“I deserve to know what’s going on.”
Harry hated the lifts in the tower. He couldn’t stand the way that the doors just opened right in someone’s home. No knocking, no ability to say ‘piss off’, just…
Ding!
And you were standing in their home.
Or, in Harry’s current case, he was standing in Steve’s home, shifting around uncomfortably as he tried to find Steve without venturing too far past the lifts.
Steve had told him to come over after lunch, an odd invite Harry nearly turned down when it came at breakfast.
“You busy today, kid?”
“Very.”
“He’s not.”
Harry had glared at Tony, betrayed by his honesty.
“I figured maybe you’d want to learn how to defend yourself if you were ever in a fight,” Steve said. “It wouldn’t hurt with the wizards on your tail.”
Harry snorted at the mental image of punching Voldemort in the face. He wouldn’t even get close enough to hit him before he’d get crucio’d.
“At a minimum, if you ever saw that asshole Ferret-face again you could take a swing without breaking your hand,” Tony said with a wink.
And since Harry had nothing to do until after Tony got off work and they ‘talked’ about whatever Dumbledore wanted over dinner, Harry figured he didn’t have much to lose. Of all of Tony’s mad friends, aside from Rhodey, Steve seemed the least likely to take a swing at Harry in private.
It’d probably be a bit of a scandal if Tony Stark’s kid said Captain America smacked him around.
It was that reassurance that led Harry to walking casually to the gym door and knocking before poking his head inside.
The gym in Steve’s place was nice, interesting really. Harry had explored it a bit as he’d paced the night before, stressed out and furious to be excluded from the discussion with Dumbledore. The one that Tony swore they’d discuss together at dinner and Harry didn’t believe at all.
A likely story, in Harry’s opinion. Probably just a way to brush him off, ‘don’t worry about it, kiddo, the adults will handle it’.
So pacing the polished floor of the gym, punching the red bags hanging from the ceiling, and throwing the heavy rubber balls across the boxing ring in the middle of the room had been an acceptable way to release that frustration for a while. It eased his frustration almost as much as seeing Sirius in person had eased his worries.
Nobody would be more relieved than Harry once Pettigrew was caught.
“Hey, kid!” Steve stood in a white tshirt and a pair of black athletic shorts, similar enough to Harry’s tshirt and sweat pants that he felt better about his choice. Aside from quidditch practice and running from Dudley’s gang, Harry never had much cause to ‘work out’ and had to guess at what to wear. Not that it really mattered, but Harry would prefer not to look stupid if he’d shown up in the wrong clothes.
Steve swiped his forehead, as if wiping away sweat that… that literally didn’t exist… and waved Harry in.
“Come on in,” Steve said. He waved a hand toward the red punching bag he’d been working over before Harry arrived. “I was just warming up.”
Harry looked at the stack of destroyed bags, bags he knew for a fact felt as hard as if they were filled with rocks, and nodded.
“Right,” he said slowly. “Warming up.”
Steve flashed Harry a smile, clearly amused at Harry’s disbelief. “It’s just super serum, kid, I’m nothing special.”
“I know.”
Steve chuckled and went to a shelf filled with gloves of all sizes and colors.
“You sound just like your dad,” he said as he began picking up gloves then squinting at Harry before shaking his head and picking up a new one. It reminded Harry of Ollivander all those years ago and wondered if finding gloves would be as much of a hassle as a wand had been.
“Try these on,” Steve said. He tossed Harry a dark blue pair, insultingly small.
They fit perfect.
Harry flexed his fingers in the gloves and tried not to compare himself to Dudley with his boxing gloves that dotted Harry’s rib cage with bruises.
“We’ll start with the gloves so you don’t hurt your hands until you get the hang of it,” Steve explained. Harry kept his face impassive, bored even, but he didn’t relish shattering his knuckle again. Especially if Sirius wasn’t there to heal it for him.
“Come stand here.”
Harry kept his face blank and his muscles taut while he slowly moved over to where Steve indicated. As soon as Harry was in place, Steve’s hands moved toward him and Harry jumped away.
And then felt a sick feeling of shame swam through Harry’s veins as Steve’s hands were low and he had only been moving to adjust the punching bag.
Steve was either too polite to say anything or hadn’t noticed at all, but Harry suspected it was the first. Just as Harry was debating on taking the gloves off and going back to his and Tony’s flat, Steve spoke up, casual as could be.
“So you want to start at your hip, then move your shoulders in with the punch,” he said, showing Harry what he meant as he explained it. “And feel how those gloves want your thumb tucked beneath the second knuckle? Hold it like that.”
Harry waited until Steve backed away, leaning against a complicated looking black and silver machine, before he approached the bag again.
“Like this?” Harry asked before pulling his hand back and striking the bag.
“Harder,” Steve said. “Turn your shoulders in with it.”
Harry did and felt the bag give a little beneath his knuckles, a tightness in his chest loosening.
“Harder.”
Harry grunted when he swung again.
“Come on kid, hit that bag like it’s someone you hate.”
Steve’s words caused Harry to pause for a moment, caught off-guard. Someone he hated? There was no shortage of people that Harry hated. He hated Voldemort for taking his parents, he hated Pettigrew for betraying them. He hated Professor Snape for berating him and never giving Harry a chance. He hated Draco Malfoy for his taunts and refusal to leave Harry alone.
Harry hated Vernon Dursley for never treating him like he thought family should. Harry hated Petunia Dursley for surely seeing some part of her sister in him and turning her back on him anyway. He hated the way they so easily signed Harry over to Tony, a relief to be done with him, he was sure.
Harry could make a list of all the people he hated. Truly hated, even. Not just ‘Psycho shook me once and I hate her’.
But hated enough to hit? To strike like Harry had been?
“No.” Harry ripped the gloves off and threw them on the floor. He backed away from it, his heart racing and his blood pounding in his ears. Harry raised his eyes defiantly to where Steve stood and shook his head. “I’m not hitting someone just because I hate them.”
Steve crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows. He looked surprised, but not unhappy. “Why not?”
“Because it’s cruel,” Harry spat. He scowled and kicked the gloves further from him, sliding them across the perfectly clean floor to land at Steve’s feet. “Would you like it if someone hated you so they just hit you for it?”
“Did you like it?”
Harry laughed bitterly, “No.”
Who would? Who wanted to be struck? Especially if someone did nothing to deserve it. Voldemort could get punched by almost any witch or wizard in the world and they’d probably have a damn good reason for it. But Harry? Before he even went to Hogwarts? Spilling milk wasn’t a crime, and Harry never should have had to cry over it.
“Your uncle?”
Harry’s head snapped up. He’d been zoning out, staring at the gloves and thinking of his relatives. But Steve’s words brought him to the present and sent a flutter of panic through his chest. His heart raced so quickly that he thought it may truly explode inside of him.
Steve still stood there, looking casual and relaxed, but there was a look in Steve’s eyes that made Harry realize what he’d inadvertently admitted. It was a look Harry avoided at all costs, one that told him all his denial and refusal to look at his life as the crap show it had been was for nothing.
It was pity.
And Harry needed to get out of there.
“I’m done,” he said. He turned on his heel and stormed to the door, shutting it gently and carefully behind him, before he ran for the stairs and sprinted up them.
Harry didn’t stop running until he made it to his room where he was free to slam the door shut as hard as he wanted.
Steve and his questions and offers to teach Harry to fight could piss off. Harry was a wizard. He didn’t need to throw a punch to defend himself, he had magic.
And after a scalding shower to calm himself down, Harry used his mirror to call his links to his magic.
“Hey, kiddo.” Sirius was grinning in the mirror once Harry called his name. His smile slipped as his eyes, much too sharp, scrutinized Harry closely. “Everything good?”
“You have a phone now, let Hermione and Ron use your mirror,” Harry said as he dodged the question. Was everything good? Not really, no. But when were things ever good for longer than an hour or two?
Sirius’ lips pinched together for a moment before he smiled, easygoing as ever.
“You know I made this mirror, right?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Harry grinned just a little. “You’re a genius, Padfoot. Now go give your mirror to Hermione.”
“Fine.” Sirius huffed and Harry had a brief flash of Buckbeak that made him frown.
“Isn’t your house huge?” Harry asked while Sirius walked and Harry saw a little bit of decor behind him.
“Supposedly,” Sirius quipped.
“Then quit sitting in your room,” Harry said. He cleared his throat and tried to remember the exact bit of shit advice Sirius gave him in his fourth year right after he’d been chosen as a champion in the tournament.
“Go be around people who like you, kiddo,” Harry poorly mimicked Sirius’ drawl. He flicked his head, as Sirius did when his hair was down and hanging in his face. “You’ll go mad in your room.”
“Dorm,” Sirius said, correcting Harry’s recitation. He laughed at Harry and shook his head, his grey eyes glittering fondly. “I’m already mad and the only person who likes me is in New York.”
Harry sat in his desk chair and spun it around. “Remus likes you.”
“Not since I threatened to kill him.”
Harry laughed. “Imagine that,” he drawled. “What for?”
“He’s shagging my cousin,” Sirius said casually, either a response or an evasion, Harry couldn’t figure out which. “Oi! Hermione! Here!” Sirius smiled once more in the mirror, “Love you, kiddo.”
Harry hummed and nodded.
It was… uncomfortable when people said they loved him. Sirius had been the first, Tony the most recent.
And Harry never knew if they wanted him to say it back or not.
He couldn’t ponder the issue long though because Sirius handed the mirror over to Hermione who only looked confused for a brief second before her face split in a perfectly white smile.
“HARRY!!” Hermione’s high pitched squeal caused Harry to both wince at the sheer screech of it and also chuckle at the familiarity of it. She had her face right in the mirror, her nose nearly touching the glass. “RON!! RON!” she yelled. “HURRY!”
“Oh, I miss you so much!” Hermione cried in the mirror. “How are you? Where- no, don’t tell me, I don’t know occlumency. Are you okay? Safe? You look good! How are you and Sirius talking so much? Are you coming here soon? Sirius said—”
“Let him breathe, Hermione,” Ron laughed. His cheerful looking face smushed next to Hermione’s in the mirror, triggering a blush on Hermione’s cheeks that made Harry smirk.
They looked just as they always had. Ron and his easy grin and crooked tooth on a face full of freckles. His red hair was longer, hanging in his eyes. Hermione’s skin was a little more tan, a sparse smattering of freckles on her nose, but they were the same.
And Harry felt so different.
“Everything’s changed,” Harry blurted once it clicked in him. “And I think I hate it.”
Hermione’s eyes softened and Ron’s hardened. They were familiar reactions; Hermione was ready to empathize and Ron was preparing to offer solutions.
“Hold on,” Hermione cut Ron off when he opened his mouth to say something. “Harry, I love you so dearly—”
Harry couldn’t imagine why.
“—and of course I want to know everything, but if it’s something you don’t want anyone powerful,” Hermione’s eyes widened as she stressed the word, “to know, then you can’t tell us. Not until we figure out this occlumency and block our minds.”
Harry didn’t understand the entirety of what Hermione was saying, but he did recognize that she was telling him that even if he couldn’t tell them everything, they were still there.
He went ahead and silently forgave them for not trying to write when he was at the Dursley’s house.
“I think the cat’s out of the bag anyway,” Harry said, adopting one of Pepper’s expressions he’d heard her use, “so listen up…”
Harry told them about Tony, heavily editing the details on how his parents apparently both shagged the man (it may be lucky that Harry had much more recent things to dream about or he was certain that would be a frequent nightmare).
Hermione had shrieked, actually shrieked, when Harry said Tony’s name.
“YOUR DAD IS IRON MAN?!”
Ron scrunched his nose, “What is that? Like a disease?”
“Yes,” Harry told him solemnly. “A fatal disease to aliens.”
Ron had been confused, but Hermione hushed his questions and urged Harry to go on.
So Harry told them about Peter and Gwen, scowling with red cheeks when Ron had a knowing grin on his face. Harry didn’t even tell Ron they were kind of together, and as far as Harry knew, hoped, Ron was unaware of Harry’s newly realized ‘sexuality’, so he could quit grinning.
Harry desperately hoped Ron never knew about the dreams about his brother he used to have. Harry hardly liked to think of them, he shuddered to imagine Ron or the twins with that kind of ammunition against him.
Harry also told Ron and Hermione about the night before with Dumbledore showing up and Harry being sent from the room like a child. Sirius refused to tell Harry about it, Tony claimed they’d discuss it later, and Harry felt like he’d somehow been cut adrift.
“It’s mad,” Harry told them as he finished his lengthy tale. “I’m the one who wasn’t too young to fight him in the graveyard, but now I’m a kid?”
“Mm. Who said you weren’t too young for that?” Hermione asked slowly. Her eyes had gone as wide as Dobby the House-Elve’s since Harry mentioned Tony Stark and were just beginning to return to a normal size.
Harry sputtered while he tried to think through Hermione’s question.
“I mean, it’s just- I- I deserve to know what’s going on,” Harry finally said firmly. “Sirius wouldn’t tell me, he said that Tony will.”
“So he probably will,” Ron said. He stuck his tongue out when Harry glared at him. “He sounds like a decent bloke.”
“He’s a hero,” Hermione said. She sounded like she did back in the early days of Lockhart and it made Harry laugh, all the more so when Ron looked putout by her tone. “Harry, I think you can trust him.”
“You think I should trust everyone,” Harry sighed. He spun his chair around and wished he had something to toss in the air. His fingers itched like there was something they needed to be doing.
“I don’t,” Hermione disagreed.
“Certainly not any defense teachers anymore,” Ron grinned.
Hermione gave Harry a familiar patient look. It was the one that said Harry didn’t see the world like everyone else and she was about to call him out on it.
“Harry, he hasn’t let you down or lied to you yet, right?” Hermione said slowly, giving Harry time to process her question. Tony hadn’t really done anything to let Harry down. In fact, Harry just mentioned that he wished he had photos of himself, like every other kid in the world, and Tony got them.
And so far, as sarcastic as Tony was and as many jokes as he made, Harry couldn’t think of a single time when he’d actually lied to him.
“So just ask him and let him explain,” Hermione said when Harry didn’t say anything. “And call us back to tell us what’s happening.”
“Because Hermione is nosy,” Ron said with a sage tone and a teasing twinkle in his eyes. “We do miss you though, mate.”
Harry looked at his two best friends, the ones that had been the first people to like him - mood swings and mad adventures and all.
“I miss you guys too.”
Harry wasn’t testing Tony, he merely just waited at dinner to see if he would bring up Dumbledore’s mysterious visit first or not.
Thankfully, he did.
Tony sat across from Harry at the kitchen bar, both of them picking at the tacos and rice that Tony had delivered from a restaurant. Tony had asked Harry about his day, Harry hadn’t responded past a dry comment about Steve being annoying.
Harry hoped he hadn’t gone running to Tony about it. Maybe he should have stayed, smoothed over the moment, but he’d needed space more than he needed to smooth things over.
Also, Harry was very bad at smoothing things over. He probably would have just made it worse had he stayed.
After that though, they’d been quiet and Harry had began to believe that Tony wasn’t going to bring it up at all. But then Tony dropped his fork to his plate and scrubbed his face with his hands.
“The evil wizard with the dumb name knows where you are,” Tony said bluntly.
Harry’s fork slipped from his fingers, hitting his plate with a clatter. It felt as inevitable as it felt ominous. Harry always knew, since he was eleven really, that Voldemort would succeed when Vernon failed and would kill Harry one day.
Harry just hoped to have a lot more days. He’d wanted time, time to live before he died. And, if he were honest with himself, he wanted to die on his own terms. He didn’t want Voldemort to have the victory in wiping out the entire Potter family.
But Harry was a Stark too and Voldemort found him.
“Oh.” Harry said, struggling to pull up his apathy in face of his shock. Harry was grateful when Tony kept talking, sparing him from responding.
“Yeah,” Tony frowned and tapped the counter beside his plate with an irritated tempo. Harry unconsciously felt himself matching the tempo with his own finger, waiting on Tony to elaborate.
“Gandalf,” Harry’s lips twitched as Tony compared Dumbledore to the wizard in the movies he liked, “came to scare away the mini evil wizards that were sent here to see if Thor was around or not.”
“Thor? The God?” Harry asked quickly, recalling seeing him fight his own brother in Tony’s video. “Why did that matter?”
“Because Voldemort, Jesus Christ what a stupid name, apparently didn’t want to be struck down by thunder,” Tony said, a shadow of his usual smirk on his face. “So Gandalf‘s spy on the dark side—”
“Who?”
“That guy Sirius hates,” Tony waved his hand airily. “Snape.”
Harry’s jaw dropped at that bit of news. He’d known that Dumbledore had a hard task he assigned Snape after the third task, he had no idea that it was to spy on Voldemort.
Merlin.
Harry leaned forward, his fingers finally still as his mind raced. “What else?”
Tony looked surprised for a moment by Harry’s intent interest, but Harry wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity of someone feeding him fresh information on the war.
“Well Snape told Gandalf that Darth Vader, don’t laugh, kid, it’s better than Voldemort, was sending some stormtroopers to our place and he came to scare them away.”
Harry waited a moment to see if Tony was done. When he saw that he was, he frowned and sat back.
“That’s it?” he asked.
“Gandalf also wants you back at Hogwarts,” Tony said quickly, saying it like an afterthought. “I told him you didn’t want to go and that—”
“I do.”
It was Tony’s turn to gape at Harry then. For someone so unflappable, Tony looked shocked. Harry himself was shocked, but…
But Hogwarts had Ron and Hermione. Hogwarts had Harry’s quidditch team and his friends. And if Voldemort and Dumbledore knew where Harry was, if they were showing up and causing complications, then why couldn’t Harry go back with his friends to a place he once loved?
Clearly hiding out in New York wasn’t working anyway. And Harry couldn’t be a coward any longer. Sirius said Harry was important to the war, and Tony put on his iron suit and fought evil when he needed to.
And Harry could do the same.
Harry could go to Hogwarts, learn the magic that would actually help him defend himself, and Harry could make them proud - Tony, Sirius, James, Lily - and do what they did.
And then he could go home.
Tony took a deep breath. He took a sip of his canned soda. And then he leaned back in his seat.
“No.”