A/N: I do not own Harry Potter. I do not own anything from the Marvel Universe. I do not make any money from this.

The Artificer

Ch. 1 Boom

Lord Hadrian "Call-Me-Harry-Damn-it!" James Potter-Black, Twelfth Baron of Founder's Grange, and Theodore Remus Lupin-Black, Lord Hadrian's adoptive son and heir, occupants of the penthouse of number 955 5th Ave, New York City, were proud to say that they were not normal, thank you very much. They were the first people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they were most likely the source of anything strange or mysterious that happened in the building. It was not the fact that both residents were wizards that caused them to be the source of all things odd in the building, for all the residents in number 955 were well-to-do families of witches and wizards; nor was it the fact that Harry was part of a country's peerage, for number 5A was the residence of a lesser Lord of the Italian House of Doria-Pamphilj-Landi and the lost Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia lived in Apartment 11B with Peter Jones, her husband of eighty two years and the building's former doorman.

No, what set the two Blacks apart from the rest of the building was that they couldn't just relax and enjoy their wealth. Harry had tried to settle down after he had almost single-handedly stopped the Second Blood War of wizarding Britain, but he had found that he was monumentally bored. Even transplanting himself and his adoptive son to the New York City apartment building he had inherited from his Godfather when he became the Head of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black could curtail his boredom. It was only after a chance run-in with the United States premier wandmaker, Anderson Calhoun, while shopping in New York's magical shopping district, the Central Park Bazaar, that Harry was introduced to his current profession: Artificing, the creation of unique magical objects. While the occupants of number 955 were very supportive of Lord Potter-Black's profession (if only for the fact that it produced numerous priceless Christmas gifts), the stigma attached to a "blue-collar Lord" and the muffled explosions that regularly shook the penthouse caused Harry, and in turn Teddy, to be labeled as odd.

So when a slightly larger than normal explosion shook number 955 one summer afternoon, it was summarily ignored by the residents.

Harry was almost finished. For the past four months, the artificer had been working on developing a device that would be able to project pensieve memories so that they would be able to be experienced by a jury during court. While originally, Harry had thought the project to be a simple case of creating a rune matrix that projected the memory into the minds of the viewers, he had quickly found out that this was going to be a much more labor intensive project. At the test of his initial design, he had found himself trapped for two and a half weeks in a looping memory of the disastrous Yule Ball from his fourth year. He was only able to free himself from the furious glare of his former date, Pavarti Patil, when the magical battery powering his prototype had run itself out. Now, he had nearly finished his second attempt. Instead of broadcasting the memory into the minds of the viewers, it transformed the memory into auditory and visual impulses which was then induced into viewers optic and cochlear nerves to simulate the memory without the disconcerting feeling of falling head first into what looks like a bowl of silver snot.

With steady hands, Harry affixed the magnifying lens in place and picked up a magically reinforced copper engraving tool to carve the final rune. The mirror-like surface of the obsidian pyramid before him was only marred by the minuscule writing of the complex runic array. Like most of the artifacts Harry created, the pensieve viewer was as beautiful as it was useful. Once completed and activated, the runic array would move, the lines of script flowing in and out of its patterned array. One day, feeling unusually poetic, he had likened the prospective movement of the engravings to the movements of the planets as they danced to the celestial music composed by the laws of the universe… not that he would ever admit to making such an observation.

With a deep breath to calm any trembling of his hands that could have arisen from his excitement at finally finishing the project, he put his engraving tool to the smooth volcanic glass to inscribe the final rune. It was Elder Futhark rune Eihwaz, the Yew Tree, the bridge between the past and the present. As Harry began the minute inscription of the lower cross-stroke, he thought back to his final duel with Voldemort. It was ironic, that the bearer of a yew wand would be triumphed over by the bearer of a holly wand. Eihwaz was a weak rune, only being used in specific circumstances. Eihwaz, a symbol of the bridge between the past and the present was always trumped by Sowilō, the rune of the sun, a symbol of the bridge between the present and the future, a rune which had the lesser signification of the holly tree, the same rune which Voldemort had inscribed into Harry's forehead as a child when he tried to kill him.

Harry had nearly completed the upper cross-stroke of the rune when a loud shout shattered the silent calm of his workroom.

"DAD! DR. STRANGE IS HERE TO SEE YOU!"

The artificer's hand jerked violently.

Harry quickly threw down his engraving tool and batted away the magnification lens to see how much damage he had done to his project. Any hope he had at the work being salvageable went out the window as he saw that his jerking hand had caused the Elder Futhark Eihwaz he was attempting to carve to be changed into the obscure Anglo Saxon rune variation Cweorð, a symbol of fire. His eyes widened as an orange glow began to pulse under the surface of the obsidian pyramid.

With a frantic flick of Harry's fingers, an opalescent shield sprang up around the shelves lining the room. After a disastrous incident a year and a half ago, he learned that it was best to shield the regents and reagents stored around the room before shielding himself so as to avoid any unforeseen reactions the errant magical source could have with the materials. His attempt at a modified permanent portkey had exploded, breaking apart a jar of time sand on the shelf above it. Harry had stupidly tried to shield catch the sand before it hit the portkey, but unfortunately he had reached the sand at the same time when the sand hit the smoldering wreckage. He had been whisked away through time and space and it had taken him a very long time to get back. His arrival back in the present was one of the only times he was thankful that his aging had been stopped the moment he had become the Master of the Deathly Hallows. Had he not been immortal, Harry would never have lived to see his son again.

Harry did not have time to shield himself as the pensieve viewer decided to explode immediately after he had gotten his first shield in place. The fiery blast ripped through the workroom, knocking the artificer off of his feet and slamming him into the reinforced wall behind him. Despite the four foot thick metal and concrete wall, Harry's impact still caused the wall to buckle, creating a foot deep wizard-shaped crater. He could feel that most of his bones had been broken, the pain barely registering in the back of his mind, and he could feel blood and most likely liquefied brain matter running from his ears and nose.

Harry gave his body a minute to heal itself before extricating himself from the crater. This was the only other situation in which he was thankful for his mastery over the Deathly Hallows. If his body couldn't have regenerated, he would have long made Ted an orphan thrice over. After the death of both his parents and his grandmother, Andromeda, Harry was glad that his son would not have to go through the ordeal of burying another parent or guardian. Right now, however, Harry's mind wasn't on his immortality, it was focused on severely grounding his teenage son.

Not caring that his body had not fully regenerated or that half of his supposedly fireproof dragon skin over-robe, as well as most of his clothes, had been burned away, the wizard stormed out of his workshop in search of his loudmouthed son.

Harry found the fifteen year old lounging in the overstuffed sofa in the penthouse's living room. The artificer absently noticed that Ted was speaking to two guests. Harry immediately recognized one as the first friend he had made after moving to New York, Dr. Stephen Strange, the Sorcerer Supreme. The second guest he did not recognize. The African-American man was of average height. His black eye patch and serious features spoke to a straight forward, no nonsense disposition. Despite being obscured slightly by a long leather duster, the way the man held himself screamed soldier. He had seen that same poise in many of the veterans of the Blood Wars. If the man was accompanying Stephen Strange to see him, Harry was sure that the man was already aware of magic. With a flick of his wrist, Harry summoned the Elder Wand to his hand out of thin air and shot a stinging hex at his son.

Ted yelped and fell off of the couch flailing. The teen quickly popped back up, wand out, his hair a vibrant yellow in his surprise. Upon seeing his father, wand out, glaring at him angrily, the boy paled. Unconsciously, Ted's hair slipped out of its surprised state and faded to match the lack of color in his skin.

"Uh," the boy started, "S-so, Dad… You've got some guests?" Ted's attempt at normal conversation faded into a question as his fear of his impending grounding overcame his too-cool-to-care teenage persona.

"Theodore Remus Lupin-Black," Ted flinched. His full name was never a good sign and the calm cool tone of Harry's voice only emphasized how much trouble he was in, "You will go to your room and sit at your desk until I am finished here," the thought of reading until Harry was done quickly popped into his head, but Ted dismissed it just as fast. His dad would know. Dad always knew, "and we will have a discussion about being quiet when I am working," Ted could only nod as he slowly made his way out of the room, trying to delay the inevitable.

As soon as Ted was out of sight, Harry's shoulders sagged, the fatigue that accompanied his bodily regeneration finally making itself known. He turned to his guests, an apologetic smile gracing his face.

"I'm sorry about that, Ted knows better than to yell and shout when I'm working and his outburst just cost me four months of work."

"Don't worry, Harry," Stephen said with an understanding smile, "If I had lost four months of work, I would have done more than sting him on his rear and send him to his room," Stephen fell silent as his previous comment seemed to remind him of something as a ponderous look crept into his eyes and his brow furrowed in concentration.

Harry cleared his throat, used to the eccentricities that accompanied his friend's status as the Sorcerer Supreme. The man snapped out of whatever train of thought had taken him and looked up at Harry, a question in his eye. Harry nodded towards the still un-introduced man sitting next to the sorcerer.

"Oh, I am sorry," Stephen said as he realized he had forgotten about the man he had brought to meet the artificer, "Harry, this is Colonel Nickolas Fury, Director of the Strategic Hazard Intelligence, Espionage, and Logistics Directorate, the international martial peacekeeping branch of the United Nations. Colonel Fury, this is Lord Hadrian Potter-Black, twelfth Baron of Ancient's Grange and the worlds foremost authority on Norse and Asguardian Magics," Harry nodded in greeting to the man and received a slight dip of the head in response.

"So, Colonel, what can I help you with?"

"Lord Potter-Black, I have been inf…" Fury was cut off.

"Harry," the artificer offered, "My name is Harry."

"As I was saying, Lord Potter-Black, I have been informed by Dr. Strange that you are more qualified than he to aid us in our current situation," Fury removed a thick file folder from his duster and dropped it on the coffee table in front of him. With a flick of his wand, Harry summoned the folder and opened it to a contract full of legal jargon and tedium basically stating that, should he reveal any information disclosed to him in the folder to anyone without the security clearance, he would be executed as a traitor without a trial as dictated by SHIELD's rules of wartime.

Harry rolled his eyes at the form but signed it anyway, sending it back at Fry with a flick of his wand. It wasn't as if it was possible for him to be killed, so a puny gunshot to the back of the head was nothing to worry about.

"The Colonel originally came to me seeking assistance, but I quickly realized that this concerned wizardry and not sorcery, so I was a little out of my depth," Stephen explained, "It definitely appeared to be Asguardian in origin and I remember seeing something similar in your lab a couple of years ago, so I thought you may know something about it."

Harry leafed through the packet of papers until he was met with a picture of a very familiar object.

"Well, I would hope I knew something about the Tesseract, I did make the blasted thing!"

A/N: I AM ALIVE! I will be starting to write again and will be reevaluating my previous stories. I don't know how long it will be between updates because I have developed a tremor in my hands that could be anything from Beneign Tremor to Young Onset Parkinson's Disease or a Brain Tumor. My doctor is just starting to assess it.