In between
Clint was bored. He thought going back on a mission would be much more exciting than sitting in the rafters in some underground facility in the middle of nowhere observing scientists at play. Plus, one thing he hadn’t anticipated, he had to leave Firecracker behind, and it left a hollow feeling inside.
It was February already and everyone was jittery. Phil was with him. Natasha went for a short mission to Russia, saying she needed to kick someone’s ass and no one at the tower would volunteer. The rest of them were in NY but had to move out of the tower and into Stark Mansion. Or at least its grounds as Arthur did what he said and transferred his house to the city.
That was something Clint hadn’t wanted to miss. Arthur wasn’t just moving his stuff, he moved his whole house. It ended up being not all that impressive. One second the ground was empty, the next the crooked house was standing there, hens running away from the open door.
Much more impressive was the inside. Sure, Clint went to Ilvermorny with the kids once a week for his own lessons and so he could explore the place to his little spy heart’s content. But nothing compared to the Burrow. He knew what to expect, -they read a pretty accurate description of the place in Harry’s book after all-, but there was a deep welcoming feeling that entered your mind and body when you stepped foot in the house. It was clearly lived in, and the house-elves were at work to clean up the dust that had accumulated since the family left the house, but they left Bill’s book half-open on the kitchen table, so he could come in and pick it up; Charlie’s animated animal set was running havoc; Percy’s chess set saluted them as they walked by; and the twins’ small fort was still standing up between the couch and the window.
There were pictures of their adventures over the mantel, -though he noticed none showed Molly, who they all knew was their mother but didn’t remember why she was gone, not that they cared.
It was only when the children came back from school that they were taken to get reacquainted with the Burrow. The kids explored every nook and cranny of the eccentric home, the rafters ringing with their laughter. Even though they were having fun, the kids missed spending the night in the tower and the rest of the group missed them. It was during this time that the decision was made to ensure that the topmost four floors, hidden and warded by magic and accessible only to those in the know, were just as homely and welcoming as the Burrow. Otherwise, the rest of the group was afraid that the rest of their family might move into the crooked house permanently.
Tony would keep his penthouse as his and use it to entertain people who were unaware -such as Pepper when she came in for the first time- or to party. But above it, where it appeared to only be the roof, there were four floors meant only for their little family.
Because that’s what they were by now.
The children called them all Uncle and Aunt, -the face Severus made the first time had been hilarious-. They took care of each other. Made sure everyone was happy. The children were never left alone or without someone to answer their questions. They had everything they could ever wish for, but that was true for everyone, and mostly due to Tony who couldn’t stop himself. Even JARVIS was an uncle now. The twins had been horrified to learn he wasn’t a real person and for a little while the adults all kept a close eye on them wondering what kind of damage they would do in order to give him a body. They hadn’t managed it yet, but they were still under surveillance.
Surveillance, Clint thought with a sigh.
This was boring. If he didn’t know better he would swear Fury didn’t trust them. They told him something big was coming in February, prepared contingency plans, yet they were as far from New York as could be.
At first, Clint thought it was to keep Phil from the action, but he didn’t remember any of them telling him about the death threat. For some reason, none of them seem to take it seriously. Or think about it for overly long. If they began to plan countermeasures to protect him something would distract them. Severus even admitted that every time he would start thinking of creating a potion that could save him a brilliant new creation would come to him. The man already created four new remedies for magical diseases in the last three months. Harry didn’t even seem overly worried, or more cuddly than usual.
It’s not to say they didn’t have protection.
Their wizards were a protective bunch. For Christmas, - or Yule, as they all agreed to celebrate as none of them were overly attached to Christmas-, they received jewelry permeated with magic from the four of them. It protected them from an array of threats. It would lessen the pain in case of injuries. Call someone to you if you couldn’t get out of a situation. Or transport you somewhere else if you wished it. But also, protect your mind as they feared someone -Dumbledore- would find them out and cast the Imperius on them.
Each was also personalized.
Clint’s had a rune to help him concentrate, not that he needed it when on a mission - he was always on task and never missed, but now he could anticipate enemy moves better and help others prepare. Phil’s had a rune to monitor his health, though after he pointed out the hypocrisy, they all got one. Natasha’s had a rune (or several) to overpower her bites making it as close to the one of the Unforgivables as Severus and Tony could without getting in trouble with Aurors. She was told to only use it if she absolutely needed to. For Tony, the runes were directly inscribed on his skin, on his foot to be exact, as they couldn’t risk anything interacting with the reactor and this was the closest they felt comfortable with.
No one but Harry could take them off, they had him put Parselwards on all of it.
So, now they waited.
To be honest, they have been waiting for a while now.
Some went on dates… Phil and Sirius were adorable, that was true. Though Clint would never say so to their faces. The night Phil came back to the living room after his talk with Remus he grabbed Clint and Natasha and pulled them to a conference room. They spent hours planning for the courtship Remus explained the wizards still swore by as if it was a life and death mission. Which Clint guessed for Phil it kind of was. He wondered if this little adventure of theirs was going to end up with him meeting someone too.
Now that he thought back on it, he was pretty sure Sirius was apparating to Phil’s room when he was off duty. The man was just too damn cheerful. It was scaring the newbies.
As far as he could tell, Nathan was trying this whole courtship thing with Natasha, who was his mate, but he didn’t have much luck. She wasn’t ready to be caught. She was open to the idea and enjoyed the little things he sent her, or the time he spent at the tower or with her at school. She was also spending an increasing amount of time with Darcy. She just didn’t believe in Love in general terms, let alone destined one meant to last forever. With a Stark of all things. So, she let herself be courted.
If someone asked Clint he would tell them she just wanted to be treated like a princess. But he would never say that to her face.
There was something brewing between Severus and Tony also. Not that he knew exactly what, those two spent all their time in their labs, and if they didn’t send Bill or Charlie to retrieve them at mealtimes they would never see them.
It was when Pepper came to NY that Clint started noticing things.
The Gossip Papers were still running the story about the Gala, and how Tony went with Pepper but they weren’t seen together since then, which certainly meant they had something to hide as they could usually be spotted at least once a day. What none of the ‘journalists’ knew was that to be spotted together they had to be in the same city, but Tony hadn’t been out of the tower for weeks when Pepper finally came to visit, so they had no reason to know.
At first, they decided to hide the kids when JARVIS announced that Pepper was on her way. Best laid plans and all that, when she arrived the adults were looking at plans for the tower, Tony explained SHIELD and the Avengers Initiative -with Phil glaring dutifully behind his back-, but it all was for nothing as Pepper went to open one of the kitchen cupboards and it was full of toddler food. They didn’t even have time to explain before Darcy burst through the recently open floo with Bill, Charlie, Percy, the twins, Prank and Alyssa…
What surprised them all was Alyssa looking dumbfounded and saying “Cousin Pepper?”.
With Pepper on board, they managed to get official no-maj documentation for everyone. Find a pediatrician who worked for both sides. She made up contracts for the adults to work for SI, one so SHIELD couldn’t get their claws on them, second so if they were to dig, the media would find out that they had a reason to be seen going in and out of the tower. She even legalized their status with the MACUSA, they were now free to use magic in public in relation to SHIELD or Avengers activities as long as their faces were masked and any media coverage didn’t relay anything about magic.
Tony’s first task had been to find a way to hide their wands, which had been easy enough. They were each given bracelets similar to Natasha’s that were meant to conduct their magic from their wand while it was strapped to their forearm and hooked to the bracelet. The hope was that with the training they were getting at Ilvermorny they soon wouldn’t need it. It was a hope for a long to come future though as circumventing years of education and indoctrination proved to be a hard task to take on.
But with all this in the plans, Tony started spending more time with Pepper, and Severus started blowing up his experiments or could be seen brooding in the common room under the guise of teaching the children, then as soon as Tony and Pepper would emerge from their meetings, Severus would drag Tony away, subtly with new ideas. But Clint noticed.
The kids loved school. Clint had never seen kids loving school so much, they were always the first up, asking who would floo them over as soon as they were done with breakfast. Though heartwarmingly they never whined about staying longer when school hours were over. They were just as happy to be home with everyone, and tell Harry and Luna all about their day. Bill had been allowed to move on to casting classes, and he had been given his own wand back, which was a hazard…
It only happened once, gratefully, as Harry still remembered his future he didn’t try to play with the wand, the same thing couldn’t be said about Luna. That had not been fun, for some reason she kept changing the cushions in the playroom -and there are a lot- into flying dragons, they were breathing fire and all. They were all grateful when they realized the fire was only for show, there was no heat in it, and they didn’t light anything on fire.
They were surprised when their children got their first schedules to see how full they were.
Tony figured Hogwarts First Years were only in class about 20 hours a week, 2 to 3 hours per subject, which were Potions, Charms, Transfiguration, DADA, Herbology, and Astronomy, History, plus 1 hour every fortnight for the first semester for flying lessons. All in all, they were not all that surprised about the Marauders wreaking havoc on their classmates, after all, what else are eleven-year-olds to do in a boarding school when they are only kept busy less than 40 hours a week if you take into account assignments and meals?
Tony showed them all his work, there are 168 hours to a week, curfew at Hogwarts is from 10 pm to 6 am, breakfast is between 7 am and 8:30 am, while dinner is served at 7 pm, he said they had about 50 hours a week to kill. Anyone could become a potions expert, a pranking genius, or an evil mastermind with that kind of time on their hands.
Ilvermorny made sure it wasn’t happening on their watch.
When Sirius, Remus, Severus, and Arthur went to protest, Tony showed them a graphic.
There simply wasn’t enough time in the day for the professors to teach more classes or longer hours. While at NEWT level all houses were mixed, and some options starting 3rd year worked the same, the rest was divided, two houses to a class. Meaning, just to teach 1 hour of theory and 2 of practical a week to 1st years the core professors had 6 hours of classes per week, time 5 for each year under OWLs, that’s 30 hours, plus the NEWT classes that while interhouse were also more involved and had 4 to 5 hours per week so that’s 8 to 10 hours added for 6th and 7th year. Then they had meals, and the patrols, the detention, prep work for the next day, and correcting papers, all in all, Tony managed to assume the professors had about half an hour of free time every day IF they only slept 5 hours per night.
That wasn’t even counting the Potions Master’s duty to brew for the hospital wing or the Head of House duties.
Severus was extremely grateful to everyone for saving him from that life.
Math was giving Clint a headache though, and for as much fun as it had been for Tony to point out more flaws in Hogwarts, trying to convince everyone that the kids should never go there, it was never to be thought about again.
Another stray thought came when he heard that Fury was on his way. They hadn’t heard from Steve, but Harry seemed content with the wait.
Another silent one was the journal. They got nothing new from it since they were informed about Steve or the events of February. No details, either on the Events, on Bucky Barnes -though they were digging deep and calling around to try and locate him-, or even on the future they wanted to prevent.
As planned, Tony managed to buy a medical center in France, and then hired the Grangers as specialists, forcing them to move out of Hogwarts placement range. They first thought to send them to Australia as Hermione had in the future, but they feared the Grangers would refuse to move so far from their friends and family no matter the opportunity. France was a good compromise, with a little luck Hermione would get letters to both schools and prefer Beauxbatons.
They, unfortunately, made no progress on the rest of the plan. The war was still fresh in people’s mind, and although they were using the neutrality of the goblins to set up meetings, the communities they were trying to reach had wounds to lick, orphans to take care off, laws to battle, they were blowing them off, saying they would talk when and if things stayed calm over the next few months as there was no saying what the escaped Death Eaters could be up to.
Everything settled and now they were waiting.
Fury entered the room and went to talk to Selvig. Clint might not know much about science but he knew the blue cube the scientists had been playing with for two weeks now was not supposed to react the way it was. He was told nothing about the situation but patched JARVIS and the others to his com hours ago, when it all started and he was told to stay and observe. You can never be too careful.