15. WIZARD SANTA ON DRUGS.

Harry woke up feeling hungover, bruised and battered next to the naked sleeping form of his assistant.

The ringing of the to the apartment doorbell, the apparent cause of his awakening.

Harry wasn't quite sure why they were in bed together. Domino hadn't slept in his bed since those demons had come out of the sleeping victims and really Harry could not remember going to bed either. His back also felt rather tender.

The doorbell rang a second time reminding Harry why he was awake.

Looking at the mechanical clock next to his bed, he noted that it was already past two in the afternoon.

Disentangling himself from Domino and quickly donning a bathrobe, he made his way to the front door.

The sneakoscope above the door remained still.

On the other side of the door stood captain Steve Rogers.

"Captain Rodgers." Harry greeted.

"Please, call me Steve." The man replied. "Did I catch you at a bad time?" the man asked as he eyed Harry's disheveled state.

"No, no … well I was sleeping but I really should have been up ages ago. Please, come in."

Harry guided the man to the kitchen and started a pot of coffee before excusing himself to quickly get changed and some quick self grooming charms.

"Sorry about that." Harry offered as he poured two coffee cups.

"So … you're a wizard." Steve half asked / stated.

"I guess director Fury had you read my file?"

"Yeah and well, that's what it says on your sign outside." Steve pointed out.

"Right. So what do you want to know?"

"Well, I'm here for two reasons. I wanted to take you up on your offer to give me a bit more information even if your file did fill in a few blanks and well, Furry asked if I could find out what you've been up to since Christmas since you haven't answered your phone. And Fury thinks you might have been in the news."

Harry looked back at the man in confusion.

"Ugm … isn't today Christmas day?" Harry asked.

"No. We're December 27th."

Harry's eyes opened wide in surprise.

"We've been asleep for two days?" Harry asked in surprise.

"Not sure. What do you remember?"

Harry thought back.

"Well we were watching some weird christmas movies …"

Harry and Domino were sitting drunkenly in the living room on Christmas eve, watching a strange mexican Christmas movie Domino had found on the internet called "Santa Claus" where Santa worked in outer space and had to battle a demon named Pitch.

Harry snagged another one of Domino's brownies from the tray on the table. Harry had been worried because Domino had yet to make even a single meal since she had moved into the apartment and the smell from cooking the brownies had been worrisome and there was a little earthy taste to the brownies, not unpleasant but different.

"Wait! Is that supposed to be Merlin?" Harry asked giggling drunkenly, pointing at the screen with a glass of Gin in Tonic in hand.

"This is so weird!" Domino agreed.

They watched the entirely nonsensical story unfold for a few more minutes.

"Harry? Do you think Santa was a wizard?"

Harry lazily rolled his head over to look at Domino.

"I don't think so, he doesn't have a wand."

"No, no, no … I mean in real life either in your world or this one."

Harry took another sip of his minty drink considering, ignoring the movie playing to focus his dwindling cognitive capabilities on the question at hand. Harry was rather surprised by how affected he was by the Gin and Tonic mix having never gotten seriously inebriated before, not even at the end of year party at Hogwarts.

"I mean, he knows everyone's names and so do you, he has a bag on his sleigh that can hold more things than it should like your trunk, he has a flying sleigh and you have a flying motorcycle…"

Harry's eyes widened in surprise, it all made sense! Santa must have been a wizard.

"The hard working elves must have been house elves! Coming out the chimney could have been some kind of floo travel! Knowing if kids had been good or bad could have been legilimency or maybe an enchanted scroll like the school register? Being able to get to every house in the world could have been abusing the hell out of a Time Turner! Bloody hell! It all makes sense now!" Harry burst out spilling some of his drink as he gesticulated wildly.

They sat there stupefied by their drunken revelation, the movie ignored entirely.

Harry reached for another brownie.

"You know what we should do right? We need to get out there and go hand out gifts!" Domino suggested.

Harry sat up straighter, knocking over his drink.

"YES! YES! We bloody well must and we've no time to lose! Domino go get materials for me to transfigure and get yourself an outfit I can change into a Christmas elf outfit!"

But just as quickly as his enthusiasm had risen it plummeted!

"But there's no way I can make enough gifts for 7.5 billion people and I don't have a Time Turner and there isn't a floo network."

Harry collapsed back into his favorite comfy chair despondent but Domino's enthusiasm had diminished only slightly.

"... ah! I spilt my drink." Harry commented quietly, looking at his cup on the floor sadly.

"So … so we start small. We do maybe the local children's hospital and a few orphe… orph … or phe nages. I remember what it was like in foster care at Christmas." Domino exclaimed as she knelt by Harry's chair, a determined look in her slightly unfocused eyes.

Harry thought back to all those Christmases at the Dursley's, sitting alone in his cupboard while he listened to Dudley complain about the gifts he was unwrapping. He'd have been ecstatic to get any gift, even if it was just a new pair of socks.

"Right!" Harry exclaimed as he suddenly and unsteadily stood up causing Domino to fall back on her ass with a squawk.

"Get changed, we'll need junk to turn into gifts. We've got to save Christmas! … for a small number of children."

The next twenty minutes were a flurry of motion as Harry transfigured outfits, expanded a large bag and filled it with junk of various types to transfigure into gifts.

Domino in the interim had been printing out maps with highlighted locations of interest: Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital, Mount Sinai Kravis Children's Hospital and Sister Margaret's School for Wayward Children.

Soon, a short and skinny Santa with a realistic beard that would have put Dumbledore's to shame and a tall punk elf with actual pointed ears mounted a magical Triumph Bonneville, taking off to their first destination while drunkenly singing Christmas carols out of tune.

"You have a flying motorcycle?" Steve asked incredulously.

"Yeah, an enchanted Triumph Bonneville." Harry confirmed.

"So motorcycles are the evolution of flying broomsticks?" Steve asked with a serious expression.

"No, I have one of those as well."

"So what happened next?"

Harry and Domino made their way down the quiet halls of Morgan Stanley, hidden under Harry's invisibility cloak, giggling softly. They had parked the Triumph on the roof of the hospital and a Alohomora had made quick work of the locked door.

Finding the kids ward, Harry locked the doors and clumsily threw together a quick aversion ward and a sound suppression ward before transfiguring a simple chair into a large two seater chair flanked by pine trees covered by conjured decorations.

With a nod from Domino, Harry took a last swig of Gin and Tonic from a handy, seriously expanded and more importantly sealed, thermos and raised his wand over head and connected to it like he had at Olivanders filling the room with light, wind and the faintest touch of Phoenix song.

The children slowly began to wake looking about in surprise.

"Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas!" Harry cried out in a poor imitation of Santas he had seen in the movies earlier.

The children were coming out of their rooms with confused expressions, some in wheelchairs, others with crutches.

"Now if any of you can't leave your rooms don't worry! Santa will be over to see you in a few minutes. My elf Domino's going to walk from room to room to make sure we don't miss anyone."

An older boy, around 13 or 14, with an eye patch over his right eye lead the group of younger children looked at Harry critically.

"Dude! The hospital Santa was here earlier. And you're kind of short and skinny to be Santa."

The boy had qualified the word Santa with air quotes both times.

"Well Richard Morton, that wasn't the real Santa. They mean well, of course but there's only one Santa."

The boy looked at him defiantly.

"You look almost my age under that fake beard. Ok then! Prove it! What did I ask for for Christmas two years ago?"

Harry hesitated in his retelling. Revealing to someone who reported to a massive spy agency that he could essentially read minds by way of viewing someone's memories would probably either result in him being constantly brought in to extract information or locked up as a national security liability.

"Is there a problem?" Steve asked.

Harry looked back to the still immobile sneakoscope mounted by the main door and decided to take a risk.

"I haven't told SHIELD everything I can do. For starters we'd be at it for weeks, then there's the fact that having a few surprises could be important if SHIELD turned on me and finally I wouldn't put it past them panicking and trying to lock me up for national security concerns." Harry explained.

"Like?"

"An example they already know is that I can apparate or I guess they'd call it teleport. I could teleport into the Oval Office and kill the president in under two minutes and there's nothing they could do about it. I have other powers just as worrisome from their perspective."

Steve remained quiet for a few moments.

"I can't promise not to tell SHIELD about this without knowing the gravity of the situation."

Harry nodded and continued with his story.

Some of the younger children looked up the the older boy in apprehension due to his disrespectful tone.

Harry on the other hand began to worry. He and Domino had thought this a fun game but looking at the wary but hopeful expressions on many of the younger faces, Harry suddenly realised that if he failed he could crush their spirits and with his Legilimency skills being spotty at best …

Harry shook himself and looked deep into the boys one eye and with no effort at all Harry was brought into a memory, the boy had wanted a new mountain bike.

"You can read minds." Steve stated flatly.

"Not exactly, I can see your memories. I can't tell what you are thinking but I could go and search for the memory of when you had your first kiss…"

"Or of me reading a secret mission briefing." Steve interjected.

Harry looked back to the sneakoscope and found it still motionless.

"Yes. Without a wand and incantation I can only get surface memories. Memories associated with what you are thinking at the moment and it's disjointed and blurry. My guess is if I did it to you right now, I'd probably see you reading your last mission briefing or your most delicate briefing since that's what you're thinking about." Harry offered.

Steve appeared very conflicted.

"To be fair, I'm rather rubbish at it and had someone weaponise this skill against me essentially mind raping me so I'm rather not fond of it. I do use it when meeting people who are potential enemies."

"I need to think this over. This is a huge security risk but I promise not to say anything for now."

Harry looked back to the still immobile sneakoscope and smiled before continuing his story.

"Let me show you instead of telling you. Might not look exactly the same but we'll try our best."

With that Harry collected several pieces of scrap from his bag, placed them on the floor and began waving his wand, the pieces merged and melded, shifted and colored until less than a minute later … there stood a brand new shiny mountain bike … miniature.

"Sorry, Santa's not up to making a functioning bike out of thin air, too many finicky parts to do on the spot like this."

The boy stared in disbelief at the bike.

"It looks just like the one I saw at the store." The boy whispered as he took the model and let Domino guide him to a chair on the side.

"So. Who's next."

A small blond girl with both arms in a cast and severe bruising on her face and shoulders timidly came up.

"Well Hello Samantha Collins, come sit on the couch."

"You know my name?"

"Santa knows the name of anyone he meets." Domino explained putting down her own thermos of liquid libation.

"So first things first, Santa's not too good at healing magic but let's see what we can do here."

Taking his wand, Harry waved it over the young girls face reducing the bruising significantly.

"Now, let's see about those arms. Are they broken? Did the doctors put pins or rods in your arms?"

"Yes, I broke my arms, I had a skiing accident. They just put them in casts."

Harry nodded and mended both arms with a simple Bracium Amendo and then vanished the casts.

"There! You know, I once broke my arm and a wizard tried to heal it but he was a rather poor wizard and instead of fixing my bone he vanished it! My arm looked like it was made out of rubber!"

The girl giggled and Domino snorted into her drink.

"Now let's see what you would like for Christmas from Santa."

Harry stared into her eyes and could see the memory of a plush bear that could turn into a pillow.

Taking some cloth scraps from his bag, Harry waved his wand and instead of a plush bear pillow ended up with a plush bear bean bag.

"Humm, seems Santa put a little too much magic into that one." Harry laughed but the girl gave him a hug and gently lowered herself on her new bean bag. With a swish of Harry's wand the bear became animated and ambled out into the girls room to her ruckus laughter.

Harry took another sip from his Gin and Tonic before motionning the next child forward.

Everything went rather smoothly after the first two children and Harry was having a wonderful time. The room was filled with temporarily animated dolls, stuffed animals, toy cars, model airplanes and spaceships.

The hallway was filled with loud cries from the ecstatic children.

All the children that were mobile had been dealt with and Harry and Domino had begun going from room to room to see the bed ridden children.

"And what do we have here?" Harry asked. "Julie Morris!"

In the room, connected to several machines was a sad sickly looking 15 year old girl. The girl had a perfectly bald head and Harry's stomach twisted in sympathy, focusing his inebriated thoughts. This girl was only 2 or 3 years younger than himself.

"Santa Claus isn't real, there's no such thing as magic and fairy tales are just that … tales."

Harry waved his wand at the door muffling the sounds of children playing and then pulled himself a chair.

"No, I'm not really Santa … or maybe I am tonight?"

Harry waved his wand at his face, removing his beard and pulled off his hat.

"My parents died when I was around one year old. I ended up living at my aunt's house. They didn't want me, thought I was a freak … unnatural. I remember sitting and starving in the boot cupboard under the stairs, that was my room until I was 11, listening to my cousin complain as he opened his massive pile of gifts and wondering why Santa didn't bring me any gifts and questioning if he even existed. At age 11, I went to a boarding school, my parents had signed me up and paid the day I was born and that's when I got my very first gift, a hand knitted sweater. At school, I made my first friend, he told his mum I didn't expect any gifts so she made me one."

The girl remained silent, staring intently at Harry.

"That's when I realised that Santa wasn't a person. He was an idea, a symbol. We're all Santa. Mrs. Weasley, a woman I had only briefly met at a train station had taken the time to knit me a sweater … she was my Santa Claus."

Harry rubbed at his eyes surprised to find tears there. He had been in such a great mood all evening.

"What? Am I supposed to feel bad for you? I've got Cancer."

The girls words were meant to be sharp but her tone was defeated.

Harry ignored her words, he knew what it felt like to be angry at the world better than most.

"Oh! And magic does exist!"

Harry stood up, changed his chair into a stuffed bear, animated it to wave at the girl before sending it out of the room to play with the children.

"The animation will only last a few hours."

The girls eyes opened wide and hope creeped into them.

"I heard you fixed a girls arms, could you …"

Harry shook his head sadly.

"I'm sorry, I can do the equivalent to first aid. Cancer is out of my skill."

Harry glanced into the girls eyes, hoping to find some simple trinket he could make for her but his surprisingly fluid passive legilimency only showed the girl outside playing soccer with other children.

"I'm sorry I can't give you what you really want. I could give you hair but I don't know how long it would last before it fell out again and magic and electronics don't mix well." He explained as he gestured at the beeping machines the girl was connected to.

Reaching over to her bedside table, Harry took a dirty butter knife and, after cleaning it, transformed it into a simple, metal pendant of a unicorn.

Harry stepped out of the room to find Domino standing there with a brownie in one hand and his drink in another.

The hallway was in chaos with children running after animated transfigured toys and laughing at the magic. The temporary wards had placed on the doors allowing the children to play for a while longer, uninterrupted.

"We did good." Domino declared, taking a long gulp from her drink. "Let's hit Sister Margaret's School for Wayward Children and then call it a night."

Harry smirked at the name and at the pleasant warmth spreading through him from the tasty treat and his new favorite drink. "My aunt and Uncle used to tell people I went to St Brutus's Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys."

"Fuck your relatives." Domino whispered drunkenly. "Let's go and help out some more kids."

Harry nodded in agreement, pushing the Dursleys from his thoughts.

"Ok kids!" Harry cried out bit was interrupted.

"Dude! Where's your beard?!"

"Oh bloody hell!" Harry whispered, waving his wand back at his face causing all the children to laugh uproariously.

"Well my elf and I have more gifts to hand out. The animations on the toys will probably last another hour or so so enjoy them while they last and a Merry Christmas to all."

"And to all, a good night!" Domino added.

Harry grabbed her by the waist and disapparated the both of them with a loud crack.

They jumped onto the Triumph buzzing the windows of the kids ward before flying off in the direction of their next stop Sister Margaret's School for Wayward Children.

Steve stared at Harry incredulously

"Need some proof?" Harry asked.

"Maybe a little? It's just hard to take in."

"That's why I said you should take a while before hearing my story." Harry explained.

With a few silent flicks and swishes, the dirty dishes in the sink began floating and cleaning themselves.

Steve stared for a few moments.

"Right! Magic is real. So after the children's hospital. What happened?"

"You're taking that rather well." Harry commented.

"I was fighting a red skulled Nazi for control over a magic box that desintegrated the man in front of my eyes, I plunged a plane into the arcitic to stop the bombing of New York and then woke up 66 years into the future … I think I'm fairly resilient."

"A magic box?" Harry asked.

"I called it that because I have no idea what it was or how it worked. I can't tell you anymore, I don't know if you're cleared to know."

"Fair enough" Harry agreed. "So next thing I remember we're in this dirty alley …"

"Are you sure this is the right place?" Harry asked as they unsteadily made their way down a dirty alley. The Triumph parked on the street with a notice me not charm on it.

"Yeeeaaaah!" Domino replied drunkenly as she shoved her printed maps into his hands. "If your mojo didn't zap our phones we could check on the GPS but map says … oh! Look!"

The girl ran off and pointed at a metal plaque embedded into the alley wall next to a door.

"Sister Margaret's School for Wayward Children … told you it was here!"

Without a moment's hesitation, she yanked the door open and walked in with a loud "Merry Christmas!".

"Uhm … Domino … I'm not sure this is an orphanage." Harry loudly whispered as he looked at the rather dingy bar filled with dangerous and rough looking men and women.

"Yeah! What's the big idea building a bar in an orphn'ge." Domino slurred drunkenly as she turned a baleful eye at the weasley looking man behind the bar.

"This place hasn't been an orphanage in like 80 years." the man behind the bar explained. "I don't think there's been an orphanage in the US since the sixties."

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