Harry wandered the streets of London. He knew that the Ministry would throw a fit if they knew he was straying from Diagon Alley, but frankly he didn't care. So what if a dark wizard was possibly after him? That was nothing new, and if the Ministry was really that worried about Sirius Black getting him, they'd have done a bit more than put Harry up in a room above the Leaky Cauldron.
He tired of the stares he got in Diagon Alley, and after being confined to Privet Drive for the summer he didn't like feeling cooped up. Sneaking out was easy, with his invisibility cloak. He kept it on… just in case. It was on one of those mindless treks that he found a building that he hadn't seen before. More precisely, a building that hadn't been there, just moments before.
Magic.
Eh, what the hell.
Harry edged closer, peaking through the windows and not finding any activity within. He cracked the door open, prepared to bolt at the slightest noise, but heard nothing. He pushed in and stopped in his tracks.
Someone was waiting for him. At first Harry guessed that he was a wizard, but there was something off about the way he dressed. His robes weren't like a wizard's, and he didn't have a wand that Harry could see.
"Are you going to reveal yourself, or am I going to have to take drastic measures." The man said.
Chagrinned, Harry dropped his cloak, and the man relaxed slightly. "Oh." He groaned. "It's you."
-----
"Again." Wong barked, as Harry pulled himself up. Wanda smirked back at him. The witch was about his age and had been training with Doctor Strange to get her powers under control. Harry had taken on the role of sparring partner. Her magic was powerful, but erratic. It took her an immense amount of focus for her to channel her magic in a way that was useful (rather than wreaking havoc that was as likely to incapacitate her as him). He'd managed to catch Wanda flatfooted several times, once by summoning a snake and telling it to go after her. She hadn't even seen the stunner coming.
They were both getting better, but the exercise was a great lesson for Harry in just how far he had to go. It was humbling, how easily she could launch him across the room, sending his wand clattering uselessly to the floor, when she managed to get her act together.
He needed to work harder.
"Lets make a bet." Wanda suggested playfully. "Whoever wins gets to ask something of the other." The first thing that Harry had noticed about Wanda was her intensity. He knew that she, like him, had tragedies in her past. But as Harry had come to know Wanda better, more and more hints of this playfulness came through.
Harry was never one to back out of a challenge. "Sure. If I win…" He tapped his chin. "You'll do the next chore Strange gives us." Strange gave them odd jobs as his 'apprentices', usually some mundane drudgery like organizing reagents. "And if you win?"
"I get a kiss." She was a mix of hesitant and daring, but boldness won out.
Harry blushed, feeling butterflies erupt in his stomach. Wong grumbled in the background, but they ignored him. "You- I- yeah sure!" He was off balance for that round, and Wanda easily disarmed him (physically, she'd already emotionally disarmed him). Wanda sauntered over to him while Harry picked up his wand. Wong rolled his eyes and left the room. Harry's breath hitched as Wanda neared, his lips parting instinctively. She leaned in and they… kissed.
It was his first kiss, but it felt oddly familiar, like he'd somehow done this before. That didn't make sense and Harry brushed the vague notion away. Wanda pulled back from the brief kiss, leaving his lips tingling and Harry disappointed with the loss. "I think you deserve more of a kiss than that. That was a pretty impressive victory." He said with a hopeful smile. Wanda agreed, and they both leaned in eagerness overriding nerves. While the first kiss left his lips tingling, this one lit him up from head to toe. He gasped, breath stuttering after they pulled back, trying to somehow reign himself in, to not feel so… tuned up just from a kiss.
"Its okay, I like it." Wanda said, equally breathless.
"What?"
"How I make you feel." Then it clicked, Wanda was a telepath. She knew what he was thinking, maybe even feeling, including… They both blushed brilliantly as Harry tried valiantly not to think about how hard he was. "Like I said, its okay… I like it."
That brought Harry up short. She wasn't disgusted, or embarrassed? She… she liked it? Then he felt her open a little door in his mind, giving him a peak of what she was feeling. "Oh." He breathed, shivering at her lust, a mirror image of his own. He couldn't help himself, he smashed their lips together for a third, even hungrier kiss.
They would be doing a lot of this that summer.
-----
Are you sure about this, Wanda? Harry asked. I'm pretty sure that Ginny has a crush on me. If not before, then certainly after he'd rescued her from the Chamber of Secrets.
I'm certain she has a crush on you. Wanda said. Their first summer together resulted in a pen-pal relationship over the school year, which left them both frustrated- but Wanda particularly so. Harry would tell her about the developments at Hogwarts- the Dementors, Sirius Black- and she'd be left in limbo while Harry dealt with everything without her. The next summer, she gave him a ring. It was a match to one she wore, and it allowed her telepathy to work over long distances.
She'd taken full advantage, raging along with him at the injustice of being forced to compete in the Triwizard tournament and mentally chewing out everyone who didn't believe him. Now, oddly, she was taking on the role of coach in the leadup to the Yule Ball. That's exactly why you should ask her. Wanda insisted.
Harry wasn't so sure. It was… strange, to have his girlfriend be so enthusiastic about him pursuing other girls. He didn't exactly have a choice but to take someone to the ball, and he'd broached the topic innocently enough, with a suggestion that he might ask Hermione to the ball as a friend. Wanda had leapt into the project with unexpected enthusiasm and had inexplicably begun to crusade in favor of Ginny.
He wasn't going to argue. He had to admit that Ginny was cute, and as she'd come out of her shell, he realized that she was funny too. The ball wouldn't be so bad. It wasn't like he and Ginny would become anything serious… right?
-----
The letter from the Ministry came, telling him that he was expelled from Hogwarts, and that his wand was to be snapped.
The bastards! Wanda snarled. Her fury at his situation had increased with each day that Harry had been imprisoned at Privet Drive. Hold on, we're coming to get you.
A portal opened outside of Privet Drive, sending the Dursleys into further conniptions. Harry paid them no mind, gathering his stuff and leaving them behind… for good. If the Ministry didn't want him in the wizarding world, fine. He'd find his own way. He'd be ready for Voldemort with or without them.
-----
Staying out of the Ministry's reach was easier said than done. It had touched off something of a diplomatic incident between the ICW and the Sorcerers. Harry had been figuratively shuffled out the backdoor when the ICW had come to call, finding himself in Wakanda.
The city was unlike anything he'd ever seen, but it was beyond clear that he didn't belong and was only barely tolerated. This was an attitude held by almost everyone, except for the prince and princess. T'Challa was very curious about the wizarding world, and Harry had no qualms about sharing. He wasn't a fool, he knew that T'Challa may use this intelligence to his advantage, but Harry didn't particularly care. His loyalty to wizarding society was, frankly, at an all-time low. He broke the statute of secrecy on an almost daily basis now, with the help of a ward that Doctor Strange had set up. He could not be tracked or traced, at least not magically.
Shuri was another matter. His magic fascinated and frustrated the teenage princess, and she devised complex experiments to try to measure and harness it. Harry played along but wasn't surprised when her efforts came to nothing.
Harry would learn that her curiosity extended to more than just his magic. He'd taken to doing physical training alongside practicing magic. T'Challa had been happy to give him access to the facilities he used- essentially a high tech gym. On the tail end of a session, he realized he wasn't alone. Shuri was there, staring at him, and when she noticed his attention she startled like a kid who'd been caught with a cookie jar.
He looked down at himself- he wasn't wearing a shirt- and smiled coyly at Shuri. "Like what you see?" He asked her.
Shuri's mouth worked silently as she struggled to say something. Harry drew closer, and he felt Wanda perk with interest. After taking Ginny to the Yule Ball he was much less concerned about Wanda's motives. He'd felt Wanda's excitement that night, especially when they'd kissed at the end of it. He knew that she liked this, even if he didn't fully understand it. The idea of seducing the Wakandan princess excited him, but it excited Wanda as well.
He stopped in front of Shuri, and her hand twitched, as if she was resisting the urge to touch his bare chest. "You can look all you want." He teased. "Though if you want to do more than look…" Shuri giggled nervously.
"I mean, uh-" Normally she wouldn't shut up, words, jokes, speculation coming out of her at the speed of thought. This was an interesting change of pace. "Yes please."
He leaned in and kissed her.
-----
His year of exile came to an end when Voldemort was revealed to the wizarding world. Turns out he hadn't been a delusional lying puppet of Dumbledore after all. He'd just been telling the truth, not that he got any apologies.
The Harry Potter who returned for his sixth year at Hogwarts was not the Harry who had left after his fourth. He'd trained with the sorcerers and been a guest at the court of Wakanda. He'd met up with Sirius and they'd gone on a road trip. He'd become an advisor at SHIELD and had been sent with a team to New Mexico where he'd met the Asgardian god of thunder. He helped Thor defeat Loki, and was invited to visit Asgard- an invitation he wouldn't understand the full significance of until much later.
He'd been all around the world- a world which was becoming less mundane by the day. With Asgardian gods, green rage monsters, and billionaire superheroes taking up the headlines, it made the magical statue of secrecy seem rather outdated. Strange had explained to him the politics of it, how paranoid the wizarding world was, and the treaties that existed between them and the Sorcerers. Still, Harry was pretty sure the wizarding world wouldn't remain secret for long. Sooner or later, some threat would drag them into the wider world.
Perhaps Harry would be doing some of that dragging. His return to Hogwarts caused a stir, and he could sense that his social standing was far different now than it had been in his first four years. Before, he alternated between object of fascination and pariah, a dance Harry loathed. He returned now with new confidence, new skills and knowledge, and a new look. Gone were his baggy jeans, he now wore a mixture of clothes he'd picked up on his travels, from Wakanda, the Sorcerers, and Asgard. It made him stand out, in a good way. It helped that he'd become stronger in the past year, both physically and magically.
He started a defense club, tutoring his classmates. He kept in touch with Wanda through their telepathy, and with T'Challa and Shuri through a tablet she'd designed for him, one that was EMP shielded and worked inside of Hogwarts. He and Ginny picked up where they'd left off. She and Wanda had officially met last Christmas, and they'd all come to an 'understanding'. All hesitation was gone from her. The went on dates to Hogsmeade, cuddled by the common room fire, and she snogged him every chance she had.
Despite the rising threat of Voldemort, Harry was happy.
It wouldn't last.
-----
At seventeen, Harry met Natasha Romanoff for the first (third) time.
Voldemort's takeover of the British Ministry had been enough for Nick Fury to pull the trigger on his pet project. Harry found himself on a Helicarrier with a rather interesting group of people. He knew Thor, and had heard of Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner, and Tony Stark. The two SHIELD agents were a mystery to him, and for some reason who couldn't keep his eyes off of Natasha. She seemed just as interested in him.
His friends had joined him on the run- Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Neville, and Luna. Wanda informed him that Strange had put the entire society of Sorcerers on high alert. He knew that Shuri and T'Challa were doing their best to lobby their father on the threat Voldemort posed. He had more allies in this war than he'd had last time.
Wait, last time? He shook off the thought.
"SHEILD has almost nothing on Tom Riddle." Natasha admitted. "Just a record from an orphanage."
"I can tell you everything." Harry said. Dumbledore had taught him Riddle's history, and his secrets. He'd made Harry promise not to reveal the existence of his Horcruxes to anyone other than Ron or Hermione. But then he'd died, and Harry sure as hell wasn't going to fight this war alone or drag more people into it without telling them what they were getting into.
He was not a minute into his explanation, when Tony interrupted. "Wait, you're saying that there's a secret worldwide society of wizards? Like, magic wizards?"
Harry laughed. "Actually, Tony, there's two. I should introduce you guys to Doctor Strange."
"Oh, we know about Stephen Strange." Fury said. "I take it he's concerned about this as well?"
"To put it lightly, yes." Harry said. "Protecting the world from magical threats is in his job description." He continued his story, fielding the occasional question and interjection. He told them about the prophecy (though not its specific wording) and about the Horcruxes. When he was finished, there was silence.
"Any leads on these Horcruxes?" Steve asked.
"Given Riddle's personality type." Natasha speculated. "He'd either trust them to loyal followers, or place them in locations of significance to him. If you haven't checked already, I'd suggest a location near his old orphanage. Perhaps there is also one at your school, since he seems to have an attachment to the place."
Harry was impressed. "The first Horcrux we destroyed was given to one of his followers. We also know that he hid one in a cave near the orphanage… where he used to torture the other kids. But one of his followers betrayed him and removed it, we're not sure if he managed to destroy it or not. I agree with you on Hogwarts. He even had an opportunity to hide one there when he applied to become professor several decades back."
Natasha smiled in satisfaction. "It does sound like you'll have to take the lead with the Horcruxes. But tracking them down may require some espionage, I can offer you some tips."
"That'd be great." He had taken many one-on-one lessons over the years from Remus to Strange to T'Challa, he wasn't about to turn down another. That he felt an odd affinity for Natasha was neither here nor there.
"While it will be hard to strike him directly." Steve said. "There is a lot we should do. We need to contain them to Britain. Do you think we can work with the other magical governments for that?"
Harry shrugged. "They're arrogant prats, they'd look down on you and doubt that you'd be able to help." There were frowns across the table.
"We should also take in refugees, if we can." Steve said.
"That'd be a great way of increasing our manpower." Clint added. "We could recruit some of them as magical liaisons. Use them to negotiate with other wizarding ministries."
"I'll need to adapt my tech to this." Tony mused. "I'm sure there's a way to make it resistant to magical disruption. It might take me a few days to whip it up, but-"
"Oh, Shuri's already figured it out." Harry said casually.
"Who?" Natasha asked.
"Shuri, she's…" He trailed, realizing the position he'd put himself in. "She's a friend of mine, she's good with tech."
Her eyebrows raised further, and he could practically hear her thought process. Shuri clearly wasn't a witch, which raised questions. "Where's she from?"
"She's from an… undisclosed city." He was fully willing to spill all of his people's secrets, but the Wakandans' secrets weren't his to tell.
Clint snorted.
"By 'Shuri'" Fury said. "Do you happen to mean the princess of Wakanda?"
Harry sighed. "You know about them, eh?"
"Harry Potter." Fury said. "You really do have your finger in every pie."
-----
Harry had spent the past few days spiraling, jumping between defeatism and defiance. He was a horcrux, and it was hard to escape the conclusion that he'd need to sacrifice himself. His friends vehemently disagreed. Hermione had been driven to tears. Ginny had shouted at him, demanding that he not even consider it. Natasha had been more subdued, but behind her calm tone as she advised him not to throw his life away stupidly, there was sharpened steel. They'd become close over the past few months, and Harry was touched that she cared so much, even if she didn't like to show it. Wanda had gone straight to Strange, who had been… enigmatic.
Still, he couldn't help but feel a little hope when the Sorcerer Supreme had invited him to the Sanctum. More than hope, he felt hope of all his friends pressing down on him as he headed out. If this was a dead end... he didn't know how to face them. "I guess its time for this." Strange sighed.
"Time for what?" Harry asked, daring to hope. "Can you… you know, remove the horcrux?"
"I can, but there is a price." Strange led him deeper into the Sanctum, coming to a room Harry had never seen before. Strange approached the pedestal at the center, which held an amulet. Strange placed it around his neck. Harry waited patiently for him to explain. "This universe is unusual. It's actually a fusion between two universes."
"…Okay?"
"You happen to have existed in both of these universes, and in one of them you were able to purge the horcrux. By harmonizing your time-stream, we can align yourself with that timeline, removing the horcrux."
Harry didn't understand what half of that meant, but he was going to go along with it. "So, what's the catch?"
"You'll remember everything from those two universes… and I can promise you a lot of it won't be pleasant. There's a reason they were merged together, and its because things went… wrong."
"I'll do it." Harry said immediately.
"I may regret this." Strange said, unlocking the amulet. Inside was a gem. It glowed green, and Harry could feel its power.
"So, what do I need to-" The world went white.
-----
"FUCK!" Harry cursed, falling to the floor. It was a migraine as bad as any vision from Voldemort. A lifetime's worth of memories had been shoved into his head all at once, conflicting, mingling. He remembered… everything. He remembered his first run through Hogwarts, similar to this world's but also different. He remembered dying for the first time. He remembered meeting the Avengers- who were also similar but slightly different from this world's. He remembered falling in love with Natasha. He remembered her getting pregnant. He remembered Thanos, losing Lily. He remembered Death. He remembered the new world, meeting his daughter and son. He'd gathered together all of his friends and lovers. He remembered fighting Voldemort and Death once again, using the infinity stones, reforging the world… this world.
He sucked in breath after breath as the memories spun in an overwhelming orbit. "You bastard." He muttered to Strange, weakly.
"I warned you." He said dryly. "You should be thanking me. I worked hard to set us on a timeline where we survived."
He remembered that, and Harry laughed hysterically. "Yeah, I guess you did. Maybe you deserve a break, after I kill Voldemort for the third time." God, he was getting sick of killing the bastard. Hopefully this would be the last time he had to deal with him.
"You've got a plan for that?" Strange asked.
"I'm sure I can come up with something."
-----
Harry returned to Avengers tower and was immediately assaulted by Nat. Their relationship in this world wasn't romantic… yet, so when she latched onto him and fused her lips to his he knew.
When she was done, she'd snogged him completely senseless. "You did it! You bloody did it!" Ginny cheered. Waiting behind Natasha were Ginny, Wanda, Shuri, and Luna. They were missing a few people, but he supposed that Skye and Rogue would be difficult to track down, and that Carol might take a few minutes to get back to Earth.
Ginny tackled Harry next, snogging him nearly as thoroughly as Nat had.
"I take it that you all remember everything." He said weakly, when at last everyone had had their turn with him. "I guess that ritual worked, after all."
Wanda smiled, satisfied. "And you were well on the way to rebuilding your harem, even without your memories." She crowed.
"You don't have to call it that." He said.
"I wasn't about to date a seventeen-year-old." Natasha argued.
"You're not that much older than me." Harry pointed out. She was what, twenty?
"Maybe it would have taken me a few years." Natasha allowed. "I did think you were cute."
Jarvis' voice came on speaker. "I have an incoming call for you, Mr. Potter." He informed them. "A SHIELD Agent by the name of-"
"Patch her through." Harry said immediately.
"Oh my god!" Skye shouted over the line. "You fucking did it!"
Harry allowed himself to revel in victory. "We did it." He said. After so many years of struggle and suffering, he was done.
…almost.
-----
The trap had been set.
Harry was not going to let Hogwarts be the site of the final battle. Neither would he let it be London or any other populated area. He'd seen far to much death in his life, and he wasn't going to accept collateral damage.
The Riddle House made the most sense. It had stored a horcrux, making it easy to bait Voldemort with. All they needed to do was release a captured Death Eater (they conveniently had Wormtail in custody) with intel that Harry was planning to raid the house for a valuable artifact.
Voldemort hadn't been able to resist. His apparation was almost soundless, a testament to his skill, but he gave himself away by his rough footsteps, betraying his anxiety. He would be off balance now, worried that his immortality was at risk. He felt vulnerable, and he was even more than he knew.
"Hey Tom." Harry said, casually stepping out from the threshold of the house. In his hand he tossed and caught the Gaunt Ring. "Nice ring you've got here."
"Accio." Voldemort hissed, and Harry didn't fight him on it. The ring had been destroyed by Dumbledore more than a year ago. As soon as Voldemort got his hands on it, he saw that as well.
"Potter. You know, then."
"You gave the Diary to Lucius Malfoy. The cup to Bellatrix Lestrange, which she stored in her Gringotts vault. The ring you kept in here. The locket you hid in the cave near the orphanage you grew up in. The Diadem was in Hogwarts, in the room of hidden things. And then there's your snake." He cocked his head. "I suppose we still need to track Nagini down. But we can do that after you've been disembodied."
"Avada Kedavra!" Green light shot at Harry. A stone sprang into the air to intercept the curse- Harry had dealt with much worse in his day. Voldemort's nostril's flared, and he flicked his wand to his forearm. That was what Harry wanted. He knew that when threatened, Voldemort would summon his marked Death Eaters to him. Having them all come to one place would be convenient, it would allow them to capture or kill them all before they could go to ground. At the same time, the bulk of Voldemort's forces would be absent. The Snatchers, the giants, dementors, inferi, werewolves, and Acromantula had helped him assault Hogwarts last time, and they would be left out of this fight.
Harry had one other factor in his favor, which would turn this battle which had cost so many lives last time into a relatively bloodless affair.
He had a few more friends this time.
Death Eaters began to apparate around them, but Harry was unperturbed. "You've made a mistake, Harry. You played your hand too soon. You cannot defeat me, and you will not find Nagini." Voldemort sneered. "You're going to die here, all alone."
"Maybe I'll die here." He allowed skeptically. "But alone?"
On cue, a golden portal opened behind him, and then another, and another, and then a dozen. Witches and wizards were the first through- members of the DA and the Order who had linked up with Harry and the Avengers in the year since Voldemort's takeover of the Ministry. Harry felt a wave of nostalgia, seeing them. Much of him was the man who had spent more than a decade away from his old home, and it felt almost like he hadn't seen them in a lifetime- Sirius, Remus, Tonks, Bill and Fleur, Fred, George, Dean, Seamus, Alicia, Katie, and Angelina, McGonagall, Flitwick, Kingsley, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, and on and on it went.
Voldemort did not look impressed, which was fair. But this was only the beginning. Stephen Strange drifted through a portal, gliding next to Harry. "Excellent timing." Harry told him. His arrival heralded a flood of sorcerers, who began to hem in the Death Eaters on all sides. Right on schedule anti-apparation wards came up- courtesy of Bill.
The Bifrost opened, its light piercing the late evening twilight, and Thor stepped through, followed by his close cadre of Asgardian warriors. The Death Eaters were beginning to shift nervously, and Voldemort seemed paralyzed. He realized now that he'd fallen into a trap and was trying to find a way out of it. Another burst of light pierced the night, this time golden as Carol streaked down from the sky and created a small crater where she landed. Still more came through the portals. Clint, who posted himself in the top floor of the Riddle House. Skye, Wanda, Shuri and T'Challa, Steve, and Natasha- who placed herself firmly by Harry's side. Tony, who had been circling the area since Harry had arrived, came in overhead, ready to unleash his payload at a word.
"Milord?" Harry heard Lucius Malfoy ask obsequiously. "What should we do?" Voldemort was speechless.
"Would you like the honors, Harry?" Steve asked him.
Harry chuckled. Why not? "Avengers!" He called. "Assemble."