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Over the next week, Jean worked with Doom and Reed to wring every bit of information they could from the Hellion. Harry, with some help from Jean and the Human Torch, took another asteroid, hollowing it out to create a second artificial habitat. Needless to say, it too went under several dozen spells designed to turn aside interest in it, not a full Fidelius, not yet, but enough to erase it from the minds of every astrologist even remotely interested in that particular asteroid. Several of them had conniptions about a mistake in their computers, blaming a glitch rather than their own senses, but Harry couldn't care less about that.
Creating the habitat in the asteroid hadn't been easy, but with their powers working in conjunction it had only taken a single day of (figuratively) back breaking work to create the bare habitat. Luckily the asteroids nearest earth were mostly composed of light silicate based rocks so it was relatively quick with Harry's magic, still hollowing it out had given Harry some ideas about mining for the future. After that, Reed provided some atmosphere renewers while Harry provided air, soil and everything else to make it livable. Once that was done, a project that took two solid days, the prisoners were moved into their temporary home.
All of them seemed to like it, the trees and nature being new and interesting to all of them, though the blue-skinned prisoners were still unwilling to give them any information freely. The others, with Harry having come up with a written agreement for them to emigrate to Earth after they had finished questioning them, were now much happier with their lot. On her twice daily visits Emma was now getting more and more information on the Kree society as a whole, and their history that she would pass on to Reed's friend as background.
The history was made of bits and pieces here and there, as if their history wasn't routinely taught, or, she reported after thinking about it, as if many of the details were being changed continually. Defeats and setbacks for example could be subtly changed to become 'tactical losses, but strategic victories' with ease. That kind of thing had happened in certain human regimes, it would easily be within the power of a military oligarchy like the Kree government.
Una and Mar'vell in particular were becoming more and more helpful and were not painting a pretty picture of Kree society. It was Mar'vell who finally revealed that the Supreme Intelligence was a supercomputer based around, or possibly even built of, the greatest brains of the Kree people, welded together into some kind of gestalt mind. It was a disturbing thought, one that worried Harry and Reed both immensely. For one thing, such a mind would be a dangerous opponent, but for another, it followed the lack of individual rights that seemed to be built into the society.
At the moment however, Harry couldn't spend too much time worrying about that, forced to spend quite a bit of time on the business side of things. Saab was now firmly under his control, and thanks to Harry and Jean conducting interviews via the new lie detecting arrays in Magical Minds headquarters (Harry had created illusions while the two of them interviewed dozens at once, none of them realizing they were speaking to an illusion) most of their design team had stayed on.
They were engineers pretty much in the mold that Jean and Harry were looking for, apolitical eggheads who couldn't care less about color, creed or whether a person had irritating or unusual powers or appearance. None of them complained about his policy towards hiring mutants, and forty mutants who had various physical deformities had cleared their screening of them and had the learning to join either the design team or Magical Minds in some capacity, sales for the most part.
All of the engineers salivated at the large-scale model of the hover tech that Harry was prepared to put into production. He had to squash a few of the Saab engineers hard at first to keep them from going off on tangents, but his goal of wanting a new ambulance that could cover distances quickly in the air, thus avoiding traffic and other obstacles, had ignited their imaginations, though most of them didn't seem to understand why he wasn't willing to sell the actual tech.
But that was all right, part and parcel of their shared worldview. None of these men would have been in their seats if they weren't trustworthy, but thanks to Jean's work on the hover tech and its battery, they also had a failsafe to keep someone from trying to figure it out. Several series of small explosive devices would destroy the hover engine if someone tried to remove it from the ambulance once it was installed. Other than that though, he left that project to the engineers, and moved on to other things.
Harry met with the King once more to hammer out an agreement with him and his Prime Minister for updating their current energy grid. The deal hammered out, with Emma coaching Harry via their mental link, was a damn good one for both sides. Britain would buy the generator for the price of four of the old units but get the new generators installed free of charge and Harry's new company would get two years free of any taxation. This would become three if they could start installation on a test area, the city of Devonshire, within the next month. That city's generators were due for an upgrade anyway.
The wizard estimated that once they actually began to bring the pieces together it would only take a few days to put the generators together and then emplace them, so a month was being very generous. Missus Thatcher just didn't seem to understand quite yet the implications of Harry's use of magic. With magic doing two-thirds of the job, only the last minute construction occurred in anything she would recognize as a normal fashion, the work for each of the generators would go through quite quickly.
After discussing it with Emma, they decided not to patent the actual arc itself, only their design for the generator. That way, Tony would be able to create his own though Harry doubted it would be nearly as efficient as theirs since Stark wouldn't have access to Orihalcum. That would probably irritate Tony, but Harry already had his response to that in place. "Then you should have patented it yourself you arrogant sod."
Setting up the distribution for the Orihalcum parts for the generators was tougher than anything else, but thanks to Jean's previous aid in enlarging the magical metal factory and his work on the prisoners temporary domicile (which Harry had plans for) he had known how to do it again. Now that area of the asteroid was almost half again the size of the rest of High Note. After that Harry just had to enlarge a bit more of its interior devices, allowing them to create more of the magically-infused metal at larger sizes and of course reinforce the protections on the area. He still didn't want anyone else in there. Even when the runic array was inactive Fiendfyre was not anything anyone in their right mind wanted to mess with.
After five 24-hour days Harry was finally able to slow down again. The first day of his slow period Harry joined Melody, Illyana and the other children for breakfast for the first time that week. Melody greeted him with a hug and a wide smile, but Harry grimaced a little internally when he returned the hug. He had hoped not to become some kind of absentee parent, but the past few days there'd just been so many things going on. Harry resolved to spend as much time as he could with all the kids for the next few days, since the only things he had planned was to take Ororo out on a date, speak to Gaea, and speak to this goddess that had contacted Dani. He was not looking forward to the meeting for many reasons, but he had agreed to it and would go through with it.
With that in mind he moved over to Ms. Brown and asked her if the kids could be let out of lessons for the next few days. The older woman frowned but eventually nodded. "I suppose so, that'll let me look over some of the CVs of the new teachers that might be joining us in the next few weeks." There was still a month and a half to go before the start of the official school year and while they had already begun to bring in students, they hadn't found more staff just yet. It was certainly necessary, the names in the book were piling up, and Harry wanted to start bringing in more kids who might be in danger in the future.
One of the new students was Douglas Ramsey. His father had switched jobs, becoming the new American ambassador to the UK, and he was the first student to actually have no family issues as well as the first commuting student. He tested out at the junior high-school level, which was rather irritating considering that there was no more room for Douglas over at the mansion.
Testing on Douglas' powers was still going ahead, with Dr. Druid taking over that project for now. His magical powers had finally started to return to him after the horrific injuries he had taken plus the strain of creating his magical hand after his battle with Selene.
"Excellent." Harry said smiling. "In that case, I think we're going to have a little pickup football game." For most of the rest of the day Harry spent time with the kids, along with Piotr and a few of the other team members. When he had heard that the youngsters had been given the days off of learning, Shiang Chi had decided to allow the same for the team.
That was why in the midafternoon Harry found himself standing neck deep in the water of the lake, while the rest of the teams began to fire conjured water pistols at him. The kids seemed to enjoy them, but Harry preferred using his hands to send waves of water at them.
Of course in that area Piotr had the advantage. He proved this by suddenly somersaulting through the air above Harry, then changing into his metal form before impacting the water sending water everywhere and almost drowning a few of the kids with the waves.
Harry laughed, then pulled Piotr under the water with a spell before flinging him out of the waves to land on the shoreline with an 'oof' of displaced air. "No powers we said, but since you broke the accord first…" With that Harry began to point at the kids one after another, shooting out little water jets at them from his fingers.
The shrieks continued for some time, but eventually they became a little too cold when the sun began to set. Harry hit them all with warming charms, then ushered them out of the water and up to the castle.
He carefully did not note that Amara and Piotr along with Dani for some reason stayed out, and began to walk around the edge of the lake away from the Castle. Whatever was going on there was none of his business whatsoever. So long as all of them were happy and it didn't affect the team's ability to work together, he would continue to maintain his ignorance.
Amara and Piotr had decided to try dating, while Dani was simply asking them some questions about relationships in general from a more normal perspective. The fact that she was interested in Piotr was slightly obvious to Amara, but Danielle wasn't the kind of girl who would try to poach, so she was happy enough with her becoming closer to both of them, since she knew that the pickings here were rather low. Nikolai wasn't the type of boy to have an actual relationship with, a one night stand sure, but not a relationship. Illyich was a little too much of a horny cat, and the nickname that Paige had given the other Russian teen 'Emo MC-Broody' was descriptive.
The other teens, the ones Ororo had rescued were already pretty much a pair. While Shiang Chi was within the range of dateable age, there was no chance of him dating any of his students. Paige had found that out a few days ago when she had tried to flirt with him after one of their exercises, and had not only been ignored but talked to later about the inappropriateness of it. Douglas Ramsay seemed a nice boy, but a little too much of a boy for Dani's taste.
Harry followed the kids inside, and after seeing them safely to their own bath, something he and the house-elves had installed several weeks ago in the student's tower, he went to see Ororo and Gaea up in the headmaster's tower. When he walked in Ororo was in a trance, her hands outstretched, a conjuration of some kind growing between them. It flickered in and out, as if Ororo was trying to design it as she created it out of thin air, each flicker showing a more intricate version of some kind of sculpture. It showed her control and her awareness, which Harry was happy to see.
Gaea looked up as he entered, smiling faintly. "She's nearly done for the day. Tomorrow we'll start to concentrate on building her concentration in combat situations. The spells I've taught her will only be useful if Ororo is able to use them in combat. She can't always rely on her teammates to protect her or draw the enemies' attention away in battle."
Harry nodded agreement, looking at the goddess thoughtfully. She appeared as always to be in her mid-thirties, with a full, luscious figure, wearing homespun clothing that wouldn't be out of place in the Middle Ages on a well off farmwife, the entirety looking like a perfect example of motherhood, which made a lot of sense since she was the original mother in many ways. She always did, though her features, hair color and ethnicity changes on a daily, sometimes hourly basis. Harry hoped she agreed to his and Stephen's proposal. "When you're done training Ororo for the day, can you stay around, I want to speak to you about something?"
"Certainly," Gaea replied, cocking her head as she looked at him thoughtfully wondering what Harry wanted from her.
After Ororo finished her last Harry ushered both of them down to the Room of Requirement, where he did the usual three paces before entering, showing Ororo a room she hadn't seen before. Laid out on the floor was a massive mathematical equation, laid out like a spiral. In the center of the spiral was what looked like some kind of ward scheme. It wasn't complex by any means, but it was immensely powerful looking, and even from the moment they walked in both Ororo and Gaea could tell its purpose.
"Anti-demonic?" Gaea asked moving over to the wards, looking at them critically. "There are some bits here I haven't seen before, but the general gist is clear enough."
"Stephen and I have been working on this for a while." Harry began, walking forward ushering Ororo inside. He had hoped that Jean would be here for this as well, but had decided that this wasn't something that would particularly interest her. Yes Jean hated demons, yes she would see the point, but she wasn't a magical, and wouldn't have anything to contribute to the discussion. What was more, he didn't want to take her away from her work up on Hellion.
As the two women studied the equations laid out everywhere as well as the warding scheme itself Harry began his sales pitch. "Much of my original power was taken from others, those I had defeated in magical combat and then cast a specific spell on, draining them of their magic when magic itself determined the rightness of my cause."
That was what Pridea Belica to basically boiled down to, asking magic itself for her ruling. Or at least that was how it worked in his old dimension. Here his mutant powers allowed him to take magic from others, it became his. "Magic that is conquered and taken can be used, changed in a fashion made more malleable."
"I know that." Gaea said looking up at him after reading a few of the lines of mathematical formula, getting a glimpse of where this conversation was going. "I well remember what happened after you drained the yellow one, you thrust your magic into me."
Somehow the way she said that made Harry flush and Ororo chuckle. Gaea went on, a small smirk on her face. "I can still feel your magic swirling around me, it's so amazingly potent, much more potent than my own."
Harry coughed uncomfortably. "Yes well, this is the arithmantic work showing a spell to summon up that magic then bind it into this ward scheme, which will cover the entire world."
Gaea simply nodded, having already deduced that while Ororo gasped looking over at him in shock. She had long wondered what he and Stephen were working on but this was beyond what she had expected. "What would the point of this be?"
"This runic array will keep out anyone trying to appear on Earth from the lower dimensions regardless of their powers. In fact the harder you hit it, the more power you give it. That was a bitch to add in, but Stephen was able to figure it out." Harry shook his head in admiration. He had never really been good at formal arithmency, he was much more of a 'seat of your pants' kind of spell caster, and that was before learning how to use pure magic without the molding effect of spells. Stephen however was very much more in the Hermione mold. Not only had he thought up that added bit, he had worked out how to improve it.
"How many dimensions are we talking about here?" Gaea asked intently.
"The lowest dimensions up to basically the middle ground. I wouldn't be able to stop the Asgardians say or possibly an Elder God unless one had a more demonic portfolio than normal, but Demon Lords and anything similar it would stop cold."
"How long would it take to activate, would it activate all at once or over time? And why are you showing this to me in the first place? That magic is yours still even if it is now in me."
Again Harry flushed a little at her tone, and Ororo giggled, a lovely sound to his ears every time he heard it. "Yes, well in any event, we need your cooperation and approval to make this work. After all that magic might be mine, but I can't access it while it is in the ley lines. You'll have to push it out to where I can call upon it, while Stephen and I will be writing out the arrays on the ground above them where the ley lines come closest to the surface." That would be a trial, since some of those places would be within cities under buildings and other things, but it was still doable.
Gaea frowned, thinking hard. Some of these equations she understood, some of them she didn't and she didn't like that. This was after all her body they were talking about. It could be as simple as covering her with some armor, but what if it was chains instead? Gaea trusted Harry, and she of course trusted Ororo's judgment of him, but what if someone else could turn this to other purposes? She said so aloud.
Harry reassured her that that was impossible, it was based off the magic he had taken from the yellow one, no one else could use that.
But Gaea was still uncertain. "I cannot give you an answer yes or no at this point, I simply don't know enough about the magic in use here." Runes had never been an area she delved into, nor wards and she had certainly never dealt with magic taken in battle on this large a scale.
Having anticipated that Harry simply nodded. He sent one of the house elves to grab some books, as well as several dozen sheets of paper covered with notes handing them over to Gaea to look through.
Smiling at his thoughtfulness Gaea nodded. "I will look over these and get back to you." Despite being a goddess, her ability to take in new knowledge wasn't actually that much faster than a mortals. Learning and the ability to continue to evolve in new and interesting ways was one of the things that set humans and other mortals apart from gods. A god could be in two places at once, concentrate on hundreds of things at once in different places but actually taking in new knowledge wouldn't be that much quicker than a human's regardless.
Harry nodded again, and Gaea slowly disappeared, taking the books and notes with her. He turned to Ororo smiling faintly. "So, I was hoping to spend time with the kids later tonight maybe watch a movie, but tomorrow night, would you like to go on a date with me?"
Ororo laughed, shaking her head in amusement. "Do you really have to ask, Harry?"
OOOOOOO
Harry was woken up rather rudely the next morning, when Melody and Illyana entered the room and tossed paint filled balloons on him and his bedmates. The evening before, all four of them had been able to get free from their various duties to spend the night together, yet were now facing an unexpected consequence of that. Emma gasped in anger as the first volley of balloons smacked into them, but by the time the second was in the air Harry had formed a shield over the bed.
"I'm wondering if we should get that gargoyle you mentioned a time or two Harry, could certainly keep out the pranksters." Jean said laughing and looking down at herself. She had been splattered by one of the paint bombs, and now looked rather patriotic with her red hair, white negligee and the blue of the paint splashed all over her.
Emma growled, fighting with herself not to reach out with her telepathy to send some pain thoughts to the little monsters. "This is why I don't like kids." she growled.
Beside her Harry laughed, watching the kids all race away seeing that he had already put up a shield against them. "Now, now," he said, flicking his hand over all three of them.
Ororo had been looking down in amusement at the green all over her naked body, and Harry had to fight himself from offering to lick it off. The paint suddenly flew into the air from their bodies, coagulating into a single ball above his head. With another thought he sent it racing after the kids. Then he added an engorgement charm to it before it was out of sight down the stairwell.
Emma was still grumpy, not being really able to wake up without her coffee, though the manner of this wake-up was such that even with coffee she wouldn't have been willing to face it. Still, she took a moment to kiss each of them languidly, enjoying the jolt of passion she felt as her hands trailed down Ororo's bare back to her magnificent rear. And when Jean and her breasts pressed together in such a manner that Harry, waiting his turn, had to rearrange himself a bit. Yet, she most enjoyed grinding against his waist before finally standing up, grinning wickedly at the erection she had just given him. "I have to go, I might be able to stop in tomorrow for a time, but I don't know just yet."
"Will you be free next weekend?" Harry asked. He looked over at Jean. "I was thinking the four of us could spend time together before the two of us take our little cruise?"
"That's fine." Jean said smiling, which caused Harry to smile at her, kissing her on a cheek while the other ladies answered in the affirmative. While Jean wanted Harry's attention on her their first time going all the way she had no problem spending time with the others before that. Frankly, all that she felt was irritation at how long it had taken. She'd been ready for this weeks ago, she desperately wanted to feel what Ororo felt, what gave her that small smile of hers all the time, that sense of walking on air. Jean wanted very, very much to take that final step with Harry.
Ororo must've sensed that because the moment Emma left to have a shower she turned to Jean. "Jean, if you don't wish to put it off until everything is perfect, then you can tell Harry that you know."
"Yeah I know, but this is going to be fantastic in any event, and if he wants to put the two of us going all the way off until next week, I can deal with it. I do after all want my first time to be romantic and his plan to take the Hellion out into space is about the most romantic and amazingly interesting thing I can think of."
"If you're sure?" Ororo said pulling her into a hug and kissing her on the cheek.
"I'm sure," Jean replied. "Besides, by that time I might be able to take a break from my work up on the Hellion. Doom and Reed are helping out as much as they can, but Reed wants to return to his own projects, and he's been called away twice since we began on this by 'Fantastic Four issues'." She held up her hands to make quotation marks there, shaking her head. "I have to say I'm beginning to be a firm believer in the spandex dilemma."
"And Doom has been called away practically every day. I'm not certain why, something about the issues building on his country's borders. One of them I know was completely unconnected with the Red Skull though, one of the local bully boys was getting big headed, and tried to take out a shipment of something to one of the towns on his country's borders."
"I saw that on the news the other morning." Ororo replied. "He annexed a bit of Uzbekistan didn't he?"
"Something like that, though I don't know if it'll stick. There've already been mutterings on the international scene, but if the Fantastic Four isn't interested enough to go in against Doom, the UN's ability to combat him is very limited."
She had shared that with Harry, and he was beginning to realize that the new agreement with Doom was quite a bit broader in scope than the first, and not nearly so well worded. So long as Doom was acting against the Red Skull and confined his actions to the nations around his own, Harry and the FF couldn't act against him whatever his methods without breaking that agreement. Since Harry had only just taken the first consignment of five construction bots from Doom he knew exactly how important that deal was for his space-borne ambitions.
Naturally of course, Doom was going to take advantage of this carte blanche, but so long as he didn't murder whole villages wholesale to prove he could, Harry wouldn't move against him. That probably meant Latveria was going to grow to three or four times its current size in the next few months, but, well, there were dictators and then there were dictators. The citizens under Victor's rule actually had a far better life than those under any of the other local 'governments'.
Ororo suspected she knew the reason why Doom was playing so nice of late, and it had everything to do with Cynthia, Victor's mother. It was very easy for people to fall into roles in life, especially when you only had yourself to answer to. But Cynthia did not see her son as a villain or a dictator, no she saw him as more, not quite as a hero, but most definitely as a just king. Ororo felt that Victor Von Doom had found he wanted to live up to those expectations. This of course would not change his ambitions, but perhaps the way he went about them would.
Ororo nodded, and the two of them stretched in bed before getting out to join Emma in the shower. And if that took somewhat longer than Emma had expected it to, she certainly wasn't going to be complaining.
OOOOOOO
That evening Harry and Ororo left the castle flying into the evening sky. They flew on at supersonic speeds, playing a game of tag occasionally, but other times simply taking in the magnificent vista below them, until they landed in Athens. Harry had booked them a reservation in one of the local five star restaurants.
They talked on and off during the meal about both work and plans for the future, both personal and non-. It surprised Harry how far along Ororo was in her education with Gaea, and Ororo nodded eagerly at the idea of taking lessons from him at the end of that, but cautioned Harry that she would want to spend time with Kitty teaching her as well. "I realize that in many ways she's been my apprentice almost since the day we met, but I would like to give her some magical knowledge of her own, if for no other reason than self-defense."
Harry nodded grimly at that. There had been three attacks on mutants in the states yesterday, all of them going off at the same time which showed a dismaying amount of organization. One of them was pure Friends of Humanity, and Scott and the other X-Men had hammered that one, but the other two while smaller had been bloodier. One of the mutants threatened had been lynched in the South, and the demonstration in New Orleans had run into the local thieves guild, whose members included a few mutants. That had turned violent on both sides, though luckily it hadn't evolved into any deaths.
Worse, there'd been several such riots in China, one in Japan, and more than a few in the Middle East. Africa and Europe however, seemed to be following the UK's stance thankfully, clamping down hard on any violence. They were desperate for Harry's potions, and more than a few hospitals were now pressuring their governments to agree to whatever concessions Harry wanted in that area.
On the one hand it was good to see humans standing up for mutants, even if they were part of the thieves guild, but on the other hand the level of violence was wrong. It had come out of nowhere, and it almost pointed to someone else stirring things up on both sides. Harry was concerned about that possibility, and broached that thought now and Ororo nodded slightly. "I'd wondered something along those lines myself. I'd hoped I was simply jumping at shadows. Still if you see a pattern there, there might be something actually to see in the first place."
"It wasn't me who came up with it actually. Dennis reported spotting signs of something along those lines a few weeks ago, though when he hunted his leads down it was a false alarm. I'm beginning to think that it wasn't though, and I've asked him to follow it up." Harry murmured, leaning back in sipping at his Merlot thoughtfully.
"I intend to use Betsy to start sifting through the information with Dennis once she joins us. Her work on Miss Steed isn't going very well, Jean is thinking of asking Charles to lend his aid with her once he's satisfied with the young Vietnamese girl's progress."
His mouth tightened dangerously, and magic flickered in his eyes for a moment. "He's told me that even in public she still flinches whenever a man is within a few feet of her, and has woken up several times with nightmares despite Charles doing his best to dampen them out."
Ororo nodded, then changed the subject. From there she took command of the night, and they flew down to Cairo from Athens. She showed Harry some of where her childhood had been, going into more details then she had shared previously. Harry responded in the same manner, going into detail on his first few adventures with magic, and his issues with Snape.
From there Ororo moved out into the savanna with Harry following, flying almost nape of the earth as they went, with Ororo telling him about this or that spot, though she steered clear of the area where she had previously been worshiped by the tribesmen living there.
From the savanna they entered a jungle, with Ororo still leading the way. Harry wondered where they were going, and was about to voice the question when they arrived. The jungle canopy below them changed, becoming dotted with large stone collations, a city buried under the jungle's growth. Ororo touched down, looking around. Harry joined her, surreptitiously casting a spell on both of them to keep away flies and other bugs. "Where exactly are we?"
"The goddess mentioned this place to me, it was apparently the capital city of my people's kingdom, the kingdom my ancestors ruled as sorceress queens. I wanted to see it, both because it is part of my heritage, and because it would remind me of the immutability of the passing of time."
"Ah, a 'you too are human' sort of thing?" Harry said linking his arm with hers as they continued to walk down what had been a street in the distant past.
"Yes," she responded nodding her head, leaning against him for a moment. "I'd like to think that what we are doing, that what we are in the process of building will last forever, but nothing lasts forever. This place is proof of that."
"I wouldn't say that." Harry murmured shaking his head, seeing this as the perfect moment to bring up a topic he had wanted to broach for some time. "Wizards can live for a very long time. Depending on how powerful they are, and whatever your ancestors might have been, your magical core is now part of you like that of a wizard or witch. Sorcerers and others, those who have initially no magical potential but later grow it might not be as connected to their magic as wizards are, but even they live for a long time. And I really doubt that the Phoenix will allow her avatar to die of old age at any point in the near future."
Ororo looked at him in surprise. "How long do you think you would live? How long do you think I might live?"
"I don't know, your magical core is still growing. Mine is stable for now, but I could still take in more magic slowly if I wanted to. In my old dimension it was not unheard of for a wizard or witch to live to be 260 or so. It was one of the reasons why their society was so slow to change. Dumbledore was an old man by the time I knew him, pushing 215, but he still had as much energy as a 40-year-old despite his best efforts to hide it. I am many, many times more powerful than he was and by this point so are you."
"I see." Ororo murmured, shaking her head at the sheer enormity of the bombshell that Harry had just let drop. There were implications there she wanted to think about, but right now she simply nodded taking it in and moving on.
Their attention was arrested by the image of someone's face in the carved stonework of the wall they were passing. Harry held his magical light closer, whistling silently. "The hair looks quite a bit like yours, and I guess the blue eyes are a family thing."
Ororo nodded, reaching out a gentle hand to touch the face of the other woman. Her face was much more angular than Ororo's, and the jewelry shown on it was something that she would never wear, far too ostentatious, as were the large blue glass balls set into the eyes. Still, it was obviously the face of one of her ancestors. "If you say anything about this idea of my face being preserved for all time or anything of that nature Harry I will smack you." She said, turning away.
"The only way I would put your face in stone would be as some kind of prank. A painting maybe, of all of us together might be a nice idea, but not anything more."
Ororo sighed faintly looking around. "I would rather like to come back here and explore, but during the day. For now, I'm done here."
Harry nodded, gathering Ororo into his arms and kissing her tenderly. They both closed their eyes reveling in the kiss and when Ororo opened her eyes they were back in Hogwarts in the headmaster's quarters. She smiled, leaning away from Harry just slightly to nuzzle his neck while Harry's hands began to work at the buttons holding her dress closed.
A moment later she stood back, stepping out of her dress to stand there in all her naked glory, and Harry breathed in faintly, staring at her in awed wonder. "You are so beautiful," he said in a throaty sort of voice leaning in to kiss her again. "So beautiful, inside and out."
Ororo smiled, even as her body began to respond. "As are you my love." She stepped back to the bed laying down on it while pulling Harry on top of her.
If they had stayed a moment longer in the city of Ororo's ancestors, they would have noticed the blue eyes of the carving they had been looking at suddenly lighting up for a moment before fading back to blue. Elsewhere in the city similar lights began to appear in other faces carved in the stone wall of the largest house, before they too faded.
OOOOOOO
The next morning Ororo slept in. Emma and Jean spent time together at Emma's mansion, it being so early the two teens weren't up and about. Harry however woke up early, disengaged himself from Ororo with quite a lot of regret, then dressed. Yesterday had been a necessary battery recharging day, but now he had one more issue he had to deal with before the next crisis fell on them.
After calling ahead, Harry teleported into that pocket dimension waiting room of Stephen Strange. Soon Clea had opened the door, greeting him warmly. "Harry, how are you doing?"
"Oh the usual, too busy by half with far too many projects to concentrate on. And yourself?" Harry asked, moving through the door into the much more normal seeming house of the Sorcerer Supreme.
"We are well, Wanda's education is proceeding apace in magic, and Stephen and I have agreed she will be ready to go to school this coming year. Her magical and emotional control have improved enough that we are willing to let her interact with the rest of the world. I understand Stephen has already discussed this with Charles and she is enrolled in Bayville High, odd names humans use sometimes. Having someone else around with similar issues may be an aid."
Harry nodded, not having heard that before, but frankly much more interested in what he had come here to ask Stephen about. Charles and the X-men had proven to be a decent support before, he would trust them to do the same for Wanda. Moments later, Clea showed him into Stephen's library, or rather one of them, the one that normal visitors were allowed to see.
"Ah, Harry, right on time." Stephen looked up at him, his eyes serious for a moment. "Unfortunately, I have nothing to report about that research project you gave me."
"Nothing?" Harry asked sharply.
"Nothing I could trust about their magic or even the Asgardians, the Vanir or the Æsir who were apparently two distinct groups before a war occurred between them, themselves." Stephen replied sadly, but a certain set in his brow warned Harry he didn't like the sharpness of Harry's tone.
In response Harry nodded conciliatorily and Stephen went on with a nod. "Here we are running into the concerted effort of the Christian missionaries to erase all signs of the original religion of the area, they saw it as simple paganism. I've found some examples of faith based magic being used, though nothing about even the effect they created, and some bits and pieces. Most of those pieces however are seen as mere myths and legends rather than fact."
"And this research includes going into the tomes left by your predecessors?"
"There is some talk of a battle between pantheons decades before the coming of Christianity to that area of the world, but that is all. Nothing about the magics of the Asgardians, nor their runes." Harry could tell Stephen was not happy about what he said.
Harry for his part was not happy at all. Going to meet a self-purported goddess, and Harry had yet to see anything that indicated the Asgardians were not the gods from the Norse faith, with so little known about her abilities or attitude was not pleasant. But worse was… "This is beginning to look a little too deliberate to me, though I didn't get any impression about that from Balder."
Stephen shrugged. "I would concur, but none of my research has shown anything. I could use the Eye of Agamotto to scry out information, but that won't give me any background about the Asgardians as a whole, which is what you want."
"No need for that I suppose. Can I look at the notes you've compiled?" Stephen nodded, and handed Harry a few pages worth of notes that the man had compiled researching into the Asgardians. Most of it, as he had said was conjecture and myth, but it was better than nothing.
When he left Harry was slightly more informed on the Asgardians, but not nearly as much as he had hoped, and nothing whatsoever about their type of magic. Still, he could no longer put off this meeting. Apparating back to Hogwarts he then moved outside the castles wards. Looking at the small quartz crystal that Danielle has given him from Hel, he broke it in half as instructed.
A second later Harry felt a magical tug on his body then Harry was standing in what looked like an ancient hall of some kind. It was quite large and well lit by several torches but the shadows seemed deeper than they should be given the lighting. There were also several windows but the sky outside was misty and extremely cold looking. There were no tapestries or wall hangings, and some of the stone of the walls and ceiling looked… odd, too white to be natural. For some reason there was a small well set into the floor in one corner. For some reason Harry was wary of the water, its color and the slowness of its movements bothering him.
He continued to look around for a moment then a voice interrupted his perusal. "I am not used to being kept waiting, most particularly by a mortal, Harry Potter."
Harry looked towards the voice, and saw a raised dais at the end of the hall, seemingly formed out of an extrusion from the floor. The throne sitting on it was carved from the same rock, but it had been embedded with several different colors of jewels, red, black and orange gems flickering in the light of the nearest torches, flickering in the wind. Harry wondered idly where the wind was coming from since the windows seemed to all have glass in them keeping out the breeze, but he shook off his curiosity to look at the woman who had spoken.
She was very definitely a woman, every square inch of her was devoted to this simple statement. The red armor she was wearing didn't so much cover her form as accent it, and it looked about as useful in actual combat as a paper shield. Her hair was a lustrous black that seemed to glow slightly in the light of the cavern, and what could be seen of her face was gorgeous, with a mask covering her eyes and upper face. Her lips were twisted into a scowl at the moment, but they looked sensual and full, with a black lipstick covering them.
"I am unused to being called for meetings with ancient gods or goddesses myself." Harry replied blandly, stepping towards her. "You are not as I pictured you, going from the legends about you at any rate."
"Every girl is required to have at least one makeover in their lives Mr. Potter." The woman laughed throatily staring down at him. Despite having been rather angry with him at first, being in Harry's presence was rather… intoxicating. Mostly because of the magic he was putting off in waves, he was a rather handsome fellow but that wouldn't be enough on its own, there was something else. Something not magical or even inherent in Harrys physical body, but a sense of something she couldn't quite put her finger on. Potential perhaps? She didn't know what it was, but she liked it.
With a wave of her fingers through the air her form suddenly shifted, becoming still gorgeous on one half of her body, but dead and decaying on the other. "Perhaps I should look like this you think?" Hela said then banished it with a snarl. "You could do that too you know, change your physical being like that. You could've been a god, but you turned it down. How much did that tempt you?"
"How do you know about that?" Harry said suddenly worried.
Hela laughed, a melodic sound but there seemed to be something inside it, some kind of echo or timbre that set Harry's hackles to rising. "I've watched you Mr. Potter, those magnificent wards might keep out my physical form and even all direct magics but I can still use my scrying bowl to see through them. I saw the physical manifestation of your mental battle with the yellow one, and saw you feed the excess power into Gaea. Answer me, how tempted were you?"
"Not so much tempted as terrified." Harry replied honestly. "I never wanted that much power, I never wanted to be a god, and that was before meeting Death for the first time or even the second time and figuring out how much paperwork I'd have to deal with. As a mortal, I am much more free to act than any god would be."
"Too true." Hela said grinding her teeth a little at the amount of limitations that she faced acting at all outside Hel. She crossed her legs, smiling internally as Harry's eyes flicked downwards for a millisecond to catch the movement before flicking back up to her face. "Still, with the power you have, you have many of the advantages of godhood, including long life. Have you considered what that might mean for your own entanglements?"
Harry's eyes narrowed. "Get to the point my lady, you did not ask me to come here to merely bandy words with me."
"I did not ask to speak to you." Hela shot back, her tone suddenly frosty. "If you were any other mortal I would strip your soul from your body for that bit of cheek. I do not ask to speak to anyone, I summon and they obey. I am the Queen of Hel, the Vanir goddess of death. This is my realm you are in Mr. Potter, I would ask you to curb your insolence, lest I decide to keep you here and teach you some manners."
Harry's eyebrow rose, and the magical miasma pouring off him began to be a flood as he tensed ready and waiting for action. After a moment however Hela smiled. "Yet even now you show no fear. Such courage would have served you well as a Viking, though of course none of them would be so stupid as to not fear me in my own realm."
"I am not a Viking." Harry said simply, staring up at her. "While I am more than willing to talk to you Hela, I will talk to you as an equal not as some kind of worshiper or supplicant."
Hela's eyes flashed, but whether with anger or some other emotion Harry couldn't say. She then began to laugh, and this time it sounded much more real. After a moment she shook her head. "It has been a long time since any but dear 'Grandfather' Odin," She nearly spat that word. "would speak to me like that. You truly are a man from a different world Harry Potter, but very well. I was simply asking because it fascinated me that you might have been a god, and that you love two mortal women despite knowing you will outlive them, that is all."
Harry smiled internally. It seemed Hela hadn't made the connection between magic and long lifespans just yet. Yet inwardly he also made a note, seeing as according to the myths, Odin should have been her uncle rather than grandfather. A small, inconsequential change, but one more added to the small yet growing pile of inconsistencies. "I might not be together with them forever, but our time with one another will be sweet nonetheless. However long I can expect to live, I still think like a human, day by day and week by week."
"Well answered." Hela said nodding. "And there is something to be said for your mortal lives. It gives you such urgency to get things done. Speaking of which before we get to the main reason why I wished to speak to you, the young girl I asked to hand you that stone, Danielle. There is something odd about her, something of the Æsir, something I can't see."
Hela's tone made it clear how much she didn't like that. "I would ask you to watch her closely, I cannot say why but something about her tells me that Moonstar will be important."
Harry's eyebrows rose once more, wondering what the heck that was about. Dani hadn't shown signs of magic just yet, though since she hadn't been with them for a month yet that might not mean much. Kitty didn't start to show signs of magical potential until just a few weeks ago after all, while at the other end of the spectrum Illyana showed magical potential before she even arrived in Hogwarts. "I can agree to that. Now, the real reason why you wished to talk to me?"
"I am not pleased with being a messenger for anyone else, but my lady Death is such that I do this gladly." Hela replied, a slight note of veneration in her tone. She waved a hand, and out from the stalagmites behind her throne came a large globe of Earth. It was made out of different precious metals, and on its surface glowed several points like small rubies.
"Because of her position Lady Death cannot act on her own no matter what she might wish. But there are some that infuriate her. Any being that takes souls from her falls under that heading, and the Demon Lord Mephisto was one such, bargaining with lives and souls that Death should have returned to the wheel. As such, she decided to reward you with this." One well-manicured nail tapped the globe as it hovered in the air next to her. "She noticed that you dislike demons, and their uses in the past have angered her enough for her to wish to give assistance to you."
"And this is?" Harry asked looking at the globe closely stepping forward. Hela surreptitiously moved the globe back slightly, causing Harry to move forward almost within touching distance. With that, she moved it into his arms while she answered his question.
"It is supposed to show you demonic influence in the world." she said nodding her head at the globe. "It will update itself, so long as it has a ready supply of magic nearby."
"Very interesting." Harry said, looking at the globe now with interest. In particular he looked at Japan, which was the headquarters of the Hand, and noticed a red icon there indicating that, or something similar. "Very interesting indeed." While on the surface Harry was still calm in inside he was doing cartwheels and dancing around a jig. He loathed demons, and killing every single one of the things would please him no end.
"Take it with my blessing," Hela said, reaching forward to stroke his chin and turn his eyes up towards her. "But do remember what I said, your girlfriends will fade away and die long before you do. Perhaps you should look elsewhere for more permanent and equal companions."
"I will bear that in mind." Harry said, stepping back slightly from where she'd touched him. "Am I free to go?"
Hela was tempted to say no and see what would happen, it wasn't often that someone entered her realm and was allowed to leave it at all, let alone someone who had been insolent to her. She wasn't like that Grecian moron Hades, those souls who entered her realm, never left it.
Yet Hela knew that Harry might well be able to break through anything she put up in any event. Best not to waste the resources, time or goodwill she might have earned.
With a wave of her hand Harry was once more banished back to where he had been standing when he broke the quartz crystal, leaving Hela alone for a moment.
Harry Potter was even more fascinating in person, but after mature reflection Hela decided to take a wait-and-see attitude for a time. He intrigued her yet in the end, she was a goddess. She could not simply set aside her pride to share a man's affections with another woman, whatever her idle thoughts on the matter. She was not that slut Aphrodite, nor was she Greek. She was of the Vanir and she would not share. Yet for all the strength she tried to put into that thought, Hela could not totally banish the idea, nor the other emotion that came with it: jealousy.
OOOOOOO
Harry immediately moved under the Hogwarts wards again, then went in search for Ororo. By this point she had woken up and was once more learning from Gaea, which suited Harry very well. "Ladies." he said, coming into the headmaster's quarters.
"If you're here to ask whether or not I've made a decision Mr. Potter, the answer is no not yet." said the goddess. "I am not very mathematically inclined in the first place, and it will take me some time to go over the information you gave me." Moreover, she wished to get a third opinion, but was uncertain who to speak to about it.
Harry shook his head. "I'm not here to ask you about that, I'm here about this." With that he placed the large globe down in front of the two of them. "This is apparently a gift passed on to me from death, by lady Hela which shows where demonic influence is occurring."
Gaea's eyes narrowed at the mention of Hela. She knew what was going on with the Asgardians, but she had no wish to tangle with Those Who Watch From Above in Shadow. Still, Hela was one of the three Asgardians who could see the prison they were in if she could start to see the bars in the first place. "If Hela said that this came from Death, then it was the truth. Of all the aspects of death, Hela is most definitely the most certain and devoted. She cannot be bought, gamed, stayed, coerced or tricked. If Death says to her to pass something on she will do it. Nor will she try to impose any tricks or anything of that nature. She takes her duties very seriously."
"That was the impression I got between, well her coming on to me and her haughty, arrogant nature." Harry scratched his chin bemusedly. "Still if this is what it appears to be, it's a major boon to us. One I think we need to act upon as soon as possible. So love, want to go on a bug hunt?"
"Certainly." Ororo said that her eyes narrowed. "Right after you tell me how this Hela woman was flirting with you."
Harry gulped a little but answered gamely. After all, it wasn't his fault was it?