Chapter 3
A week had passed by quickly and the three found themselves falling into their own routine, and for the first time in a long time, Harry felt very close to normal. Pepper returned to her CEO position, and to Morgan’s delight, Harry would pick her up from kindergarten. Even though the wizard was constantly slammed with paperwork and pestered by the ministry to return to the field, being able to to return to Pepper and Morgan at the end of the day made all the work worth it. Harry would wake up with Pepper at his side, he’d start making breakfast, and Pepper would rangle the little one out of bed. The three would chat about what they’re working on or what Morgan was excited for at school while enjoying some pancakes or omelettes. It was all very domestic, but it was exactly what Harry felt was missing in his life before.
That is until the events of Friday morning unfolded.
Harry had just finished making Morgan’s requested chocolate chip pancakes as Pepper dashed from room to room talking fervently on the phone. Harry assumed it was to her personal assistant, Harley Keener, and decided not to bother her. Harry had ran into Harley only a few times since meeting him at the funeral. The encounters were mostly quick greetings as he left the Stark home for work and once when Harry had stopped by Pepper’s office with a spontaneous lunch. It was a little surprising that Tony had known the kid since he was eleven, and never really brought him up in the five years of Harry knowing him, but it was nice having someone else to talk about the man with. It was also that day at the funeral that Pepper offered him his assistant position and as far as Harry knew from family dinner conversations, Harley was doing quite well at the company.
Harry grinned as the beautiful woman swept through the house in excitement until there was a sudden tapping at the window above the kitchen sink. The wizard quickly spun around from the stove at the all too familiar sound of an owl impatiently glaring at him as if the bird didn’t have all day. As Harry quickly opened the window, he finally recognized who the eagle owl belonged to. Harry felt his heart pound staring down at his godson’s name written neatly in the corner of the parchment. He thanked the owl and it took off.
Morgan on the other hand was rendered speechless. Her mouth hung open in shock until finally she exclaimed, “you can talk to owls?”
Harry laughed which lifted some of the weight off his chest. “Only special ones.” He gave the young girl a wink, but then retreated to the living room sofa to open the letter.
Dear Harry,
I apologize for not writing to you in the past few months. It has been eventful to say the least. As you may have heard from The Prophet or Ron already, The Wimbourne Wasps’ season was cut short due to some questionable techniques exhibited by my teammates. Although I’ll never truly know what they were thinking, it did have me question a few things about my career, but that isn’t exactly why I am writing this letter.
My grandmother passed yesterday morning.
Harry felt a lump in his throat form as he read the words. He knew this day would come and to be quite honest, was surprised that this letter wasn’t sent years ago. The noise of Morgan cleaning off her plate and Pepper on phone faded until he was completely engrossed in the words of the letter.
Preparations for her funeral have already begun, but I wanted to be the one to tell you. You really meant the world to her and me, and I know you’re probably incredibly busy with the ministry, but after the funeral, I will not have a place to live. Some sort of ancient inheritance blood magic means that I can’t keep the land, and honestly, I don’t even want to fight for it. With dad being a werewolf and the ministries weird stance on ancient documents, it doesn’t seem worth the trouble. I don’t want to sit in another courtroom being told that my father was a hero and a monster at once.
I know how you’ll get once you read this, so I am begging please don't tell anyone about what’s going on until I get to explain everything to you in person. I know it’ll be a struggle not to break into the ministry yourself, but show some restraint.
Ron said you’ve been in a “secure location” since the blip. Whatever the bloody hell that means, I want in. I just need someplace to hunker down for a bit, and then I’ll be off. I just really need someone I can trust right now. -Teddy
“Harry?” The weight of Pepper’s hand on his shoulder finally dragged Harry’s attention away from the letter.
He cleared his throat but didn’t look up at Pepper, “I, er… yeah. Yeah, I just… uh, my godson, Teddy, his grandmother died.”
“I’m so sorry, Harry.” Pepper began soothingly rubbing his back. She had only ever seen pictures of Harry’s godson, but she knew how close they were. Some days when Harry visited her and Tony, the boy was all he could talk about.
Harry sighed folding up the parchment. “He’s going to be homeless after the funeral, and is asking to stay here.”
“And of course he can.” Placing one hand on his cheek and slowly moving his head so his green eyes would meet hers. “This is your home, Harry, which makes it his home too.”
“Thank you.” He whispered before she pulled him into a soft kiss. As they broke away, Harry smiled at the scrunched up face Morgan was giving them from the kitchen. “Looks like we’ve upset our audience.” The couple laughed and gave each other a cartoonish smooch making Morgan fake a gagging sound.
“Old people are so gross!” She exclaimed running over to the couch to pry them apart.
“Old!” Pepper jumped off the couch. “Who are calling old?” She then scooped Morgan into the air making her squeal. “Could an old person do this?”
Laughter filled the household once again as Harry joined in on the fun. It wasn’t until an alarm on Pepper’s phone alerting them that it was still a friday morning and none of them had finished getting ready for the day. Soon enough Pepper pulled her hair into a neat ponytail and collected important documents from her home office ready to call Happy to escort her to Stark Enterprises, leaving Harry to help get Morgan out the door. The family’s routine was slightly altered this friday morning, but it wasn’t anything they hadn’t handled before. Normally, Happy would have driven both Pepper and Morgan, dropping Morgan off at kindergarten, but since today were the parent-teacher meetings, Happy would drive Pepper to work, and Harry would attend the meetings that began at noon.
As Morgan slowly made her way through her very particular morning routine, Harry began to scrawl out a first draft of a response to his godson. He had never been good at letters especially those about serious matters, but this was too important to hold off. After staring at his parchment with a small paragraph written on it for what seemed like ages, Morgan popped into his office ready to go.
“Why aren’t you ready?” The five year old demanded. It was a rather hilarious sight when Harry looked up to see the small girl in a large puffy pink jacket and high ponytail that she had obviously done herself with the most annoyed expression on her chubby face.
“What are you on about?” He couldn’t help but smile at the absurdity of her confrontation, but then again, although the wizard was wearing a nice jumper and blue jeans, he hadn’t really bothered to address the mass of curly black hair in which the girl pointed at. “Oh, alright.”
It took a few tries before Morgan would allow him to be seen with her in public, but they managed to make to the school right on time. The building was modest and had sunflowers painted on the walls next to the playground which had very nice, new equipment that Harry had no doubt was a Stark donation. And as he followed the line of parents with their kids, Harry noticed a lot of obviously Stark donated equipment, water fountains, and computers. Tony loved Morgan more than anything, and did everything he could to give her the best. He missed Tony, but couldn’t imagine what Morgan went through seeing his name everywhere everyday.
Teacher’s stood in their classroom doorways greeting parents as they walked in. He met eye contact with a few of them and didn’t receive many pleasant looks back. Harry had only met the two teachers who stood in the front during pick up, and they were very nice people, but maybe the rest of the teachers were used to Pepper. Even trying to reason through it in his mind, Harry couldn’t help but feel out of place.
Morgan pulled Harry toward her teacher which calmed Harry’s urge to flee the premises altogether. “Mr. Potter! Lovely to see you.”
“The pleasure is all mine Ms. Martinez.” Harry greeted the tall muscular woman who did not fit any description of what people thought would be a kindergarten teacher. When the wizard first met the woman, he was surprised that Tony didn’t hire a bodyguard that just so happened to have a teaching degree to work in the school.
She giggled in delight ushering them inside. “That accent always gets me.” Ms. Martinez then gave Morgan a special high five that each student got to make with her. “Very good! How are you, Morgan?”
Morgan crossed her arms and rolled her entire head with her eyes. “Harry took forever on his hair, and we were almost late.”
“Oi! You’re the one who kept sending me back to the mirror to redo it.” Harry chuckled.
“That’s because it looked bad!” Morgan defended herself. The exchange gained some attention, but Harry didn’t feel the same anxiety as before. With Ms. Martinez towering above them all, Harry wasn’t worried about any of these tossers.
Morgan then led Harry to her desk, and they sat waiting for the meeting to begin. Thankfully, Pepper explained how these things usually worked the night before. The parents sit at the students desk as the teacher gives a short presentation on what the class covered and what they will cover that semester. Then the rest of the day is individual meetings with the teacher and mingling with the other parents. Harry also gets the chance to see all the artwork and projects Morgan has ruined the kitchen table with. It was all so exciting. The Dursleys never cared for much that Harry did let alone when it came to school, and if they ever met with teachers it was because they thought Dudley wasn’t being treated the way he should, or Harry’s teachers were miraculously able to corner them at the grocery store. So, Harry was determined to get the most out of this experience as possible.
As Morgan pulled drawings and homework assignments out of her desk for Harry to praise, the wizard felt the stares again. Breathing through it, Harry pushed down the paranoia and instinct to run that he gained from his life constantly being threatened during his own academic career. If he could just sit here and focus only on Morgan’s voice, then maybe Harry was getting out of this with only a minor existential crisis to look forward to later, but of course that is never the case.
A short, thin woman, nearly being swallowed by her large bleached blonde hair, bounced up to Morgan’s desk and plastered on a wide smile that did not match the look in her eyes. “Hi there! My name’s Helen Flannigan, president of the PTA. My son, Hayden, is friends with Morgan.” She pointed a manicured finger over at a short boy wearing large glasses looking terrified in a corner with a toy car clutched in his hand. Harry resonated with the kid for obvious reasons. “He’s a sweetie. I just haven’t seen you at the meetings and wanted to come over and say hi.”
Harry was taken aback at how fast this woman talked, and didn’t really know how to say. It was apparently too long of a time for a response, so Morgan spoke up for him. “This is Harry. He’s British.” Morgan then turned back to the contents within her desk as Harry stood to shake the woman’s hand.
“Oh?” Helen raised her eyebrows in interest, but continued before Harry could respond. “Usually parents come to these meetings, but Pepper must be so busy.”
“Right, er,” Harry saw his chance to cut in. “She had important work… stuff, and asked me to come with Morgan instead.”
“That’s nice.” The PTA president’s fake smile returned. “Wish I had the money to hire a nanny, but my husband, Charles, would never-”
“Oh, I’m not a nanny.” Bullocks. How was he going to explain who he was to this strange woman. It wasn’t like he and Pepper didn’t talk about their relationship. They never thought of what they were as “dating” even when Tony was alive. They just were together.
Helen stared at him in bewilderment. “I’m sorry. I just assumed since… well,” she gestured vaguely towards him. “I didn’t know Pepper was already dating someone.”
Well, fuck. Harry thought to himself.
Morgan shut her desk, and scrunched up her face much like she did earlier that morning. “They’re not dating. That’s gross. Harry’s just my other dad.”
Harry wanted nothing more than to dissaperate from the situation, but due to perfect timing on Ms. Martinez’s part, attention was called for the parents and students to take their seats. As Helen collected her son and Ms. Martinez began the presentation, Harry’s mind kept drifting to what Morgan said. Her words caused butterflies to rise in his stomach, but for the first time, the feeling didn’t scare him.