Marvel/HP: A Third Path to the Future

In the back of the restaurant a man with close cropped dirty blond hair cursed inventively. Thanks to bugging the Xavier mansion's phone they had found out about this little shindig, though who the blond woman was they didn't know. It was pretty clear she had something to do with the so-called Brotherhood of Mutants, but what was a mystery, just like the identity of their leader. That secret was one Fury would cheerfully murder for, the known objectives of the brotherhood was a threat to national, indeed international security.

If only he had been able to overhear what they talked about, but the mini-microphone he had placed on that table (it had been easy to keep that table clear and shunt the group to it, basic spycraft 101 that) but it had failed right before the group sat down. Maybe one of them had some kind of power that did stuff like that to electronics? He didn't know. What Agent Barton did know was that his boss was not going to be happy.

Saturday morning started out a very bizarre day for many of those at the mansion. To start off everyone's normal morning routine was interrupted by a scream from Rogue's room then a loud crash. Everyone (Save Ororo who Harry told to wait and get dressed before joining the rush) congregated in her room, shocked to see she had lashed out in her sleep and destroyed the outer wall which her bed rested alongside. She was now sitting up with Kitty and Jean carefully giving her hugs on either side of her laying their arms along her pajama clad shoulders. "It was just ah nightmare," Rogue muttered, "but it was so vivid, like ah was really there."

"what was it about?" Scott asked, patting her knee, which was under the blanket.

"I, I was a woman, and I was carrying ah baby, runnin' away from some castle, but soon some wolves started tah chase me through the woods. They somehow got ahead of me and pinned me on a rope bridge over a river between them. They attacked, I tried tah hold 'em off, but I got bitten on my arm and forced tah drop the baby down into the river. The dream ends there."

"Was there anything unusual about the scene other than how vivid it was?" Charles asked, wheeling himself towards the bed, his face concerned yet inquisitive.

Rogue thought for a minute then nodded. "Ah couldn't make out any of mah own features, but the baby, the baby had blue fur!" She looked up sharply at Kurt whose eyes widened. "Ah think it was Kurt!"

"Me? But who could have been carrying me vhile running away from a castle? Especially vhen I vas a baby, from what they said the Roma found me about that time. I wonder vhat relation I had to this woman."

"Hmmm," said Charles. "Perhaps later today we should look into this further, it might be possible if I probe your mind we can see more detail." Rogue nodded agreement, and Kurt looked on hopefully, wanting to know more of his birth family.

"Well then, I think I'll go and start breakfast, waffles I think." Harry said with some finality, leaving his hand and using a reparo spell on the wall.

Swiftly the wall was back to normal and Rogue smirked a little. "You're an awfully useful man tah have around Mr. Potter."

Ororo smirked. "Indeed, in so many ways." Harry smirked back at her while the guys rolled their eyes (except for Evan who frowned) and the girls giggled a little. None of the kids noticed Harry stare hard at Charles, this being the last day of his ultimatum to the older man. Charles sighed a little then nodded and mouthed the word later. Harry walked off with Ororo, satisfied for now.

After breakfast the kids were handed over to Logan for endurance training, then had free time until a lesson with Ororo for the girls that evening and with Logan for the boys. Harry would take them on in his team challenges all day Sunday. He wanted to start on his runic flying array/tattoo today.

After lunch however Jean's free time was interrupted by Charles asking him into his office. Wondering what this was about, and wondering why her instincts told her it was going to be about something important, she knocked and when told to entered the third story office. "You wanted to see me sir?"

Charles sighed, wheeling his way around his desk to take up position close by one of the chairs facing it. "Yes Jean, please sit down." Jean sat down, now certain this was going to be something either important, unpleasant or both. "I, I have a bit of a confession to make. Do you remember when I first found you?"

"Yes sir," Jean said slowly, "It was about two weeks after my powers woke up in me." That had been caused by the traumatic effect of seeing her best friend as a child die, run over by a car after just playing with her in her backyard. "You stopped by every now and then until my parents allowed me to move in here two years ago." In actuality they had been just as worried about how it would look if they let their young pre-teen daughter move into a full time boarding school as they had been about her wellbeing, perhaps more so. After all, there was a reason they never bothered to initiate contact with her now that she was away, anything outside the norm was something they couldn't really handle.

"I told you at the time that it was your own power that alerted me to your presence, but that was not the whole truth. I felt something else as well, a powerful alien entity that had, when I investigated, taken up residence in your mind." Jean froze in shock at that and he went on, "When I investigated I found that the entity had bonded with your mind and I could not force it out no matter what I tried. I then made the decision to seal it there, locking it way from the rest of your mind, so that it could not influence you in any way."

Jean shook off her shock and began to get angry. "I, I've got an alien entity in my mind, you've known about this for years and you never told me!?"

"Jean please calm down, I kept it a secret because I wanted to let your mind fully mature before learning or your unwanted guest. I also wanted you to have a normal childhood, Mutant children have a hard enough time having a normal childhood without knowing there is something else odd about them." Charles said placatingly, his hands making calming motions.

Jean stood up angrily beginning to pace around the room, trying to keep control but her power began to spark off her, picking up random items around the room and toss them too and for aimlessly. "Oh that's just great, never mind the fact that I'm a fucking telepath and my mind should be sacrosanct! Why the hell did you think it was good idea to still keep it from me when I began to mature? It wasn't your damn call to keep something like this from me, this is my head we're talking about here! Mental blocks, foreign mental blocks in my head, no matter the reason that is just, wrong, just I can't tell you how this makes me feel! Good god professor, this is why I've been having problems with occlumency isn't it, this thing inside my head is interfering somehow!"

She froze for a moment as she thought of the tension between Harry and Charles, which had started right after she showed his mental projection around her mind…. "Potter found out didn't he? He wanted you to tell me, that's what the countdown and the tension between you was about, wasn't it?" Charles sighed but nodded and Jean's eyes narrowed angrily. "So if he hadn't been pressuring you, would you be telling me about this entity in my head even now?" Xavier looked away, not willing to meet her accusing gaze. "I see. If you'll excuse me professor, I think I'm going to go now. We will be talking again later, after I've calmed down." Charles nodded sadly, wondering how badly this had hurt Jean's trust in him, and where they would go from here.

Jean knew where she wanted to go, and stormed off to find the other target of her ire.

Harry had placed a mufilatio around his workroom so he wouldn't be bothered as he tattooed the runic array that would let him fly onto his back. When he was done it would be a circle of runes around the middle of his back, then he would cover it up by tattooing a design around it to look like a sun or something, he wasn't sure what just yet. He had solved the problem of not letting foreign magic impact the process by using two carefully tilted full length mirrors, one at an angle in front of in front of his face as he laid face down on a table taken from the medical wing, and the other directly above him. This way he was able to see what was going on while he used his magic to direct the half iron (which did not conduct magic) half regular metal pliers that held the crystal (an unused one) he was using to carve the design.

It was lucky he had when Jean barged into his room without knocking for a second time. "You knew, and you didn't tell me!"

When she saw he was lying down half naked and apparently very busy with something that looked very tricky she paused, tapping her toes angrily on the ground.

About ten minutes later, time which did nothing to appease her anger, Harry finished the rune he was working on and allowed the leviosa spell to slowly fade, reaching out to catch the pliers as they fell gently to the ground. He stood up from the bed, looking at her quizzically as he negated the Mufilatio spell. "You really need to work on knocking don't you Red?"

Red flushed a little at the sight of Harry's chiseled abs and his oh so interesting scars then shook it off. "Never mind that, you knew about this, this thing in my head, and you never told me about it, why!?"

Harry sighed a little happily. "So baldy really did get up his courage to tell you, huh, that surprises me, in a good way admittedly. I'm not used to leaders who admit their mistakes. And if I had mentioned it when I first saw it, would you have believed me?"

Jena frowned a little. It was true she hadn't known Harry that well at that point, but… "I would have at least brought it up with the professor if you had told me. Gah, the idea I have some foreign thing in my head is just… brrr. Still, I guess I can see why you didn't want to be the one to tell me. But that and the idea of someone else's mental blocks in my head, that is just wrong. It feels almost like, well almost like a rape, something precious has been defiled, my mind has been changed without me agreeing to it or even knowing about it!" She stood there hyperventilating for a moment and Harry simply waited, letting her recover from her outburst. "Have you, have you run into anything like this before?"

Harry frowned heavily but then nodded. "I've run into two such. One was on my godfather, we were never certain what the reason was, but the effect was to make him extremely impulsive, almost to the point of being suicidal." Dumbledore had put a mental block on Sirius at some point well before he was sent to Azkaban to enforce loyalty. Unfortunately for the meddling old coot, Harry's mother and father had insisted Sirius take the old version of the godfather oath, which demanded the man do all he could to protect Harry with all of his magic, consciously or unconsciously, meaning the man's own magic would work to protect Harry even if the rest of him didn't. When the block and the oath came into conflict, he became incredibly impulsive and almost manic whenever he knew Harry was in trouble, his own magic pushing him to do something, anything even if it went against his trust of Dumbledore, hence why he finally broke out of Azkaban when he saw Peter with Weasley. When Harry began to show Sirius how to use occlumency the block was easy to find when the man organized his mind and they broke it then. The other block Harry had seen was on Narcissa Black, and was part of the marital agreement between the two families, and it disappeared when Sirius, as head of the Blacks, annulled the marriage. After that she willingly helped them lead her former husband and son into an ambush. One had been a rapist and abuser, the other nearly his carbon copy, and she had shed no tears for either. Harry had often wondered why Dumbledore had never tried to place a block on him, and had never found a satisfactory answer. He supposed that such a step was a dangerous one, and by the time Dumbledore realized he needed it on Harry he had already learned to defend his mind with his imagined invisibility cloak.

"So they can have an impact on the person well beyond what was intended?" Jean asked, biting her lip worriedly.

"Oh yes," Harry said grimly, comparing Sirius before and after the block was removed. Before Sirius was almost childish, wild and impulsive and far too trusting of Dumbledore in every way except about how to help Harry. Afterward he resembled the dangerous and very competent Auror he had been before being sent to Azkaban though admittedly more manic, and his love of pranks didn't change. "I honestly can't tell you if Charles' block is more efficient or has a limited effect, but I am a little worried about it, hence why I wanted you to know about this alien entity in your head and the blocks both."

"Could you maybe try and get rid of this thing in my head? Without it there the blocks can be removed."

Harry looked at her hopeful face and sighed. "I don't know. Charles said it's a foreign entity, but I'll be honest, I never saw any indication of that. I just saw it as another part of your mind. Why that is I don't know, but if it is a foreign entity, maybe we should try to talk to it. After all, even if it couldn't communicate when Charles first found it, it has been in your mind for years and it might have picked up human speech in that time."

Jean frowned, the idea of talking to something inside her own head was a really odd idea, but she sighed. "Can we do it now please?" She asked plaintively, and Harry looked at her again, looking past her anger about being lied to and saw her fear this time.

Jean was desperately afraid of whatever this was in her head, and with good reason. If I had something in my brain that wasn't me I'd be terrified too. Sure, let me put on a shirt and we can start." Jena nodded, looking away at this reminder that Harry was shirtless.

A moment later Harry came back and conjured two comfy chairs for the two of them. They sat down, and after a moment Harry nodded, indicating he had pulled back a corner of his invisibility cloak. Jean came into his mind and, like last time, transported his mental projection into her mind, bypassing the belsham-trees which caused Harry to chuckle and wonder what Luna would have thought of them while Jean merely smiled, her worry about the rest of her mind not letting her take pleasure in her defenses.

Jean looked around her barely organized mind, frowning in concentration, then shook her head. "Even knowing something is there I can't see them, Charles hid them too well."

Harry nodded, then grasped her hand and pushed it at the place where a locked down book was held on its pedestal. She resisted at first, then as their joined hands came into contact with it gasped as suddenly she could see the chained book and the fissure below it on the mental ground of her mind. She looked around and saw two other books set along the fissure, and the large staples of some kind that were trying to keep the fissure closed. "This, was all in my mind and I never knew?"

Harry shrugged. "I guess so, though the books might have grown out of the original block, the metal bar thingies. Whatever the thing it's supposed to keep under control is inside that fissure."

"According to those occlumency books you gave me, the further down you go into your mind the more emotions and elemental thoughts you'll find." Jean frowned, now really wondering what was down there.

"That's the way it normally works until you force your own organization on your mind, but regardless, we'll need to go down and find this entity, whatever it is."

Jean nodded and looked at the hole, then with a deep breath reached out and forced the block apart, just enough to let them down into it. A flash of heat and flame shot out, and for a moment they both could feel something stirring below them, but then it settled down, as if waiting for them to make the first move. The two looked at one another then Harry smirked and bowed grandly. "Allow me to go first milady, I shall brave the dragon's cave first, taking all the danger onto myself before I let thee come to harm."

Jean shook her head, but there was a smile on her face as she did. "Nay good sir, we will face this danger side by side for I cannot send someone else to face this danger without me."

Harry, still smirking held out his hand as if asking for a dance at a fancy ball, and Jean looped her own arm with his and together they stepped forward over the fissure, and jumped down into the fire.

They fell for a few seconds through the fire which burned, but did not injure. A moment later they touched down, seemingly floating above a pool of fire which spread endlessly in every direction that looked like the surface of the sun, roiling and pulsing with heat and fire and power. "Hmm, this is not what I was expecting."

Jean looked at him askance and stepped away, looking around. "You were actually expecting something in particular?"

"No not really."

Suddenly a voice reverberated around them, shocking in time, shocking in its power. +You who are my container, my human half, you have come at last. You have come, accompanied be a he who also carries my power+.

Harry and Jean watched in awe as a shape emerged from the flames in front of them. the shape was first an amorphous blob of fire but soon seemed to settle on two shapes, changing back and forth between them constantly. One was that of a woman, her body a replica of Jean's except made of fire, and the other was that of a majestic bird.

"A phoenix," Harry breathed in surprise. "What in the world is a phoenix doing inside someone's mind?" More, this phoenix was giving him an impression of such power he felt dwarfed by it, not overwhelmed, just as if they inhabited two different planes of existence. Harry had never gotten a feeling like that with Fawkes, power yes, and the sense of a powerful immortal mind in those eyes, but not this powerful, this ancient and all-knowing. He groaned a little as he remembered what he said to that guy in the death's mask and conjured a wall momentarily to slam his head against it a few times.

"I, I have no idea. What did it mean when it said you carry also carry its power?" Jean asked, looking a little wild-eyed at the entity and then to Harry and back, not really wanting to know why he was hitting his head against a wall that hadn't been there a moment ago.

Harry stopped what he was doing and closed his eyes concentrating, and his wand, which Death had infused into his very being, appeared in his hand. The piece of Yggdrasil surrounded and encased what Death had called a shard of the M'kraan crystal, and inside that was a piece of flame, an eternal fire that burned without any fuel, forever and eternal. "This is what she meant I think, but what she really is I have no idea. Nor why she is in your mind, care to enlighten us on those points milady?" Harry refused to be awed, it wasn't the first time he had faced something that could crush him like an ant, and he'd be damned if he backed down.

+A Defender should have the tools to do so+, the being stated, in the shape of a bird at the moment, its voice strangely amused. +Though you can only wield it because you met an avatar of my power in your home dimension. And I am here because I found one who was willing to give her all to defend life, that which I serve and create, one who had tried to give her all to bring back a friend from the endless+.

Harry shrugged off the part about tools, he knew what he was after all. The second part though, that interested him quite a lot. "Of course, fire, the power of rebirth and renewal, life and destruction in one."

Jean nodded, understanding suddenly dawning and she stepped forward, moving closer to the being until they stood a bare arms length from one another. "Those dreams I had the week after Annie died, the ones before Charles showed up, they weren't really dreams were they?"

The phoenix nodded, now in the shape of its fire based clone of Jean. +You had telepathically linked your mind to the mind of your friend in an attempt to keep her soul from moving to the afterlife. In doing so, your mind was being dragged to Death's realm, something I could not allow after seeing how hard you fought to sustain the life of your friend. I joined my power to your mind and broke that connection, yet in so doing I forged a connection with you. The meddling of the bald fool occurred before I could remove that connection, and his blocks cut off this portion of my power from the whole+.

"So the you in front of us, it's only a part of the whole?" Harry asked, a little freaked by that idea. The being in front of him was powerful as all hell, but he felt he could still fight it if he had to. Probably wouldn't win, but he could fight it. If it was part of another even vaster entity though, that was terrifying.

+Is the flame in your soul-wand different in appearance than the flames around us? I am phoenix, I am immutable, all parts connected and representative of the whole+, the being said haughtily, not breaking eye contact with Jean. +I was old when this dimension was created, I will be here when it returns to the flame. That is my charge, destroyer and renewer+.

"yet this portion is still trapped in me," Jean murmured. "You couldn't escape without hurting me?"

+I would not kill you in such a fashion, regardless of the fool's idiocy it was through no fault of yours+. The being paused then looking away before looking back at Jean. +Then too I became interested in actually living rather than simply being+.

"So what will happen when we remove Charles' mental blocks?" Harry asked, looking from the redhead to her fiery counterpart.

+This aspect of my whole will merge with the container+ the phoenix said simply, still seemingly staring at Jean, who was staring back.

"You get something out of this though, it's not just because of what I tried to do." Jean said. "My emotions, they fascinate you?" She said it like it was a question, but somehow she knew that was it.

+Yes,+ said the being, not even trying to hide it. +I have lived for a passage of time that you cannot comprehend, yet emotions and feelings are utterly new to me. I wish to feel more, but I know that I cannot afford to actually feel them, else I would be unable to pursue my duty. Thus this portion of my flame will be separated from the whole, separate yet the same. I will learn of these feelings as if I were seeing them through that human invention called a TV. They will not influence me or my sacred charge, yet I will still learn of them+.

"And I get my whole mind back," Jean said, realizing suddenly what she had been missing for years. "My passion, my imagination, my anger. They were all somehow chained down with you by the mental blocks Charles put on us." Those and much of my other emotions, she thought suddenly. That was why she never could sustain a single emotion for very long, why she came off as cool and distant so often. Duncan had often complained about it both to her face and behind her back, and even the other X-men had always thought she was sort of standoffish. Rogue had even called her a spoiled princess because of her attitude (though admittedly also because of Scott's favoritism, something Jean could not do anything about). That had faded lately, but that was because her harsher, more powerful emotions had begun to leak out of their 'books' into the rest of her mind.

Harry nodded thoughtfully, though inside he was questioning whether or not this was a good idea. "So will Red here" they both turned and glared at him but he merely smirked back un-phased, "Will Red here have a connection with you other than showing you her emotions like your very own soap opera."

The being actually wrinkled its nose somehow in distaste at that idea. +I hope it will not be a soap opera, I would prefer some stability in certain areas+. For some reason Harry knew that was directed at him somehow, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out what the being meant, though from her rather startled look Jean seemed to understand. +In answer to your question, Jean will become an avatar of my power, her own abilities enhanced and empowered beyond what she could achieve on her own. It will be a gradual process, the power she wields from me will grow as her control does. I will not be able to influence her mind or emotions in any way that is why this aspect will be cut off from the whole, with just enough of a connection for me to view her emotions, not effect them+.

Jean nodded in agreement to the idea of merging with this entity but Harry frowned a little, realizing that Jean would also need to relearn how to control her emotions if the mental blocks had blocked out so much of them. What is it with the women in this dimension being cut off from their emotions? There's Emma because of her family, Ororo because of her connection to weather, and now Jean thanks to Charles' meddling and Ms Flame here. And I still don't know if this is a good idea, but whatever, it's better than anything else, at least this way Jean's mind will be her own, and whatever happens in the future that's worth it right now. "Alright, how do we do this?"

+You need do nothing Defender+ the being said warmly, now back in the shape of a bird. +It is for Jean and I to do this+.

Jean nodded and stepped forward, now within a foot of the entity. "Let's do this!" She raised her arms above her hand and to the side, and with a trill of joy the bird dived into her chest and disappearing into her astral projection. All around them the flames pulsed, becoming hotter, the light they gave off brighter, becoming almost blinding, then beginning to funnel into her from all directions, encasing her in fire that slowly sank into her skin to join the original shape the phoenix had taken to speak to them. Harry watched in awe for a few moments, than with a jolt found himself back in his own body in the physical realm.

He shook his head then looked across at Jean where she was sitting in her chair. She was glowing with power, her body lifting off the chair he had conjured for her to hover in the air, her eyes glowing with phoenix fire. Harry leaped up reaching forward to grasp her hands and hold her in place as flames began to spiral around the room, activating his protective warding array.

The array began to flicker wildly under the power of this assault, and he let go with one of his hands and reached for the wall slapping his hand onto the array there and pushing as much of his magical power as he could into it. "Come on Red, get it together, control this we really don't want you two to merge only to find you've blown up the mansion," he grimaced as the wards flickered and he pumped in even more energy into them, "Or, you know the state of New York or this continent."

Hammering on the door warned him that others in the mansion had sensed this build up, but Harry paid them no mind, all his attention on the beautiful utterly magnificent young woman who was trying to merge with an entity whose power was literally incomprehensible in an effort to finally call her mind her own. "Come on Jean, work through it, get it together!"

Metal claws slashed into the door frame, and a moment later the other X-men rushed in only to pause in shock at what was going on. Harry ignored them keeping all his attention on the girl whose arm he was gripping so tightly, knowing somehow that if he let go, the being known as Jean would be gone, the body would remain, but the soul inside it would no longer be hers, not because of any malice or evil intent, but because of the phoenix just not understanding what its power could do to her. "Come on Jean, you can do this!"

Ororo looked on in shock for a moment then strode forward, wincing a little as the aura of flame around Jean burned her a little, but she ignored it, grasping her young friend's hand firmly. "Yes Jean, whatever this is you cannot allow it to beat you!"

Jean clung to those hands like a lifeline as her very soul was bathed in a vast power unlike anything that any mortal had ever felt before. Then as more of the X-men piled in, adding their hands to Ororo's and Harry's, the power began to recede as the phoenix retreated, the aspect stuck within her mind merging with her and finally disappearing entirely. The aura around her disappeared and she fell back onto her chair, her eyes closed, but her breathing deep and regular.

Harry took his hand away from the wall, absently noticing how badly damaged the warding array was, he would have to redo the entire array later, but the specialized ward around the property seemed to have held, which was a blessing. Now though he concentrated on something more important. He gestured everyone else back and they gave way reluctantly to allow him to however over Jean in her chair. "Red, you okay in there? How are you feeling?"

Jean opened her jade eyes to gaze up into his emerald ones, then over to Ororo's worried face and around at her friends, smiling happily. "Whole." She yawned, then shook her head very slowly from side to side. "Tired, very tired."

"Well that at least is to be expected," Harry laughed a little, then leaned in and lifted her into his arms easily. "Bed I think for you."

Charles coughed a little and the two green eyed individuals looked at him, one frowning unhappily the other simply with a raised eyebrow. "May I inquire as to what happened in here? If jean is injured in some way we should take her down to the medical wing."

"I'm not injured sir, just exhausted. The problem you finally got around to revealing to me is gone now." She glared a little at him and he frowned and looked away sadly. The other X-men wondered what that was about but didn't really care at the moment, simply crowding in as Harry made his way to the door, Scott and the others adding their own voices of concern and worry. Ororo didn't bother with words, simply reaching forward and grasping her younger friend's hand, allowing her to feel her concern, worry and affection before reaching up and pushing some of her red locks out of her face.

Jean smiled brightly at all their concern simply saying she would be fine after some rest and tell them what happened later. Then she frowned up at Harry. "I can walk you know Potter."

"Can you?" Harry asked impishly letting her down enough to set her legs on the ground and she put her arms around his neck in surprise as her legs nearly gave way under her.

"Okay so maybe I can't walk right now." Harry smirked a little and she smacked his chest, but he merely chuckled and picked her up again, not noticing or caring about the frown that appeared on Scott's face during this little bit of interaction.

"I think you should let Harry carry you to your room Jean," Ororo said as the other X-men moved out of the way. "We don't want you hurting yourself in an attempt to tough your way through your exhaustion."

Jean frowned but resigned herself to being carried, not like it was exactly a hardship to be held against Harry's ripped chest. She flushed just a bit at that thought, but didn't pull away and soon found herself sitting on her bed. At that point Ororo shooed out all the men and she and Kitty went to work changing her for bed despite her protests that she could dress herself. The look of appreciation on Ororo's face as she looked at Jean's body while changing her shirt for a pajama top did more for Jean's ego than any amount of envy or lust from the cheerleaders or footballers though and she soon found herself tucked into bed like a little girl. The last thing she felt was Ororo caressing her check gently, then she was out like a light.

Outside Harry fielded a few questions, giving out just enough information for them all to stop questioning him, then changed the subject and ordered the rest of the X-men to report for a training session.

Jean remained asleep for the rest of the day and well into Sunday, though the others checked in on her occasionally to see how she was doing. Harry however received a surprise on Sunday.

Charles had felt a presence he hadn't felt for many years approaching the mansion and had wheeled himself down to answer the door and see his friend again. As the tall, distinguished gentlemen ran the doorbell (having noticed and ignored both the normal and magical defenses around the house) the door opened and Charles sat in his wheelchair looking up at him with a smile. "Steven, how are you doing my friend? I haven't seen you in years."

Steven strange looked down at his friend, frowning ever so slightly at the man's still crippled legs, a sign of not one but two of his life's failures. Charles had taken that injury while fighting a alien that called itself Lucifer, a name that had mystical/religious connotations and thus had been brought to Strange's attention. He arrived too late, with Lucifer beaten and retreating from the telepath only after crippling his legs. With the aid of a young mutant named Sage hwo had responded to Charles' psychic cry for aid he got Charles to a hospital in time to save his life but not in enough time to save his legs, the tendons in them having died by the time he got there, beyond even Steven's original medical skills. "It is good to see you as well Charles, but I am afraid I am not here to just see you. I believe you have a Harry Potter living here?"

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