Chapter Text
It had been a stroke of genius, on Dumbledore’s part, to hide the philosopher’s stone within the enchantments of the Mirror of Erised; some of his finest work if you were to ask the man himself. Unfortunately, however, Dumbledore forgot to take some things into consideration.
The first mistake had been presuming that he had understood the complexities of both artefacts. Both had been made centuries ago, their original creators long having left the realm of the living; it had been presumptuous to think he had known the true depths either artefact possessed.
The Mirror of Erised, for example, did not only show you your heart’s desire – it fed upon it. Like a leach on your soul, it had been made by the first owner of the Stone of Resurrection, using the innate magic of one of the Hallows to drive any who looked upon it mad with want (although that had not been the man’s intention). There had been a reason it had been kept in the deepest basement of Hogwarts, under wards so strong a Gringotts goblin would have given a nod of approval upon seeing them; wards which Dumbledore bypassed as the Headmaster of the school.
But much like Hogwarts herself, the Mirror developed a kind of…sentience. He (for he thought of himself as a he, when he realised he could think) was not as motherly, not as kind as the castle, however. No. much like the magical artefact that had been used to create him, he relished driving his onlookers mad.
The Headmaster’s misery at witnessing his sister had been delicious; it had been easy to open a reflection of the realm of Death on his glass, showing the man his greatest regret. The Mirror felt no qualms at doing this; the man had been responsible for his own misery and failed to see the power he – the mirror – had. Even a cursory scanning spell would have sent waves of death magic back in response.
But then children started coming across him, and the mirror developed morality.
It disgusted him… he longed for the days when he would entrap all with his thrall, but he couldn’t help but care. Adults who were foolish enough to use him were one thing, but children should not be exposed to something that could, after enough time, rip out their souls to send to the afterlife (he blamed that nightmare of a castle for teaching him, with her disappointed sighs and judgemental magic whenever a child came across him).
The Philosopher’s stone was a different story, however.
Nicholas Flammel and his wife had not created the artefact, no, they had found it. It was far older than any other thing centuries before it had ended up in Dumbledore’s hands. Far too powerful – and complex – for mere humans to create. It too possessed a kind of sentience, although it lacked the morality the Mirror and Hogwarts had developed. It saw everything in a logical format.
The man and the woman who had used it to lengthen their own lifespans? Meaningless. They would one day tire of immortality; the inability to die, for some, meant the inability to live. Days would blur and boredom would set in far before they found a reason to enjoy immortality; they would be too focused upon their own lives to see the amount of good they could do with their lengthened lifespan.
Although the stone had been beginning to feel bored itself (being locked away in a fancy glass case for centuries would do that) so going somewhere new was quite a nice change.
Being put into a malicious mirror? Not so.
Now the two could not talk, per say, but they could communicate through the magic that they were made from. The Mirror’s, silky smooth and inviting, had been curious about its roommate – the stone, in comparison, didn’t give a flying fuck.
Or at least that was the case, until it saw the mirror in action. Ensnaring the minds of others was one thing, but possessing a connection to Death’s Dimension? Now that was curious.
So they began to ‘talk’ to each other.
Their magic intermingled through those months, hidden away as they were in a secret alcove on the third-floor corridor of Hogwarts. Under the curious onlooking of Hogwarts, the two learned.
And became more.
In fact, they were rather happy to just be chilling out in their own world, if not for the Mirror’s ‘day-job’ – the regular ensnaring of minds. He went through a bit of a dry spell until that Quirrell bloke appeared.
The Philosopher’s stone was not a fan of that man, for it knew of the second soul hitchhiking on the back of the man’s head like a parasite. That, and it was rather comfortable where it was, thank you very much.
But then the boy with black hair and green eyes showed up.
Now the Mirror, for all it hated its own sense of morality, did have a soft spot for the boy. He – being a magical artefact – had never had parents unless you counted his creator, but the love the boy’s parents had was...interesting to feel through his glass. The longing from both sides – boy and parents - was more bitter tasting than the sweetness of Dumbledore’s grief, and above all that, the child was in possession of one of his uncles.
The Cloak of Invisibility.
The Philosopher’s stone was curious. Could this, perhaps, be another roommate it might communicate with? The flashy fabric didn’t look like much, but neither did a mirror or a shiny red-rock…perhaps there was more than met the eye.
It was therefore unfortunate that, when the Mirror and the Stone combined their magic to pull the cloak in, the boy came with it.
Glass and metal rippled like the delicate waves of Hogwart’s lake as Harry found himself sucked into the Mirror’s surface. So quick did it happen, Harry couldn’t even get out a shout of surprise.
QuirrellMort looked about as confused as he was.
~HP~
Death was having a pretty regular day.
A few reincarnations, the odd underling in need of a holiday; the usual paperwork expected for the ruler of the Dimension of Death.
An unfortunate name, but the Dimension of Death was less a place of nightmares and more like the multiverse’s largest waiting room. Souls would arrive ready for their next stage of life; some would wait for their family, others would reincarnate, and some would experience the weight of a thousand suns on their soul as punishment for the lives they led (Death had once been more creative – just ask that Tantalus, still trying to grab something to eat – but the eons had eroded any imagination she once possessed).
There had, of course, been irregularities in her day-to-day life before. Those decades surrounding the Black Death of Earth-2021 had been a bit rough, whilst the Time-War of Universe-N still gave her a headache (and she wasn’t even able to have headaches!). Then there was that whole Hallows debacle.
She had lost a bet with the One-Above-All (known otherwise as ‘the Creator’, ‘They-Who-Made-EverythinG’, ‘the big boss’, etc.) and, as consequence, had to answer the next pointless-summons that she received.
Why the all-knowing being had asked that of her she didn’t know, but alas, she did as she had to. Three magical items, unmatched in power, given to the mortals of Earth-777 to fight over. Each was powered by the energies of her realm, and so were unable to be damaged or destroyed – unless they had somehow managed to make their way back to her.
But she never really thought of them again, bar on the occasion some person or other had died in pursuit of them.
Which was just one reason why, when she looked up from her latest pile of admin to admire the scenery visible through her floor-to-ceiling windows, she was rendered dumbstruck.
For there, floating by, was a young boy – obviously from Earth-777 – with her cloak on his shoulders, banging his fist against a floating mirror alongside him.
Now the mirror she could understand; that infernal thing had appeared not long after she had given the Hallows to the humans and would appear whenever it wished to show an image from her realm to a mortal (she had, for centuries, tried to catch the bloody thing).
The boy was less understandable.
“Heather?” Death said, her assistant – and part-time lover – appearing from thin air the next moment.
“Yes Ma’am?”
“Why am I looking at a floating human right now?”
“Er…” she flicked rapidly through some conjured papers – Death refused to learn computers – so it was strictly paper in her office. “Hardrian ‘Harry’ Potter, from Earth-777”
“…And why is he here?” her eyes followed the boy as they floated past, the human now shouting at the mirror as if it could answer.
“It seems three magical artefacts accidentally brought him here when they were trying to get together for a conversation”.
“…What?”
“That’s what the file says!” The files were omnipresent, so they couldn’t be wrong, per say, but they did like to be misleading.
“Anything special about the human?”
“Um…” more rapid flicking of papers filled the room, “Harry Potter is…damn” Heather said with a whistle, eyes wide. At her sudden silence Death frowned, grabbing the file from Heather’s lax hands.
Her eyes scanned over the page; words written in a language no living person could understand. She caught a fair few eyebrow-raising parts of his file…but then she saw why Heather reacted the way she did.
“Bollocks”
“Indeed Ma’am”
“…He’s a few years early, but would it hurt the timeline of 777 if we sent him to 616 now?”
“Earth-777 will adapt to Potter’s death by selecting one Neville Longbottom as ‘the-boy-who-lived-‘
“-crap title-“ Death interrupted, receiving a glare in return. She wisely stopped talking.
“-although, certain individuals will die sooner if you send him with the other Hallows to Earth-777.”
“Those individuals being?”
“Er… Tom Marvolo Riddle, and Albus Percival Wolfric Brian Dumbledore”
“Ok, so one; that name sucks, and two; is that a bad thing?”
“Probably not”
“Well then, lets do that. Do you think we should just send the Hallows with him, or make him find them later?”
“Um…the humans of Earth-A03 would probably appreciate the suspense”.
“Wonderful. Now, knock him out. I’ll fetch the stone and the wand – I suppose he can keep the cloak – and for goodness sake catch that mirror!”
~HP~
For one moment, Harry had been convinced he was about to die.
Asphyxiation via mirror had not come to mind, but then again, magic wasn’t exactly something predictable. But, considering his lack of reason to go on – bar maybe Hedwig, and wanting to learn more magic – Harry had made peace with his death when he was sucked into a mirror.
But the cloak around his shoulders (and when did that get there?) was warm and comforting as he…arrived to a planet not his own.
Purple grass and black stone met his eyes first, although strangely he couldn’t get closer to it. Almost like the Earth around the sun, he was suspended in an orbit, unable to get closer to the land far beneath him.
What was with him, however, was the murderous mirror. It – minus its glittering frame – was hovering next to him, looking down upon the world it had brought them to. In its surface, Harry could see a pissed-off Quirrell banging on the glass (and despite the recent revelations, Harry kind of hoped the turban wearing-bloke with a Voldemort infection was able to get him out).
Although curiously there was a floating red stone nearby too. How it had gotten there was anybody’s guess…but maybe Harry hadn’t been the first of the mirrors victims – maybe, before collecting humans, it collected rocks.
(It was a bit of a stretch, he knew, but being transported to a different planet when an hour ago you were in bed was a bit much to get one’s head around. So? Kleptomaniac mirrors it was).
Without anything better to do, he picked the rock up to study it closer. He had not expected the mirror to fight him for it.
The mirror – which Harry presumed was the Mirror of Erised – whacked him on the head, hard. It surprisingly didn’t break, but by merlin it hurt.
Harry, unwilling to be beaten to a pulp by a magical object, fought back.
It was not how he expected his day to go.
“Would you stop that!? You’re the one that brought me here!” Harry shouted to the demented mirror, shoving the red-rock into his pocket so as to have both hands for the fight. If possible, the mirror’s attempts to bludgeon him only grew in violence as a response.
“I know it’s bad luck to break you but I swear when I get back I’ll grind you into a fine powder” The threat fell on deaf ears (not that the mirror had organs, mercifully) as it geared back in preparation of a heavy hit; Harry raised his arms and closed his eyes as the Mirror prepared a mighty hit against his cranium.
It never came.
When he opened his eyes again, he no longer saw the strange purple planet and its possessed mirror. Instead, he saw the Earth.
Except he wasn’t on it. He was floating around it.
As beautiful as it was, Harry was pretty darn sure that he shouldn’t be able to survive the vacuum of space, since he was human and not, as it happened, a satellite. Of course this thought was lost behind the wall of holy shit I’m in space.
He was 90% sure that made him the first ever Wizard-in-Space…not that he’d tell anyone, since that would just add another title to his name. Imagining the titles that would smear across the Daily Prophet in response... hell no.
Considering he didn’t know what on earth – ha- was going on, Harry settled in for the wait. Something would happen, he just wasn’t sure what.
After about five minutes he noticed the strange green energy that surrounded him, cocooning him in warmth…and presumably the thing keeping him alive. Putting it down as ‘just one of those magic things’ Harry shrugged.
Then he noticed something strange coming from the planet’s surface….and it was heading straight for him.
Doing a marvellous impression of a swimmer – if you thought of space as a massive swimming pool – Harry tried to get out of the way as a beam of blue light shot by. It missed him by inches.
Now for those with good impulse control, this would have been a fine moment; they’d realise that surviving the vacuum of space was already some impossible miracle, cut their losses, and maybe enjoy the scenery for however long they had left. Harry Potter, quite famously, did not have very good impulse control.
(He had, after all, ventured into a Cerberus-guarded trapdoor with nary a consideration as to ‘huh, maybe this might not be the best idea’).
So, when the mysterious beam of blue light remained where it was for a good ten minutes… Harry’s restraint was sorely tested.
…by fifteen minutes, his hand was outstretched towards it, pulling it back at the last second with the last dregs of his common sense.
By twenty-five minutes, Harry was bored out of his mind, so he touched it.
Blue intermingled with his own green energy, racing up his arm and spreading through his veins like some malign infection. Once it reached the crown of Harry’s head and the very tips of his toes, he vanished.
~HP¦MCU~
When Tony Stark took a nuke for a piggyback-ride through a mystical space-portal, he was well aware that it would be a one-way trip.
The horror at witnessing an armada of space-aliens had almost made him thankful that it was a one-way trip. If he could do one good thing in his life, one good thing to make up for decades of producing weaponry that had been stolen and abused by Obadiah Stane…it would be to take that threat down with him.
Of course, that was before he realised that the pull of Earth’s gravity was still felt through this end of the portal…resulting in his dead-ironman suit, with him inside, falling back into the atmosphere of his planet.
But before he could lose full consciousness due to the sheer amount of G-force he was under, he could have sworn he saw a kid from comic-con fall with him.
Unconsciousness claimed him before he could question the sight.