets hold of the paper then. Hopefully, Hedwig’s up for a trip to Egypt.”

***

They walked out of MACUSA about an hour later, Harry clutching his shiny, new MACUSA identification and a packet of information for new American Magical citizens. It made him wonder if the British Ministry had something similar and if it did, where the hell was his?

Tony had flat-out refused to take the portkey back to the Tower, which Harry very much agreed with. That thing was fucking awful, and if he ever had to use one again, it would be too soon.

They made it back out onto the street, and Tony pulled out his phone to call Happy, only to find the thing completely fried.

Rather than being annoyed, like Harry thought he would, he looked like all his Christmas’ had come at once.

“Do you know what this means!” Tony said excitedly.

“Tony, no!” Harry groaned when he cottoned on to what Tony was thinking.

“You didn’t even know what I was going to say,” Tony said petulantly.

“You’re going to try and power a phone with a mini arc reactor.”

Tony just stuck his tongue out at him.

“You wanna help?” Tony said after a minute.

Harry grinned. “Hell yeah.”

Finally, back at the Tower (Tony had to use a pay phone to call Happy. It was hilarious), Tony was happily showing Harry around his workshop, and Harry was in absolute heaven. Tony introduced him to DUM-E, Butterfingers, and U. DUM-E seemed to imprint on Harry, trailing after him and beeping at him happily. Harry spent most of the lab tour holding onto DUM-E’s claw and leading him around like a toddler. It was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

And then Tony promised they could build a robot together after they’d worked out the phone. And that was the best thing that ever happened to him.

“J, can you get someone from R&D to send up the newest version of the StarkPhone? Probably send up a few.”

“Of course, sir,” Jarvis replied. “Miss Leads will be up with the phone in a moment.”

“Alecia Leads, she’s the head of R&D for the New York branch of SI. I recruited her straight out of MIT, probably one of the most brilliant engineers I’ve ever met. Bar me, of course.” Tony said with a grin.

“Of course,” Harry replied with a laugh.

“Hello, Tony.” The woman who had to be Alecia said as she walked into the lab, pausing when she saw Harry. “Smaller Tony.”

“Hey, Leis. This is my son, Harry.” Tony said with a smile. “The phone’s for him. We’re gonna be upgrading it.” The smile turned slightly manic.

Alecia raised an eyebrow. “What? You gonna put lasers in it or something?”

“No!” Harry yelped when he saw the look on Tony’s face. “No lasers in my phone, Tony!”

Tony pouted. “But munchkin!”

Alecia laughed. “Good luck, kid. Bye, Tony.”

“Bye, Leis.” Tony waited for her to leave before turning to Harry. “She won’t tell anyone about you. The NDA’s SI employees sign are some of the most ironclad probably in the world.”

“I wasn’t worried,” Harry said quickly. Tony just raised an eyebrow at him, and Harry sighed. “Ok, I was a little bit worried. It’s not that I don’t want people to know you’re my dad or anything! It’s just, I’m going to get enough from the Wizarding World when it comes out…”

“And you want to keep yourself as unknown as possible here for as long as possible?” Harry nodded, and Tony smiled. “I get it, kiddo. Trust me. My father had me in front of the cameras when I was three days old, and as much as possible from then on, so if you never want to get in front of the cameras, I will never ever make you. Ok?”

Harry smiled. “Thank you.”

“Of course. Now!” Tony said with a clap. “Let’s make a magic-resistant phone!”

Seven and a half hours later, Steve and Pepper came to, quite literally, drag them out of the lab. Apparently, they’d missed lunch, and it had been decided they couldn’t miss dinner as well. 

Harry had possibly the greatest day of his life so far. Tony was brilliant, and even though Harry was far, far behind Tony in terms of intelligence and experience, Tony really explained things well and included Harry in the process.

They’d blown up three of the five prototypes that they had before Tony had managed to integrate the arc reactor into the phone. Currently, they were trying to figure out a way to shield the rest of the components inside the phone, specifically the CPU and the GPU, because, whilst the battery being an arc reactor means that it won’t fry, it meant nothing if they couldn’t shield the rest of the components.

“What if we created a Faraday cage for the rest of the components?” Harry asked around a mouth full of Aloo Paratha. It was Bruce’s night to pick dinner; apparently, he usually picked Indian, which Harry was pretty happy about because it was amazing. “We could use a copper casing. Copper is used quite a bit in the Wizarding World, especially in potions. It helps contain some more volatile potions.”

“You absolutely brilliant child!” Tony exclaimed, practically bouncing in his seat. “We can rework the case with an aluminium/carbon-fibre mix as well. Let’s go!”

“Sit and finish eating, for god's sake,” Pepper said with a roll of her eyes.

Harry sat back down with a sheepish look, Tony just pouted.

“But Pepper! We’re sciencing!” 

“Does anyone have any idea what they're talking about?” Steve asked with a frown.

“I do,” Bruce said with a grin.

By the time Pepper let them go back to the lab, Tony looked like he was practically vibrating out of his skin. Harry probably wasn’t any better.

“Race you,” Tony said, already running towards the lab.

“Cheater!” Harry yelled, taking off after Tony.

Harry ended up beating him anyway, to Tony’s annoyance.

“How are you so quick?” He asked, panting and out of breath as Harry just leaned against the door of the lab.

“Have you considered that you’re just old?” Harry replied with a grin.

“Evil little munchkin.” Tony grinned, and Harry just rolled his eyes, following him into the lab.

Harry ended up working on the individual Faraday Cages for each of the components whilst Tony worked on the case. They figured they’d be better safe than sorry doing individual cages rather than one big one. 

“How do you want to test it?” Tony asked as Harry stopped soldering and pushed the safety glasses up to sit on his head.

Harry hummed. “Well, we could go back to MACUSA. Or I could find out if there’s an American equivalent of Diagon Alley, and we could test it there.”

“What is Diagonally?” Tony asked, confused.

Harry laughed. “Diagon Alley. It’s essentially our shopping district. I’m sure America has a version of it.”

“Brilliant!” Tony said excitedly. “How can you find out?”

“It’s probably in the information packet the President gave us.”

“Well, go get it!” Tony said, practically shoving Harry out the door.

“Ok, so it looks like the shopping district is called ‘Eldritch Row’, and it’s below 5th Ave. Which seems fitting.” Harry said when he’d come back with the information. “Apparently, there’s an abandoned subway station that we have to go through. It’s got some hefty no-maj repellent wards around it, so I’ll have to take you through there.”

“What about money? Is it the same as Britain?”

Harry leafed through the information packet. “Not exactly. It looks like it’s still gold, silver and copper, but you guys have gold auris’, silver scepter’s, and copper sprigs. The denominations are way more simple, though. The British one is mental. You guys don’t have Gringotts either, you’ve got the FER - Federal Enchanted Reserve.”

“Ok, well, let’s just pretend that any of that made sense to me,” Tony said with a wry grin.

Harry rolled his eyes, “You wanna go?”

“I’ve already texted Happy to get the car ready.”

Surprisingly, Tony wasn’t as affected by the no-maj repelling wards as Harry thought he’d be. He’d watched other no-majs literally cross the street to avoid the subway entrance with such a look of disdain on their faces it made Harry wonder what the wards made them think about it. 

Tony, however, just looked a little bit put out about having to follow Harry in.

Following the information packet’s instructions, Harry made his way over to a rusty-looking turnstile, pulled out his wand and tapped the Morse code for Eldritch Row. 

Nothing happened for a moment, and Harry wondered if he’d done it wrong before he heard a faint clink, and the turnstile loosened, allowing him to push through. The boarded-up train station entrance in front of them shimmered before disappearing completely, replaced with a long tunnel with enchanted lamps lighting the way.

“That was fucking brilliant!” Tony exclaimed, and Harry had to agree. “Come on, come on!”

Harry laughed, following Tony through the tunnel.

They emerged on the other side of the tunnel to find a literally glittering shopping district. It reminded Harry of something out of a storybook. It was different to Diagon Alley in that it was clearly underground. The streets were white cobblestones, and the shops all reminded him of the old-world look of Olivanders. It was absolutely beautiful.

“Holy shit,” Tony muttered, and Harry just nodded.

Given it was about 10:30 at night, most of the shops were closed, and the Alley was fairly empty. The FER was open if the people going in and out were any indication. As well as the potions shop and Alder’s Wands . 

“I should figure out if everything I need for this year is sold here. Otherwise, I’ll have to go back to England early.” Harry said, only to then notice that Tony was no longer next to him. Instead, he had his face pressed up against the glass of Ironhide & Co - Quality Sporting Goods.  

“Harry! There are brooms in here! Magic brooms!” Tony exclaimed excitedly.

Harry laughed. “I have my broom at the Tower you can look at. And I’ll tell you all about Quidditch.”

Tony looked at him like all his Christmas’ had come at once.

“Ok, let’s test the phone,” Tony said once he’d finished staring at the brooms.

Harry pulled the phone out of his pocket and turned it on, practically squealing in excitement when it lit up.

“Try making a call!” 

Harry nodded and quickly called Hermione.

“It worked!” Harry said excitedly when she picked up.

“What worked?” Hermione asked confusedly. “Harry, did you mean to call me?”

“Sorry, Hermione. I’m just so excited. Tony managed to get a magic-resistant phone working!”

“Harry, it was mostly your ideas that got it to work,” Tony said, wrapping an arm around Harry’s shoulder, beaming at him.

“Harry, are you telling me that in the two days you’ve been in New York, you managed to make a magic-resistant phone?”

“Yeah?” Harry said in confusion.

“You know, if you weren’t my best friend, I think I might hate you.” She deadpanned.

“Do you want one?” Harry asked with a grin.

“Of course I bloody want one, you giant prat.”

Harry practically had to drag Tony from the Alley. Tony had wanted to stay and look at everything. The only thing that got him out of there was Harry promising to take him back later when all the shops were open.

They made it back to the Tower by 11:30, and Tony (spurred on by the terrifying expression that Pepper was wearing when they got back) sent Harry straight to bed. Harry didn’t argue too much because he was bloody tired. He fell asleep almost instantly after getting into bed and had one of the best nights of sleep he’d had in a long time.

“Good Morning, Harry. It is currently 8:15 am. The temperature is currently 71 degrees, with a high of 75 and a low of 68. Sir has asked that you join him in the lab when you are awake.”

Harry yawned, getting out of bed and padding over the bathroom. “Thanks JARVIS.”

“You are most welcome. It is also Captain Roger’s turn to order breakfast, so if you want something other than an omelette and speciality juice, I would recommend putting an order in yourself.”

Harry shrugged, splashing his face with water to wake himself up. “As long as I’m getting fed, I don’t really care what it is, JARVIS.”

“As you say, Harry. Did you often not get fed where you were living before?”

Harry paused. “Did Tony ask you to interrogate me, JARVIS?”

“I can neither confirm nor deny that.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “That’s a yes then. Tell Tony that I’m onto him, and I’ll be down in the lab in five minutes.”

Harry quickly pulled some comfortable clothes on and walked down to the lab, where Tony was waiting with a sheepish expression on his face. Harry just rolled his eyes and waved him off. He knew that at some point, he’d have to talk to Tony about, well, everything, but he just wasn’t ready yet.

“Did you sleep?” Harry asked in concern when he noticed Tony was looking particularly dishevelled and in the same clothes as yesterday.

“Yeah, I got a few hours but forgot about that! I’ve finished upgrading your phone!”

Harry frowned, both about Tony not sleeping and the supposed upgrades. “What upgrades? You didn’t actually put lasers in it, did you?”

Tony laughed. “No, nothing like that. Hey baby girl, introduce yourself.”

“Hello,” Harry jumped a bit, having not expected to hear another voice, “I’m FRIDAY, Female Replacement Intelligent Digital Assistance Youth.”

“She’s Irish,” Harry said a bit stupidly, but honestly, that was the only thing he could think to say. Tony had made him an A.I. His own A.I. 

Tony laughed. “I thought it’d make you feel more at home. She’s still very young, and she’s still learning, and I thought, who better to teach her than you?”

“Hi FRIDAY, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Harry.” Harry said softly.

“It’s nice to meet you too. My programming currently has your name set to Munchkin. Would you like me to call you Harry instead?” Harry rolled his eyes at Tony as he laughed happily. 

“Yes, please, FRIDAY.”

“Done. I’ve set your preferred name to Harry. If there is anything else you’d like, please ask.”

“You did well, baby girl,” Tony said happily.

“Thanks, Boss.”

“Thank you,” Harry said sincerely before awkwardly wrapping Tony up in a hug.

“You’re welcome, munchkin,” Tony replied softly.

***

Harry Potter STARK?

Rita Skeeter Reports

This reporter has come across some startling information that may rock the foundations of the Wizarding World as we know it. Yesterday, the Citizenship Office received a notification of dual citizenship filed by MACUSA for one Harry James Anthony Potter Stark.

That’s right, our very own Boy Who Lived.

Now, my dear readers, you may be asking, how and why is our national treasure, The Boy Who Lived, entitled to dual American citizenship?

Well, my dear reader, I was shocked when I found out.

Harry Potter’s father is American.

Now, you may be thinking James Potter wasn’t American. And you would be correct. James Potter wasn’t American. Nor is he Harry’s father.

Harry Potter’s father is Anthony Stark. Who I’m told is a very famous American Muggle!

I was just as shocked as you, my dear readers. And my first thought was, ‘Was Lily Potter a cheat?’ But before we vilify Lily Potter, I was reminded of Harry’s full name. 

Harry James Anthony Potter.

So, who is this Anthony Stark, and how did he know Lily and James?

And what’s more, where has he been all this time?

More updates as they come.

Chapter Text

Severus Snape was having a hell of a fortnight. First of all, Sirius Black had escaped Azkaban. And if there was one person in the world that Severus Snape hated more than James Potter, it was Sirius fucking Black. Severus was very aware that he was a vindictive person, he didn’t hide it. Really, it was a core part of his personality. Minerva would say it was his only personality trait. So he wouldn’t lie and say that Sirius Black being in Azkaban, whilst he wasn’t, didn’t make him exuberantly happy because it did. It was probably the only thing that made him happy. 

So to have him escape. And to be the first person ever to do it. Well, Severus had set The Daily Prophet on fire when he’d read it.

And then, on top of that, Dumbledore had once again denied his request to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts, only to be told he’d given the job to Remus sodding Lupin.

Really, all he’d need now would be for James Potter to come back from the dead, and he’d hit the trifecta.

It would be later that Severus wondered if that thought had jinxed him. Given that not 10 minutes later, The Daily Prophet arrived, and the front page caused him to spit his coffee all over the table.

***

Remus Lupin was having a bizarre couple of weeks. Firstly, Sirius had escaped from Azkaban, which, yeah, not great. He honestly kept expecting him to just pop out from under his bed like some kind of demented demon.

Remus didn’t know whether or not he actually wanted him to show up. He wanted answers. And he wanted to tear him apart. But, honestly, Remus didn’t know if he’d be capable of it when actually faced with Sirius.

On top of that, Albus had offered him the Defense Against the Dark Arts position, which, despite knowing that Albus definitely had ulterior motives, the most likely of which was luring Sirius out, Remus accepted. Not only because it was a solid job which he hadn’t had in a while, but he would get to see Harry.

Honestly, Remus was a bit surprised that Harry was at Hogwarts. He would have assumed Tony would have sent him to Ilvermorny, but he was happy that he was, nonetheless. 

Speaking of Tony, whenever possible, he’d kept up to date on what Tony was up to. More than a bit surprised when the man became a superhero, of all things. He was also surprised at how well he’d managed to keep Harry hidden.

He’d thought about reaching out so many times, but it just never felt right.

Remus was walking through Diagon Alley when he felt his world tilt on its head.

“Can I get a copy of that?” Remus said frantically, pointing to The Daily Prophet.

“5 knuts. You’re lucky. We’re almost out. It’s been the most popular issue ever. Can you believe it?”

Remus ignored him, frantically reading through the article. Why had this only come out now? Why would Tony only be applying for Harry’s citizenship now?

Because the only reason Remus could think of for that was that Harry hadn’t been with Tony until now.

Which begged the question, if Harry hadn’t been with Tony all this time, then where the hell had he been? 

***

Albus Dumbledore was having an interesting week. Severus was annoyed at him, though that was fairly standard. Minerva was also annoyed at him. That was less standard, well, it was less standard until Harry Potter had started Hogwarts. Since then, she’d practically been a ball of simmering rage every time she looked at him.

And he understood.

He really, really did.

And more than once, Albus had questioned his decision to place Harry with Petunia.

Because whilst the blood wards protected Harry from outside forces, he’d often wondered if that was enough.

But there was no one else.

Not truly. 

Lily had no other living family. And even if he discounted the blood wards and placed him with a Wizarding family right after the war, there would have been no family that would have taken him purely out of the goodness of their hearts. They would have used him for his fame, for his money. Even if they didn’t intend to. It was human nature.

And after Sirius… Albus didn’t trust himself. If he didn’t see that Sirius Black was the spy, didn’t see that he would hurt Harry…

So Albus told himself it was for The Greater Good.

Albus sighed, suddenly feeling his age for the first time in a while.

Pulling the destroyed diary out of his drawer, Albus studied it.

Horcruxes.

Albus knew that Tom had done some foul magic to keep himself alive, but to create Horcruxes… it was beyond even what he had thought Tom capable of.

And on top of all this, Sirius Black had escaped. Damn that boy to hell. 

Albus lifted his glasses and rubbed a hand over his eyes tiredly, smiling sadly as Fawkes trilled at him. 

“I don’t know what to do, Fawkes. I think I might be getting too old for this.”

Fawkes trilled again, his song taking on a more mournful tune.

It was at that moment that Minerva burst into his office.

“Albus! Have you seen it?”

Albus smiled a grandfatherly smile, one that never truly worked on Minerva. “Seen what, Minerva?”

“The Daily Prophet, ya auld codger!”

Albus grimaced. It never worked out well for him when she slipped into Gaelic. Albus reached over and shook out the paper that had been delivered earlier.

“Oh my.”

***

Ron Weasley was having a great week. Well, mostly. Finding out a wizard mass murderer was after his best friend was not great, but on the whole, he was having a great week. Seeing what Bill did for work was brilliant, almost as brilliant as Fred and George almost shutting Percy in a pyramid.

Ron wasn’t expecting to hear much from Harry; he never did during the holidays, and it always worried him.

The Dursleys worried him.

He’d been trying to get Harry to talk about it to someone since they’d rescued him before second year. But every time he tried, Harry shut down.

So Ron was pretty surprised when he saw Hedwig flying towards him.

“Hey, Hedwig,” Ron said with a smile. “How’s Harry?”

Hedwig landed on his shoulder, hooted happily and held her leg out for Ron to take the letter. Honestly, it was probably the happiest he’d ever seen her.

“Thank you,” Ron said, taking the letter from her.

Hey Ron,

How’s Egypt? I’m so jealous; I’d love to see Egypt, you look like you’re having a great time. Thanks for sending me The Daily Prophet Article.

Speaking of The Daily Prophet, I hope this gets to you before it does.

I have some amazing news. Weird as hell. But amazing.

So, it turns out my parents were actually in a triad, and I have a living parent. You’ll never guess who it is…..

Tony Stark!

You should have seen the Dursleys’ faces when he showed up at their house! It was bloody brilliant. 

Anyway, I’m going to be in New York for the rest of the holidays, and I know once The Daily Prophet gets a hold of this, it’s going to be everywhere. So it's probably best I’m not in the country.

See you in September,

Harry

“Bloody hell!” Ron muttered when he finished the letter. “Only Harry.”

“Is that Hedwig that I spy, brother mine?”

“Why yes, brother dear, it certainly looks like a wild Hedwig has appeared!”

“Would you two knock it off,” Ron said with a groan, and Fred and George sat down, bracketing him.

“Do we need to mount another rescue?” George asked seriously.

“Might be harder from Egypt, but we’ll figure it out.” Fred finished.

Ron grinned. “Nah. He’s gonna be fine. Trust me.”

“Does ickle Ronnekins know something we don’t, Forge?” Fred teased.

“It certainly sounds like he does, Gred.”

Ron just smiled. “I’m sure you’ll find out soon.”

“RON WEASLEY!” His mum’s voice echoed through the tent.

“Looks like you’re about to find out.”

***

Hermione Granger had very much learned to roll with the punches when it came to her best friend. Because really, sometimes being friends with Harry was like being punched. Repeatedly. 

Discounting even the whole getting petrified thing, which, to be fair, wasn’t really Harry’s fault. In the two years that Hermione had known Harry, she’d almost been killed by a troll, lied to more authority figures than she could count, set a teacher on fire, helped defeat one of the darkest wizards of all time, brewed an illegal potion in a bathroom and been petrified.

So, honestly, it was quite crazy to Hermione that Harry could still find ways to surprise her.

But he managed it.

Looking back, Harry, being Tony Stark’s son, was not as surprising as it should have been. For one, they looked very similar; it was actually one of the first things she noticed about him. But then she’d seen pictures of James Potter. 

So it wasn’t shocking to her at all that people thought Harry looked just like his father.

Now, don’t get her wrong, Hermione loved her best friend; he was everything to her, and she would die for him in a heartbeat, but honestly, Harry was the dumbest smart person that she’d ever met.

Ok, maybe that was slightly unfair.

He was just oblivious to his own brilliance. Yeah, that sounded better.

He was consistently matching or even beating her marks, at least when it came to theory, when it came to practicals, Harry easily surpassed her. Which absolutely grated on her nerves before they were friends and sometimes after, if she was being totally honest. He was a consistent O/EE student (except in Potions, but that was because Snape was an arse, and the fact that Harry had correctly answered his questions on the first day of class had actually seemed to piss him off). And that was only with magic! She’d never met anyone as naturally gifted at maths as Harry. It was intuitive to him. He easily kept up with her in basically every subject. Well, apart from physics. If she ever started talking about physics, Harry’s eyes would just glaze over. She imagined that’s what she looked like when Harry talked about Quidditch.

But Harry never seemed to see it in himself. He always brushed off his achievements and was always telling Hermione that she was smarter.

For fucks sake, he’d created a magically resistant phone in two fucking days , and he was confused why she was shocked.

He was a singularly brilliant wizard who really just didn’t see it.

She had an idea why that was. 

Anytime he talked about the Dursleys, Hermione was more and more sure that those people were hurting her best friend. And it rankled her something fierce that she couldn’t do anything about it.

Hermione had simultaneously run through basically every emotion she had when she’d gotten that call from Harry, and she’d already started running scenarios through her head about how she could smuggle Harry to France.

Hermione looked up when she heard tapping on her window, opening the windows to let Hedwig in.

“Hello, beautiful. What do you have for me?”

Hermione squealed when she saw the embossed Stark Industries package and booted up the phone. 

Only to be greeted by a picture of Harry, with the most shit-eating grin on his face, standing next to Dr Bruce Banner.

That absolute fucking arsehole.

***

Sirius Black was having a hell of a decade.  He’d lost two of his best friends, and he may as well have killed them himself. He’d been betrayed by someone he thought was one of his best friends. He’d missed his godson growing up. He’d lost the last friend he had left. And he’d been sent to Azkaban, where he’d had basically all his happiness sucked away every day for 12 years. So, yeah, Sirius Black was not doing great. 

And then he’d seen the picture of the rat.

Sirius wasn’t sure if Harry was at Hogwarts. He knew that Lily and James had asked that he be sent there, but for all he knew, Tony could have sent him to Ilvermorny. Honestly, with Tony’s money, he could be having him tutored at home.

But Sirius couldn’t risk it. If Harry was at Hogwarts, he had to protect him.

And if he wasn’t, well then, Sirius could catch the rat, clear his name, and then beg Tony to let him see Harry.

First, though, he had to escape. It was remarkably easy to slip through the bars as Padfoot and he took great joy in taking a massive dump right in front of Bellatrix’s cell.

Swimming through the North Sea as a dog was horrific and terrifying, and there were quite a few moments there where he was sure he was going to die. 

But he made it. He made it to London.

He found somewhere covered and dry and then slept for probably three solid days. It had been 12 years since he’d had an uninterrupted sleep. Between the dementors, the screaming prisoners, and the fact there was nothing in his cell but a cold, wet, stone floor, it was not very conducive to a proper sleep environment.

He spent a week pretending to be a lovable stray in London, getting fed mostly by tourists who felt bad for him, eating out of bins and killing his way through the rather large rat population of central London, pretending they were Peter.

It was very therapeutic.

He was hanging around one of the more fancy areas of London when he saw him.

Tony Stark.

Tony Stark was here, in London, walking out of a hotel with an incredibly buff-looking blonde man.

And if Tony was here, that meant that Harry was here. 

He would get to see Harry!

So Sirius waited, but before he could see Harry, he was chased off by hotel security, threatening to call animal control. So he ran and promised to come back the next day.

And he did. 

He waited in a bush for hours just to catch a glimpse of his godson. Just to make sure he was safe and happy. Of course, he trusted Tony to look after Harry, but he just wanted to see him for himself. 

And he did.

Harry looked so happy. Skinner than he would have liked, but maybe he was just growing into himself. He was laughing, and Tony was looking at him like he was his whole world.

It was exactly what he wanted for Harry. To be happy.

Sirius nodded to himself. Harry was safe. 

Now, he would make sure he stayed that way.

He had a rat to catch.

***

Peter Pettigrew knew only one thing. He was completely and utterly fucked.

Chapter Text

Harry had been in New York for a fortnight, and he couldn’t remember a time he’d been happier. Not even those first weeks at Hogwarts. He and Tony spent hours in the workshop together.  Tony showed him the Iron Man suits, all the things he was working on for Stark Industries, and the new robots he was making for the tower. He helped Harry teach FRIDAY, who was taking on quite a bit of Harry’s personality. It was like having a super impressionable younger sister, and Harry loved it.

When Tony was busy, Bruce would usually invite him into the lab to see what he was working on, or he’d hang out with Nat and Clint. Clint was teaching him how to shoot a bow and arrow, which was way harder than he expected. Nat had also promised to show him how to throw daggers if he didn’t tell Tony. He’d cook with Steve and help him get caught up on everything he missed when he was stuck in the ice. Steve would tell him stories about growing up in the 20’s and 30’s. He’d tell him (what Harry assumed were very sanitised) stories about the war. He’d told him about Howard, Peggy, and Bucky, but the stories about Bucky always made Steve really sad. Harry understood, to an extent, he had no idea what it would do to him if he lost Ron or Hermione, or god forbid, both of them. He’d probably fly a plane into the Arctic as well.

Pepper had taken him on a tour of New York, and she spent as much time as she could with him when she wasn’t busy literally running a Fortune 500 company. Rhodey was helping him catch up on all the movies that he hadn’t been allowed to watch living at the Dursleys (Tony had a conniption when he found out they’d watched Lord of The Rings without him).

He and Tony had gone back to Eldritch Row a few times, mostly to get Harry’s stuff for the year, but every time they went, Tony would go and look at the brooms. Apparently, he did get his obsession with flying from his father. 

Tony had set up a vault for him at the FER (despite Harry’s various protests), which Harry was shocked to find out was just run by finance wizards. When he’d first heard them be called that, he laughed because finance wizard sounded really conceited, only to find out that that was their actual title. They were wizards who had gone to college to be trained in Wizarding finance.

The American Wizarding education system was completely different from the UK. They had magical colleges as well as Masteries. He made a note to tell Hermione because he remembered the absolute hysterical fit she’d had when she found out there was no Magical University in the UK. Honestly though, Harry was of the same mind, it seemed insane that there was no further education apart from the masteries.

It had been an absolutely brilliant fortnight, and Harry was beginning to think that nothing could ruin it. Obviously, he fucking jinxed himself.

Harry was having lunch with Steve and Nat when Tony came back to the Tower looking absolutely haggard. 

“Tony? Are you ok?” He asked worriedly, getting up from the table to walk over to him.

Tony looked completely heartbroken, and Harry was starting to get really worried.

“Come sit, kid,” Tony said sadly, and now Harry was officially freaking out.

“Are you sending me back to the Dursleys?” Harry asked, mentally going over everything he’d done since he’d been here, wondering when Tony had decided to be done with him. 

“What?!” Tony yelped. “No! Never! Why would you think that? I always want you here.”

“Oh,” Harry breathed, “Sorry, it’s just, I don’t know. You looked upset, and I guess I jumped to the worst-case scenario.”

“Harry,” Tony said seriously. “I will never send you back there. Ever.”

Harry nodded, trying to calm himself down. “What’s the matter then?”

Tony sighed again, rubbing his eyes. “I’ve been looking into why Sirius was in jail.”

Harry nodded, but anxiety was building in his stomach.

Tony swallowed. “So the official reason is the murder of 12 no-majs and a wizard.”

“The official reason?” Harry asked, furrowing his brow.

“The wizard he killed was Peter Pettigrew,” Tony swallowed hard, looking off into the distance like he was remembering something, and it made the knot in Harry’s stomach tighten. “Peter Pettigrew was another one of your dad's friends.”

Harry felt the world drop out from underneath him, but something in Tony’s voice told him he wasn’t done. “What else?” He asked, his voice tight.

Tony rubbed his eyes. “I had to talk to a lot of very official people to get this information, kid because they really didn’t want to tell me. And frankly, I really wish I didn’t know. Are you sure you want me to tell you?”

Harry swallowed hard but nodded resolutely.

“Your parents were in hiding when you were a baby; you know that, right?”

“From Voldemort,” Harry said with a nod.

Tony sighed. “There’s a spell. They tried to explain it to me, but frankly, it didn’t make any sense. But basically, you hide a secret in a person. Your parents, they chose Sirius…”

Harry felt time stop.

No.

It couldn’t be what he was thinking.

“He betrayed them, kid.”

He couldn’t breathe. 

His ears were full of static.

He felt a tight hand grip his wrist and pull him up. 

“Come with me.” 

Nat.

Nat was talking to him.

Pulling him towards the elevator.

Why were they going to the elevator?

“JARVIS, gym.”

“Yes, Ms Romanov.”

Harry was shaking.

He didn’t understand.

“Kick it.” 

She was pointing to a punching bag.

Harry frowned. “What?” 

“Imagine that bag is Sirius Black, and kick it.”

Anger trembled under his skin, anger unlike anything he’d ever felt before, and with a scream, Harry kicked the bag as hard as he could.

“Again.”

Over and over again, Harry kicked the punching bag as hard as he could, screaming every time he did, until he broke down in tears on the floor of the gym.

“It’s ok, дорогой, let it out.”

“How could he do that?” Harry cried.

“Shh, дорогой. It’s ok.”

“He was their friend, Nat.” His voice broke. “He was their friend.”

***

“Did I do the right thing?” Tony asked, his voice cracking. “Telling him.”

“He deserved to know, Tony,” Steve said softly, rubbing Tony’s back.

“I don’t understand why he would do this, Steve. He loved James. He would have died for him.”

“Maybe he was just a really good actor,” Steve said sadly.

“I hate him,” Tony said, trying to stop the tears from falling. “I hate him so much.”

Steve didn’t say anything else; he just pulled Tony into a hug and let him cry on his shoulder.

Harry came back with Nat not half an hour later, eyes puffy and red-rimmed. Tony held his arms open, and Harry came over, practically crawled into Tony’s lap, and held on for dear life. Tony held him just as tightly, running a hand through his hair.

“Thank you for telling me,” Harry said quietly, slightly muffled against Tony’s chest.

“Of course, bambino,” Tony replied just as softly.

“We’ll train him,” Nat said quietly, “Me, Clint, Steve. If Black comes after him, he’ll be prepared.”

Steve nodded resolutely, and Tony felt a rush of affection for the hodgepodge group. “Thank you.” He said sincerely.

Nat just smiled and ran a hand through Harry’s hair. 

***

“Rise and shine, Harry!” 

Harry practically fell out of bed in shock as Steve burst into his room.

“Jesus fucking Christ on a cracker! What the hell is wrong with you, you psychopathic bastard!”

Steve didn’t stop grinning, even during Harry’s tirade. “We’ve only got two weeks until you go back to Hogwarts, so we’re going to start training you. You and I are going for a run every morning, then Nat gets you for three hours, and then Clint gets you after lunch.”

Harry groaned, pulling the duvet up over his head. “I think I’d rather just be killed. Thanks.”

Harry felt a hand grab his ankle, and just as he realised what was about to happen, Harry yelled, “NO WAIT!”

But Steve just yanked him by the leg, caught him around the waist before he hit the floor and threw him over his shoulder.

“I’m going to murder you. I’m going to make it slow and painful.” Harry hissed as Steve walked him over to the closet.

“Good luck with that, Harry, now get dressed.”

Harry grumbled the entire time he got dressed, throwing on some shorts and a tee shirt, as well as a pair of running shoes, before stomping out and glaring at Steve.

Steve just grinned. “Time to go.”

Harry had never felt more like a dickhead in his life, jogging through the streets of New York towards Bryant Park next to Captain Bloody America. To be fair to New Yorkers, though, they were the literal definition of ‘mind your own business’ because nobody even stopped to look at them. Though Harry guessed after a literal alien invasion, Captain America jogging with a kid (no matter how much he looked like Tony Stark) wasn’t worth a second look.

Harry kept up a diatribe of ways he was going to murder Steve for 90% of the run through Bryant Park. Steve had just laughed and told him that he trained with Nat, so he’d need to up the creativity of his murder threats. 

Harry made a mental note to never let Steve and Oliver Wood cross paths; it would end very badly for the Quidditch team.

“He’s quick and light on his feet.”

Nat smiled, quite bloody dangerously in Harry’s opinion, when Steve dropped him off on the gym floor.

“Well, that makes things easier.”

Harry swallowed hard. Suddenly, running with Steve was looking like a nice calm walk in the park. 

“Good luck, kid,” Steve said with a wink before leaving Harry alone with Nat.

Nat stared at him for a long moment before, out of nowhere, she threw a jab directly at his face. Harry dodged, throwing a betrayed look at Nat. “What the hell was that?”

Nat just grinned. “You’ve got good reflexes. I wanted to see how you’d react when you were surprised. Most attackers aren’t going to face you when you’re ready. They’re going to come after you when you least expect it.”

Harry nodded. Trying to soak up everything she said like a sponge.

“I assume that most wizards will rely completely on magic?” Nat asked.

Harry nodded again. “From what I’ve seen, yeah, especially ones who have no knowledge of the no-maj world.”

“Good, use that to your advantage. Do they use a focus?” 

“Focus?” Harry asked with a tilt of his head.

“Like a staff or a sceptre?”

“Oh! We use wands.”

Nat nodded, “You need to get their wand out of their hands and far away. Same goes if someone ever comes at you with a gun.”

Nat and Harry spent the next three hours working on basic hand-to-hand. Nat was far, far more experienced than he was, but Harry was quick, and for once, being small was working to his advantage. Plus, years dodging Dudley and Vernon were definitely working out in his favour. So much so that Nat actually looked impressed by the end of the session.

“You did well,” Nat said, and Harry beamed in pride despite the sweat dripping down his face. “Two weeks of this, and I think you’ll be ready to face whatever insane prisoner comes your way.”

Harry groaned at the reminder they’d be doing this for the next two weeks. 

Nat just laughed. “Go get some lunch, маленький паук, Clint’s very excited about what he’s got for you.”

Harry groaned even more dramatically, asking JARVIS to order him a sandwich from the cafeteria, before stomping up to the kitchen in the penthouse, Nat’s laughter following him the whole way.

Harry finished his sandwich quickly and cleaned the kitchen up, even though it was pretty spotless. No matter how many times Tony told him they had cleaners that came in every day, and he didn’t need to give the kitchen a complete clean after he used one thing, it was pretty ingrained in him at this point, and it was a hard habit to break.

Harry made his way down to the training area where Clint was waiting for him. The elevator opened, and Clint was standing in front of him with a shit-eating grin plastered on his face, practically bouncing in excitement.

Harry looked around, the training room had been rearranged so that there were big blocks all over the place, ropes dangled from the ceiling, and there were obstacles everywhere.

“What’s all this?” Harry asked with a furrowed brow.

Clint rocked back on his feet. “I’m going to teach you how to run away.”

“Run away?” Harry asked, confused.

“Being able to run and stay hidden is just as important as being able to get out of trouble.”

Clint swung something around from behind his back and pointed it straight at Harry.

“Is that..?” Harry said with trepidation.

“Paintball gun,” Clint said with a grin. “Now. Run.”

“You’re all psychotic!” Harry yelled as he ran and threw himself over one of the boxes to hide, listening as the paintball hit the box with a thud.

“Well, yeah!” Clint called out with a laugh, “Natasha is an actual assassin, and I used to be a mercenary. What were you expecting?”

“Not to get shot at!” Harry yelled before running to the next box, ducking just in time for a paintball to fly over his head. “What the hell is this supposed to teach me?!”

“How to use your environment to your advantage! And multi-tasking! Gotta be able to run and dodge at the same time, wiz kid!”

Clint’s voice sounded like it was coming from somewhere slightly different, so Harry popped his head up just enough to see if he’d moved. Only to get smacked in the face with a paintball.

“Oh, you fucker!” Harry yelled, but it hurt way less than he was expecting.

Clint laughed. “Your dad modified the gun to make sure it wouldn’t actually hurt. Come on, kid, you barely lasted five minutes. Those are rookie numbers!”

Harry wiped the paint off his glasses with a grin. “Oh, it’s on bird boy.”

Clint laughed loudly. “Bring it on, Baby Stark.”

Harry ended up getting completely pelted by paintballs, but he had to admit, by the end of it, he was way better. 

Clint taught him how to listen to which way he was coming from, how to analyse the environment for the best escape route, and how to use said environment to his advantage.

“You did good, kid,” Clint said with a smile, as they finished up, Harry covered head to toe in paint. Harry grinned brightly. “Maybe I’ll get to teach you parkour before you go.”

“You can always teach me over Christmas,” Harry replied with a grin, and Clint put an arm around his shoulder.

“You got it, Baby Stark.”

Harry had a quick shower, getting all the paint off him and changing into non-workout clothes before padding around the penthouse.

“JARVIS, is Tony busy?” Harry asked when he saw no sign of him anywhere.

“He is. He’s busy with virtual board meetings for the rest of the day, but he has promised to be available for dinner.”

Harry nodded. “Thanks JARVIS. Are Steve or Bruce busy?”

“Dr Banner is out of the tower currently,” Harry raised an eyebrow in surprise, he didn’t think Bruce ever left the tower. “But Captain Rogers is down in the gym.”

“Thanks, JARVIS, can you take the elevator down to the gym, please?”

“Of course, Harry.”

Steve didn’t notice him when he came into the gym, too engrossed in beating the ever-loving shit out of a punching bag.

“JARVIS, play Eye of the Tiger, ” Harry said with a grin.

Steve actually jumped when the song started, swinging around in shock, only to roll his eyes when he saw Harry.

“How was training with Nat and Clint?” Steve asked, unwrapping his hands.

Harry smiled, “It was good, I had fun.”

Steve nodded before gesturing to the punching bag. “Come here,” He said with a soft smile. Harry walked over and stood next to him. “You know, before the serum, I used to be smaller than you. I used to get into fights all the time anyway, and eventually, Bucky decided it would be smarter to teach me to throw a punch properly than just try to protect me all the time.”

“You gonna teach me to throw a punch?” Harry said with a grin.

Steve’s smile turned a bit melancholy. “Yeah, punk. I’m gonna teach you how to throw a punch.”

***

Tony hated board meetings. He especially hated board meetings that couldn’t be rescheduled so he could spend time with his son after he’d dumped quite distressing information on him. Pepper tried, bless her, but it was the one day that he’d set aside every quarter to get all his meetings out of the way, and it was way too planned to be able to change at all.

Steve, Nat, and Clint all promised to look after Harry for the day and keep him distracted, which he appreciated. Though he wasn’t sure what to think of the paint gun Clint had asked him to make.

So Tony was pretty gratified to come back to the Tower to see Harry in the kitchen, laughing and cooking with Steve.

“What’s cookin’, good lookin’?” Tony asked, laughing hysterically when both Harry and Steve turned around, looking at him in confusion before pointing to the other.

“ I’m cooking lasagne; Steve is ‘helping’,” Harry said, air quotes around ‘helping’.

“I am to helping,” Steve replied childishly.

“Steve,” Harry said with a sigh, “you asked why I wasn’t using the sauce from a jar.”

Tony gasped dramatically, making the sign of the cross. “Steve! Harry and I are Italian! You may as well have told us to take a shit in the pot!”

“Tony,” Steve replied dryly. “You can’t even cook.”

“And I still know not to use sauce from a jar, so what does that say about you?” Tony said, sticking out his tongue.

“That I lived during the Great Depression, and all my food was rationed and came from a can,” Steve replied with a raised eyebrow.

Harry stopped stirring the massive sauce pot. “Using trauma to win an argument, old man?”

Steve grinned. “Did it work?”

“I’ve taught you well.”

Tony snorted loudly.

The lasagne was absolutely delicious, as was all of Harry’s food. He was an absolutely brilliant cook, and he was always shyly proud of himself when people complimented his cooking, which everyone did excessively whenever he cooked.

Tony sighed, there was something important he needed to talk to Harry about. Well, there was something important he needed Harry to tell him about, but he was worried that it might be too soon after the Sirius revelation. But if he kept pushing it back, he was never going to get Harry to talk about it.

“Harry,” Tony said seriously, waiting for Harry to look at him. “I’ve given you two weeks leeway, kid, because I could tell you didn’t want to talk about it, and I wanted to respect your privacy. But I want you to tell me what happened at your school last year that was so bad the President knew about it. Scratch that, I want you to tell me everything that happened at your school for the last two years.”

Harry grimaced. “You have to promise not to pull me out of Hogwarts.”

“Jesus, kid, is it that bad?” Tony asked in concern, noting the same look on Steve’s face.

“Maybe…” Harry said sheepishly. “I mean, no one’s really cared before, so I don’t have a metric to measure how bad it was.”

“Did you die?” Tony asked jokingly, hoping to relieve some of the tension, only to stop at the look on Harry’s face. “Harry, what the fuck?”

“I mean, obviously I didn’t die, 'cause I’m still here, but it might have been close?”

“Jesus fucking Christ, kid. Start at the beginning.”

And so Harry told them.

He told them about finding out he was a wizard from a giant who’d broken into his house. About meeting the Weasley family on the way onto the platform and becoming friends with Ron on the train ride. Tony was surprised at just how bad a foot Harry and Hermione had started on, considering how close they seemed to be now. He told them about Draco Malfoy.

 “I’m pretty sure the kid is pulling your pigtails, Harry,” Tony said with a smirk.

“Like you do to Steve?” Harry asked, with a mask of perfect innocence.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Tony replied as Steve blushed brightly.

“Malfoy’s an arse, I wouldn’t be interested in him anyway. He called my best friend a slur.”

“Probably best to stay away from him then.”

He told them about the fuckass Potions Professor who was just looking for an absolute beat down.

“Don’t worry, munchkin; I’ll dig up every bit of information I can on this bastard and give you something to blackmail him with.”

“Tony,” Steve scolded, but it was half-assed at best.

He told them about being picked for the Quidditch team, and Tony could tell just how proud he was of himself he was.

He told them about trolls and dragons, and the forbidden forest, and fucking Voldemort.

“So he’s definitely still alive then,” Tony said with a dark frown.

“Oh yeah,” Harry said angrily. “He’s definitely still alive.”

And he told them about the fight for the philosopher's stone. 

“What the fuck was that doing in a goddamn school?!” Tony exploded.

“Harry,” Steve said in concern. “Did you talk to anyone after Quirell’s death?”

Harry frowned, “Dumbledore came and talked to me if that’s what you mean.”

“No, I mean, did you talk to anyone about the trauma?”

“What trauma?”

Steve made quite a distressed noise.

Jesus fucking Christ, why was his kid just like him?

“Harry,” Tony said, “You faced your parents' murderer, and you almost died. That would be a lot for grown adults, let alone an 11-year-old kid.”

Harry shrugged. “They just gave me house points and sent me back to the Dursleys.”

“I hate this school, Steve,” Tony muttered as Steve nodded. “I hate this fucking school.” Tony took a deep breath. “Ok, tell me about last year.”

It started with a house-elf, whatever the fuck that was. Ron, Fred and George rescuing Harry from where he was locked in his room with bars on his window. Steve looked like he very much would like to go back to the Dursleys and punch Vernon harder. And Tony was of the same mind. Harry spending the next week at the Weasleys and meeting Gilderoy Lockhart.

“Remind you of anyone?” Steve said with a grin.

“Sometimes I want to punch you in your perfect teeth.”

He told them about getting blocked from the platform and having to get to school in a flying car. Tony vaguely remembered seeing a video like that, but he, like most of the internet, had been convinced it was a hoax.

“You couldn’t come up with a better plan than stealing a flying car!” Steve exclaimed.

“I was stressed, ok! What do you want from me?”

He told them about hearing voices no one else could hear and the Chamber of Secrets. About being outed as a parselmouth and having everyone turn against him.

“You can talk to snakes?” Steve asked.

“Yeah?” Harry said, but Tony could hear the worry in his voice.

“Do they have anything interesting to say?”

Tony saw Harry visibly relax. “Well, the only one I’ve properly talked to was trying really hard to kill me, so I don’t really know.”

“Ah.”

He told them about a diary that talked back and an orphan just like him. About Hermione being petrified and Ron’s sister Ginny being taken into the chamber. He told them about mounting a rescue, only to have a teacher try to steal their memories from them. About a 60-foot snake and a teenage Voldemort ordering his death. 

About killing a murderous monster snake and having his arm impaled by a fang. About killing the teenage version of Voldemort and almost dying until a fucking Phoenix cried on his wound and healed him.

“I’m guessing no one talked to you after this incident as well?” Steve said, looking somehow both horrified and resigned at the same time.

Harry winced. “I got a ‘special services to the school’ award.”

Tony didn’t say anything, just bundled Harry up into a hug.

“I definitely can’t convince you to go to whatever the American Magical school is called?” He murmured into Harry’s hair.

“Ilvermorny, Tony. And no, you can’t.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was afraid of.”

Chapter Text

"What the hell are we going to do, Tony?” Steve asked the second Harry had left the room to go to bed.

Tony sighed, standing up and walking over to the bar to pour himself a drink.

“I have no idea. I’m not going to be able to convince him not to go back to Hogwarts.”

“Then pull him out! You’re his father!”

“And have him hate me? No chance.” Tony said with a snort. “Plus, how do we know he’ll be safe at any school we send him to.”

“We can’t just do nothing!” Steve exclaimed. 

“We’re not,” Tony said resolutely. “We’re going to talk to someone at that fucking school and they’re going to explain to me, why my son has been in so much danger the last two years and then they’re going to explain to me in excruciating detail, what they’re going to be doing to keep him safe.”

“What about Harry’s head of house? The McGonagall women. She seemed like the least useless of Harry’s teachers.”

Tony nodded, pointing at Steve. “Smart idea, Spangles. I’ll write a letter to the McGonagall woman and she can explain to me why the fuck my son has been in consistent danger since he set foot in the Wizarding world.” Tony sat down hard. “He’s 12 years old, Steve, and he’s almost died twice. How am I supposed to parent a kid with a bigger saviour complex than you?”

Steve snorted, putting an arm around Tony and pulling him down so he was resting on his shoulder. “We just need to be there for him, Tony.”

Tony nodded against Steve’s shoulder.

“So,” Steve said, and Tony could hear the grin in his voice. “Pulling my pigtails?”

Tony snorted and whacked him in the stomach. “Jesus Christ,” he yelped, shaking out his hand. “What are you, made of rocks?”

Steve just laughed happily.

Tony sent Hedwig off with a letter for McGonagall, one he’d had to rewrite a few times, mostly by Steve’s request, because he’d maybe been a touch too scathing. According to Steve, it might not have been appropriate to call the school ‘an absolute fucking dumpster fire’, nor was it appropriate to call the staff ‘idiots with their heads so far up their asses that they consistently ate the same breakfast’.

Tony didn’t see the issue with it personally.

***

Harry was getting used to his new routine. Wake up, running with Steve, training with Nat, lunch, training with Clint, afternoons with Tony in the lab, dinner with any configuration of the Avengers but always at least Steve and Tony, rinse, repeat. It was helping him completely settle into the Tower.  Harry always worked better with a routine.

Hedwig had been off for a while. Tony had told him that he needed to send a letter to someone but was super cagey about who.

So when Hedwig returned to the Tower after three days, Harry tried to get a peek at the letter. The handwriting was familiar, but he couldn’t really place it.

“Harry, that bird of yours breaks the laws of physics,” Tony said, blinking stupidly when he saw Hedwig had returned.

“Good,” Harry said, stroking Hedwig's feathers, “I hate physics.”

“There is no way that she made it all the way to the UK and back in three days!”

“Who were you writing to in the UK?” Harry asked suspiciously, trying to get a better look at the letter.

“None of your business, nosy.”

Harry stuck out his tongue at him and Tony laughed. “Be patient, you’re going to find out soon anyway. She’s going to be here tomorrow.”

“She?” Harry furrowed his brows, wondering who the hell could be coming from the UK to speak to Tony. Harry’s eyes widened. “Did you write to Professor McGonagall?”

“Guess you’ll find out tomorrow,” Tony said with a grin.

“You’re evil!” Harry said, turning around and stomping away. “EVIL!”

Tony’s laughter followed him down the hall. Bastard.

“Sorry to interrupt Ms Romanov,” JARVIS said during Harry's training session with Nat the next day. “But Sir has asked that Harry be released from his training early as the, and I quote, ‘terrifying Scottish woman’ has arrived.”

Harry sighed deeply.

“Terrifying Scottish women?” Nat asked with a raised eyebrow.

“My head of house, and transfiguration professor. Terrifying Scottish women is a pretty apt description.”

Nat grinned, “Off you go маленький паук, we’ll finish up later.”

Harry nodded and rushed up towards the elevator.

“Penthouse JARVIS, is Professor McGonagall there yet?”

“Not yet, Harry. She arrived at the Tower approximately 10 minutes ago and was stopped at reception as Sir had forgotten to add her to the schedule and thus she didn’t have permission to enter the Tower.” JARVIS sounded incredibly resigned and Harry winced. “She proceeded to make the Head of Security cry. Ms Potts has been dispatched to bring her up.”

“Yikes,” Harry replied.

“Just so. She is a singularly terrifying woman.”

Harry grinned. “You sound impressed, JARVIS.”

“I very much am.”

Harry laughed loudly as the elevator doors opened to the penthouse.

“You forgot to tell reception that Professor McGonagall was coming?” Harry said with a grin when he saw Tony pacing.

Tony groaned. “Not you too! I’ve already gotten a lecture from Steve, and Pepper.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “It wasn’t a lecture, Tony. We didn’t have time for a lecture.”

Tony groaned, and Harry walked over to stand next to Tony as he heard the elevator coming up behind him.

Professor McGonagall cut an intimidating figure. Whether she was dressed for class, pointed hat and all, or in what Harry was assuming were supposed to be no-maj clothes. She was wearing a tartan pantsuit… Harry didn’t realise that was something that you could buy. Honestly, on anyone else, it would look ridiculous, but McGonagall made it look like battle armour.

“You must be Mr Stark,” Professor McGonagall said with a smile, walking forward to shake Tony’s hand. “I must say, the resemblance is uncanny.”

“Do you mean to me or dad?” Harry replied with a grin.

Tony rolled his eyes as Steve snickered.

“Hello, Mr Potter, well I suppose I should be calling you Mr Potter-Stark now, shouldn’t I?” McGonagall said with a smile.

Harry returned the smile. “Hello, Professor. It’s good to see you.”

“You as well, Mr Potter-Stark. And you are?” She asked, looking at Steve.

“Steve Rogers, ma’am, I’m Tony’s friend.”

Harry, from where he was standing slightly behind Tony, snorted softly, mouthing ‘friend’ with air quotes. Professor McGonagall definitely caught it though, if the uptick of her lips was anything to go by.

“Please, sit,” Tony said, gesturing to the couches, “Can I get you something to drink?”

“Tea, please.”

Harry stood up, “I’ll make it. They’re both rubbish at making tea,” Harry said, pointing to Steve and Tony. “Tastes like garbage water.”

“Hey!” Steve and Tony exclaimed at the same time.

McGonagall just smiled. “Appreciated, Mr Potter-Stark. Now, Mr Stark, I can’t say I was too surprised when I received your letter. I was surprised it took so long to get in contact.”

“Well, blame the munchkin, he wanted to keep everything to himself.”

“Hey!” Harry exclaimed.

“Yes, he does tend to do that,” McGonagall replied.

“I don’t appreciate being ganged up on,” Harry grumbled, carrying McGonagall’s tea back into her. “It’s not like anyone actually believes me anyway.” He said pointedly, making McGonagall actually wince.

“Ah, I don’t believe I ever actually apologised for that, did I?” Harry looked down at the floor awkwardly when he sat back down. “I apologise, Mr Potter-Stark. I should have known that wasn’t something you would lie about.”

“Thank you for the apology, Professor.” Harry replied, swallowing down his instinctive reaction to say ‘It’s ok’. It’s something that Nat was trying to teach him. You don’t have to give absolution when accepting an apology.

McGonagall nodded at him, before turning to Tony. “I thought you might want to know how Harry was performing at school?”

Harry went to interject but Tony just placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed lightly. “I’d love to.”

McGonagall smiled. “Harry is a singularly brilliant wizard. He is consistently in the top five students, if not top three, alongside Ms Granger and Mr Malfoy.”

“The best friend and the pigtail puller?” Tony asked Harry, who just nodded, face practically bright red in embarrassment.

McGonagall lips twitched like she was trying to hide her amusement. “The only subject he seems to struggle in is Potions.”

Both Harry and Tony frowned simultaneously. “Well it’s hardly Harry’s fault that the teacher is a rampant bully who has no business teaching in a school, is it?” Tony asked with a raised eyebrow.

McGonagall looked taken aback. “Severus may be overly strict, but surely not a bully.”

“Are you kidding me?” Harry exclaimed. “Not a bully? He has taken house points from me for breathing! He took house points from me when I got answers right! He calls Hermione an insufferable know-it-all! He’s made Neville cry more times than I can count. He has banished my potions halfway through class because he ‘didn’t like the way it looked’ when it was exactly the colour the board said. He lets the Slytherins get away with throwing things in my potions. And that’s just in class! You don’t even want to know what it is like coming across him in the corridor! He lets the Slytherins get away with bloody murder!”

Harry was breathing heavily at the end of his rant, not even realising that he’d stood up at some point until Tony pulled him back down onto the couch and started rubbing his back.

“That man is a bully, Professor,” Steve said, his voice commanding the room. “Plain and simple. I have no idea what his problem with Harry is, but whatever it is, we will not stand for it.”

McGonagall sighed. “Severus had issues with Harry’s father, James, when they were at school. I hadn’t realised how much he’d let it affect him.”

“Harry is not responsible for the sins of his father,” Tony said dangerously, “and if this teacher can’t over his grudge against a dead man,” both Harry and Tony flinched as he said it, “he has no business teaching in a school. Let alone teaching my son.”

“I shall be discussing this with Severus,” McGonagall said heavily. “If he gives you any problems this year, Mr Potter-Stark, please tell me.”

Harry nodded, though he doubted it would really do anything.

“On a happier note, you’ll be pleased to know, Mr Stark, that the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher this year is going to be Remus Lupin.”

“Remus!” Tony exclaimed happily, “How’s he doing? I’ve been meaning to reach out.” He turned to Harry. “Remus was another one of your dad's friends.”

“So they’re not all dead or murderers then?” Harry replied dryly.

McGonagall flinched slightly and Tony sighed and rubbed his temple.

“Speaking of Sirius Black, if he has escaped prison to come after Harry, what is being done to protect him?” Steve spoke up.

McGonagall frowned disapprovingly. “The ministry, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to place dementors around the school.”

“What the hell is a dementor?” Tony asked with a frown.

“They are the guards of the prison Black escaped from. They are foul creatures that suck the happiness from people, it is how they keep the prisoners contained.”

“Ok, you’re not really selling this to me here. Didn’t Sirius already get past these things once? Why would you subject children to this when he’s already proven he can get past them? Is your Ministry inept?” Tony asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Trust me, Mr Stark, none of the staff are particularly happy about this decision. They will not be allowed in the school at all, but I will have to recommend that Mr Potter-Stark not be given permission to visit the village with the rest of the third years.”

Harry was about to argue but Tony cut over him. “I hate to agree, mini-me, but you’ll be less protected if you leave the school grounds, and you could be putting others at risk.”

Harry frowned but he understood where they were coming from, so eventually he nodded in resignation.

“What are you going to be doing to keep him safe inside the school?” Steve asked with a pointed look in McGonagall’s direction. “Considering what he’s gone through the last two years.”

McGonagall sighed, lifting her glasses to rub the bridge of her nose. “Hogwarts is supposed to be one of the safest places in Britain. What has happened to Mr Potter-Stark in the last two years is not the norm, nor is it at all ok. You wouldn’t believe the arguments I’ve gotten into with Albus about it. I wish I could give you more than just platitudes, but truthfully, I’m not sure what to say. I will personally be looking out for Mr Potter-Stark’s safety this year if that counts for anything.”

Tony nodded. “I appreciate your candour, Professor. Honestly, if I had my way I’d be pulling Harry out of Hogwarts, but he is completely set on going back. He and I created a mobile that works around magic, so he will be able to be in constant contact with me. But just know, if he says anything to me that makes me question his safety, I have the God of Thunder on speed dial and he owes me a favour.”

“Of course, Mr Stark,” McGonagall said, looking impressed. “You made a mobile work around magic?”

Harry beamed, “Yeah! It’s brilliant. We went and tested it in Eldritch Row. I sent Hermione one as well.”

“That’s amazing,” McGonagall said with a genuine smile. “I’m glad Harry will be able to contact you if something happens.” She finished, looking in Tony’s direction.

“I appreciate you coming to talk to us today, Professor,” Tony said, standing up to shake McGonagall’s hand. 

“You’re most welcome, Mr Stark.”

“Steve will walk you out.”

Harry waited until Steve had shown McGonagall through to the elevators before he turned to Tony.

“Do you really have Thor’s phone number?” 

Tony snorted. “He doesn’t even have a phone, makes for a good threat though doesn’t it?” Harry laughed loudly and Tony smiled. “Go on, munchkin. Natasha will want to finish your training, and I’m sure Clint is chomping at the bit to get a hold of you.”

Harry grinned and ran to the elevator.

***

“I take it that made you feel about as positive as it did me?” Steve asked, sitting down next to Tony, who had his head in his hands.

“They didn’t know a teacher was bullying the students, Steve. Multiple students.”

“I know, Tones.”

“I want to take him out of that school permanently, but he’d hate me forever.”

“I know, Tones.”

“Stevie, I don’t know what to do.”

“Come ‘ere,” Steve said, pulling Tony into a hug. Tony went easily, letting Steve wrap his arms around him and hold him close. “Give him this year. Hogwarts is the only home he’s ever known before you, of course he’s going to want to go back. Show that you’re there for him, that he can trust you if something goes wrong and if something happens this year, we’ll have a serious discussion with him about Ilvermorny or we can find him another school, ok?”

“Thank you,” Tony muttered into Steve’s ridiculously firm chest.

“Plus, James’ friend will be there this year. That’ll mean there’s someone else to look after Harry, right?”

Tony nodded. “I should write to him. Maybe send him a phone, that way he can keep me up to date.”

“Are you going to ask why he never told you about Harry?” Steve asked carefully.

Tony shrugged. “I want to, I just don’t know if I’m going to like the answer.”

“You think they kept him from you on purpose?” Steve asked incredulously.

“I don’t want to, but what the hell else am I supposed to think? Why the hell would he be with those people if they didn’t want him far away from me?” Tony exclaimed the feelings that he’d been keeping buried since he found out about Harry finally exploding out. “Lily hated her sister! They hadn’t talked in years! So tell me why, when Harry had me, did he end up there? It doesn’t make any sense!”

“Oh Tony, how long have you been thinking about this?” Steve asked soothingly.

“Too fucking long.” Tony huffed.

“Write to Remus, Tony. Send him a phone, just get him to talk to you. I didn’t know Lily and James, but I don’t think that anyone who spent any time with you properly would purposely keep your child from you. You’re a great dad, Tony.”

Tony just nodded, not truly convinced, and let Steve hold him.

Despite his reservations, at Steve’s urging, he did send Remus a phone. He’d tried writing a letter but it ended up being too difficult to get his thoughts onto paper, so he just sent the phone and a note with his number. He didn’t even have an address for Remus but Hedwig just took the package and flew away. He really had no fucking idea how those owls worked. It had to be some kind of owl magic. He’d brought it up to Harry and the kid had just laughed at him, the little shit.

He was in the workshop working on a project for Harry when his phone rang. He wasn’t paying attention and so just picked it up with a quick, “yo.”

“Tony? Is that you?”

Tony almost dropped the phone and then proceeded to burn himself on the soldering iron.

“Shit, fuck, ow, motherfucker!” Tony yelped.

“Tony, are you ok?” The concerned voice came through the phone.

“Yeah, sorry, I just wasn’t expecting you to call so soon,” Tony said breathlessly.

Remus’ voice was soft and unsure. “It’s good to hear your voice.”

“Yeah,” Tony said, tears filling his eyes, as memories he’d long repressed came flying to the forefront of his mind. “It’s good to hear your voice too.”

“I’m sorry I never tried to get in contact, I thought it would be easier if I stayed away,” Remus said sadly. “After everything, it was just too much, and I thought me being around would make it harder for you and Harry. But then I saw The Daily Prophet article and I was so confused because I thought you had Harry the whole time and…” Remus rambled.

“Wait, wait, Remus, hold on! Why did you think I had Harry? I didn’t even know about Harry! Lily and James were in hiding! How could I have possibly known about Harry?”

“Lily and James sent you a letter,” Remus said in confusion.

“What letter?” Tony asked through gritted teeth.

“When the war was getting really bad after Harry was born and they found out Voldemort was after him, they sent you a letter explaining everything. It had Harry’s paternity results in it, as well as who to contact to find him in case something happened to them. I thought he was with you this whole time.”

“I never got a letter.” Tony’s voice broke. They had wanted him to have Harry. They trusted him.

“Sir?” JARVIS interjected. “Is it possible that Mr Stane got a hold of the letter?”

Tony froze. 

No. 

It was one thing to sell his weapons under the table, but to keep his son from him? 

Tony took a deep breath before grabbing the mug of coffee off his workbench and throwing it against the wall with a gut-wrenching scream.

“Tony! Are you there? Are you ok?” Remus sounded frantic.

Tony kept grabbing things off his bench and throwing them at the wall, screaming every time he did.

“Sir, Captain Rogers is on the way.”

Tony crashed to the floor, crying harder than he’d ever done in his life, practically tearing out his hair.

“Tony!” Steve yelled, running over and pulling him into his arms. “Tony, what happened?”

“Captain Rogers, Sir received some disturbing news during his phone call with Mr Lupin, he is still on the phone and I am sensing distress in his tone.”

“Tony, are you there?” Remus pleaded as Steve picked up the phone and put it on speaker.

“I’m Steve Rogers, I’m a friend of Tony’s.”

“Is he ok?” Remus asked frantically.

“Not particularly, no,” Steve growled, “What the hell did you say to him?”

“I told him about the letter Lily and James wrote to him about Harry, asking Tony to take him if anything happened to them.”

“Sir and I both came to the same conclusion that Mr Stane must have gotten a hold of the letter and hidden it,” JARVIS interjected. 

“How could he do this to me?” Tony gasped, “He was my godfather. I loved him, and he tried to have me killed and he kept my son from me. How could he do that to me, Stevie? I loved him. He was my uncle Obie.”

Steve just held him tight as he cried, not saying anything, because really, what the hell was there to say?