Chapter Seventeen

"Everybody calm down," said Steve. Harry had consciously noticed it but everyone was on edge, himself included. He could feel his wand almost like a physical presence against his mind, aching to be summoned and to wrought a measure of destruction.

The same could be said for the two spies in the room to some capacity, they both sat straighter, watching Harry and waiting. The only person in the room that looked calm, if not confused, was Tony. The man was looked at everyone at, his mind working and after a second, the confusion disappeared. He was looking at Harry.

"You have to understand that if you try and open a door to Nexus we'll have to stop you," said Natasha. For the first time she didn't sound bored. It was chilling to hear having gotten used to her.

"I have to agree with her, Harry," said Steve. "The dangers that lie in that space are too much to be taken care off alone."

Harry, whose thoughts had turned to ways he could safely get off the helicarrier without being captured or killed, while doing a small a damage as possible paused, latching onto Steve words.

"I'm listening," he said, more emotion in his voice than there usually was, his fear and anxiety, the confusion of the words, that Sirius was still alive.

It didn't make sense. He remembered dying on his first world and having Sirius visit him in Limbo. Did this mean Sirius would die at some future point in time and would he die in Nexus? Harry couldn't also look beyond the fact that the moment he was starting to think on the greater scale of events Prongs had appeared. This was a play by the Fates, redirecting Harry's focus.

Even if that were the case though, Harry didn't feel as though he could just ignore it. He wasn't too sure how time passed in the Nexus but Sirius had spent however long in a world that had Dementors in them, there were other people there too, some who could had mistakenly opened portals that landed them in the place. Unlike Sirius, they wouldn't have wands and they wouldn't be able to protect themselves.

"Talk to us," said Steve. "Tell us what's going on. We're a team, after all, you make a good enough case and we might help you."

"Provided it doesn't put the world in danger," added Quartermain.

Harry sighed, running a hand through his hair and feeling his age. He wasn't quite sure what that was but it was older than all in this room.

"I'm an alien, in a sense," said Harry. "From another universe."

"Knew it!" said Tony. "Or at least I guessed as much."

Harry ignored him. "The Nexus is the only way I think I'd be able to get home."

"Bruce knew about this?" asked Steve.

"He guessed it. Not that I hid it from him. He was working on a way to another universe. I didn't tell him about Nexus in the hope that science might find another way, not to mention I don't entirely understand Nexus. I've never been."

"How were you able to make your way here, then?" asked Tony.

"That is a lot more complicated," said Harry, "and it's something I'm still working towards understanding. But right now the goal is clear. I need to get in there and look for Sirius."

"Who is this guy?" asked Clint.

"My godfather," said Harry. "Before I knew about this he was hit by a bolt of energy. He stumbled into a naturally formed portal that we hadn't understood at the time and I'd thought him dead for the longest time. But he's been there, with Dementors and criminals and anyone who was unlucky enough to stumble into the place."

"How long?" asked Tony.

"From my perspective at least four hundred years."

"You're four hundred?" said Tony.

"Criminals?" asked Director Quartermain.

"My people didn't understand the portal, but the one thing they knew was that it was once a person went through, they wouldn't come back. It was used to dispose the worst of our criminals. I'm not sure how long this happened but by I was in school the practice had been stopped for at least a few decades."

"What about Azrael?" said Natasha. "Where does she figure into all of this?"

"She's a part of the mystery I've been trying to figure out," said Harry. "Trying to kill me for some reason. Able to change bodies, fly, concussive blasts and she can pull me from my teleported destinations. She hates me. Why? Still not sure."

"But you're willing to risk having to go through her to get at your godfather?" asked Steve.

"A friend of mine said I have a chronic hero syndrome. I'm compelled to act. Save him, the innocents that might in that place. Even with the danger."

"We can work with this," said the Director. "I may not trust you, Mr Potter, but you remain a member of the Avengers, a team meant to protect the world in times of crisis. This is something that will always be at the edge of your attention, distracting you at a time that may be paramount. But I'll need time to speak with the World Security Council, working at an angle they might be inclined to agree with. In the meantime it would help if you told us about all the characters we might encounter if we made our way into Nexus."

"I want in," said Tony. "Something like this would be…" The man let out a squee. "That you're from another universe makes things make a lot more sense," the man said. "Different rules governing the functions of the universe. Your development shows some similarities and the fact that you managed to meld so easily with the way our world works means that your earth is similar to ours. Sirius surviving the Nexus means we won't need a lot of protective gear, though there's the obvious problem of Dementors. But there's a solution to that, it just needs to be recreated…"

Tony didn't stop but he also didn't notice that Clint was talking over him. "There's something we're forgetting with all this new information. The Asgardians," he said. "If opening a portal had them wanting to arrest Harry, all of us doing the same thing would surely cause war."

"I can create shields to encompass the entire world," said Harry. "It was something I was first thinking when Bruce told me about satellites. I can set up a grid to serve as protection, but it would need a power source. Tony showed me his Arc Reactor technology and I think it might work. I can't send the things into space though."

"SHIELD can do that," said Director Quartermain.

"I can too," said Tony. "You'll be working with my tech and I want to be watching. Make sure you don't open a portal again without me being there."

"I'm not stupid," said Harry.

"Never said you were but you're desperate and there's no difference between the two states."

"Fine," said Harry. "The entire thing could take three months of work. You have until then Director, to have spoken to your council. If that time has passed and you have nothing to show for it. I'll save my godfather myself."

"I'll try and not take that as a threat," said the Director. "The Asgardians? Are the from another universe?"

Harry shook his head.

"But you weren't surprised," said Natasha.

Harry took another brother, thought the matter over and said. "I'm a wizard. A universe travelling wizard and I've fought one person who called themselves god, an angel is trying to kill me and when I died, I met Death. Anything you could know is in the last statement."

Harry stood.

"I'm going to go and help Bruce. Don't try and stop me because too much has happened in too little a time."

888

"…they know more than I've told anyone in my many lifetimes," Harry finished. The wizard sat on a conjured chair in front of the Hulk. The larger man sat in mid-air, the room enchanted so that every wall exerted a force towards the centre.

Hulk couldn't leverage any force in any one direction because he couldn't find any leverage, there was none allowed to be afforded for him by the spells in the air. The man didn't look angry, just thoughtful, an expression the recording showed more often than before. There was a change going on in Hulk's mind and Harry didn't know if he could predict it.

"I need you, Bruce," said Harry. "I need you to fight your way out of there so I can leave this place. I know I'm close to making sense of it all but I'm feeling as though it's too much. This world is not like the others." Harry was conscious of himself speaking, but he held trust in his wards that they would keep his words hidden. "There I had time before I could get into the scheme of things. I appeared in the past and got a measure of understanding. I appeared in the beginning of a war, in my element. I led people, but here there are too many forces for me to have a grasp. All of them could be against me."

Harry took a breath.

"Bruce. I need a measure of familiarity. In the absence of my family, you are that familiarity. I need you here. By my side. Bruce Banner. I need my friend. I need you to fight Hulk and take over."

Harry saw a flicker, the green eyes flashed with brown before quickly turning back. Hulk shaking his head as though a fly had landed on his face and his hand were indisposed.

He waited but it didn't happen again.

He took another breath and this time he didn't allow himself any confusion. He remembered before that he had been searching for patterns, searching for anything that might have occurred and matching it up with the words Death had spoken to him.

Harry found it. He remembered the thought flickering though his mind that the Fates might be working to get him stronger. They weren't working with Azrael, an agent of God, which meant they could be working towards the same agenda as Death. What?

Death had needed a champion, which meant Harry was central to whatever the end objective was. Harry took a breath, running his mind through the conversation until he latched on to the words Death had used, that she was working towards peace.

The greater question became, what's peace to Death?

Hulk screamed in a deep guttural tone. Harry's attention moved from his thoughts to Hulk and he could see the man changing between forms, his skin changing between from green to tanned and back again.

As interesting as all this was Harry couldn't stop himself from seeing the greater picture, that this was a manipulation on the side of the Fates. They were playing him, contriving situations in a manner that would further their own goals—or it was coincidence, but that seemed unlikely—and they were making sure Harry didn't think on their end objective.

It was succeeding because Harry found himself turning his attention to Bruce. The man was winning. Hulk's muscles had diminishing and the skin was a paler shade of green, almost a grey colour and then it stopped.

Hulk was panting as he looked at Harry. "I need…help," he said. "I need to lock him away."

"Legillimens," Harry said without hesitation, plunging himself into Bruce's mindscape. It was still forest intermingled with cityscape; the city was in ruin, portion of building missing, cars smashed and dead bodies at spaces, it didn't help that the forest didn't have any beauty in how it took everything over.

The entire thing gave the image of two minds at war.

"Use that power of yours," said Bruce, he still looked like the Hulk but with grey skin and he was speaking in full sentences. "Build me something to keep him in."

Harry nodded and got to work. The mind wasn't his own which limited how he worked. Hulk landed, green and enraged. He lunged at Harry but Bruce to intercepted, grappling with the Hulk before he got the upper hand and twisted, throwing Hulk back.

"He's stronger but I'm smarter," said Bruce before he jumped, the two meeting mid-air, a thunder clap reverberating at their meeting.

Harry concentrated but he would get distracted by the fight. Hulk seemed to be winning before a tree moved, branches snapping about and thwatting at the beast, enough force behind the swing that Hulk was thrown through the air. The beast ploughed through a building and Bruce followed, jumping after him.

Gong-like bangs reverberated, six in total before Bruce was sent hurtling out of a building and sent slamming into another.

"THIS IS MY MIND!"

Tree began to grow large, moving towards the panting Hulk and trying to ensnare him. Hulk ploughed his way through it all until he landed a punch at Bruce but a tree stop the grey man from hurtling back. Bruce heaved a tree and bat it at Hulk. It hit and didn't shatter.

The forest was starting to take over, subsuming more of the cityscape into it. The dead bodies disappearing.

The prison was starting to take form, looking much the same as the one at SHIELD, the properties the same as Harry's enchantment without the magic of it.

"Done," Harry said and he directed the thought at Bruce.

The fighting changed, more directed. Bruce seemed to get Hulk in the direction of the opened Cage. It took a few minutes but Bruce succeeded, the problem would be getting out. Bruce already had a plan, the large door Harry had crafted shrank to a smaller form and soon after Bruce had changed to his human form. The multi-directional force didn't affect him in the form and he just walked out, closing the thing.

"You understand that he'll always be fighting to get out?" said Harry. Hulk didn't move but Harry was sure he was flexing his mental power.

"I know and I don't care. He tortured me with images of your death, tortured me with everything he was doing. Every one of the dead bodies he kept within view were lives he took. This is my torture for him. Trapping him for his weakness. Now let's get out of here. Deal with everything out there."

Harry pushed himself out. Bruce was still in his grey form.

"Side benefit of all this," said Grey Hulk. "I can control the transformation."

He shifted to Bruce.