Work Text:
Harry was just finishing up his fifth year after the Department of Mysteries, Sirius having fallen into the Vail and Remus tossed in after, when something odd started happening after being sent back to the Dursley's. It was easy to miss, at first, because the old clothes he wore were already too big. But it was when he had to stretch to reach things he didn't before and a dumbfounded question from his cousin for Harry to realize he was shrinking.
No, not shrinking. He was getting younger?
Harry's body and mind are regressing younger and younger rapidly before stopping at around 4-5 years old in a matter of days. Luckily, Vernon and Dudley were off on a boys trip with his work friends, or Harry might not have survived if they saw the 'freakish' thing he was doing.
His Aunt noticed and had been digging in boxes from the attic (she had Harry take them down before he got too small too) and using Dudley's computer angrily as Harry was made to do chores and stay out of the way in his room. He eventually went to the cupboard instead of upstairs when he forgot he wasn't in there anymore, Petunia didn't correct him because it was easier.
The now toddler Harry was confused why his Aunt is older than he remembers and the weird trunk in his cupboard full of odd things. He likes that he is left alone to explore the trunk and finding pictures of his parents felt like how Christmas always looked from his cupboard slats. He falls asleep cuddling a fuzzy book that growls and chitters like his spider friends.
He wakes up to his Aunt stuffing a letter and some pounds into an envelope before shoving it in his hands to hold on to. She takes the mystery trunk out of the cupboard and sets it outside the cupboard with orders to stand by it, she even places an owl cage on top later? Harry doesn't recognize this owl, or know where she came from, but she coos at him and lets him pet her between the bars so she is fine in his book.
He gets to pet the owl for a bit before being told to get in the trunk and to not make a sound. Not an unusual order, sometimes they had guests that might open the cupboard and Harry had to be somewhere else. It's weird his Aunt stuffs a heavy blanket and food in with him though, the guests might be over all night.
Unknown to Harry, a luggage truck for planes comes by and his Aunt directs the worker to load up Harry and the owl as she gets in the passenger seat. All the talking and movement is missed by Harry as the trunk has the basic enchantments meant to keep herbology and potion ingredients fresh, so it's air sealed with its own fresh air and temperature controlled.
Petunia gets to the airport and pays for the trunk and owl to be shipped to an address in America. They tightly seal the trunk and slap labels on it and the owl cage before it gets loaded up and shipped out in the next plane. Petunia leaves, Harry is now someone else's problem and she has to move before one of the freaks notices in a few months.
-
Over a thousand miles away, and half a day later, Agent Phil Coulson gets a text from a neighbor that an odd shipment is at his apartment. An old trunk and owl are outside his house when he arrives, no note or anything outside just his civilian address.
One long and angry owl filled adventure of moving everything inside hasn't answered any questions so he opens the trunk… and just blinks down at it.
A small child blinks back.
He's pretty sure the furry book they have also blinks back.
Phil shuts the trunk.
He then feels bad and opens the trunk again to get the child out and make sure they are okay. Not sure what else to do, he offers to make them a grilled cheese in exchange for the letter they have with his name on it.
His old name of Potter before he was disowned for not having magic. Suspicious, as not even Fury knows he was a squib, Phil opens the letter to an upsetting message.
His cousin and his wife, James and Lily, were killed 15-ish years ago and left their son an orphan. (Phil looks at the, clearly a toddler, child eating a grilled cheese with confusion but reads on.) A relative on Lily's side had custody but sent him to Phil after something magical de-aged him and they couldn't 'deal with more freakish-ness for longer than they agreed'. The letter ends with some scathing remarks about magic and an old man that Phil thinks has too much of an interest in his nephew living with his maternal aunt.
Phil sets the letter down and finds the envelope also has money in it, but ignores that to observe his new nephew. Little Harry is feeding bits of sandwich to the… book thing and is swimming in the college hoodie Phil put in him, seeing the second hand and dirty clothes he had on.
Phil doesn't know how to raise a toddler, Phil definitely doesn't know how to raise a de-aged toddler that may or may not regain memories of a clearly abusive environment. Emotional at the least but he wouldn't put it past them to hurt a teen, he grew up hearing stories of how muggleborn kids could be treated by nonmagical parents.
(Never any squib stories, he didn't know they just got killed or tossed out until he found himself with nothing and alone at an American orphanage.)
He had just stopped a Skrull invasion with S.H.I.E.L.D last year, he is a special agent that will likely get sent on a lot of missions to make the team Fury wants. Can he raise a magical toddler with trauma on top of that?
Could he live with himself for abandoning an already abandoned child? He got adopted by some wonderful parents, raised well, and is a successful agent so far. His adopted parents were also agents, if they could do it why can't he?
Notes:
- A toddler Harry couldn't be used to defeat Voldemort, no matter what Albus tried to say to Phil. So, using goblin magic to remove dark magic from his nephew (the Horcrux), government resources, and pointing MACUSA at a possible national threat, Phil keeps Harry far away from the danger.
- This is pre-911 so the security at airports is a lot more lax when shipping. They didn't even check the trunk because Petunia said it was clothes for her son at college. The anti-muggle enchantments on it helped, but it was also just really lax at this time.
- While Harry's memories and physical injuries don't come back, his magical injuries do and lead to chronic pain and disabilities because he doesn't get the recovery potions or spells fast enough aside from any venom that he had.
- Ilvermorny basically had him on injury watch 24/7 because they had no idea what would pop up or when during his time as a student because Dumbledore was tight lipped about the nightmare of a school he ran.
- His nerves are shot and shaky from the Basilisk bite second year and crucios he got in the graveyard.
- His hands can't grip well from a fang bite in one and the ritual knife from Wormtail cutting deep in the other.
- His leg is weak from the giant spider bite from the tournament maze.
- The blood quill scars return but Phil pays for surgery to remove them because they upset Harry but he doesn't remember why. It took a lot of therapy to recover, both physical and mental, because of how deep the scars were from all the detentions he had. His fingers still can't bend well on that side.
- Harry meets Tony Stark by accident when Phil is trying to talk to Tony about Iron man at Stark Industries and Harry wanders off. Harry wasn't meant to be with Phil that day, but his physical therapy got canceled at the last minute and they didn't have time to drop him back off at home and have Phil meet with Tony. A disabled 18 year old Harry is pretty easy for JARVIS to notice and keep track of, but not really stop as he's not doing anything and is keeping out of locked areas. Tony himself finds Harry and witnesses magic when Harry stops himself from falling and breaking a decoration he bumped into.
- Tony agrees to meet Phil but only if he can study Harry's magic and in exchange for keeping it quiet, the only records of it are all on tablets kept offline and even JARVIS can't access the tablets. What starts as Tony's never ending curiosity about something new, eventually leads to him caring about Harry and wanting to make his life better. He becomes something like an eccentric uncle to Harry and tends to have Harry at his Stark HQ and later Stark Tower when Phil has to go away for a mission. Harry was in the Tower during the Avengers movie.
- Order of the Phoenix takes place in 1995-1996, Harry is shipped out a week after school ends before he turns 16. The first Iron Man movie was in 2010, Hulk and Thor have movies set in 2011, and the Avengers movie is set in 2012. Harry is with Phil for 16 years before he dies from Loki and Tony emergency adopts him so the magical government doesn't get him and he feels horrible Phil died under his watch with Harry in his tower.
- Legally, Harry could live alone (1990 ADA and 1999 Olmstead v. L.C. and E.W) but it was incredibly difficult in the early 2000's for disabled people for a lot of reasons, especially in a city like New York. Magical care wasn't that much better because the city was packed with so much tech it would risk the Statute of Secrecy to use them. Tony knew this from knowing Phil for so long and legally took over Harry's care to keep him in the tower. The British magical government had been wanting Harry back on English soil and their control for ages and would have used his disabilities to do so if Tony didn't step in.
- Harry (24) meets Peter (15) in 2016 and treats him like a younger sibling he helps not make the same mistakes he learned he did in his first life. (Mainly to not trust an older man with an agenda). Peter assumes at first that Harry was Tony's adult son because he lives in the tower with him and acts like family, but that was quickly corrected when Tony says he's too young for a kid. (He refuses to hear Harry point out he was 46 and having a kid at 22 wasn't that weird with how he acted back then.)
- Harry's Monster Book of Monsters (lovingly named Webster’s Dictionary or W.D for short) is a big fan of Peter as Spider-Man and enjoys seeing him at the tower.
- Despite being revived in May 2012, Phil's memories were altered to forget he died and was revived. The implanted memories had him on vacation with Harry instead of his death so he didn't realize something was wrong. As far as he knew, before the truth came out later, Harry was told Phil would be away on missions for a bit and come back. He was very mad when he learned Harry thought he was dead the whole time and only Tony of all people stepped up to keep him out of the magical government hands.