Well, as of the publishing of this chapter, this story is officially a year old! I published the first chapter on my birthday, and now I've come full circle by publishing another chapter on/around my birthday once again. So… Hurray?

Reading some people's reviews, I noticed that the most common theory about the guy Harry found at the cabin in the woods in Chapter 7 is that he's Wolverine. He's not. Feel free to keep guessing, because this guy won't remember who he is for quite a while. I will offer one hint about his identity; he plays a major role in the conflict between SHIELD and HYDRA, but the encounter with Harry has drastically changed his fate. In fact, he's the last person you'd expect to see involved with the Masters of the Mystic Arts.

I admit this chapter is rather short, but it's mostly set up for something important further down the line, so please bear with me. There is an important announcement in the author's note at the end.

[Edit: The contents of the Announcement are now resolved; please ignore it]

I do not own any of the source material for this story. Reviews and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated.

…

Kamar-Taj Compound, Kathmandu, Nepal, July of 2003

Harry strode through the halls of Kamar-Taj as rapidly as his feet could carry him without running. As he moved, his green uniform (he refused to call it a costume) dissolved into regular clothing; a simple black t-shirt and dark blue jeans. When he reached the infirmary, he was greeted by a sorcerer who took one look at him and said "I was wondering when you'd show up. He woke up and fell back asleep again, but all signs indicate that he'll awaken again in a few minutes."

Harry nodded his understanding and slipped past the man into the rooms beyond. The infirmary was a long, wide corridor of a room with simple beds along the walls, each with a nightstand and plain white sheets enchanted to sink like a gel around the occupants, which minimized the pressure on an injured patient laying down. The only occupied bed had a partially open privacy screen around it, and Harry could just make out the shadowed outline of the patient lying down. Stepping into the tiny space around the bed, he shut the privacy screen with a twitch of his finger and conjured a cushioned chair to sit in.

Harry allowed himself a moment to study the young man. Skin too light to be called olive but darker than Harry's own complexion, short black hair that appeared easy to tame, symmetrical facial features, broad shoulders, and the lean physique of someone with an active, difficult lifestyle. Despite initially labeling him a kid, Harry knew now that this youth was only a few years younger than him and had some growing to do. In a year or two the bloke would draw stares with his good looks, but just now the lingering traces of youthful softness clashed with the shape of his features in a way that made him look oddly sinister, an impression encouraged by the way he scowled in his sleep.

Figuring it would be best not to meddle with the mind of someone who was recovering from severe head trauma, Harry decided to let the bloke reawaken on his own. He cast a monitoring spell, then slipped into meditation. He was empty of all thought, empty of emotion, his mind blank save for a tongue of flame flickering at its heart. He was one with the flame, and it was one with him. His surroundings vanished. There was only the flame.

Harry didn't know how long he remained this way, suspended in the depths of the void. It was a conscious decision to ignore the passage of time, a handy trick for situations where he needed to wait patiently. Eventually, the void was shaken by an impression of a strong vibration at the base of his skull, a signal from the monitoring spell. Harry relinquished the void, shut off the spell, and opened his green eyes to look down into a pair of dark brown ones that were halfway open and fogged with confusion.

The youth blinked several times, then shifted slightly on the bed. He opened his mouth, but all that came out was a rough cough, and Harry hastily handed him a glass of water he conjured from nowhere. The youth accepted it automatically and drank like he was dying of thirst, splashing a few drops so that they dripped down his chin and neck like rivulets of sweat, but he didn't seem to notice or care. Harry couldn't blame him. "Where am I?" he croaked.

"Somewhere safe," Harry replied as gently as he could. "You took a nasty blow to the head, so there are probably gaps in your memory. What's the last thing you remember?" The youth's face contorted, and a look of panicked confusion began to bloom in his eyes. He shut them tightly, wrinkling the skin around them, mouthing twitching into a puzzled half-frown. "Hey, easy," Harry said quickly. "Don't force it. Just take some deep breaths and let it come naturally."

The youth closed his eyes and breathed deeply, but a moment later he was frowning in distressed confusion. "I can't," he said in a strangled voice. "I can't remember anything. I don't know where I've been. I don't know what I've been doing. My name is… no, No, NO, I - I don't remember who I am!" He nearly shouted the last words and began to take rapid, shuddering breaths, and Harry hastily began rubbing his shoulder.

"Easy. Easy. Calm down," Harry said gently. "It's alright. You're ok. You're safe. Just calm down. You're not alone…" As Harry continued to say reassuring things, a distant part of him marveled at what he was doing.

In the past, Harry had never been very good at reassuring or comforting other people. He could listen and provide a shoulder to cry on. He could offer kind words or advice. He could teach lessons. But calming someone on the verge of an emotional breakdown? That was something he'd never been able to do. His disastrous relationship with Cho Chang was proof enough of that. He simply lacked the emotional sensitivity and patience to handle her frequent bouts of crying, and he had never felt comfortable enough with her to talk about what happened in the graveyard. Yet here he was, helping a bloke not much younger than himself through a panic attack as if he were the man's father, or possibly a brother. He refused to think of what Ron or Hermione would say to that.

It took only a minute or two for the youth to regain control of himself, and when he did, he immediately recoiled from Harry's touch and swept his gaze around the room, only to frown when he saw the opaque privacy curtains. Harry recognized the tick immediately as an attempt to scan for potential exits. Why would an amnesiac nineteen-year-old behave like an experienced spy or soldier right after having a panic attack? It made no sense, unless he'd already experienced the sort of trauma that ingrained a fighter's instincts into him. Harry did not like the implications of that train of thought.

"Well mate, if you're completely amnesiac, then you're probably going to be here a while," Harry said, trying to keep his voice light. The words still came out colder than he would have preferred. "How about a nickname until you can remember your real name? I can't keep thinking of you as 'the kid' when I'm only a few years older than you."

The kid frowned, hesitating for a long moment before finally saying "Call me Tom."

Harry felt a deep stirring of unease. Without knowing how, he was absolutely certain that the youth's choice of the name 'Tom' wasn't a coincidence.

...

Time, the Ancient One mused as she waited for Harry in the courtyard where he often trained with her in private, bore characteristics reminiscent of both a river and a tree. It flowed, eddied, and bent like a river, but the river had no end; it was a wall of water constantly carving new channels for itself to flow through. The present from the point of view of the beholder was but a single drop, constantly moving down the river. The stretches of river the drop had already flowed through were the past, and the places where the river might yet flow were the future.

At the same time, the flow of the river of time constantly branched like an ever-growing tree. Countless possible futures lay ahead, and often the most innocuous events could change the course of history. Every moment in the present had the potential to drastically alter the future, and predicting it accurately was virtually impossible. Prophecies claimed to foretell exact futures, but in truth they merely outlined a possible future and increased the chances of it coming to pass. The more people believed in prophecies, the stronger they became, but ignore a prophecy and it became less than powerless.

The Ancient One understood this better than almost anyone, for it was her job as the Sorcerer Supreme to routinely study the branches of time so as to prepare for incoming threats. She'd witnessed thousands of possible futures with each of her uses of the Eye of Agamotto, and she'd been using it regularly for nearly 700 years. Each of her sojourns through the currents of time were ingrained into her memories as surely as if she'd experienced those possibilities firsthand, and so in her mind she was countless billions of years old. The average Asgardian would outlive her by an order of magnitude, but in her mind, she was as old as their very civilization. She had earned her moniker of Ancient One.

The Ancient One had never wanted to live as long as she had. Most sorcerers had their lives naturally extended to a maximum of 300 years by their magic, but she had lived more than twice as long by breaking one of the most sacred rules of her order. She hated it, hated the way it made her feel like she was bathing in filth, but it was necessary, for she had come to power at a time when the Masters of the Mystic Arts were struggling to find new recruits amidst medieval superstition and the Black Death. None of the sorcerers she had encountered since the death of her predecessor displayed the combination of power, skill, creativity, morals, and leadership needed to become Sorcerer Supreme, and so she had sought to extend her own life until such time as she could find a worthy successor. She thought she'd found one in Stephen Strange, who had an astonishing capacity for selflessness when stripped of his worldly ego and a natural talent for the Mystic Arts that rivaled her own, and it was just as well she had.

The Ancient One had paid a hefty price for her immortality. To survive this long untouched by time, she had had to sacrifice part of her identity, her very name, lest the source of her longevity turn her into a monster as horrible as any she had fought over the years. It was a bitter price to pay, but she'd had no choice at the time. Now, her glimpses into the immediate future told her that her borrowed time was coming to an end. She had known it was inevitable, but what she saw coming was proof enough that even with all her power, skill, and experience, she had underestimated the consequences of the ritual.

By drawing power from the Dark Dimension she'd made herself immune to the ravages of time and opened herself to other dangers that were arguably worse. She'd taken precautions to guard herself from Dormammu's influence, but even while her mind and body were safe, her fate was not. The longer she lived, the easier it became for Dormammu to subtly alter the way events played out around her. Slowly but surely her luck had worsened over the years, exacerbating the consequences of her failures and raising the stakes of any risks she took.

With the betrayal of Kaecilius, Dormammu had the perfect tool to bring about her downfall. He was her best student in centuries, a prodigy who could have succeeded her if only he'd learned to let go of his desire to see his dead family again, and with Dormammu backing him his chances of successfully killing her grew exponentially, even without being able to draw power directly from the Dark Dimension. Worse, Kaecilius had the potential to tear the Masters of the Mystic Arts apart simply by revealing her secret. Already he'd led so many astray with promises of power and immortality.

The Ancient One's chances of surviving the inevitable confrontation grew slimmer by the year, and even if she did, she'd only guarantee the world's doom at a later date by doing so. She'd told Harry Potter that the events leading to her death were inevitable, but it was more complicated than that. Just as Harry had once sacrificed himself for the sake of others, she too would have to die if the world was to survive.

She desperately hoped that he'd forgive her.

The Ancient One heard voices, and she turned away from the view of Kathmandu to find Harry, dressed in regular civilian clothing, escorting his younger charge from the Hulk incident. There was something about the youth she couldn't quite place. A sense of unease, mingled with confusion and, bizarrely, anticipation. Years of peering through time had given the Ancient One a unique insight into the workings of the time stream. It was said the wing-flap of a butterfly in England could cause a hurricane in Texas, and she could sometimes sense when the potential paths of a person's life had been radically altered. It was rare, for causality was an infinitely varied thing, but sometimes a person's circumstances trapped them so completely that it took a drastic, life-changing event to free them from their fate.

As the Ancient One looked at Harry's confused and apprehensive new friend, who had nicknamed himself 'Tom' in lieu of being unable to remember anything about himself, she knew that she was looking at someone whose life path had been fixed as tightly as the cables of a suspension bridge before being snapped free by an encounter with Harry Potter. None of the Ancient One's viewings through the Eye had thus far included this youth.

It took the Ancient One a moment to realize that Harry was asking her something. "I beg your pardon?" she said hastily, concealing her embarrassment and a tingle of surprise. Harry never interrupted her when he thought she was lost in thought.

"Do you think you can help him?" Harry asked her again, indicating Tom, who was staring at them with what would have been well-concealed unease in a civilian setting but was rather transparent in Kamar-Taj.

The Ancient One forced herself to focus. She should not be this flustered by a branching of the tree of time. What was wrong with her? With uncharacteristically curt gestures, she led the two men to the chamber where she kept the Eye of Agamotto. If her temporal senses were to be trusted, this situation warranted another set of viewings.

Hours later, Tom had been sent to his new quarters in Kamar-Taj, and Harry was preparing to open a portal back home when the Ancient One grabbed him by the arm to stop him. Harry stared at her with a blank expression, a subtle parting of his lips the only indication of his shock. Breaking one's normal behavior patterns was often an effective way to get someone's attention, which was why the Ancient One rarely deviated from her usual polite, friendly demeanor.

"When I tried to look into Tom's future," she said in a low, hard voice, "I saw flashes of more possibilities than I bothered to count, and none with enough detail to give me so much as a hint of what his fate is from this point forward. I had to look into his past to gain an inkling of who he is, and when I did, it confirmed what I suspected the moment I saw him."

"And that is?" Harry asked tonelessly.

The Ancient One allowed herself a tiny scowl. "I am taking a great gamble by letting that man study the Mystic Arts. He suffered a great deal before you found him, and that suffering was molding him into something dangerous. Without those memories clouding his thoughts he will begin to discover his true self, but eventually they will resurface. Sooner or later he will remember who he was before you brought him here, and he will have to make a choice. If he chooses wrong, I will kill him."

Harry opened his mouth to protest, but the Ancient One tightened her grip on his arm, stifling his response with a look that could freeze lava. "Tom could become a hero of the Mystic Arts, but there is an equal chance he will become our downfall. I took a gamble like that once before with Kaecilius and lost. He could have succeeded me as Sorcerer Supreme if he had only taken my lessons to heart, but he only saw what he wanted to see and decided to walk away from Kamar-Ta. I knew then there was a chance he would make me regret teaching him so much as how to read Sanskrit, but I let my affection for him cloud my judgement and allowed him to walk free. Now he is working to destroy us all, and until he makes his move there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. I will not make that mistake with Tom. If I see him take one step too far down the path leads to him betraying us, I will not be merciful. I cannot ."

Harry gave her a long, measured look, then, very slowly, nodded in acceptance. Then, wrenched himself free from her grip and vanished with an unusually loud crack that actually made her flinch. Shaking her head, the Ancient One decided she needed sleep. She all but ran to her own chambers, barely pausing to wish Dr. Banner a good evening as he limped towards his own room, his skin tinged faintly green.

Master Hamir had always been a tough teacher, and not even the Hulk's advanced durability protected him from stinging spells. The thought of the creature hopping around clutching his bottom yelling in pain and outrage was almost enough to make the Ancient One smile.

Almost.

The Triskelion, Washington DC, USA, August of 2003

It took all of Nick Fury's self-control not to glare at the paper report Agent Romanoff had slipped into his desk.

Fury was loathe to trust Phoenix, an actual, damnable wizard , to so much as pour him a cup of tea, but the strange man had proved the validity of his claims regarding his abilities and allegiances in a way that Nick simply could not deny or ignore. The purpose of the meeting in the New York warehouse had been to set up a more reliable working relationship with Phoenix, who in turn had turned it into a conspiracy to protect the rights of superhumans. They were not out to start a revolution so much as pave the way for a new civil rights movement.

Shortly before the end of that meeting, Coulson had asked Phoenix point blank if he could read minds, recalling a statement the wizard had made about linking his consciousness to Nick's. With obvious reluctance, Phoenix had replied in the affirmative, and Fury had nearly had a conniption. Then, he'd taken a deep breath and asked for proof. It ought have been such a simple thing: what were the names of every single SHIELD agent present at the docks during the meeting, their locations in relation to the warehouse, and what were they thinking of at that exact moment?

Phoenix had appeared to cock his hooded head to one side, then proceeded to not only name everyone present, but to say their full names in the exact same voice the agents themselves used when identifying themselves for the record before interviews (Fury had checked the security feeds from such meetings himself afterwards and made sure). He listed their locations with pinpoint accuracy as well, as corroborated by the GPS trackers everyone present had been wearing (advanced Stark tech not yet ready for use even by the military). When he began listing what they were thinking, though, he'd noted, with a hint of unease, that half of them seemed to be under the impression that they answered to a boss much scarier and more powerful than Nick Fury, a boss who had very different ideas on how to deal with enhanced individuals. Unnerved, Fury had told Phoenix to stop, and the wizard had stopped. Then he'd washed away Nick's fatigue and vanished to who knew where.

Now, looking back, he found himself desperately wishing he'd told Phoenix to go farther. He wished he'd authorized Phoenix to sift through the minds of every agent of SHIELD at that goddamn warehouse until he knew them better than they knew themselves.

Because SHIELD was compromised. Fury wasn't sure who was in on it or for how long it had been happening, but he knew the conspiracy was real, and he was fairly certain that the ringleader was Alexander Pierce, one of his oldest friends and supporters during his spy career. He had become suspicious of Pierce when Phoenix noted that many of the agents at the warehouse district were loyal to someone who was not Nick Fury. All of those agents had been hand picked by Alexander Pierce.

Pierce was the one who paved the way for Fury to take the directorship, Pierce who helped him stand up to the World Security Council when they had their heads stuck especially far up their asses, Pierce who had invited Nick to his daughter's birthdays and comforted him when the stress of his job got to him.

Alexander Pierce, who agents Romanoff and Barton had observed locking himself in a secure room and, via listening devices planted beforehand, overheard a phone conversation where Pierce had given someone orders; orders to awaken 'The Asset' and send him after a senator who was calling for the resignation of Thaddeus Ross.

Nick had no idea how deeply this conspiracy ran. He had always been a touch paranoid, a trait that had served him well in his spy career, but there were times even he thought he was taking it too far. As of right now, however, it seemed he hadn't been paranoid enough. The only people he was certain he could trust were Barton, Romanoff, and Coulson. Maria Hill was too new to his circle of elite agents to be a certainty.

Pierce didn't know Fury was on to him. Phoenix could likely extract all the intel Fury needed right then and there without Pierce ever knowing, and he had said to call in case of an emergency. Fury doubted the wizard would be happy to hear from him again so soon, but Nick was fairly certain he'd agree that this qualified as a major crisis. He reached into his trench coat pocket and pulled out the burner phone Phoenix had given him at their meeting, a more secure alternative to the number on parchment. He was about to press the call button when he noticed it. A trio of thin, shallow grooves on one side of the flip phone's keypad, so tiny he could barely feel it. There should have been only two grooves on each side of the keypad, not three. Looking at the phone more closely, Fury saw that the buttons were just slightly the wrong shape, and he felt his blood run cold.

This wasn't the phone Phoenix had given him. Oh, it had the correct display and the single contact, and the lack of apps, but it was not The Phone. It was a fake, and almost certainly wire tapped. Which meant that sometime after the meeting in the warehouse, someone had managed to swipe the original from his coat and replace it with this one. When could they have done that?

Unbidden, an image rose up from the depths of Nick's memory; Pierce nattering enthusiastically about the new electronic locks he had had installed on every secure door in the Triskelion. They would provide cutting edge protection, he had said. Once a door outfitted with such a device was locked, only a special code could unlock it. Nick had made a habit of locking his office door with the device whenever he used the ensuite bathroom just in case someone tried to get in while he was on the john. He often left his trench coat hanging over his chair when he did this, finding it too cumbersome to take into the bathroom.

Only two people in all of SHIELD knew the access code to override Fury's door. Coulson was one. Pierce was another. Either Pierce had stolen the phone himself, or he'd used an accomplice.

Alexander Pierce, a confirmed traitor, had replaced the only secure device that Fury could use to contact Phoenix from anywhere in the world with one that could record their conversations. The wizard was out of reach right when Fury needed him most.

He wanted to scream.

[Edit: The contents of the Announcement are now resolved; please ignore it]

When I first began writing this story, I decided that romance wouldn't be very prominent, and while I thought I'd picked an ideal pairing for Harry, now I'm not so sure. In fact, I'm seriously considering making this a full Gen fic (no romance at all). I know this may be upsetting, but hear me out.

This version of Harry is stranded in a world where he doesn't belong, struggling with a power that could kill billions if he ever loses control of it, and raising a young child almost by himself. He doesn't have time for romance, nor does he have the personal freedom to indulge in one-night stands. Even if he did, getting intimate could cause him to lose control and accidentally kill his partner. Worse, if he falls in love with the wrong person and gets his heart broken, there's a very real risk he'll become the Dark Phoenix.

Therefore, Harry is going to be extremely picky about who he lets into his heart. More than simply having chemistry with him, they must be relatively close to his age, they must empathize with his unique circumstances (his immense personal loss and/or the risks if he loses control of his emotions), they are unafraid of his powers and respect/appreciate him for who he is, and they make a good co-parent for Teddy. Naturally, this rules out most potential ships.

This is the one aspect of the story where I'm asking for ideas from you, the readers, but before you start posting ideas, let me make one thing clear: as long as the potential partner meets the above criteria, I really don't care about their gender. If this surprises or confuses anyone, I strongly recommend reading my profile, where my preferences and opinions are listed. This is not going to be a quick or easy decision, but if I'm not satisfied with any of the suggestions I see, the fic will be Gen.

[Edit: I've made a poll of the most obvious choices on this subject. I won't necessarily choose the pairing with the most votes, but it will make it easier for me to gauge everyone's opinions. You can find it in my profile.]