This is a snapshot style, non-linear collection of moments. Some will be longer/more linear than others.

I am going to make this as realistic as I can, eg: Sirius will be fuming that Lily cheated on his best friend. Harry will find Malibu too hot. He will be famous with both the muggleborns and the magical kids. Tony won't know what to do with a child. Harry won't pick up science straight away. Tony and Mrs Weasley will have a weird relationship. Kingsley will be shadowing Tony.

But I don't plan on spending 5 chapters going step-by-step through the events of Iron Man, etc, because we've all been there before. I'm going for the best bits only, if I can, and really can't be doing with transcripting all the dialogue. I'm lazy and doing a Masters, what can I say?

Please let me know what you want to see! x

The first time Harry met his dad, he was wearing sunglasses so big and dark that Harry really assumed, for the sharpest of seconds, that he was blind. Looking back, he would cringe and give himself the allowance that he was only eight, and generally had a strange way of looking at the world in the first place. Having come from Little Whinging, a place of uniform dullness, to the ostentatious palm trees of Malibu, Harry was willing to give his younger self more than a few allowances.

'Tony,' the man holding Harry's had said while shaking his head, 'it's eleven am.' Harry's dad looked down at the glass in his hand, brow creasing.

'Hair of the dog, Obie,' he gulped down the rest of his glass, 'it's a thing.'

Obie muttered something to himself and then looked down at Harry. Harry's hand was getting rather sweaty. He had stopped holding Obie's had back a minute or so ago, after realising it wasn't worth the effort. He let his hand dangle limply in his grip.

There was an awkward silence that fought through even the thick fog of memory. Harry looked back and forth between Tony and Obie, silent and nervous. He didn't know why it was so painful for them all to stand in silence, but it was. Tony scratched his cheek and winced.

'Is that him?' He gestured vaguely in Harry's direction. Harry's shoulders rose instinctually, not used to the attention on him, and even less so from a parent. The whole process of coming to America had been a series of strangers gawking at him without quite realising he knew exactly what they were doing.

'This is Harry, yes.' Obie said, exasperated. He shook the hand that held Harry to him. 'He landed this morning. Didn't you champ?' Harry offered a weak half-smile, eyes fixed on his dad. Obie let go of his sweaty hand and walked over to the counter Tony was standing behind. He whispered so lowly that Harry was sure he wasn't supposed to hear.

'I called you, you were supposed to be at LAX for —'

'Obie, I couldn't be there I was —'

'What? You were what? That's your kid!'

At that, they both looked at harry and stilled. He felt very small under their eyes, blinking away tiredness and fiddling with his t-shirt. 'I'm actually quite tired,' he said quietly, eyes whipping between Tony and Obie. It broke the silence, and, hopefully, allowed Harry an escape.

'No problem, kiddo,' Obie said, grinning so widely Harry thought it must hurt. 'We have a room for you —' He looked over his shoulder at Tony, who blinked widely and shook his head at him. 'But I guess I'll take you. I'm your nanny now, apparently.'

Tony rolled his eyes but said nothing as Harry's other had was swept into Obie's. Harry looked over his shoulder and watched his dad — still such a foreign concept — stare at the melting ice cubes in the bottom of his glass. Obie soon distracted him by instilling an intense worry within Harry's soul about the interview he was supposed to give in a few days' time — with his father, of course.

'Now, bud, Martha will come by tomorrow to help you settle in.' Obie said as they arrived at a tall door upstairs. Harry had been momentarily fascinated by a bright painting to the left of it. His eyes soon followed Obie's large finger, like Uncle Vernon's, pointing towards a door opposite the painting. 'That'll be her room. Yours is through here.'

Turned around, Harry was pushed into his room. He had never seen such large windows, and all he had to compare them to was next-door's new conservatory, which wasn't really comparable in the slightest.

Inside the room was more disappointing. The bedsheets were white, as was everything else. An expanse of white wall lay to both the left and right of the door. Coming from the wallpapered Dudley-mural covered home of the Dursley's, Harry felt uncomfortable with the brightness of it all.

The bed frame was the only piece of colour, along with the bedside table — both wooden. Two small, sad, and similarly brown teddy bears drooped in the corner by the built in wardrobe. Harry wasn't sure who had put them there, but he doubted it was anyone he had met in America yet.

With a heaviness that made Harry wince, Obie patted his shoulder and then squeezed it. 'I'll leave you to get settled in, sport,' he lingered for a second or two more, and then walked off down the hallway in a direction Harry wasn't sure they had come down previously, not bothering to close the door behind him.

Glancing about nervously, Harry padded towards the window and stared out. There was no beach below the window, like he had thought; instead, as he pushed his forehead and nose against the glass and peered down, he saw only blue. He unstuck his head from the window and adjusted his glasses. The sun was blinding him, but he couldn't see any blinds or curtains. He knew he would have been too nervous to touch them even if they were there.

Harry clambered onto the bed, sitting awkwardly upon the pillow before sliding under the duvet while trying to disrupt as little of the sheets as possible. He stared at the open door, and strained to hear anyone approaching.

As he remembered it later on in life, nobody did approach for some time. Harry remembered sniffling a little, holding the corner of the pillow in a fist, and falling asleep eventually out of exhaustion. When he woke up, it was dark, and he was still holding onto the corner of the pillow.