Faultlines

Watch the World burn

Watch the world burn

Harry remembered the day he had found out about his parents' death with frightening clarity. He remembered getting off the Hogwarts Express, he remembered laughing and joking with Hermione on their way off the platform. He remembered his initial joy at seeing both his brother and their old family butler, Jarvis, standing there waiting for him. And what he remembered most was his brother's ashen, grieving face that greeted him with a sort of stony determination.

He hadn't even really said goodbye to Hermione, he didn't have the chance, as Tony just hugged him and refused to let him go. Tony wasn't normally touchy like that. Harry hadn't had to ask. Tony had flown out to London. Tony and Jarvis were there. Mom and Dad weren't. It was all he had really needed to know.

He had never forgotten that pain, that emptiness, that hollow inside.

Then, later, when he had lost so many friends during the war, he had just felt numb. Like he was walking through candy cotton, like his head was always miles below water.

"So sorry for your loss. Thank you. Yes, so sad. They'd be proud. They fought for what they believed in. Yes, horrible. Still can't believe it."

A blur of emotions and colours and people and... and everything. Nothing really.

Then he had settled in. Become a dad. Become a husband. He had become... sloppy. He had let his guard down. Too set in his ways, in his family life, his home and relationship. He had become careless.

And then Johanna had told him his kids had arrived back via portkey. He had not been able to apparate into Stark Tower... and now he was kneeling over the broken form of his wife. Not knowing where to look and simultaneously unable to look away.

"Harry!", Tony was shouting at him from afar, "Harry!"

But Harry wasn't really listening. He just kept staring at Ginny. Thinking how she'd never smile at him again. How she'd never kiss him again. How she'd never wear that awful long skirt again under which Lily liked to hide from her brothers during hide and seek, how she'd...

No. No. No. It wasn't true. It wasn't. The war was over. They fought. They fought so this never happened again. They fought so their children did NOT have to go through this. No. He refused to accept this.

"We need you now, the world does. Come on!"

And somewhere in there, deep inside Harry's bubble of grief and shock, Tony's desperate plea for help registered with the fighter, the auror inside Harry. His reflexes took over. He didn't have to look, didn't need to think. His wand was inside his hand, before he even really formed that thought and it seemed to move on its own accord, killing his first attacker without Harry even really making that decision.

And with a sudden, unexplainable jolt he was back. No cotton, no bubble. He felt like... like he did, when he was still Harry Potter. And there was an anger inside him that he hadn't felt in years. Gone. His life had gone up on flames and he'd be damned if he'd let the world follow.

Suddenly there was a man standing in front of him, tall, blonde, big and Harry realized he was staring at Steve, who was looking at him with an abstract horror Harry remembered from back when people at Hogwarts thought him crazy. It only made the anger burn brighter.

There was a huge, armoured alien flying overhead, Tony shooting at it.

Harry was still looking at Steve, when he raised his arm again and the space whale died instantly. It didn't matter, if the life was big or small, not to the Killing Curse. With another flicker of his wrist, the whale shrunk down to not even the size of an apple, before it violently hit the floor.