AN: Oh look! A new chapter! Beta'd by bizmiard.

Chapter Six

With his newfound free time, Harry started self-defense classes in the space he had below his apartment.

During the day he would teach others how to protect themselves, putting his hard earned skills to use. Harry had always been a good teacher, now hopefully others could benefit.

At night Harry would make an elaborate dinner all for himself and desserts to share with his students the next day. He would then make a cup of tea and enjoy a good book – the quiet life.

Harry was in bed sleeping when he felt it – a huge punch to the gut followed by the flight of many souls into the hands of death, something that he hadn't felt for a very long time.

Sitting straight up, Harry immediately went for the remote control and turned on the television to a news channel. He flipped back and forth between various channels for a while before he finally saw it.

Breaking news: We're getting reports of an enormous object crashing onto the Earth. The object landed right off the island of Manhattan, covering an entire block and crushed everything beneath it during landing. Initial reports estimate over hundred people would have resided in that space and are probably dead.

With the appearance of this foreign object, people are wondering whether this is another alien encounter and whether we should be prepared for more. Many are choosing to flee the area until the crisis has passed.

Harry stared in horror at the object on his screen. It looked like a large ship, ten times the size of a muggle airplane.

So maybe Harry still had a saving people thing going on, but his first instinct was to get to New York as soon as possible. With the image of the object firmly in his head, Harry turned on the spot and disapparated away.

"You've got to be kidding me."

Tony was not ready to save the world at 4 in the morning – on the fourth all nighter he had pulled this week alone to upgrade his and SHIELD's tech.

A bright green light illuminated the sky as a portal opened above the city. Sadly, Tony heard that ominous boom where the alien ship landed and saw the ship land in the middle of Manhattan from his penthouse windows. Not fun.

Tony sent outgoing calls to all the members of the Avengers and Fury, implementing step one of the plan. Director Fury responded first.

"I'm assuming you saw the spaceship, Stark," Fury said through the screen.

"You know what they say about assuming, Director," Tony said falsely cheerful, "I just really like to call everyone early in the morning for no particular reason."

"Cut the crap Stark and just implement step two," Fury said. Tony just shot Fury a look and started messing around with his holograms, inputting various commands.

In a couple of pre-planned orders, Tony gave directions to the NYPD and civilians to start evacuation of the island with the invaded area as a priority. He watched the various screen with scary intensity, ready to intervene at a moment's notice.

"The last civilians should have evacuated in the area in about 10 minutes. We should get ready to leave." Steve told Tony.

"You go first," Tony said distracted, "I have a couple more things to do here. A couple more shots to drink too if I'm going to get through today." Steve shot him an outraged look.

"It's no time to get drunk, Stark!" he said. Tony rolled his eyes.

"Off caffeine, Capsicle. Now go do your saving thing until I get there."

Harry landed with a thump on something metallic and hard. It was mostly silent, though there were soft muffled yells and movement, as if something was happening very far away.

He appeared to be in end of a long empty hallway. It was quite dark with minimal eerie lighting. Harry decided to walk forward.

His own footsteps echoed down the hallway and Harry wondered if the whole setup of wherever he landed was specifically designed to unnerve whoever entered it. Then again, Harry didn't exactly take the main entrance. He really hoped he landed in the right place after all.

Then Harry reached a door when it opened by itself with a soft hiss. He walked through and appeared to have entered some sort of control room. It was empty.

"So you're the one they call the Master of Death," a voice said from behind him. Harry spun around and shot a stunner.

The figure stood unfazed as the stunner went right through him.

"That was rude of you," the figure said. It was obvious to Harry that whoever stood before him wasn't human. He had dark purple skin, glowing yellow eyes, and was taller than the average human at around 8 feet tall. He held his hands up in a placating fashion. "Relax. I only wish to talk."

"If you only wanted to talk," Harry replied tersely, "you wouldn't have killed a hundred and forty two lives landing your ship in the middle of a city." The figure only looked amused.

"That is only a warning," he stated, "I could do so much more if I wanted to. Your mortal humans stand no chance."

"And who are you to threaten us?" Harry asked, "Warnings usually are followed up with demands of some sort. I do hope you aren't too disappointed when you don't get what you want." The figure laughed while Harry gave him a cold stare.

"Now that would be telling, wouldn't it?" the figure responded, "My name is Thanos. If you really don't know who I am, you aren't much of a threat."

"But you seem to know who I am," Harry replied, "or at least what I represent. So obviously I'm a much bigger threat than you're willing to admit."

"You were an unknown, but now you are much less so," Thanos said with a piercing glare that unnerved Harry. Thanos seemed to see into him somewhere beyond the physical. Then Thanos sneered and said with a chuckle, "I do hope that you're prepared for the upcoming battle. You'll need to be."

A large burst of energy knocked Harry back into the wall as the image of Thanos disappeared. Momentarily disoriented, it took Harry a while to realize that the thumps weren't just in his head and that alien creatures were coming towards him.

The first one jumped towards him and nearly landed a blow before Harry shot a cutting curse in its direction. The remaining eight alien creatures jumped at him after that and forced Harry to follow up with a wide-area blasting hex. With some transfigured spikes, Harry managed to finally kill the creatures.

Blasting his way towards the exit, Harry killed more creatures that seemed to be pouring out of the ship into the city. Luckily, there seemed to be very few civilians wandering about and the creatures were mainly causing damage to the nearby building and cars.

Harry continued to fight the monsters and noticed others that were helping out as well. It was hours before the creatures were finally all dead. The creatures were not very smart, but due to their large numbers were able to create a lot of damage and tire out those fighting them.

Nearly passed out with exhaustion, Harry sat down to rest and was approached by a few of the figures Harry recognized as fighting the aliens. As they got closer and closer, he widened his eyes in recognition.

"I think you all have some explaining to do," Harry said tiredly, "fighting aliens were not high on my to-do list."

"It might be number one, now," Steve said, "we're going to need your help. The fight isn't anywhere near over."

"You could start by explaining who Thanos is." Harry said with a snort.

Not really in a mood to explain things post-battle, Steve told Harry to freshen up before meeting them all at Stark Tower in an hour. Tony gave Steve a look that said he saw his home being volunteered without his permission, which Steve promptly ignored.

Harry agreed and disappeared with a pop and the Avengers made their way back to the tower themselves to rest before what was sure to be a mentally exhausting talk.

During the debrief with Fury, Steve noted that the attack was fairly minor for what they were expecting.

"It was too easy," Steve said, "their numbers made the fight last longer than necessary, but the creatures themselves weren't hard to overcome. It was way easier than fighting the Chitauri." Fury looked around at the others for confirmation. None of them disagreed and none of them looked happy about it.

"It appears," Natasha said, "that they may have only been a distraction for something else." Fury raised an eyebrow. "What's the point of launching an easily foiled attack?" Natasha continued, "Thanos clearly knows how capable we are from the last invasion. Such an attack may have kept us busy but it no way would lead to our defeat. I conclude he was distracting us."

"From what?" Bruce asked, "Was he looking to do some reconnaissance? Perhaps he planted something like a bomb somewhere on the Earth." The grim suggestions didn't make anyone feel better.

"Maybe it had something to do with our new friend Houdini?" Tony suggested. Not a moment later a crack could be heard coming from the corner the room. Fury promptly shot in that direction.

Harry appeared to look amused (but unharmed) as he approached them.

"Is that how you treat all your guests?" he asked.

"Wow you certainly know how to hit a cue." Tony quipped. Fury just shot Harry a glare.

"Most guests use a door or something," Fury replied, "thanks for joining us, Mr. Potter."

"Oh you know," Harry said casually as he took a seat, "I'm not the biggest fan of aliens killing people. Also if aliens make their way all the way to Earth just to talk to me, you'd think they would land on the right side of the Atlantic Ocean."

"To talk to you?" Fury said coldly.

"Yes. Let's get right to it. I answered a bunch of your questions earlier and now I need you to answer mine. First, who in the world in Thanos and what is his plan?"

"A really powerful alien bent on sacrificing Earth to Death," Tony replied, "next question."

"Death?" Harry said, shocked. "Where do you get your information?"

"From my brother and I," Thor replied this time. "We are from Asgard and have dealt with Thanos many times over the millennia. We are here to aid Earth's defense."

"Tell me more about what he wants with Death," Harry demanded with a serious expression, "everything you know."

Thor proceeded to explain parts of Thanos' past and his obsession with death. The history of genocide and rumors of destroying entire worlds in order to gain Death's attention and court for her affections. As Thor spoke, Harry seemed to get paler and paler.

"Why are you so interested in this?" Clint finally asked.

"Well," Harry said finally after a long silence, "I told you that Death sent me here. I'm not sure if you really believed me. I went by a certain title back in my old universe and I think I have a better idea as to why she sent me here. You see, they called me the Master of Death."

"Oh," Tony said while the others sat stunned, "you must have been great at parties."

AN: Wow, it's been a year since I last updated! Sorry to say, it was due to a good amount of writers block with some college and procrastination thrown in. I finally know where I want this story to go though, so hopefully it won't be too long until you get a new chapter!

Reviews help of course :)