“It’s weird.”
Harry had a schedule that was somehow more packed than it had been when he’d been going to school from eight to three.
Monday mornings Harry was supposed to work on homework and ‘independent study’. It mostly turned to Harry sitting at the counter in the kitchen and asking Tony questions while he worked on his own projects. Tony was brilliant, really, he was always able to answer any question Harry asked him, even when Harry purposefully asked the hardest questions he could. Harry would have thought he was cheating somehow if he didn’t hear Tony answer one of the hard questions in Harry’s revision textbook while he dozed on the sofa.
Strange decided that their session on Monday evenings needed to be doubled in time, half spent on Harry trying to magic away the imaginary pain in his lost-leg and then the other hour spent on regular magic. Or, regular for Strange… strange magic.
Harry was beginning to hate and resent that first hour spent on magic. There wasn’t any way for Harry to envision the magical light flowing through him and easing his pains.
Strange expected too much from Harry. Strange thought Harry was capable of too much, really.
“Harry, if you can’t trust in yourself, trust in me. I know you are capable of great things, I’ve seen it.”
That logic had helped Harry produce a patronus at thirteen, but it did nothing to help Harry heal his own imaginary pain.
Harry had pointed out that Trelawney had seen him killing Voldemort too and that hadn’t happened. Strange hadn’t been amused and Harry was beginning to wonder if he had as crappy of a sense of humor as a doctor as he did a ‘sorcerer’ or whatever he called himself.
To add insult to injury, Strange also began leaving Harry with tomes as thick and dry as any History of Magic textbook had been and instructing him to read several chapters between their classes. Harry learned nothing about brewing potions or transfiguration, but he did learn about the Possessors, the Bottle Imp, and Aggamon.
With Voldemort dead and Harry having little interest in sitting his OWLS, it was tempting to drop his life as a wizard altogether. When had magic ever bettered his life, really? It made him feared and hated by his relatives, it caused him to fear and hate himself quite a bit. Magic killed his parents, magic brought Voldemort to life again and again.
It wasn’t until Tony slammed his hand in a drawer, breaking one of the fingers, and Sirius healed it with a lazy flick of his wand that Harry remembered what good magic could do.
Magic showed him his parents in the Mirror of Erised, it protected him as an infant, it kept Sirius from dying, and it healed so many people.
Plus, magic was still loads better than the physical therapy that Harry suffered through on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
“You’re doing great,” Doctor Callie, a pretty woman with a cold heart, encouraged him. Harry had clenched his jaw hard to keep from letting a scream or cry escape him when he was doing the worst exercise known to man.
Harry was laying on his back with his right leg laying straight and he lifted his left stump over and over, having to hold it straight up while Doctor Callie counted to twenty.
“C’mon, kid, you got this.” The other patient who did therapy when Harry did, Taylor Anderson, paused in his slow walking across a thin platform, to ‘encourage’ Harry.
“Shut the fuck up,” Harry hissed at him. His entire leg was shaking and his muscles were burning at something that should be simple.
“And twenty! Lower it!” Doctor Callie said with a wide smile. “Way to go, Stark. You ready to do the walk again?”
Harry was panting and eyed the walkway that stood in the middle of the room with rails down both sides. It looked easy, it should have been easy, but at Harry’s third session on Tuesday, he’d nearly fallen and ended the session in tears.
“Don’t be a pussy,” Anderson said with a mocking smirk that reminded Harry too much of Draco Malfoy. “C’mon, little Stark, you ready to man up?”
“Piss off,” Harry snapped. He struggled to sit up and used the nearby weight bench to pull himself up off to floor so he could sit on the bench. Anderson wasn’t bad, mostly, but it was like he was flaunting his ability to walk around with crutches despite his recent amputation and mocking Harry in the process.
“Fine,” Harry told Doctor Callie. He accepted the crutches she gave him with extreme reluctance and distaste. The crutches were awkward and made Harry’s gait clumsy and shaky, plus they were a lot more uncomfortable to use than Anderson made it look.
Bloody Anderson.
Harry slowly stood up and wobbled with the crutches under his arms. With Doctor Callie following behind him, Harry did a tricky wobbling walk to the walkway and paused to catch his breath when he eyed the first step to get on it.
“It’s as easy as riding a bike,” Anderson told Harry. “If the bike’s on fire and the handlebars are covered in spikes and everything fucking hurts.”
“I don’t know how to ride a bike,” Harry said with a cold glare. To keep Anderson from mocking him again though, Harry put the crutches on the step and then hopped up. He swayed some and there was a sick sinking in his stomach as if he was going to fall, and then he steadied out.
“Who doesn’t know how to ride a bike?” Anderson asked while he leaned against the rails of his own platform to watch Harry.
“People who grew up in cupboards,” Harry sneered. He glanced toward Doctor Callie who gave Harry an encouraging nod.
“Move your foot first this time,” she said. “Feel the difference when you do it that way.”
Harry hated doing it like that, that was what caused him to fall last time.
“If I fall again then I’m never coming back,” Harry warned the doctor.
“Fair enough,” she laughed. “Take your right crutch and put it under your left arm, okay? Then just grab the rail with your right hand and try to put the majority of your weight on your right side.”
“All sixty pounds,” Anderson snorted.
Harry really wished he had a free hand to flip Anderson off, but moving the crutches took up all of his energy and concentration. Once he had them situated, Harry sent a nervous glance to Doctor Callie, hoping she’d actually make an effort to catch him when he fell.
“You’ve got this,” Doctor Callie said. She was right on the other side of the rail and smiling at Harry. It was like playing good auror, bad auror. Doctor Callie was warm and encouraging, Anderson was pushy and competitive.
And Harry was miserable.
Harry held on to the rail with as much pressure as he could before he lifted his right foot off the ground, only the crutches and rail holding him up for just a moment, and then quickly brought the foot down on the top of the platform and followed it with the crutches.
“Yes! Good job!” Doctor Callie cried. “That’s the hardest part!”
“No way,” Anderson scoffed. He tracked Harry with his sharp eyes as Harry slowly walked down the platform, hating it the whole time. “The stairs back down are the hardest.”
Since that’s what caused Harry to tumble forward last time, he was inclined to agree.
“Now what?” Harry asked Doctor Callie when he got to the end of the walkway and eyed the stairs distastefully. It was embarrassing how heavy Harry was breathing and sweating, getting his arse kicked by something that used to be so simple.
“Crutches first,” Doctor Callie said. “Watch Taylor while you catch your breath, okay?”
“Yeah, Stark, watch me and my excellent stair stepping,” Anderson laughed at Harry. “Ready?”
“I hope you fall,” Harry said, the venom in his tone dulled some by the way he was panting.
Anderson didn’t fall, but he did wobble a bit when he climbed down the stairs for the platform he was on. He basically did what Harry did going up the stairs, but going back down them.
“C’mon, Tiny Tim, see if you can top that,” Anderson bragged with his chest puffed out. When Anderson raised his tan colored shirt he wore to wipe the sweat from his face, Harry peeked very quickly at what were abs that most blokes dreamt of having.
It was a bad time to notice it, but Anderson was rather fit. Even without his lower left leg (amputee twins, he’d called Harry during their first session together), he was clearly in good shape with broad shoulders and a sharp jawline that was highlighted by his short buzzed dark blonde hair.
If he wasn’t an arse, Harry might have found him even more attractive.
“Go fuck yourself,” Harry muttered to Anderson. He waited until Doctor Callie had moved closer before he breathed very slowly, only shaking some, and tried to mimic Anderson’s steps.
It wasn’t pretty, and Harry very nearly fell again, but he did it.
“I did it!” Harry cried, shocked. He let out a startled laugh and looked up at Doctor Callie. “I did it!”
“Hell yes you did,” Doctor Callie said. She was quick to grab Harry’s chair and move it behind him, allowing Harry to gratefully collapse in it. “Let’s start with that next time, okay? And are you doing the at home exercises?”
“Er… yes,” Harry lied. He had been doing them, but in the privacy of his room with none of Doctor Callie’s praise or Anderson’s taunts, it was much easier to quit them when they became painful.
“Liar,” Anderson quipped. “Don’t skip the at home shit, kid, or you’re going to be stuck in that chair for a hell of a lot longer.”
Harry eyed Anderson and his crutches thoughtfully. “How long did it take you to walk again?”
“Eight months.”
“Anderson’s a success case, but he pushed hard in the beginning after he healed,” Doctor Callie cut in quickly. “You don’t want to overdue it and set yourself back, if you’re up on your feet—”
“Foot,” Harry and Anderson said simultaneously.
“If you’re up on your foot and using the crutches regularly by a year, then you’re already ahead of the game, okay?”
“But don’t let your rich daddy talk you into one of those lazy people chairs,” Anderson cut in. “Keep using that one and build your arm muscles up.”
“But don’t over do it,” Doctor Callie said again, shooting Anderson a look. “If you’re tired, let someone push you, okay?”
“Sure,” Harry agreed without really agreeing. “Suppose I’ll see you Tuesday then?”
“I’ll see you Saturday morning,” Anderson smirked. “Come to one meeting, I won’t let anyone bite you.”
Harry scowled at him again and did finally flip him off. Tony had mentioned the ‘group meeting’ after Harry’s first physical therapy session and Harry told him the same thing he told Anderson when he brought it up again on Tuesday: not a chance in hell.
The last thing Harry wanted was to sit in a room full of people missing their limbs and listen to their ‘encouraging stories’ and being told how strong they all were.
“Scared, Stark?” Anderson asked, still smirking at Harry in the most irritating way. “What’s wrong? Afraid you’ll fit in too well?”
“Afraid I’d have to see you three times a week, which is already three times too many,” Harry drawled. He started wheeling himself toward the door and waited for the automatic doorway to open. “See you.”
Anderson called Harry a pussy again, which was apparently as good as calling him a coward, but Harry ignored him.
He wasn’t going to be goaded into joining their amputee club.
Tony was in the waiting lounge just down the hall from the therapy room. Tony had brought his laptop, tablet, and phone to Harry’s last few appointments and seemed to be working on something with the bloke, Sam Wilson, who drove Anderson to the appointments.
They were both concentrated fully on whatever Tony had on his screen and Harry took a moment to watch Tony work. It was almost funny to see him with his eyes screwed up and his brain no doubt moving in a million different directions. He murmured to himself occasionally, just odd little words that didn’t mean much to Harry.
Hermione swore that Harry looked the same when he was working on homework, but Harry wasn’t sure he ever looked so focused on anything.
“Oh, hey.” Tony caught sight of Harry in the doorway and flashed him a smile before closing up his laptop and packing it away in his bag. “All done?”
“No, I’m making a break for it,” Harry said seriously. “I can’t run far, but I found this convenient chair to use.”
“Smartass,” Tony laughed. He clapped Wilson on the shoulder as he stood up and the two shared a grin. “See you Saturday then? Bring the wings, I want to check them out.”
“Bring some decent coffee or don’t come at all,” Wilson told him. He nodded his head at Harry. “See you around, Harry.”
Harry waited until he and Tony were safely in the lifts to get back to the lobby to ask about it.
“Pepper’s never going to marry you if you keep going out with random blokes,” Harry told his dad. “I’m beginning to think you never plan on giving me a mum.”
It was a joke, Harry hadn’t even thought of it before he said it, but he had to blink quickly to keep the stinging sensation in his eyes from becoming actual tears.
That was the problem with being part of Tony’s family, it made Harry feel like he was replacing the parents who died for him every time he called Tony dad or Tony referred to Pepper as Harry’s future stepmum.
Sirius said that was a daft thing to worry about, but Harry figured he’d been more screwed on having a family than Harry had been so his opinion didn’t really count.
“It’s not a date,” Tony laughed. “Sam’s got a few soldiers who need prosthetics and I’ve got some prototypes ready to fit-test. I told him I’d bring them to their group.”
Harry gaped at his dad even after the lift doors opened and Tony began striding toward the main entrance of the hospital. It took Harry a moment to catch up, and his arms were screaming in protest with every push of his wheels, but when he did Harry was stunned by the nonchalant expression on Tony’s face.
“You’re building fake legs for soldiers?” Harry asked. He laughed once when Tony nodded. “You never quit, do you?”
Tony gave Harry a puzzled frown but they had to pause their conversation for the valet to bring Tony back his car.
“What do I never quit doing?” Tony asked after they’d both gotten in the car and Tony put Harry’s chair in the back.
Harry leaned his head on the cool glass window and closed his eyes only to open them again when he felt Tony drop something in his lap.
“This!” Harry cried, holding up the potion Tony brought with him. “You bring potions for me and you’re building legs for soldiers and you redesigned your entire home just because I said I didn’t want a fake leg!! You’re just- you…” Harry bit his lower lip hard for a second, trying to put his frustration in words. “You just do nice shit, all the time, and you’re getting nothing in return.
“And before you said ‘oh I got a son’, don’t,” Harry snapped. “You got a cripple who does nothing but make your life harder. I say I don’t want to go to Midtown so you pay someone to teach me math and science. I want to learn magic, so you pay for that. I break my leg and you pay for all of this! Sirius needs a place to stay, you give him his own flat. A soldier lost his leg in a war, you give him a new one.”
Harry was panting some, worn down by his own (probably irrational) anger as he was from the grueling two hours spent with Doctor Callie.
Tony was just so… so… selfless and it made Harry feel like he could never compare to any of the adults in his life, no matter how much he tried.
James stood on his feet and tried to protect his wife and baby, the baby he knew he hadn’t fathered, from Voldemort. Lily was given the option to save herself, and instead she died so Harry could live. Sirius was a bloody superhero, off on missions to find horcruxes and protect muggles in equal measure. Tony was the most selfless damn person Harry had ever met.
Tony didn’t just spend what Harry was sure was an insane amount of money on him either. Tony also knew Harry would be miserable after physical therapy so he brought him a potion. Tony quit joining his team on missions because Harry asked him to. It was as if his entire world just revolved around Harry and it was unnerving.
Because Harry was… was just Harry.
Harry was always going to be Harry J. Potter, from the cupboard under the stairs.
Secret, shameful, not worth the fuss.
“So what’s in it for you?” Harry asked, a little more calmly. “Why do you do all this shit?”
Tony didn’t seem fazed in the slightest by Harry’s hateful rant, he just kept driving back toward the tower with his eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses and his lips twisted thoughtfully.
“You make me sound like some selfless bastard with some black and white view on morality,” Tony eventually said after the silence lingered between them for a few minutes. “I’m going to be honest here, kid, so don’t be offended. But half the time I’m just competing against Howard in my head and hoping that when I die I can mock him in hell and tell him that I was twice the father he was with half as much time to adjust to parenthood.”
“I’m assuming he had nine months to prepare, you didn’t even get nine seconds,” Harry said. “I’m not sure if you think that makes you less selfless, but it’s just worse because nobody taught you to be a parent and you’re doing a great job anyway.”
Tony looked over briefly to grin at Harry at his slip up. “Aww, you think I’m doing great? This is probably the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me. JARVIS, make note: on Thursday, December 7th, at 1512, Harry said I’m doing a great job at being a parent.”
“I hate you,” Harry said flatly. He downed the pain reliever, every muscle in his body begging for it, and then leaned his head against the window again.
“Mm, I think you loveee me,” Tony sang brightly. “Can I expect a ‘world’s best dad’ mug for Christmas?”
“You’re getting a bag of galleons,” Harry said. “And a personal apology letter from Sirius for sending me here to ruin your life.”
“That’s not going to be the most depressing Christmas present I’ve ever received at all,” Tony said sarcastically. “I think it’s only second to the year my parents left me home with a nanny so they could go on a trip. And then the nanny left little six year old me home alone so she could go to a party with her friends.”
Jesus.
“I got a tissue one year.”
“I got an intervention and a stint in rehab one fine Christmas Eve.”
“One time my uncle mailed me a hanger.”
“Howard accepted a Presidential Medal for acts of ingenuity and service to the military at a Christmas Ball and mentioned my mother and Steve Rogers in his acceptance speech and not his son.”
Harry snorted quietly. “That’s messed up.”
“See? I’m just trying to outdo him, don’t think this is about you at all.”
Harry managed to roll his eyes despite having his eyelids closed.
If anyone deserved to be thanked in an acceptance speech for an award, it was Tony. Harry didn’t understand how his grandfather could have not been bursting with pride over Tony’s brilliance and his never ending ideas and the way that he grew to become a literal hero who spent his free time building legs for soldiers.
“If I ever win an award, I’ll mention you,” Harry said quietly as the hum of the car’s engine and the potion were lulling him to sleep.
“Deal.”
As physically exhausting as Tuesdays and Thursdays were, Wednesdays and Fridays were nearly just as bad.
The tutor that Tony found, a student at a nearby college who was double majoring in education and mathematics, spent all day at the tower on those two days. Harry never thought he’d be glad to escape to his weekly therapy sessions with Michael, but by the time he could pack away his school books, it was a true relief.
Harry liked the tutor the first time they met, she was young, about twenty, and her brown eyes and black braids reminded him quite a bit of Hermione, but then he began to despise her the more time they spent together. Every Wednesday and Friday, Harry was exposed to the tutoring torture.
The tutor Tony found was a cheerful woman named Paris and she was a genius and more strict of a teacher than even McGonagall. She was patient enough though, but the way she seemed to know everything grated on Harry’s nerves.
Hermione knew everything as well, but it was something Harry liked in her that he didn’t in Paris.
“Morning,” Paris said brightly when she arrived for their third session. She had on a jumper with her college logo on it and a casual pair of jeans. Harry eyed her backpack warily though, certain it contained nothing but torture.
“Are we in the kitchen or living room today?” she asked Harry.
“Kitchen,” Harry sighed, wishing he could disappear in the lab as well when Tony slipped away.
“Perfect!” Paris dropped her heavy bag on the counter and pulled a chair out so she could sit across from the little nook that was the perfect size for Harry to sit in his chair at. “How’d you get along with those worksheets I left on Wednesday?”
“Fine,” Harry said. He pulled the worksheets from the folder that sat on his stack of books and handed them to her. “Er… my dad had to help me on a few of them,” he admitted.
“Which one’s?” Paris asked as her keen eyes flicked over Harry’s scrawled answers.
They spent the first hour going over the worksheets with Paris explaining which answers Harry missed and how to answer them correctly. They didn’t spend long on English, as it was the one subject that Harry wasn’t rubbish at, but then science and mathematics made Harry truly want to scream.
The only thing that got Harry through their session was the knowledge that he only had to suffer through it for half as long as he, Tony, and Sirius had an appointment with President Quahog before Harry had to go to therapy.
Harry worked diligently though, determined not to make his time with Paris a complete waste of Tony’s money. As strict as Paris was, and as much as Harry didn’t want to like her, he could admit that she did have a knack for explaining different concepts in simple enough terms for him.
The whole thing would be less humiliating if they weren’t using a math book meant for sixth graders though, which weren’t the same thing as sixth years at all.
“You’re making soo much progress,” Paris said cheerfully when the alarm she set on her phone went off. Harry politely helped her pack her books up and gave her a wan smile when she put a stack of new worksheets in his ‘homework folder’. “I think we’ll be able to move on to calculus after Christmas.”
“Lucky me,” Harry said drily, actually mildly pleased by that. Calculus was a class at Midtown, which meant Harry was finally getting close to his own peers’ level in at least one area.
If nothing else, Peter might be impressed if he still came over that weekend as they’d tentatively planned.
“Text me if you have any questions, okay?” Paris told Harry after she finished packing up her supplies. “I’ll see you Wednesday, have a good weekend.”
Harry thumped his head down on his stack of books, letting out a heavy sigh of relief when he heard the lift doors close behind her.
“Tutoring’s that fun?” Tony asked when he conveniently left his lab the same time that Paris left the flat.
“I think the only thing that can make it more fun is if she stuck thumb tacks under my nails while she explained the periodic table,” Harry said. He looked over and saw that Tony was still wearing jeans and a red tshirt over a long sleeved black shirt. “Aren’t we having tea with the President?” Harry asked him, eyeing his outfit pointedly.
“Didn’t you meet Obama in an Avril Lavigne shirt and holey jeans?” Tony countered with. Harry tilted his head in silent agreement.
“Wanna see my new party trick?” he asked him instead. When Tony leaned against the wall and nodded, Harry closed his eyes and tried to ‘draw on his magic’ as Strange had him practicing nonstop. He managed it the night before, but it was still the hardest magic he’d ever done.
Harry tried to draw a little circle with his finger, something that was easier on the days after he was able to actually sleep, and Harry smiled genuinely when he saw that it worked.
The little circle of light made a lot of sparks and wasn’t nearly as large as Strange’s (though Strange did say that as soon as Harry was ready, he’d bring him a ‘sling ring’ that would help him channel the magic better). It worked well enough for short distances though and Harry reached through it and felt the exact item he’d been envisioning in his hand.
“Ta da,” Harry said as he pulled his Invisibility Cloak from the odd portal. From the kitchen to Harry’s bedroom was the farthest Harry had managed so far and it had Harry’s heart racing with a sense of excitement.
Who needed accio when Harry could create little portals without even touching a wand? If Harry knew he could do that before, he could have just grabbed the portkey and—
And it wouldn’t have really mattered because Cedric would still be dead and Bucky would probably still have wound up becoming the ‘Savior Soldier’.
Ron said the news hadn’t been so flattering since someone let slip that Harry had been ‘gravely injured’ by Bucky when he’d went to kill Voldemort, but Harry of all people knew that those that were vilified one day were revered the next.
“You can’t use magic to hide your legs from the President,” Tony said with a grin when Harry tucked his cloak around his waist and covered himself from the waist down with it. “Don’t make me call McGonagall.”
“I’ll tell her you told me to do it,” Harry deadpanned. “Who’s she going to believe? Someone she’s known for years or some bloke that’s corrupted her favorite student?”
“Who’s the favorite student? You or Sirius?” Tony asked as the two of them made their way toward the lift. Harry snatched his jacket off the hook in the foyer that the lifts were in, already over ‘New York winters’.
“Sirius,” Harry said honestly. “You should hear him talk about her, I think he’s half in love with her.”
And the way that McGonagall talked about James and Sirius made Harry wonder if they truly were as brilliant at transfiguration as she made them sound or if McGonagall just had a soft spot for them. Harry didn’t think he’d ever had a teacher before who liked him as much as McGonagall did Sirius and James. Maybe Lupin, but he had a personal bias.
Not that Harry had ever been the most successful student, or the most participatory, or the most outgoing…
In hindsight, it actually made a lot of sense that teachers never seemed to like him much.
Harry kept his face blank and his thoughts to himself while Happy drove him, Tony, and Sirius to MACUSA Headquarters. Neither Tony nor Sirius seemed worried about the upcoming meeting, but Harry felt he’d earned the right to mistrust any magical authority.
Fudge had seemed to be a kindly and bustling businessman until he called Harry a deranged liar to his face and stood by to give Voldemort leeway to start a second reign.
President Quahog had been… accommodating? understanding?… he’d been polite when Harry met him before, but that was before Sirius was seen on the telly using magic in an area packed with muggles.
“If we go to prison, I’m blaming you,” Harry whispered to Sirius when the three of them got out of the car.
Sirius ruffled Harry’s hair and grinned down at him. “If we do, I know a neat trick on how to escape.”
“D’you think if I became an animagus and it was a dog that I’d have three legs?” Harry asked conversationally as they made their way to the entrance.
Sirius blanched, though Harry had just been being an arse to hide his own tension.
“You’d be a bird, obviously,” Tony said breezily, easing away the sticky moment. “Not a clean bird, like Hedwig, but a messy one. A messy bird that leaves clothes on the floor and toothpaste in the sink.”
“Birds don’t use toothpaste,” Sirius grinned, clearly pleased to jump on the ‘Harry is a slob’ bandwagon.
And Harry was a bit of a slob, but only in the privacy of his room. He’d always been like that; his room was the one area that people didn’t used to enter. And in Harry’s opinion, it was controlled chaos anyway, like Tony’s lab. Sure, his favorite Weasley jumper, the one he got first year and Molly always tweaked to continue fitting him year after year, didn’t belong under his bed, but Harry knew it was there.
“If you don’t like my room, feel free to stay out of it,” Harry sniffed.
“Rude,” Tony winked. He held the door open for Harry and Sirius and then walked to the secretary with his head held high and a smile on his face. “Good morning, beautiful, we’ve been summoned by the man behind the curtain?”
The secretary, the same young woman from the last time they were there, smiled at Tony’s effortless charm and then she looked behind him to where Harry sat. Harry saw the instant that she clocked his wheelchair because her eyes went as wide as galleons.
“Oh… I’ll just, um… I’ll let President Quahog know you’ve arrived,” she stammered, still staring at Harry. “If you’ll follow me.”
Harry was scowling the entire way to the President’s office, embarrassed by the way the woman kept glancing over her shoulder at him.
“You’d look less odd if half your body wasn’t invisible,” Sirius whispered while Tony distracted the woman with some flattery.
Harry stared at his godfather for a moment, wondering if he was just pretending to be daft or if he actually believed what he was saying.
“I’d still be missing a leg,” Harry muttered from the corner of his mouth. “At least now she can’t gossip about why exactly I’m in this fucking chair.”
“Fair enough,” Sirius shrugged.
The woman knocked on the office door that Harry had been inside once before and at the deep voice of the President welcoming them in, she opened the door and gave them a weak smile.
“If you buy a phone next time I come then you could take a photo,” Harry said snidely as she started to walk away. “It’ll be easier to gawk at.”
The woman didn’t turn back, but Sirius chuckled and let Harry follow his dad in the office while he followed Harry and shut the door behind them.
“Afternoon, gentlemen.” President Quahog stood up from behind his massive desk to greet them. The office looked the same as it had last time Harry had been inside of it. The bookshelves were lined neatly with thick books, there was an almost obnoxiously large American flag hanging behind the desk, giving the President a red, white, and blue backdrop. The President himself looked the same as well, thick brown hair with hints of grey brushed neatly back and dark blue eyes crinkled in a supposedly friendly grin.
As it was Harry’s second time being summoned over incidents involving magic exposure though, Harry wasn’t quite so brought in by the smile.
“Afternoon,” Tony said, shaking the President’s hand and then taking one of the three chairs that were across from his desk. Sirius dragged away the chair in the middle, leaving space for Harry to wheel up and briefly accept the handshake from the President.
“I heard you were recently injured, I wasn’t aware that it was a permanent injury,” the President said after shaking Sirius’ hand and resuming his seat. Harry was probably imagining it, but for just a second it looked like the President actually seemed bothered by Harry’s injury.
“Nothing more permanent than cutting off a leg,” Harry said flatly. He went ahead and took the cloak off, tucking it securely beside him, and then met the President’s eyes square on. “You don’t know if…?” Harry trailed off, hardly daring to hope that the American wizard president would know of something that McGonagall and Dumbledore didn’t.
“I do not,” Quahog said, clearly understanding Harry’s non-question. Harry knew it was coming really, but it was a blow nonetheless. Quahog looked at Tony and raised a brow. “I presume you have consulted with both magical and no-maj healers?”
“Some of both,” Tony said. He sat back and crossed one ankle over the other knee. “Stephen Strange had to do the amputation after James Barnes kidnapped Harry and left him in a foreign country with a destabilizing and infected injury.”
Quahog inclined his head briefly before tapping his desk with his wand and silently causing four white mugs, a tea kettle, and coffee pot to appear.
“Help yourself, gentlemen,” Quahog said, waving his hand airily. “Where can I find James Barnes?” he asked, looking between Tony and Sirius.
“St. Mungo’s,” Sirius supplied helpfully. He poured Harry a cup of coffee and Harry took it more to have something to do with his hands than anything. “He’s still in the Janus Thickey Ward.”
“Ah.” Quahog grabbed a perfectly ordinary ink pen from a desk drawer and made a note on a remote legal pad. “Have they indicated a date for his release?”
“No,” Sirius said.
“I will send the appropriate documentation to Minister Fudge and St. Mungo’s, but I’m afraid the British government is rather clever when they want to be,” Quahog said wryly. His eyes hovered on Sirius for a moment, “Nothing I need to tell you, I’m sure.”
“Documentation for what?” Tony asked, asking the same thing Harry wanted to know.
Quahog seemed surprised by Tony’s question, as if the answer should be obvious. “He committed a crime against a magical child on US soil,” Quahog said slowly. “He will be extradited here to stand trial once he’s released from hospital care.”
“What?” Harry blurted. The coffee cup shook in his hands and Harry carefully placed it on the desk before tucking his hands away. “You’re charging Bucky?”
“I apologize, Mister Stark, I presumed this would be rather clear,” Quahog said to Harry. “The indictment was approved the day that the Amber Alert was issued.”
“But he killed Voldemort?” Harry said. His heart was hammering and he wasn’t sure why, but it seemed like nobody in Britain had really cared too much Harry had been collateral damage in Bucky’s decision to kill Voldemort.
“And in doing so he committed multiple crimes against a magical minor in the United States,” Quahog said. “The ends do not justify the means, Mister Stark.”
“Hear, hear,” Tony said. He raised his cup of coffee to the President while Harry stared down at his own lap, trying to sort out his suddenly tangled thoughts.
Harry let the conversation happening become nothing more than a buzzing background sound…
It wasn’t that it was a big deal, not really, but Harry was sure that people committed crimes against him all the time.
It probably wasn’t legal to make a kid live in a glorified closet for ten years. And Harry didn’t know the law very well, but he was sure that refusing to feed your nephew and hitting him when the fancy struck were some sort of crimes…
Attempted murder on behalf of a man on the back of your head was definitely a crime, but Harry supposed Quirrell had died…
Lockhart had nearly, at a minimum, committed a crime when he tried to obliviate Harry and Ron in the Chamber of Secrets… but perhaps he couldn’t be in any sort of legal trouble because of his own backfired spell.
Sirius had definitely committed a crime when he broke Ron’s leg, but Sirius had twelve years worth of time in Azkaban to make up for his crimes.
Everything about the Goblet of Fire fiasco had to be illegal, along with the endless articles attacking Harry last year… and Snape threatening to dose Harry with Veritaserum should be a crime, if it wasn’t already. Barty-as-Moody tried to kill Harry, not that the Minister had believed him. Pettigrew had tied Harry to a tombstone and cut his arm so deeply that Harry would always have the scar…
And crucio was meant to be an unforgivable, so why had Harry been at the receiving end of it three times in a night while people just watched?
Nobody ever sat back and said: “Hey, that’s illegal.”
Nobody ever faced any sort of legal action for what they did.
Quirrell was dead, Lockhart was a permanent hospital patient, Barty lost his soul, Pettigrew was murdered, and Voldemort was murdered.
But they were charging Bucky…
Harry cleared his throat and noticed at once that buzzing had ended and he was on the receiving end of three men’s gazes.
“What?” Harry said stupidly as he shook away his thoughts that kept circling around - “the ends don’t justify the means” - and looked toward his dad. “I didn’t hear you.”
It was Sirius that answered though, sounding as thrilled as could be.
“I get to be the first publicly acknowledged wizard in history,” he said, his grey eyes gleaming with so much self-satisfaction that Harry could see his resemblance to Draco for the first time.
“It’s a soft launch of magic in the US,” Tony said thoughtfully, filling in the blanks for Harry. “All my fault, of course, for letting Sirius join the team.”
“It will be an exercise in seeing if no-maj’s have evolved from the days of the Witch Hunts,” Quahog said. “My question, Mister Stark, was if you would like to join your godfather in this excursion?”
“What? Tell the world I’m a wizard?” Harry laughed bitterly and shook his head. “No thanks, I’m enough of a freak in this chair.”
The President raised a brow at Harry’s choice of words, but pushed anyway.
“You’re quite certain?” he asked Harry. “Stephen Strange will be accompanying Mister Black on this release. If it goes well, I imagine that your grandchildren will have freedom to be themselves openly in America.”
“Sirius and Strange can be your poster boys, I’ve got no interest,” Harry said flatly, refusing to budge on the stance.
“That’s that then,” Tony cut in swiftly. “If there’s nothing else, we have another appointment we have to get to.”
“If Mister Black wouldn’t mind giving me another hour of his time?” Quahog asked, eyeing Sirius thoughtfully. “As most of the world has already been exposed to his powers, we have a publicist who would like to go over some interview opportunities and public releases.”
“Sounds good to me,” Sirius said. He leaned back in his chair and grinned at Harry. “You sure you don’t want to triple your fame, kiddo?” he said, hopefully a joke.
“About as much as I want to lose my right leg,” Harry said. He backed up from the desk and waited for Tony to shake the president’s hand again before offering a polite goodbye and leaving.
The secretary was still at her desk when they left, but a harsh look from Harry kept her eyes off his chair.
“That was fun,” Tony said when the two of them stepped outside. Harry blinked at the brightness of the sun that was peeking through snow clouds and light snowfall.
“Depends on your definition,” Harry said quietly. He was able to slide himself from his chair to the car again, a real accomplishment so nobody was trying to pick Harry up like an infant anymore. Harry checked the time and saw that they still had an hour before he had to go see Michael.
“You hungry?” Tony asked after he climbed in with Harry and Happy started the car. “We’ve got time for a bite to eat.”
“I’m fine,” Harry said. He wasn’t fine, necessarily, but he wasn’t hungry either.
Tony studied Harry behind his glasses for a moment. “What’s bugging you?” he finally asked. “I know you and Barnes were something like horribly inappropriate friends, but surely that’s over?”
Harry scoffed. It was over about the time Bucky stabbed Peter. Harry knew that Bucky was sick, he needed help more than anyone Harry ever knew, but Harry barely forgave Sirius for breaking Ron’s leg, he sure as hell wasn’t going to get over Bucky stabbing Peter or killing Tony’s parents anytime soon.
“I dunno,” Harry admitted. “It’s just…” Harry ran his hand through his hair, messing it up and causing it to stand wildly on end in some places. “I dunno,” he repeated, unable to find the words he wanted.
It was just… it was… it was painful, somehow?, to be treated like someone who had been wronged. Harry didn’t have a lot of pity parties, but other people had them even less for him. Which was fine, Harry was fine, he was always fine, but…
“It’s weird, that Quahog is charging Bucky,” Harry said slowly, blinking at the back of the seat in front of him as he tried to vocalize his issue. “People don’t usually…”
“Care?” Tony suggested. “Yeah, it’s weird when people start caring about you, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Harry echoed. He inched closer on the seat to Tony and hesitantly laid his head on Tony’s shoulder, only mildly worried he’d be pushed away. “It’s weird.”