*Chapter 38*: Chapter 38

April 12, 2016

Harry walked around the construction zone that was known as Azkaban. The construction was moving even faster than he had predicted. In fact, the facility would probably be done in less than 2 months. The hardest part was that the builders didn't seem to be to experience making structures made of anything but wood. Harry had shown them how muggles built their buildings with glass and metal. The builders had learned quickly how to use magic to speed up the process themselves though. Especially since the facility would mostly be within the island itself and not on top of it. Hollowing it out and putting in a structure was actually harder than the building that was being built on top of the island. Harry made sure to come by often to make sure the workers weren't slacking off. He had a lot of workers to look over too. With the whole new government thing happening on the mainland, many people were scrambling for jobs to get back to some semblance of normal life. Even a few purebloods were looking for work. Harry continued to look over the work being done when his phone started ringing. He pulled it out and looked at the caller ID before answering.

"Hey Pepper, what's up?" Harry asked.

"Hello, Harry. Do you have a second to talk?" Pepper asked. Harry was pretty sure she was in an airplane based on the low background noise he could hear. She sounded a little stressed if his ears didn't deceive him. Which they had never done before...except for that one incident.

"Of course, let me just go somewhere a little quieter," Harry said as he flashed to his Paris office.

"So what's up?" Harry asked.

"Well...I know you're very busy, especially lately but I wanted to know if you could do me a favor?" She asked nervously. Harry raised an eyebrow. Pepper had never asked him for anything before. He was much closer to Tony but she was someone he would still consider a friend.

"Of course. Name it and if it is within my power, you shall have it." Harry said in a mock god-like voice to ease the tension. He heard her give a slight chuckle so he figured it worked.

"Thank you. It's actually about Tony. I'm concerned about him. He has been working nonstop on new suits with no end in sight. I know when he concentrates on something, he usually can't stop until it's done but this is different. He's working himself beyond his limits, he won't talk to anyone, he barely eats. I don't know what to do. He won't listen to me and just brushes my concern away and won't tell me what's wrong. Do you think you could maybe see what's wrong with him?" Pepper finished. Harry was surprised by the news. He had been too busy to see Tony recently and he had been too busy to visit him as well. He actually hadn't seen any of the Avengers except Natasha for awhile. He really should go visit or maybe invite them all for dinner. Lord knows the Captain needed a break if what Natasha was telling him was true.

"Yeah. That's no problem at all. I'll go visit him right now. I'm sure he's awake. Will you be joining us at some point?" Harry asked.

"I'm on a flight back now but I won't arrive for a few hours," Pepper responded. Harry nodded even though he knew she couldn't see it.

"Alright. Well, hopefully, I'll see you there." Harry said.

"Okay. Thank you for doing this Harry. I know how busy you are." Pepper said.

"It's no problem. What are friends for." Harry said before hanging up. With that, Harry flashed away.

Malibu, California

Harry looked around Tony's living room.

"Hello, Jarvis. May I assume he is in the garage?" Harry said out loud to no one.

"Hello to you too Mister Wolfe. You presume correctly. Mister Stark is currently working in the garage." Jarvis responded.

"What's the time in this time zone?" Harry asked as he walked towards the stairs.

"The time is currently 3:42 am Pacific Standard Time," Jarvis responded. Harry clicked his tongue in annoyance as he walked down the stairs. He made it to the bottom and opened the glass door into Tony's little workshop. Tony himself seemed to be deeply engrossed in what looked like the metal arm of some new suit he was making. Harry silently took a seat and decided to watch the man for a while. Tony worked and put the arm together with a clearly skilled hand. Harry would even go as far as to say that Tony was as good with mechanical things as Harry was with magic. He worked so smoothly and beautifully that it almost seemed mesmerizing just to watch. Finally, Tony seemed to finish whatever it was he had been doing to the robotic hand. He held it up and inspected. Before putting it down with some satisfaction.

"That one is sure to cause quite the amount of damage when you finish it," Harry said out loud, gaining the man's attention. Tony jumped and spun around to look at him. When he saw it was just Harry, he let out a breath.

"Jesus, you ever hear of knocking?" Tony said with a fake annoyance in his voice.

"Sadly I learned the concept too late. I'm much more used to just breaking in the homes off my targets." Harry said with a smile.

"Yeah well, make yourself at home I guess. I assume you need something if you decided to just randomly break into my home at..." Tony checked his clock, "... 3:45 in the morning."

Harry shrugged at the man, "Not really. Just haven't talked to you in a while and thought I'd stop by and check up on you." Harry said with a friendly smile. Tony squinted at him in suspicion.

"At almost 4 in the morning?" He asked rhetorically. Harry just nodded. Tony turned around back towards his robotic project.

"Pepper sent you didn't she?" Tony asked even though he already knew the answer. Harry wasn't going to lie to him either.

"She did. She was worried and after coming here and seeing you, so am I." Harry said.

"Look, I appreciate the gesture but I'm fine, really," Tony said with his usual charm as he turned around and looked at Harry. Harry could easily tell how fake the sentence was though.

"Don't insult me with such an obvious lie, Tony. Even if you didn't look like you haven't slept in a week, I can still see in your eyes that you are anything but fine. Why don't we skip the whole lying part and you just tell me what's wrong." Harry pressed. Though it sounded like a command. Harry said it softly and more as a suggestion. He didn't want Tony to get even more bent out of shape than he might already be.

"I've just been busy is all. Without being the CEO of Stark Industries, I needed a hobby to keep me busy. So, I've been building suits. What do you think, they look pretty cool huh?" He asked as he gestured to a few he had in a display. Harry didn't bother too spare a glance at them. He just kept looking at his billionaire friend. He could sense, even from across the room, that his mind was in turmoil.

"Tony..." Harry said with a little more aggression. Tony just looked at him for a moment then sighed when it became clear Harry was not going to change the subject with him.

"Alright, alright. You're pushier then Pepper." He said sarcastically as he pulled up a chair near Harry. He looked conflicted though he was still trying to appear unaffected.

"So...what's wrong," Harry asked him. Tony took a deep breath.

"I've been having...dreams," Tony said quietly. Harry looked at him with concern. Tony wasn't one to be affected by something like scary nightmares.

" What about?" Harry asked carefully.

" Well...It's about the invasion. Well, sort of about the invasion. Not really but that's the focus of it. Back then, we were so worried about the fact that we needed to save everyone that I don't think my mind really processed everything but after..." He trailed off. Harry nodded. He thought he understood what Tony was trying to say.

"I mean, we fought alien's Harry. Like real-life aliens. That wielded things, that we have never even seen before. I mean, we did our best but people died out there. Good, innocent people that were just trying to go about there daily lives." Tony continued. You could tell he was losing his composure and getting more and more worked up at every word that came out of his mouth.

" I've been doing this hero thing for a few years now but it's usually me at risk. Sure there has been collateral damage and people have gotten hurt before but... it was never like this. I flew a damn nuke through a magic space portal for Christ's sake. We did absolutely everything we could yet so many people were still hurt even though we did our absolute best." Tony was almost whispering at the end. His eyes had glazed over as he continued and it was clear he was remembering the invasion. Harry snapped his fingers in front of Tony's eyes.

"Hey Tony, come back to me man. Look at me." Harry commanded. Tony took a second but he looked at Harry.

"What happened out there was not our fault. No one could train or prepare you for what we had to face that day. We did everything we could to make sure as many people made it out as possible but sometimes, good people die but that should never stop someone from continuing to keep fighting. It should never stop someone from continuing to live their own life. You did more then anyone else could out there Tony. No one could say that you didn't do everything you could. Don't think for a second about 'what if's' and how you could have done something differently. It happened and there's no going back. Mourn the ones that were lost and be grateful for the ones that were saved." Harry finished. Tony looked at him and seemed to be putting honest thought into what he was just told. He looked ready to say something else but just then his phone rang. It seemed to break the serious moment they were having and the intensity seemed to die down as Tony picked it up.

"Yeah?" He said to whoever was on the other side. His expression went from curious to one of horror in a split second.

"Where?... Alright, I'm coming right now!" Tony said. He immediately put the phone down and ran to his desk where he scrambled to get his keys.

"Tony what's going on," Harry asked as he watched his friend move faster than he had seen in a long time. Tony ran to his Audi.

"There's been an attack, Happy is in the hospital," Tony said as he got in the driver seat and drove off as fast as he could.

3 Hours Later

Harry and Tony both watched as Happy sat motionless on his hospital bed from the explosion he had been in. The first thing Tony had done when he had got there was to tell the doctors to spare no expense when it came to getting him healed. They were assured that the possibility of him recovering was good but it would take time. It was apparently a terrorist attack at a theater in Hollywood. Happy had tried to stop it from what the authorities were told by people that were close enough to the scene but out of the blast radius.

"So, what's the game plan?" Harry asked as he continued to look through the glass with his arms crossed.

"The plan is that I'm going to find however did this and I'm going to make them regret it with every fiber of their being," Tony said with anger clear in his voice. Harry raised an eyebrow.

"You mean 'We'," Harry said as he gave Tony a look. Tony just shook his head.

"No, I meant me as in just me," Tony said as he turned away from the glass and started walking away from it. Harry followed.

"What are you talking about here Tony? I know you're angry but you can't just..."

"Look, Harry, I know you just want to help but Happy was my friend. I need to do this and I need to do it alone." Tony said as he kept walking.

"Why though? Together we could find the people who did this and make them pay in no time at all." Harry said. He wasn't sure why Tony was so opposed to this. Tony spun on a heel and stopped right in front of Harry.

"Look, Harry, I appreciate what you're trying to do. I really do, but I need to do this. Not just for Happy but for myself as well. You were right with what you said in the garage okay. I've become a recluse and have been hating myself for awhile. No more though. I need to be able to learn how to get over what happened in my own way and I can't do that if I'm using you as a crutch. Do you understand?" Tony asked as he looked Harry right in the eye. Harry didn't say anything for a moment before he slowly nodded.

"Alright...fine. I'll allow you to do this alone. I'm going to leave you alone for one week. After that, I'm going to check in on you and if I still think you need help, then I'm going to step in whether you like it or not. Got it?" Harry demanded. Tony nodded as they then walked out of the hospital and right into the media mob that was waiting for Tony.

4 Days Later

Harry was very tense at the moment. Natasha was kind enough to give him a back massage to try and ease his stress. The source of his stress was of course because of his dear friend Tony. His house had been destroyed. As soon as he saw on the news that the billionaire's house was now residing at the bottom of the Pacific, he was going to flashover and start looking for him. Of course, no sooner had Tony called him and told him that he was fine. He claimed he still had things under control and that he was going to do some recon work. Harry had yelled at him of course on how 'getting your fucking house blown up' was having anything under control but Tony said he was still in control of the situation and for Harry to not interfere. 2 days later, Harry was anything but calm.

"Why hasn't he checked in again? What if there was an accident. Why does the asshole have to be so goddamn stubborn?" Harry shot off as he laid flat on his stomach while Natasha was sitting on his back and trying to get as many knots out of his back as possible.

"You would want the same thing in his situation," she said softly to him. Harry grunted.

"There's a difference."

"No there's not. If you were facing a problem, you too would also do your best to make sure as few people were involved as possible," she said as she dug her palm into his shoulder.

"Yes, but I know I can handle all my situations alone," Harry said.

"Tony has managed to handle all his situations alone as well." she reminded him.

"Whose side are you on?" He asked.

"The reasonable one. Sometimes, there are problems that people just need to solve. In those situations, it's best to just offer moral support and let them know you are there if they need you. You can't help someone that doesn't want to be helped." she told him.

"The hell I can't. Never had a problem getting people to do what I want, even when they didn't want to do it." Harry remarked.

"Yes but I somehow doubt you want to employ such methods on a man you consider your greatest friend," she commented. Harry didn't have anything to say at that. It was true that while he could use some methods to force people to accept his help, he would never do such a thing to Tony. He respected him way too much for that.

"I suppose you're right." Harry conceded.

"Surprise surprise." She replied. Harry chuckled at her antics.

"So hows your little island building coming along," she asked trying to make conversation.

"It's going along pretty well. Ahead of schedule actually. We can hopefully be done and get to work quite soon."

"You still haven't told me what you want to do on your little secret base," she commented.

"It's a surprise," Harry said. He knew she was curious and it's not like he didn't trust her but he did want it to be an actual surprise.

"I don't like surprises," she said blandly.

"You liked your birthday surprise didn't you," Harry asked.

"I loved the gift. I didn't like the surprise that went with it," she replied dryly. Harry chuckled softly. Harry had gifted her a pair of tight gloves that she could use at work. It had two main charms on it. One was a sticking charm modification that would allow her to climb virtually any surface with ease. The other was a seal he put on both gloves for emergencies. With an activation phrase that Natasha had set, the gloves would spew a huge torrent of Harry's famous hellfire. Natasha was quite pleased with the gift since it was stylish as well as useful. She had been a little curious about how Harry had found out her birthday to which he just smiled mysteriously and said 'I have my ways'. Of course, Natasha's spy instincts had kicked at the moment she saw the neatly wrapped package and had to resist the urge to smash it out of Harry's hands. Harry had seen the slight shift though and had laughed at her jitteriness from just receiving a gift.

"The surprise is what makes the gift so great," Harry argued.

"It really isn't," she said as she got off him and then laid down next to him. Harry immediately wrapped an arm around her and brought her close to him. Natasha had found that Harry was much more accepting of the idea of more sleep when he got to do it curled around her. Plus he was a damned good pillow so she wasn't complaining.

"Do you have work tomorrow?" Harry asked smoothly.

"I have to go to Washington in the morning. Have a mission with Cap." she murmured back. Harry made a 'hm' noise from his throat.

"I'll give you a ride," he said softly.

"That would be nice," she replied as she gave him a small kiss before the sweet oblivion of sleep overtook her. Harry, on the other hand, decided to just stare at her for a while longer. Since there was a giant window on the other side of the room, the lights of New York crept into the room. This caused them to almost give Natasha an ethereal glow around her. Natasha had turned so they were known to spoon. Harry nestled himself into her soft hair before allowing sleep to overtake him as well.

18 Hours Later

Harry sat in his office with Daphne and Tracey across from him. It would seem that the demand for his company's products had skyrocketed recently and there was no end in sight. Especially with his new car line coming out. He had decided to name the line Nundu's after the fearsome beast. The Nundu 1X was a sport's car that was sleek and had plenty of curves rather than sharp edges that most cars had. It could reach a solid 180 mph in it's normal commercially bought version. It also had lots of cool toys on the inside to combine speed with luxury. They were also relatively cheap for the kind of car they were. You could get one for only 120,000 dollars. Or get the upgraded one that could reach 205 mph for 150,000 dollars. The best part of course was that the car was an electric hybrid. It had a baffled car specialist on how the car could reach such speeds and be so lightweight with any type of electric engine. Many had even requested to know how he had done it out of plain curiosity. Harry of course had said nothing.

"Another order request came in for the 1X," Daphne said as she apparently read an order form.

"Put it with the rest and have some people log it in when you go down later," Harry said without even looking up.

"There's some Gala going on in Tokyo next week and they invited you Harry," Tracy said to him.

"I'll think about it," Harry said. He wouldn't go unless Natasha came with him. He hated playing nice with all the other 'important' people. He would also get the urge to kill one of them if one of the CEO's tried to give him one more speech on 'Here's how this is going to work' in an effort to take advantage of Harry's age and supposed limited knowledge on owning a company. Or have to deal with people trying to dance and get with him the whole night. Natasha was so much better at playing those games, and they were entertaining to watch when she did.

Harry was pulled out of his train of thought when he felt his cell phone start to buzz. He pulled it out and saw that it was Tony. He quickly answered it.

"Tony, what's going on? Are you hurt?" Harry asked.

"Nah, just been having a rough couple of days. Found out who the Mandarin is, saved Rhodey, and now I have to go save the President from a small army of superhumans BECAUSE THEY FUCKING KIDNAPPED PEPPER!" Tony screamed into the phone. Harry had to pull it away from his ear.

"Can I help now?" Harry asked impatiently as he started to pace with both Tracey and Daphne watching him.

"Look, I don't want to hear an 'I told you so' from this but yes, I could use your help. How soon can you come to me?" Tony asked. Harry didn't need him to say more. He gave a quick goodbye wave to Tracy and Daphne before locking onto Tony and flashing next to him. He looked around him and saw Tony as well as Rhodey. Harry looked around and they seemed to be behind a crate in a shipyard. He peeked out and could see a lot of activity happening from what looked like heavily equipped males and females. He could also see what appeared to be a man strung up high in the air by two chains wrapped around his arms. He looked back at Rhodey and Tony.

"How are we do this? Slow and stealthy or loud and proud?" Harry asked.

"Slow and stealthy first. We have got to try and get the President out of here as fast as possible." Rhodey said.

"I need to find Pepper. I don't suppose you could help with that could you?" Tony asked urgently. Harry paused and closed his eyes as he felt around. He could feel Pepper in a building to their left but he was more surprised by the feeling he was getting from all the people around here. It was almost like their aurae were on fire. That was most definitely not good.

"Found her, she's in a building to our left and has three people in the room with these guys. I just felt these guys and they seem pretty powerful, or at least, they are a lot stronger than normal people. Be careful out there." Harry said as he turned and prepared to head off.

"Wait, where are you going," Tony asked

"You guys need to find your respective targets, while you're doing that, I'm going to start thinning the crowd quietly. I'll wait for you guys to set off the fireworks before I pull out any of the big guns though." Harry said as what appeared to be a ninja to conjured on his back.

"Fine but for the love of God, please don't sound any alarms," Tony said,

"Just real quick, raise your hand if you were ever considered the most deadly and effective assassin alive," Harry said as he was the only one to raise his hand. Both Tony and Rhodes rolled their eyes as he left and ducked into the nearest shadow. Harry crept and ducked behind cargo boxes and anything else that kept him out of sight. He watched as a man walked right by his hiding spot oblivious to him. Harry quickly jumped out and pulled out his blade before cutting the man's head clean off. He didn't get blood as he expected though. Instead, the body started to glow orange and get extremely hot on the site of the wound. Then the glow died down and nothing happened.

"Hm. That was... unexpected." Harry said to himself as he then vanished the body so it wouldn't be found. He then crept along and noticed another patrolman about to walk by. He did the same thing that he did to the last man and noticed that this person, also glowed orange and burned hot at the sight where his head and neck where separated. This time, Harry watched extremely closely on what was happening. It almost seemed like the neck was trying to regenerate for a second before it stopped and the glow would go away. Harry stored that information away. Based on that, he assumed any non-lethal attacks to these beings would just heal and they would get right back up. Good thing he ONLY used lethal attacks.

One by one, he cut down any of these superhumans he could without drawing attention. There weren't actually that many he could kill without being noticed. Most stayed in the line of sight of others so he had to avoid going for them. He did manage to get 10 though. Others were starting to notice their disappearances though since they weren't reporting in. Just before Harry could think about how to solve this problem, he heard gunfire and explosions start echoing in the air.

"Finally!" Harry yelled as he gave away his position. Immediately, three of the superhumans spun to his voice and opened fire with their assault rifles. Harry simply conjured a shield in front of himself as he charged the nearest superhuman.

"Let's see how strong you fucks really are," Harry said as he got close to one and smashed his right fist into its face. This caused the man to stop firing and tumble back a few feet. Harry didn't give him any time to recover as he smashed his knee right into the side of the man's leg causing him to go down. Before Harry could finish him off though, the man seemed to recover enough to smash his elbow into Harry's stomach causing him to fly back and smash into a cargo box. Harry fell to his knees for a moment before getting up with a smile.

"Oooooo you are strong. Good! It only makes this more fun for me." Harry yelled as he charged again, this time with a conjured claymore sword in hand. He swung it down diagonally which the man dodged but clearly didn't expect to see Harry's hilt come smashing into his face causing him to stumble backward. Harry noticed the man's two friends were running towards him so Harry quickly grabbed the man by his hair and yanked him up slightly before shoving the sword directly through his face and skull. It looked very brutal especially as he pulled the blade out and stood over the corpse. His friends, however, where only angered further. The first that ran up to him was a brunette woman that seemed to have an extremely athletic build. She was fast. She threw punches that were fast enough that Harry was just able to dodge. In her rage though, she got too close to him and Harry smashed his left arm into her abdomen. She immediately bent over in pain and before the last man could intervene, Harry had separated her head. He then looked at the last man and cracked his neck.

"Alright, I think I have a good idea of how fast and strong you are. Guess it's time for the kid gloves to come off." Harry said. He didn't even wait for the man to charge. He flashed right in front of the man and brought the sword down vertically on his head and kept pushing till he was completely cut in half. Harry turned and didn't even bother to look at his work as he knew the man was dead. He looked around and saw Tony's suits flying all over the place and taking down the superhumans as well as taking a few casualties of their own. Harry flashed right into the middle of it. Two superhumans had a suit pinned and were trying to tear it in half, Harry didn't wait, he blasted one back with an exploding curse and cleaved the other one in half. He then ran off to his next opponents.

Harry would flash near a group of them and start hitting them with spells and then using his sword to quickly take care of the remnants of the group before moving on. He could see Tony and Rhodes flying around as well as Tony engaged with a superhuman that seemed to be giving him some trouble. Harry quickly flashed up to where he was behind the handsome man that was currently attacking Tony. Tony saw him and gave him an almost unnoticeable nod.

"Give it up Stark! Soon the world will..." The handsome man wasn't able to finish as Harry came up and spartan kicked him directly in the spine causing the man to fly forward. Tony was ready for him and shot his repulsors straight into and through the man's chest as he flew towards him. The man then changed course and flew back before slamming into the ground. He then fell off the crane and dropped all the way down to the ground.

"What took you so long?" Tony asked rhetorically. Harry shrugged with a smile.

"Sorry, I think I was getting too into it. Not every day I get to do this after all. I'm usually stuck behind a desk nowadays." Harry said. Tony just shook his head and then looked over to the building.

"I have to go, Pepper's still in there. Rhodes already took off with the president so he should be back soon. Help my suits hold these guys off will you." Tony said as he blasted off towards the building. Harry shook his head as he jumped back into the fray and started cut people down as his life depended on it. They weren't too much of a challenge as long as you used only lethal force and aimed for the head. Or just blew up the entire body. That seemed to be working as well. Harry started to wind down as fewer and fewer people were showing up to die. He started to look around and immediately locked onto Tony who was on the ground outside of his suit with the asshole handsome dude standing over him. Harry was about to flash down and deal with him when he saw Pepper come in with a giant metal pole and shove it through the dude's chest hard. Harry was quite shocked. He would never expect someone like Pepper to do that. Not just because she shouldn't be physically strong enough, but also because she rarely ever used violence. Except on that one guy a few years ago. Harry flashed down and saw Pepper helping her boyfriend up.

"Damn Pepper. I didn't know you had been hitting the gym. It's definitely working." Harry said as he walked up to the couple with a smile. Pepper looked over and gave him a tired smile.

"Hello to you too Harry. Thanks for coming to help," she said sincerely. Harry waved it off.

"It was no problem. You should have seen how angry Tony sounded when he found out they took you. I honestly was just back up." Harry said.

"Regardless. I really appreciate it, Harry." Tony said. He sounded serious but was already sounding like his normal self again. Harry just smiled. The couple was now just staring at each other in the eyes intensely. It was really intimate so Harry decided to excuse himself.

"Well, I'll leave you with the mess then Tony. I guess I should get back to the office." Harry said. Tony just nodded as he was too distracted with Pepper to comment. Harry took one last look before he flashed away.

Back at the office

As soon as Harry arrived back in his office, his heart almost stopped. Both Tracey and Daphne where still in the room. Except now they seemed to be on top of his desk, almost entirely naked. They seemed quite busy too as Harry was just frozen in complete shock at the activity that was happening in front of him. Tracey noticed him first as she opened her eyes from the pleasure she was receiving at being lip locked and grinding against Daphne. She immediately zeroed in on the frozen Harry who was gaping at them in surprise. Tracey immediately shoved Daphne off and went as red as a tomato. Daphne looked very confused as she looked at Tracey.

"What's wrong?" Daphne asked. Tracey just pointed at Harry. Daphne looked to where she was pointing and then she too froze in shock. A whole minute must of went by before anyone had enough brainpower to say anything. Daphne was the first.

"Ummmm. We can explain?" she said nervously. This seemed to make Tracey even redder. It did manage to snap Harry out of his shock. Harry then looked both sad and disappointed. Daphne briefly wondered if he wouldn't accept the relationship she and Tracey had. It was very rare for two witches to be together in such a way and many wizarding countries still looked down upon it. She didn't think Harry would be biased because of something like sexual preference but the way he was looking now made her doubt herself. However, all that doubt washed away with his next sentence though.

"That desk was made 100 years ago from 2000-year-old Mahogany," Harry said with sadness clear in his voice. Daphne was so thrown off by that, that she could only manage one response

"What?"