*Author's Note"
I keep needing to go back and remember how old Harry is. In this AU he was born 1994, turned 11 and went to Hogwarts Sept 2005, spent 2006 and half of 2007 at Kamar-Taj. Two months before his 15th b-day he went to Xavier's school. Spent a year there and Sept of 2009 at 15 years old he got married and moved to New York. A year later Iron Man happened when he was 15 going on 16, and a year after that when he was 16 going on 17 Iron Man 2 and the rest happened. As of May 2012, when Avengers happens, he is 17 going on 18.
Chapter 97 Graduation
Despite access to a Time Turner allowing him to be in two places at once and the ability to Pause, Harry was still unable to find any time to sleep for the two weeks that followed the Battle of New York even after fixing the Bifrost.
Harry first needed some trusted men to go into every damaged building and check the internal structure. Some of the buildings were damaged beyond repair from leviathans ramming into them and the foundations were cracked, bent, and unfixable. For the ones Harry could get away with doing so, he used magic to repair the unfixable damage and let the construction crew deal with the rest. Some buildings though were violating too many building codes just standing upright even before the damage, so Harry couldn't even legally repair them because the pre-damaged state wasn't legal in the first place, so the buildings would have to be torn down regardless.
Harry also had to fix the damaged statues and replace the destroyed ones that were blasted to pieces during the invasion. The undamaged ones he just sent back to where they came and turned them off. Plenty of groups came in and nabbed all the broken statues and alien weapons they could, but Harry couldn't do much about that. The broken statues were useless to anyone and it wasn't Harry's job to prevent looters from grabbing alien tech. The best he could do was politely ask the police force and the National Guard who showed up a few hours later to keep the area under quarantine until all the alien corpses and weapons could be gathered up. They probably missed a bunch, but it was better than nothing.
As Harry expected, every millisecond that took place during the invasion was looked over with a microscope to find an area where people could complain about and pin the blame on others. Thankfully Harry's initial press conference telling others that the aliens invaded to steal an artifact answered a lot of questions and helped people point their complaints away from him.
When 'someone' leaked that the same group responsible for playing with the artifact was also the group who fired a nuclear missile at New York, riots broke out all over New York and a dozen other countries over the world demanding the heads of the World Security Council who eventually had no choice but to resign.
After the final one resigned Obscurus visited the Helicarrier and delivered the nuke, fully disarmed and tied with a bright red ribbon. Fury did not appreciate the 'kind' gesture.
A number of people who loved to watch the world burn tried to blame Harry of course. They figured since he already had an army in place, he must've known New York would have been invaded, so it was his fault.
Some listened, but a majority of people condemned such arguments since Harry had released all the details of what he did, how he did it and even why he did it. The 'why' being that New York always got targeted and every New Yorker had no problems believing that to be the truth.
Although Harry did receive some criticism for his Army of Statues, Harry simply repeated that it wasn't illegal and that he could only deploy them if something destructive was happening in New York. That meant if the next army that invaded New York didn't actually destroy anything, Harry would not be able to legally deploy the army.
Harry repeated that point several times. Of course if an army really did come and try to take over New York without destroying anything, they could likely be taken out by the superheroes of the city, so it wasn't a problem. The only thing Harry couldn't sweep under the rug was the means he used to blow up the Chitauri in space. Harry pretty much had to admit that he bought the Mandarin's Rings off Obscurus and used them to make a super drone he overloaded to make that explosion. By phrasing it that way, it showed that the resources Harry used to make such an explosion were one of a kind and no longer existed which made those worried about such bombs feel a lot better.
The Avengers also got a lot of press coverage. Link knew that Harry wanted the Avengers to become a thing, so Link had footage of each posted on videoshare, and even made fansites for all of them. The terrifying and destructive power of the Reds did not get as many videos since Harry preferred the public to think of them as heroes on the same level as the Avengers.
This worked for the most part, but outside the battlefield a lot of people who refused to evacuate went to their roofs and filmed the Reds in action. Thankfully in this setting it was clear they were using their power to hold back the invasion so it was power seen in a good light.
Action figures of the Avengers would be made within a month with each hero getting the proceeds from their likeness rights.
During the next press conference, Harry used all the good press he'd gotten to petition for the passing of a law that would regulate super heroes. Sorta.
He knew that ever since Iron Man and Obscurus appeared, people would be working on it but those plans would try to control metahumans and superheroes, not protect them.
Harry's bill would establish the creation of an Association that would authorize heroes, thus elevating them from Vigilantes to actual heroes. The Association would work hand in hand with the Police and require Heroes to go through specific training that officers of the law were required to go through.
For superheroes who wanted to remain anonymous, they could get a Sponsor, a trusted person who knew their identity and would take care of the paperwork for them, someone government officials could use as a go-between to reach masked individuals. Not just anyone would be able to become a Sponsor, but it wouldn't be too difficult for qualified individuals to become one.
The bill includes terms like reasonable usage of force which sounded like a way to restrict heroes in theory but was actually extremely loose in practice.
The main aspect of the bill was that a team of heroes or individuals would be held accountable for efficiency, damage, and lives saved vs lives lost when taking action. A hero must have insurance which covers damage they inflict on property and others. If a hero is deemed not good enough their license can be suspended until they train more and if they take an action far beyond the acceptable limit, they can have their license permanently revoked.
The bill stated that Captain America and the Avengers would be the current leaders of the Hero Association and Harry Potter would start up the insurance requirements.
Of course, Harry fully expected the bill to be shifted around and stalled for years before it was passed. The point was to be the first to submit a draft before anyone else could. Passing a law of that magnitude would take years and Harry would be surprised if it was passed with minimum changes within five years.
Also, Harry would not charge Heroes for the insurance. Of course, it was tricky to pay them too. The entire bill did not include one clause that stated Heroes would be paid. That was deliberate.
Harry fully expected people to twist the bill into something they could use to control metahumans and superheroes, so the moment they did, Harry would argue that such restrictions should come with a paycheck. Any Senator or Congressman can argue to restrict metahumans, but when they are asked who will pay them, Harry knew they would go silent. Paying them meant either raising taxes or taking the money from someone else. No one in the government wanted to answer questions like, 'How much is the annual salary of someone the government pays to save the world?'
The main purpose of the bill was to prevent identities from being exposed and protect Heroes who were willing to save others without being paid by the government to do so.
He did not want something in place that required people with powers to register themselves, but in case that was required one day, people could submit such things through Sponsors. If someone had a specific mutant power and mutants were required to register themselves, they could register themselves using a Title to a Sponsor. The Sponsor would know who they were, but would not submit the name to the government, only the title and power.
Of course, Harry would fight tooth and nail to prevent such a thing from happening, but he would lay a foundation to minimize the damage should it ever come to that point. The point was to lay the foundation early.
The schools were reopened a week after the Battle and most of the buildings in the battle zone were reopened for residents and employees to return to. Harry's insurance company covered most of the bills for repairs for the buildings which had his insurance and Harry and Stark set up a few fundraisers to pay a chunk of the repair costs for the uninsured ones.
Overall there were about thirty lives lost, a majority of them were either unlucky or idiots. Most either didn't have a Brilliance Phone or ignored the warnings. Considering the scale of the disaster, the overall damage and amount of lives lost was miniscule in comparison. The half dozen leviathans alone could have destroyed the entire city. Several of them flew through buildings, destroying them completely and killing the ones who had yet to evacuate, but thanks to the efficiency of the evacuation, most buildings were emptied by the time the massive creatures came through the portal.
Though Harry took a lot of losses, he'd get them back from new subscribers to his phones and the fact that the whole of New York would likely have his insurance by this time next year.
A month after the battle, Jade, MJ, Peter, Gwen, and Felicia all graduated High School. Jade's uncle Jackie, Uncle, and Tohru, all showed up for the graduation together with Jade's mother and father.
Harry held a party at his house and Jade told everyone how things were going, though she certainly left out a few things. Jackie and Uncle implied they had a few suspicions about the identity of Dragonheart, but as the hero was clearly older than Jade, they didn't seem to pursue the matter.
Jade also used the party to break the news that she got a full scholarship to NYU and would be staying in New York to get a degree in History. All things considered, it was the subject she knew the most about since her one thousand past lives lived through most of recorded history and everyone celebrated the announcement. Her parents lived in a small apartment in Hong Kong so although they would have welcomed her back, it would not have been as comfortable. They were very pleased that she had been living with such good role models and had her life planned out.
A few days later there was another graduation that occurred in the U.K. that Harry attended himself. It was that year's Hogwarts graduation. Hermione, Neville, and everyone from the year he went to Hogwarts with, were all graduating.
Harry and Hermione had always kept in touch so he was happy to attend. Hogwarts hadn't changed too much since he left but there were changes. Snape had taken on an apprentice Slytherin girl as a teacher's aid and after three years of teaching her everything he knew he retired and hadn't been heard from since. She had replaced him and actually liked teaching so the whole of Britain was better for it. Professor Lupin had remained the Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher and the fact that he was a Werewolf was well known. He basically told every class that him being a Werewolf meant that classes during a full moon were free periods which every student was happy with.
Not that things were always peaceful. According to Hermione, there was still something happening every year but after their first year, it all seemed quite tame. For example when Lupin was outed as a werewolf in the middle of their second year, the Board of Education got a man called Lockhart to come teach the classes. Hermione sent a copy of the first quiz Lockhart gave to all his classes to the Board of education. The first question was apparently, 'What is Lockhart's favorite color?'
After a month it had become clear they had replaced a good teacher with a fraud and Lupin was provisionally reinstated. Eventually the only thing the students cared about was that he was a good teacher and they got an extra free period once a month.
The year after that, some of the Death Eaters who never went to Azkaban and didn't show during the Resurrection tried to stage a coup. The year after that, someone pretending to be Voldemort showed up and tried to gather supporters. It was a year and a half later they found out it was just a group of wanna-bes who staged a lot of powerful feats to pretend to be as mighty as Voldemort claimed to be. The fakers were all caught and thrown into Azkaban only a few months ago.
Harry was pleased to have missed all of that as he had not exactly been unoccupied over the last six years himself.
The Hogwarts graduation took place in the open field in front of the castle by the Black Lake where they had once waited for the other schools to arrive during the Triwizard Tournament.
Each student was given a magical badge that represented their house and Hogwarts and Hermione refused to tell Harry what it could do since it was a school only secret. Harry wasn't curious enough to look into it, but that didn't mean he'd let such a thing slide. He'd been out of the castle for six years, so it was long overdue for a prank.
Headmaster Dumbledore stood before the assembled students with a proud smile. He had already announced McGonagall as his replacement and that this would be his last year before he retired. When the March of the Valkyries started playing at a low volume and getting louder and louder, he gave a fond smile as if he had expected nothing less from his final day.
The ground started rumbling and Hermione and Neville simultaneously turned to give Harry a glare which Harry only returned with a smile.
One of the students pointed to the forest where they noticed movement and shouted, "Look!"
Everyone looked to the forest where they noticed a towering figure charging out of the woods. It was a massive creature no smaller than an elephant and bright purple in color with a mighty horn rising from between its nose to well over its back. It was a giant Crumpled Horn Snorkack. It charged out of the woods towards the assembled student body and was followed by hundreds of smaller Crumpled Horn Snorkacks.
Harry smiled when he looked over and then saw something he really wasn't expecting. A blonde haired teenage girl was sitting on top of the massive Snorkack and was expertly riding it. Harry didn't remember setting that up.
As the Snorkack horde charged the graduation ceremony, Harry calmly asked Hermione, "Who is that riding the Snorkack King?"
Hermione sighed and answered, "Luna Lovegood, the co-author of the Quibbler."
She seemed quite happy and didn't appear to be in any danger, so Harry let her be. The graduating students ran for their lives and Dumbledore sat there humming the chorus of March of the Valkyries without a care in the world.
The students ran for safety into the castle and most of the little Snokacks followed and caused chaos throughout the castle. The big one seemed to be following Luna's orders and was doing laps around the castle while Luna yipped and shouted with joy.
Harry could only chuckle at that. When someone saw a Snorckack, they later forgot they saw it, so the only evidence of someone seeing a Snorkack was that they didn't remember seeing one. However Luna's skill riding the Snorkack King made Harry wonder how many Snorkack Kings she had ridden in the past and forgotten about.
Harry didn't know if Crumpled Horn Snorkacks were real, but these were all created by the Apple of Discord. Harry figured a prank no one would remember would be funny, but seeing how happy Luna was, he decided to change the magic a bit so that people with a sense of humor would not forget.
As the chaos died down, Harry walked over to where his dogfather was sprawled out on the ground, clutching his sides and laughing hysterically with tears coming down his eyes. Harry didn't tell him about this prank, but Sirius Black would have likely been disappointed if Harry had not done anything, so he was very happy with his godson.
After the ceremony Harry dispelled the Snorkacks and everyone gathered together to head to Sirius's home. Before leaving, the chipper blonde walked up to Harry holding a purple egg with ethereal swirls over it, twice the size of a fist. She said, "Thank you Professor Potter," and turned and left with the egg. Harry had his suspicions about that egg but decided not to worry about it. Magic was magic and having all the answers often took the fun out of everything.
Hermione and Harry spoke for hours on her plans for the future and the details Hermione discovered about the magical world.
Any muggle-born would look at the current magical world and believe they are drastically behind the times, but after years of research, Hermione came up with a theory as to why. It was intentional. Magic allowed witches and wizards to advance in both personal and societal power, but some time ago, witches and wizards reached a turning point. It was at that point that laws preventing new advancement became common and the whole of wizarding culture suddenly stopped in its tracks.
According to Hermione, if the hidden magical community advances any further, it would be forced to overhaul itself completely in a way that would not end peacefully with the nonmagicals of the world. Because of this, bringing the magicals into the modern times was a recipe for Armageddon.
The problem of course was that the longer they held themselves back, the further they would leap forward once that wall was eventually breached. According to Hermione, the Statute of Secrecy would absolutely end within five years.
So, Harry and Hermione had been making plans to deal with it before then.
The first step was to remove the nonmagical population's fear of magic. In order to do so, Hermione would be using books. With Neville's help, Hermione had been spending her free time for the last few years re-writing Wizarding tales and bedtime stories along with writing a number of her own.
Harry planned to flood the markets with these children's stories and get the next generation of children and the current generation of parents familiar with Witches and Wizards, their customs, abilities, and quirks.
Once muggles become more familiar with magic users, they won't panic nor fear their presence when the reality of magic becomes apparent to the world.
Of course, that was only half of the plan. The other half was to give the magical community a new direction to advance that would not cause problems with the nonmagical world.
Before this point, neither Harry nor Hermione had any good ideas. Then Harry got the Mind stone. That led to the question, how would magicals feel about VR games? As long as Harry sold them cheaply enough, he could get everyone to spend their time in the VR games, thus directing their need for advancement in a controllable direction. They could use magic within the game without problem and the nonmagicals within the game would be none the wiser.
Because of this, Harry wanted to try for a working prototype within half a year and launch it for sale by the next year. He could have the Goblins beta-test for him. They would probably take over some virtual land and make a goblin city, but that was fine with Harry. There was no law that prevented them from living with muggles above ground in a virtual environment.
Once the VR world was online, magicals and nonmagicals would interact more frequently within a fantasy world. It would take a few years, but the best case scenario was to basically get the nonmagicals used to witches and wizards before the Statute of Secrecy was irreversibly shattered.
Neville had not been idling around either. Through Hermione he'd gotten every sort of muggle book on plants and agriculture and had been using what he read, and the parts Hermione explained because he didn't understand, to advance his own understanding of magical plants.
The stuff Neville showed Harry was moderately concerning. Neville had bred plants that could absorb magic to grow. Neville demonstrated this by casting an Incendio at the plant and the plant actually absorbed the magic of the spell faster than the heat of the magically created fire could burn the plant. There was a limit of course, but the potential was terrifying. Especially because Wizard Magic was chaotic by nature. Harry confirmed through some tests that the plants grew even better absorbing Sorcery than they did Wizard Magic.
To prevent Neville from accidentally destroying the world, Harry designed a Lab for him filled with magic proof tech he could use to test and contain his creations and prevent an outbreak. A plant that could absorb any magical attack and grew faster than could be physically cut down was kinda terrifying.
Two months after the Battle of New York, things were mostly settled down with the businesses and residents in the condemned buildings being relocated and everything going back to normal. Mostly.
Harry wasn't the least bit surprised that some clever idiots actually robbed a bank using Chitauri weapons. After the mother ship got atomized by the reality bomb, all Chitauri tech seemed to stop working and even the collected pieces by the government were little more than paperweights. Spider-Man disarmed and caught them without an issue, but Shield bailed them out of jail and probably offered them a job within an hour of their capture. Harry wondered what their salary would be.
It wasn't too long after that when Stark called Harry over to discuss their own plans for the future.
Stark started with, "What do you think about a suit of armor around the world?"
Harry rolled his eyes and replied, "That would make people feel too safe and without proper wariness, they'd be more prone to random acts of stupidity. It's better for the world to figure out how to protect itself. We just need to show it how. That's what the Hero Association is for."
"And I get that, but I'm talking about how to prepare for the next invasion, because you'll never convince me there won't be another and we may not get enough support before that happens."
Harry chuckled. Stark wasn't wrong. The reason the Chitauri came via portal was because there was no active space gate that allowed ships to jump to Earth. However there was an inactive one. Carol Danvers and the Skrull heavily encoded the thing to prevent others from easily using it, meaning the Skrulls could come over whenever they pleased, but other ships could not. Of course, Harry had no confidence that would stop Thanos if the technomancer actually decided to put some effort into showing up. Even if the gate was destroyed, Thanos certainly had access to ships capable of getting to Earth from the next closest space gate.
Harry replied, "You're talking about a legion of automated Iron Mans right? Take it from me, nothing in this world is unhackable. You know how secure my systems are. There are people who can tear through my firewalls like wet tissue. Mass produced automated defenses run by Jarvis or Link is not the way to go."
Stark heavily frowned at that. The pair had discussed Link's origin and they knew he was probably the most advanced AI on the planet. If Harry stated that a system monitored by Link could be hacked, then anything Stark could come up with over the next few years would not make the cut.
Stark continued, "So we can't remotely operate the suits and we can't put people in the suits."
Harry mulled over the problem for a bit before a terrifying smile started spreading over his face.
Stark took a step back and asked, "Harry? You're not thinking of a diabolical prank are you?"
Harry nodded, "Do you know what the best way to guarantee your plan works when planning against an enemy?"
Stark replied wearily, "Umm, no. I do not. Please teach me oh wise Lord of Pranks."
Harry smiled and answered, "The best way for a plan to succeed against someone is to plan to lose."
"Come again?"
"If you plan to lose and your opponent plans to win, then nothing your opponent does will get in the way of your plan, guaranteeing success."
"Success of the plan to lose." Stark added.
"That's right. So, the reason we don't want to deliver a batch of Iron Man suits to Shield is because we know they will probably end up in the hands of the bad guys and be used against the good guys."
Stark perked up at that, "So you want to create a bunch of Iron Man suits with a hidden feature that takes into account that they will be stolen and used for bad stuff."
"Right. Like a Biometric Lock built into a sub system welded into the frame to make it non removable, but can actually be removed with the right tools. But I could create a undetectable metaphysics based system that would activate if someone tried to harm someone good with the suit. When activated, the suit would knock out and eject the occupant and then allow the good person to wear it, turning the tables."
Tony gasped, "Oh my god. That would be the greatest prank in the history of espionage."
Harry smiled, "I know."
Stark then gave a thoughtful pose and added, "But historic prank aside, that won't solve the problem of protecting the Earth."
"It will in the long run. The reason we can't release the good stuff is because of the hidden elements that will use it for world domination. If we use this kind of bait to lure them out and remove them, the chance will arrive to actually release the good stuff and get some help."
"So cut out the bad guys hidden within the good guys and give the rest Iron Man suits."
Harry shook his head and pulled out a gauntlet from his inventory. "I had something else in mind. Put this on."
Stark examined the gauntlet for a moment before strapping it to his wrist. The moment he snapped it on, red static pulsed over the gauntlet and over his body.
Stark felt himself brimming with energy and asked, "What is this?"
"Nova crystal. It can safely saturate a living person with a form of energy called Nova Force. This energy has a lot of properties which can grant superhuman abilities. I'm almost at the point I can mass produce them and once the subversive aspects of government have outed themselves, I want to try creating a super powered police force using these."
Stark already took the gauntlet over to a scanner and started measuring everything he could. He asked, "What if it gets stolen?"
"Ah, that's the best part about Nova Force. There is a link between Nova Crystals and the Nova Force in any crystal can be diverted to another crystal. So someone in need of a boost can be supercharged and a stolen crystal can be depowered. Like a gun you can remotely turn on the safety for."
Stark couldn't help but ask, "Seriously? Where the hell did you get this?"
"Alien civilization. They actually used Nova Force to create a galaxy spanning Law Enforcement group called the Nova Corps, but they lost all their crystals."
Stark asked with a petty amount of accusation, "You've already been to other planets haven't you?"
"Yep. I'll transfer over some of the designs I found you might be interested in later."
Stark smiled, "Yay! Gifts! I'll make sure to get something for you when I come back from space."
Harry ignored the remark and continued, "First I'm going to make a prototype." Harry then removed a metal disc with a very familiar shape.
Stark asked, "Is that?"
"Soon to be the new and improved version."
Stark nodded, "Well, if anyone can be trusted with that, it's him."
Harry agreed. It was a week later that Harry called Steve over to his house.
Harry met Steve at the door and the war veteran politely held out his hand which Harry took for a greeting. "Captain Rogers, ready for an upgrade?"
"Is that what you called me for? There won't be any needles involved will there?"
Harry replied, "No," before taking him downstairs to the training room.
Harry walked over to a table and pointed at a shield whose profile matched the one Steve had gotten so used to over the years.
"You made me a new shield?"
"Kinda. It is still made of vibranium, but I've added a few improvements."
Steve replied, "Howard told me that my shield had all the vibranium we had access to."
"It did. I made this myself. Now try picking it up."
Steve raised an eyebrow at the word try and walked over and lifted it. The moment he touched it, a shimmer of light spread from the point he held it and spread over the shield.
Steve immediately felt the difference and asked, "Professor, what is this?"
Harry smiled and replied, "A lot. Remember how Thor could throw his hammer and call it back to him through will alone? I added that enchantment to this shield. Only the worthy may use it which is good because I added a lot more to it than just that. First, try tossing it."
Steve gave a small smirk and tossed it away. A moment later it slowed and came to a stop in midair and returned. Steve expertly caught it and his smirk turned into a grin.
Harry then snapped and a large crate materialized from the hard-light projectors.
"Next trick. Place the shield in the crate and close it."
Steve was already curious as to what would happen and did as instructed.
Harry then said, "Now pretend you are in a situation where you really need your shield. Imagine that shit had hit the fan and Captain America is needed to save the innocent."
A moment later, a shimmer appeared in front of Steve which materialized into his new shield. Steve grabbed it and confirmed it was the same one. He even opened the crate and confirmed it was empty.
Harry smiled. Harry already had a set of basilisk envenomed Goblin silver knives with the same enchantment as the Sword of Gryffindor, which allowed its owner to call it back. Harry just added the same enchantment to the shield.
Harry told Steve, "The shield also has an enchantment that will make it appear before you when you need it. Even if you are in a locked room or if the shield was buried in concrete and dropped into the middle of the ocean, it would still appear before you if you needed it."
Steve replied, "Okay. I'm impressed."
Harry laughed, "That is nothing compared to the last trick. You should feel that the shield is trying to connect to you right? That is the last feature I added. It is a Nova crystal. I promise it is completely safe, so try connecting to it."
The one in the gauntlet Harry showed Tony was barely a sliver of a piece. The one built into the shield was the real deal.
Steve let the shield connect to him and shouted, "Woah!" A moment later, he started hovering in the air.
Harry smiled and watched Steve figure out how to fly on the fly and slowly lower himself back down.
Steve asked, "What was that?"
"Nova Force. When your body is saturated with Nova Force, you will be several times stronger. You'll be able to fly, and bullets won't be able to penetrate your skin or deal serious damage to you." Of course, that was just with the Nova Force from the one crystal. Once Harry had more, every aspect would be enhanced. At peak level, someone with a Nova Crystal would have all the abilities of Carol Danvers, but become even stronger and faster. Of course, that was only if all the Nova Force concentrated into a single person, so there was no easy way to have an army of Captain Marvels.
Rather than look happy, Steve looked pensive. After a few moments he said, "And no one but me can wield this shield?"
"No one but the worthy," Harry corrected. "But even if someone worthy did use it, you still have priority, so you'd be able to call it back to you at any time. Also, your access to Nova Force is not permanent. If you store the shield somewhere and leave its proximity for longer than ten minutes, your access to Nova Force will be cut until the next time you hold the shield."
"So Thor would be able to use it?"
"Probably. But Thor's enchantment was cast by his father using Asgardian virtues as a base. Your shield has American virtues as a base. Someone who either doesn't believe them or has compromised too much won't be able to lift your shield off the ground."
Steve asked, "Can you lift it?" And then he put the shield down.
Harry looked thoughtfully at the shield for a moment before reaching down and picking it up easily. Harry smiled and said, "I may be a Brit, but that doesn't mean I don't have American values. I moved here for a reason you know."
Though Harry was not perfect, he had never compromised in doing what he knew was right and believed people should be free to make their own lives better.
Steve returned the smile and picked up the shield.
Harry snapped and the area turned into a battle ground filled with giant robots, vicious looking monsters, and dozens of armed soldiers. "Time for a test run."
Steve looked over at the training field with anticipation. He held his shield in front of him and charged forward at blinding speeds. He was going to have some fun with this.
*Author's Note*
Sorry this took a while. Had to decide where to go from here without burning myself out. I have been distracting myself with the idea for another project which makes a Mutant Obscurus Harry Potter Gamer in the Marvel Verse seem simple by comparison. If I can figure out where I want to go with that, I'll release it shortly before I finish this story. I would go so far as to say this story is a warm up compared to that one.