The Solution
February 1995
Anthony Orion Potter or better known as Anthony Edward Stark was not an overachiever, no matter what everybody said. Sure he did get accepted to MIT before he graduated from Ilvermony, but that’s just because he was bored out of his mind.
In his defense, everybody he knew was crazily studying for NEWT, even Teddy, his best friend, whom he needed to point out was in fact a six year student. He didn’t understand what’s so scary about the exam. Of course most of his serpent’s friends snapped at him when he bluntly told them about it. Touchy much.
His dad was busy preparing the exam and since he’s the DADA professor for seventh year, Tony felt reluctant to go to him to talk about his feelings and stuff. Having a smart mouth and brilliant mind didn’t exactly make him the most likable kid in the school but he wasn’t also disliked. Most of the younger students worshiped him and even some of his peers admired him. But for others, the uptight and studious kids, they disdained him, especially because he was a bit of a prankster as well.
Tony wasn’t bothered by people disliking him or even jealous of him. But when they started mocking or gossiping about his dad or Teddy, then, Tony felt annoyed. Every time he was annoyed, he would start doing mischievous things. Usually this landed him on detentions and when he did, his dad’s disapproving, yet understanding look made Tony felt small. Pity and anger he could handle. Disappointment and sadness were his bane.
And since his dad taught in his class, Tony didn’t want his peers saying something bad about his dad giving him a cheat sheet or something; thus, he decided to cut some of his visit time to the infirmary, where Harry usually waited on injured kids.
So, mostly he ranted a lot about his boredom to his father and mother. And that’s where the topic of universities came from.
He was in the Ilvermony hall, where the eating area resided when Malcolm, his brownish great horned owl landed in front of his bowl of hidden treasures.
The teen dropped his spoon into his bowl and accidentally choked on his cereal. His coughing fit prompted Teddy to stand up from his Wampus table and took a little sprint towards Tony. Soon he was helping the genius by patting him on the back and pushing a glass of OJ to his mouth.
“Drink slowly, Ant,” Teddy said with an anxious look on his face and grey on his hair, literary grey hair because of his metamorphogus. Teddy’s British accent wasn’t as discernible as Tony’s dad’s but every time he felt in distress or worried, his accent would sound so clear.
“Thank you so much, Teddy bear. You’re the best,” Tony curled an arm around his best friend’s shoulder, before looking back at the bird whom almost gave him a heart attack. “Malcolm, you surprised me. How many times did I say, not to scare the shit out of me, you pesky bird?”
The owl was giving him a raised eyebrow of reproachful at his choice of words.
The young wizard shuddered at the similarity of the owl to Jarvis, one of his favorite people in the world. “You looked more and more like Jarvis, boy. You should never be allowed to copy Jarvis.”
The big bird puffed his chest in pride. Since his mom bought him three years ago, Malcolm has become more of a family pet rather than his familiar. Jarvis and Anna didn’t even bat an eyelash at the presence of the bird in the house. From his father’s story, he has flamingos as pets when the inventor was in his 20’s, no wonder nothing surprised the butler and his wife anymore.
The winged-animal was a proud bird, and rarely came when being called. But, surprisingly, the giant owl was closer to Jarvis than anyone else. The fondness was returned by Jarvis as he used some of his spare times to pet the bird and fed him rodents and pieces of meat.
“That’s not a compliment, you giant coot,” Tony said dryly.
Malcolm ignored him by thrusting his foot, the one that has 2 letters tied to it. One thin and one thick. Tony immediately took it off of the big coot and fed him with a piece of bacon he got from Teddy.
One of the letters was from his father. Tony was excited to find out that the other one was from uncle James. The genius decided to open the letter from uncle James first.
Since before he came back to school at the beginning of January, uncle James delivered them a not so good news. He has decided to help Aunt Peggy on some secret missions. The man was always honest to them and never tried to sugarcoat his words.
A month ago…
It was the night before he, his dad and Teddy had to go back to school. He and his best friend decided to build the fort again in the living room and slept there for the last holiday. It’s a bit childish to build a fort but his mom and Aunt Andy (he decided that Andromeda was too long and the lady herself said it was okay to shorten her name, so… *shrugged) said that fort basically was a tent inside the house, so it’s not childish at all if it made you happy.
That night just after mom and father went to sleep, his dad nudged uncle James towards them with a sharp look before smiling at them and said his good night.
Uncle James just stood with his back against the wall across from them looking a bit undecided. It was weird for several minutes and after that, the man sat in front of them on the rug. Then it was another awkward minutes to go.
The boys looked at each other in confusion before finally the man in question opened his mouth to speak.
“I’m here to say goodbye,” the man looked at them with a look of determination.
“It’s late, uncle James. Are you sure you don’t want to say it tomorrow?” Tony asked, brows furrowed.
“Tony’s right. We’re not going back until tomorrow,” Teddy pasted a small smile at their adopted uncle.
“I don’t know if I have time to say it tomorrow,” the older man looked a bit saddened. “I will be going somewhere helping your aunt Peggy on some missions.”
“Secret missions?” Tony whispered excitedly with wide eyes.
Next to him, his childhood friend aroused his voice with the same excitement. “You meant like agent Bond?”
“Ain’t those movies too mature for you?”
“Father had cut the grown-up parts,” Tony said with a wrinkled nose. “We’re not kids anymore. We do know about the birds and the bees.”
That last sentence was said with an eye roll. Teddy added with a nod. “Ink pot and quill. The cauldron and stirrer.”
“The cauldron and stirrer?” Uncle James’ eyebrows raised a little and his lips curled up slightly.
“Anyway, how did you know about James Bond, mr. Barnes, James Barnes?” Tony chuckled at his own joke.
“Your father.”
After that short answer, the boys nodded in understanding. The old man really did love watching spy and action movies in his free time.
“My ride will arrive early tomorrow.” He put his hands in his lap. “I don’t think I will be able to say goodbye tomorrow.”
“Are you going to go away for a long time?” Teddy asked nervously.
“I dunno.”
“Is it going to be dangerous?” Tony asked in a low voice.
“Yes,” he said truthfully. “But I promise I will write to you whenever I can.”
“At least once a month,” Teddy suggested. “Promise you’ll be saved, uncle James.”
Tony added fiercely, “If you can’t write, at least tell aunt Peg and Father that you’re okay. Don’t make us worried.”
The man chuckled,” Your dad demanded the same thing, Tony.” Looking at them both, he lightly squeezed their shoulders.
“I promise.”
“What did he say?” Teddy asked curiously from beside him, trying to read the letter held between Tony’s fingers. “Is he alright? I hope there is nothing bad happening to him.”
“Naw, he’s fine.” The teen read the letter word per word and not just skimming through. “He said that he was successful at his last mission. And asked us about school.”
“Can we write a reply to him, Ant?”
“I think we should write father to tell uncle James. We don’t want the bad guys to steal the letter. Let’s tell him what we’re doing good at school and maybe also about your hysterics about NEWT?” Tony grinned mischievously.
His friend defended himself sheepishly. “I’m just preparing for the worst. I want to get at least an E in every subjects.”
“Chameleon, my man, I bet you’re going to get E and O,” He cheered his friend up, trying to raise his confidence. “I’ll even give you some notes after I graduate.”
“You have notes?” Teddy asked looking hopeful as ever.
“You poor boy,” the genius mock-played his friend. “A genius never made notes, not really. I’ll pester Edwin for you.”
Edwin Johns was the second smartest kid in the school as well as the kid with the biggest enormous stick up his ass. And Tony was going to annoy the hell out of the teen for his notes. He might be uptight, but his notes were the best. At least that’s what he heard from his classmates.
After writing a short reply to father for uncle James from both him and Teddy, Tony opened his father’s letter.
Dear Tony,
I just had an idea for your problem, my boy.
Wait for it.
Universities’ entrance exams. I have talked to your mom and she thought it wasn’t a good idea. She thought you were too young for college. I’m giving her a discrete eye roll as I’m writing this letter.
As he read this part of the letter, he was eye rolling his mom’s reasoning as well. He’s young. Not an idiot.
And I said that you will be bored not even a day after you graduated from wizarding school. You are a very smart boy, Tony and we both, me and your dad know you will be bored out of your mind after finishing school. So, we vetoed your mom’s decision.
With your consent, your dad is going to ask for the headmaster’s permission to let you have an admission test at the University of your choosing (plural if you want to). I attached to you some of the brochures if you’re interested.
We found you a solution to your tedium situation. Just tell your dad after you come out with a decision. He’ll let me know.
Love,
Your father
That’s why the envelope was a bit bulky this time. He took out several pamphlets out of the envelope and spread them over the table surface. Teddy looked at them curiously while some people around the table trying to steal glances none too discreetly. Subtle much.
“What are these, Ant?” The now reddish haired boy took one of the university pamphlets from the table to inspect it.
“This, my good friend, is the solution to my boredom,” Tony informed him dramatically with arms hovering over the ads papers as if they were treasures.
One of the girls sitting not far away from him sighed loudly. “Thank Merlin.”
***
After getting Headmaster Grady’s permission, his father worked fast into registering his name for his participant in three prestigious universities of Tony’s choosing. It’s a good thing that he always read and studied science, techs and mechanical engineering books on his spare time.
The dates of the entrance exam didn’t clash with his NEWT exams, so he was relieved. He wouldn’t have to let go any chances of going to one of his chosen universities.
After a couple of months and three leave of absence to leave Ilvermony’s premises, he finally finished all the tests in Stanford, GT (Georgia Institute of Technology) and MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). He felt confident that he aced them all. The question now was which college should he choose.
Right now he had just finished the test in MIT. His father was waiting for him in front of the auditorium where the test was being held. Mom had a charity to go to while his dad still has classes to teach.
When he got out of the auditorium, the CEO of SI was talking to an important person in the university. Tony assumed it was the Dean. Conversation about politics and business always made him bored so he asked to be excused to have a walk around the campus.
He refused the Dean’s assistant help to get around the campus. He wanted to see the place and ventured it by himself. Since his absence from the no-maj community (particularly the press and magazines), he became quite invisible. Rarely was his photos posted on the news, so before he went back to the world of non-wizarding, he wanted to enjoy the figurative invisibility cloak.
As he was walking out of the building, he saw a small crowd in the hallway. There were about 4-5 white tall lanky college kids with pimples and severe case of bad hairdo. As he got closer, he saw that they were trying to corner a short asian man with glasses and all the geeky dress code. It’s like he was asking to be bullied or something.
Tony didn’t feel like intruding in on the fight, but the decision was taken off of him by his blabber mouth. “Dude, bullying is so overrated. I know you guys must have been bullied when you were in high school, but seriously. Do you really need to prove your superiority now by picking someone smaller than you? And Asian? Racist much?”
Apparently there’s enough wampus and not enough rationality of a horned serpent in him at the moment. Because then he gasped dramatically with a hand on his chest. “Or do you need to make up for the small size of your…?!”
Before he could finish insulting the already red-faced college students whom were so much taller than him, somebody had clasped a hand on his mouth. That stopped him talking immediately.
Thank Morgana that somebody managed to shut him up. It’s not that he didn’t know how to fight because he knew and learnt personally from his aunt Peg. But he didn’t want to fight in the school he would probably going to attend to in the future.
“Hey guys, is there a problem?”
The person who covered his mouth sounded calm yet there’s a hint of authoritative in his voice.
“No, no Rhodes. We were just showing Wu here where the auditorium is,” one of the bullies said hurriedly before immediately walking away with his gang.
“Alright there, Wu?”
“Thanks, Rhodes.” The geek gave him a thankful smile. “Catch you later?”
“Yeah, see you in class.”
After the four eyes left, the older boy took his hand off of the half of Tony’s face. He put his hand on Tony’s shoulder and turned him around.
The little genius finally got a look at his savior from up-close. His hero was probably just older than him by a few years. Maybe about 17 or 18. He was an African American guy with dark skin and friendly face. He’s much taller and broader than Tony with a build like a football player. That’s probably why the bullies were intimidated by him.
“Kid, you shouldn’t provoke them,” the older boy chided him with a serious face. “They’re a lot bigger than you.”
Before Tony could argue and defend his actions, Rhodes (at least that’s what the geek called him) continued. “I know you just wanted to help. But, the next time these things happen, you should call a grown-up’s help.”
“I’m not a kid,” Tony crossed his hands in front of his chest, feeling a bit underestimated. “I know how to fight, you know.”
“Of course you do,” the young man smiled kindly as if trying to indulge Tony. He ruffled the teen’s hair. “But there were 5 of them and you’re alone. It doesn’t seem like a fair fight, kid.”
He felt like a child at the moment. And the feeling of somehow being protected and nagged surprisingly felt good. It’s like when Jarvis reprimanded him because he had done something to hurt himself when he was younger. The white-haired man would nag him but still treated his scraps with his gentle hands.
Tony was a bit dazed at the moment from the nostalgia that he didn’t notice Rhodes saying his goodbye to him. By the time he realized, the older teen has gone away.
Tony felt intrigued by the college student. He seemed genuine.
When he came back to find his father, he decided,” Father, I want to go to this school.”
“The result hasn’t even been released yet, sonny,” the Dean informed him looking amusingly at him.
The millionaire clasped his hand on top of Tony’s shoulder and smiled fondly at his son, ignoring the Dean. “I think MIT is a great choice.”
“But, the boy just did the test,” the university head said bewilderedly. “There’s no guarantee he will pass. Our university is one of the most prestigious schools in America. Our entrance exam is very difficult.” The dean looked towards the little genius with a bit of disdainful look. “You are an intelligent boy, but you cannot be cocky. It’s very unbecoming.”
“Wanna bet?” Tony grinned cockily at the Dean. “If I passed with the highest score, I wanna choose my roommate in the university’s dorm.”
When the new term began and he graduated from Ilvermony earlier, he greeted his new roommate in their one room two beds with a wide grin on his face. “Hiya, Rhodes. I’m Tony Stark, your new roomie. We meet again.”
***