Chapter 54 – Unexpected Occurrences

Harry was in the middle of a training drill when a deep bell toned throughout the room. It was enough to interrupt his concentration and he had to dodge quickly to avoid the stunner that the training dummy fired at him. He grimaced as he stumbled, managing to snap off an immobulus that paralysed the Dummy mid-cast before falling to the floor.

A second swish of his wand sent it and its partner, the one that he'd already blasted across the room until it had fallen in a heap on the floor, back to their places.

The bell tolled again and Harry quickly crossed the basement for the door and the circular staircase behind it that would lead him back up to his apartment. The bell was a charm of his own invention, one that was designed to inform him if he had a visitor, something that he wouldn't have ordinarily have been able to know in a magically sealed room.

After closing the 'closet' door behind him, Harry raced across the room towards where the incessant knocking was coming from.

"Tony?" Harry asked in confusion, seeing the man on the other side when he opened the door.

"Gandalf! What took you so long?" Tony asked. "Well? Aren't you going to invite me in?"

"Sure, Tony, come on in," Harry replied.

Harry closed the door slowly, watching the man as his head darted about, taking everything in. For the life of him, Harry couldn't work out why he was there. It obviously wasn't business related, not with Tony wearing a simple pair of jeans, Black Sabbath t-shirt and sport jacket over it. And he couldn't imagine one of the world's most powerful men making a simple house call.

"Huh, I imagined something more gothic," Tony commented offhandedly.

"What?" Harry asked, confused by the non-sequitur.

"You know. Magic stuff. You lot are supposed to be stuck in the Dark Ages, aren't you? At least that's what I've been told. Dark Ages, gothic, thought the two would go together," Tony explained.

"You expected my house to be lit by candles and be all dark and broody with woods and leather and cauldrons bubbling away in the corner?" Harry asked. "I suppose that there's supposed to be bats and spiders and stuff, too?"

"Well, yeah," Tony replied, shrugging off his jacket and flinging it across a chair.

Harry shook his head. "No, Tony. I'm not all that fond of the 'goth' look."

"Huh. Really? You mean that I got it all wrong? That's a first," he commented.

"Actually, if you were in the British magical world, you wouldn't be all that far off the mark in a lot of places," Harry admitted. "Although, you won't see many places with unattended cauldrons brewing and bats tend to only be kept for use as potion ingredients."

"Ha! I was right!" Tony exclaimed. "Can't say I blame you for getting away from it all, though, Merlin. It'd be murder having to dodge all the spider's webs all the time, especially when you're half-drunk."

"Please, don't call me Merlin," Harry asked. "The guy's been dead for centuries and he's a pretty big deal in the wizarding world."

"Merlin was real? Well, there you go. Who knew?" Tony asked rhetorically before looking around the apartment again. "So, where do you keep it all?"

"All what, Tony?" Harry asked, wondering when the point of Tony being there was going to be brought up.

"Your magic stuff. Your cauldrons and wands and amulets and spellbooks and all the other stuff a magic guy like you would need," Tony explained.

Harry narrowed his eyes slightly. "My magic stuff?"

"Yeah. Come on, you can trust me. We're Avengers, remember. Team mates. If you can't show your partners, who can you show?" Tony asked, before upping the ante. "I know you want to show it off. Now's your chance."

Harry figured the guy wasn't completely wrong. It'd be nice to not have to keep everything hidden all the time.

"You understand that there's a Statute of Secrecy, don't you, Tony? That means that non-magicals aren't supposed to know about the wizarding world, that we're supposed to keep everything hidden away," Harry said.

"Pfft," Tony waved the concept away with a carefree hand. "I'm in the know already, Sparrowhawk. Now, show."

"Where are you coming up with these names?" Harry asked as he crossed the room.

"What? They're all valid names of wizards," Tony replied. "They're from books, if you must know. What, don't you read?" And then, after following Harry into the library. "Never mind."

Tony turned in a full circle as he took in the shelves full of books and the relaxing reading chairs.

"Well, this is quaint," he said. "I'm guessing that you've never heard of an e-reader?"

"Heard of it, never been tempted to get one," Harry replied. "Magic and electronics don't get along all that well."

Tony narrowed his eyes at the wizard before leaning backwards to look out the door into Harry's living room.

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but a lot of that stuff you've got out there – the TV, computer, dvd recorder – that all runs on electricity," he pointed out.

"I know that," Harry grinned. "And the only reason that they haven't exploded is because I've enchanted them using magic-suppressing runes."

"Runes?" Tony perked up. "I'd like to see them. What makes them work? No, don't tell me, the answer's 'magic', isn't it? But if these are magic-suppressing runes, wouldn't using magic to get them to work in the first place be kind of redundant?"

"Tony!" Harry near laughed. "There's another thing that you've got to learn about magic: it doesn't follow any sort of logic."

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