My Dad, the Boy (*Man) Who Lives

1988

“Honey, I think you already look beautiful,” her aged, yet dashing husband complimented her while sitting on their bed.

She wasn’t falling for her husband’s act for a second. The tapping of his foot was telling enough that her husband has been impatiently waiting for her to finish. She’s hardly Sherlock, but even she knew that that was a sure sign of her taking too long in picking her dress.

There were clothes, dresses, skirts strewn around their king-sized bed, even on Howard’s lap. Even right at this moment, she’s trying on a peach blouse with a long length black velvet bow tie and a matching black velvet knee-length skirt.

“Darling, you know how much I like to dress for the occasion,” she replied. Maria was putting on one of her favorite pearl bracelets. It felt liked it was just yesterday when her husband gave it to her as a first-anniversary present.

The inventor grumbled under his breath, which she couldn’t see at the moment because she was looking at her appearance on the mirror. Then again, she’s not deaf.

“Oh hush, you.” She fixed her make up and winked at her brooding husband from the mirror. “I thought you knew who you were saying ‘I do’ to all those years ago.”

“Yes, and I love every second of it,” Howard frowned and mumbled what he said next. “And yet I was always being punished around this sea of rainbow fabrics.”

Chuckling, she put a black blazer on before putting her handsome millionaire out of his misery. “I’ll tell you what. Come here and help me put this necklace on and then we go meet the boys downstairs.”

It was like the sun just rose from the east or in Howie’s case, he has just been lifted out of the punishment of waiting on his wife. It’s like the boutique all over again.

The older Stark sauntered (almost skipping) across the bedroom to take the pearl necklace from his wife’s hand. He stood behind her and kissed her behind her ear to show her of his fondness for her. “I wasn’t lying when I said you were beautiful. The prettiest woman in the whole world.”

The philanthropist raised her eyebrow in amusement. “You can stop with the compliments. I’ve already finished torturing you with my taste in fashion.”

After clasping the necklace around her neck, he held her close around her waist and whispered,” I will never get tired of worshiping the very ground you walked on, Marie.”

Even in her 50’s, she couldn’t stop the blush from creeping onto her face.

Even after 25 years of marriage, he was still a romantic. Before she met him, she always heard all sort of unappetizing things about the womanizer. Her parents told her to watch out for the self-proclaimed genius. Her friends giggled at the gossip about the playboy. Her friends’ husbands whispered about their envies of the millionaire.

Maria… Well, she has no opinion of the man yet, since they haven’t interacted with each other, even when they were in the same circle.

Then, at the age of 23, the former ms. Carbonell met the infamous Mr. Stark. It was definitely not love at first sight. He hit on her and she slapped him for being rather handsy. He apologized, rather adorably and wooed her charmingly with his older gentlemanly way, then like they said, the rest was history.

He has been devoted to her since he proclaimed his love and said I do on their wedding day. Maria never looked back and she’s been happy ever since. Even when she lost her babies, the lady Of Stark never regretted marrying her husband.

“I love you too, Howie.” She lifted her hand up to stroke her husband’s face gently. “But it doesn’t mean I’m not still upset at you for keeping the boys’ unique heritage from me.”

Maria was a proper woman, ever since she was a little girl with her pretty pink dress. But since she became a mother, she discovered another side to herself. A lady leonessa whose main goal in life was to protect her cubs. Therefore, when it came to her children, she could hold a grudge like a soldier dying of thirst. When it came to her family, she disliked secrets or lying by omission.

But since it was his husband, she would just held a little grudge.

It was a couple of months ago when Maria accidentally found out about her sons’ (Harry didn’t know this, but they have officially adopted him into the family 4 years ago, incase of rainy day) unusual talents.

A couple of months ago…

It was a lovely Sunday morning, so she decided to celebrate Tony’s 9th birthday in the garden under the gazebo. It’s wonderful to be surrounded by so many green and colorful flowers. Anna and she had organized a wonderful picnic lunch for the boys, savory and sweet with a pitcher of sweet iced tea.

They were going to celebrate Tony’s birthday just like last year, with Peggy, Howie, Anna, Jarvis, and Harry. There’s no way she would invite Obadiah. Personally, she has no problem with the man. He was always a gentleman around her and never once acted bawdy or arrogant.

What made her hesitant to have the man in her home was the way his family acted when he’s around. Her husband would put on his professional face around and that cold smile on his face. Both Harry and Tony would paste a courteous smile, but Maria couldn’t help noticing their wary eyes around Obadiah. Peggy acted courteous towards him, but once in awhile she caught her looking distasteful at the man. Even Anna and Jarvis were disinclined to be near the man.

The Italian woman never once felt uncomfortable around Howie’s business partner, yet the way her family acted around him made her leonessa heart bared her figurative teeth and protective streak.

Tony’s birthday party should be a day where the people that he loved could feel relax and unwind their troubles for a day in the companies of family. Thus, inviting Obadiah was out of the question. She learnt her lessons since Tony’s 4th birthday.

Unfortunately, this year, Peggy couldn’t make it since there’s a problem at SHIELD. Even Howard got dragged along and reluctantly got up from their bed, kissed her apologetically at her before he went to their son’s room to deliver the bad news.

Anthony was disappointed but Howie promised him a 6-hours-tinkering in the workshop instead of the usual 4 with Maria’s blessing. The boy was trembling a full-teeth smile that grew wider in seconds before he finally bounced up and down, crying his excitement in the air.

And now, under the gazebo, Maria looked at her son making kites together with Harry and Jarvis.

“They grew up so fast, don’t they?” Anna asked her as she held her glass of cold ice tea. It’s always nice talking to the older woman. She and her husband have been loyal trusted companions to her husband for decades, so it’s hardly odd for her to confide many things to her.

“They do.”

It always brought sadness to her when she remembered that her son was going to a boarding school soon. She didn’t know which school Howie send him to, but he assured her that their son needed to go to this school and that Harry would be going along with him and stay in this school.

It saddened her that she would lose both her children for three-quarter of the year. It worried her that she couldn’t inspect the school, even if her husband and even Harry had ensured her of this school’s reputation. The fact that she never even heard of a school called Ilvermony before, agitated her greatly.

“Mom, mom! Look!”

Tony’s delighted cheer brought her concern to a temporary stop. She saw a red, black and gold kite flying in the sky and her son running holding the kite’s thread between his fingers.

Oh, that intelligent boy.

He might be a genius, but Tony never ceased to amaze her with his delight joy of the simplest thing in life.

“Be careful, darling!” She shouted at her youngest son when she saw him heading towards an oak tree.

But, she was too late and her sweet boy ran into… A white sheet?... What…?!

Before she could react, there were the sound of loud pops not too far away from them. A couple of men dressed in black and dark blue suits showed out of nowhere. One of them was heading towards Anna and her while the other walked straight to Harry and Jarvis.

Maria wasn’t watching the man in the dark blue suit since she was watching the other man in a black suit raised something that looked like a black stick in his hands towards Jarvis. “Obliviate.”

A faint green light appeared from the wand and it stroke Jarvis in the head. Before he collapsed on the ground, the stranger said,” Spongify.”

She clutched onto her long skirt in fear as she watched the horrible scene unveiled in front of her, so it was too late for her to notice the man in the dark blue suit standing in front of her. He had just spoken the same word said by his colleague towards Anna, whom immediately felt on her seated position on the soft gazebo bench.

“Please…”

The moment the stranger raised his stick, she heard Harry shouted,” No.”

Instantly, the man lost his hold on his stick. The thin wood flew away as if it has been thrown away.

Maria could feel her heart sighed in relieved; on the other hand, there was no doubt in her mind that the event just now was still making her head dizzy with fear and anxiety. She felt light- headed and before she knew it, everything went blackheads..

She regained her consciousness to an assault from a strong smell of bitter minty. The mother of two felt the incoming fatigue. Her hearing hasn’t returned fully to her, but faintly she could hear her name being called.

“…Mrs. Stark? …Maria?”

“Mom… Mommy… Wake up… Mom…”

The voices sounded frantic; nevertheless, Maria recognized the owners as Harry and Tony. Her mother’s instinct pushed her to calm her cubs. Slowly, she opened her eyes. Her sight was still hazy, but she could make out Harry’s face and a small bottle closed to her nose.

Is that where the bitter minty smell came from? She sneered in her mind. The lady always hated strong minty smell.

“Harry sweetie, could you move that smelly thing away from my nose?” She asked in a croaky voice.

Immediately, she was held close to Harry’s body. Not a second away, her younger son also held her closely from the side. She could imagine that they looked like a tangle of a mess.

At the same time, her sons were crying out their relief.

“Thank God.”

“You scared us, mom.”

Chuckling, she pulled herself out of their embrace to reassure them. She didn’t remember why she fainted, until she heard loud pops sound.

The sudden appearance of two well-dressed men, brought the memories back to her. Slowly, it’s all coming back to her and she couldn’t help herself from putting herself in front of her sons.

Fearlessly, she peered at the men with scrutiny. She would not let those strangers hurt her precious boys. “I won’t let you hurt my sons.”

The dark blue suited man came forward. He has a dark brown hair and bright blue eyes behind a pair of glasses. “I apologized for scaring you, ma’am. It’s our procedure to obliviate no-maj when magic occurs near their vicinity.”

“So, I assumed you have spoken to Mr. Arthurian Graves?”

She never heard Harry sounded so cold before. Harry moved away from behind her to stand up and watched the man intently with hidden distaste.

“Yes, Mr. potter,” the man answered sheepishly. “Once more, we apologized for the inconveniences. Since the president and the director of MACUSA had conceded to your requests to conceal your whereabouts in the United States, the knowledge of your family is very classified. We would be debriefed later about your family and for the foreseeable future, we will be your liaison to MACUSA.”

“Alright,” her young man answered after an uncomfortable silence. “I’m very protective of my family. And since you did not know about my circumstances, I apologized as well for my sudden outburst.”

When Harry lifted his hand up to shake the man’s hand, Maria noticed an awed look on the man’s face as he received the hand shake. “It’s no matter, sir. We are grateful you didn’t hold grudge at us. Let me introduce myself, I’m Everett Williams and this is my colleague, Leonard Cox.”

The other suited man, a black African American with lighter skin color and deep grey eyes, moved forward to shake Harry’s hand. “It’s an honor to meet you, sir. You might know my cousin, Blaise Zabini?”

Harry’s eyes lighted up at the name and his lips pulled up into a small smile. “Oh, Zabini?”

“Yes,” Mr. Cox smiled as he unclasped his hand. “He reached out to us not long after the Battle of Hogwarts. He said it was thanks to you that… I mean, I didn’t even know he existed. His family has disconnected my mom when she married my no-maj wizard dad. So yeah, thank you Mr. Potter.”

“I didn’t do anything.” His boy shrugged, trying to dismiss his wonderful deed. “We’ve met before I travelled to the States and we’ve got into talking. That’s all.”

It was a surprising day all and all. She still felt wary towards the two strangers but his son assured her that they were the equivalent of policemen in the magical world. Harry also explained to her that there were procedures in place regarding no-maj (non-magic people) finding out about magic. Anna and Jarvis was given a false memory after the Aurors (magic Policemen) erased their memories of Harry performing magic. 

And the reason why Maria didn't get her memory erased was because she was Harry's mom. Apparently, Harry had found out about his adoption into the family, not a week after Howie legalized the papers. And because of this, Howard and Maria were recognized as his family in the wizarding world.

It also answered the hug she and Howie received after they came back from that charity, several years ago. Harry showed affection, mostly with a tap on the shoulder or a warm smile. So it came as a surprise when he embraced them tightly the second they walked inside.

Maria could still remembered the way Jarvis’ nose scrunched up at the improper way Harry acted since he was an under-butler under his guidance. Their trustee butler reprimanded him about his manners and how he should have done what he did after the master and the lady of the house well-rested.

Maria remembered that night fondly in her mind. She saw the affection and gratefulness shone on Harry’s face and felt them through his embrace. And when she asked him why he didn’t tell them sooner, he just shrugged and smiled secretively.

“Well I didn’t know it was okay for you to know about ‘it’,” Howard flicked a lock of her hair playfully. “It hasn’t even been two decades since they even had an open communication with the US government.”

The lady of the mansion just huffed at her husband’s reasoning.

“Well, now you know,” Howard smiled widely in excitement, trailing his words along. “ And in 5 minutes we’re going to a wizarding district to see all kinds of magic. Can you imagine seeing things out of logic and science perspective? Right in front of our eyes?”

One surprising thing she discovered about his husband was his curiosity and passion of all things magic. She always thought her husband to be one of those people who loved science and experiment so much so that he would be driven to find the logic behind anything fantasy and supernatural.

“Yes, darling,” she patted her husband’s cheek tenderly.

Five minutes later…

Maria Carbonell Stark never had a problem with any transportation. Put her in ship, car, limo, and airplane. No problem.

But this Porky or Portkey… La Madezione!

“Are you alright, mom?” Harry asked her, helping her stand with his arm around her shoulder.

Rarely she’s been called mom by his oldest son for this past couple of months and when he did, she cherished it so much.

“I’m fine, sweetie,” she looked at him and smiled.

While she was feeling a bit light-headed from the blasphemous ride, her husband and Anthony seemed almost fine. Probably the thrill of going anywhere using magic transportation had won over the stirring inside their stomachs.

“Look at them, they’re wearing robes! Tony, that man is levitating in the air!” Howard exclaimed in wonder. At the same time, Anthony bounced and looked around him at the amazing magic world. “Look, father! That’s the magic book store!”

She put her arms around his son’s arm and lied her head on his shoulder. They watched their two family members’ pure enjoyment shown and shouted for all people to hear.

Before they came into this enchanted world, Harry had put some sort of spell on them to make them seemed forgettable. This way, nobody would recognize them. With this spell, they were able to come as a family of four.

Her husband could shed his professional side. Her son could behave as a child should be without being under the scrutiny of reporters. She was allowed to show her affection towards her older son without being judged under a microscope.

“I’m so happy we came here together,”Maria sighed, fondness cleared in her voice as she watched Howard and Tony acted like a couple of kids at a candy store.

“Yes, mom. You are absolutely right.”

***