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"Where have you been?" Pepper asked, her voice a mixture of stern reprimand and profound relief as she finally released Hermione from the fierce hug. "I called and called, I left dozens of messages! I was worried sick!"
"I was at school, of course," Hermione replied simply.
"But I checked," Pepper insisted, her brow furrowing in confusion. "I had my staff run a search on every private school in the tri-state area. There's no record of you anywhere."
"That's because I don't go to school in New York," Hermione said, deciding it was time to rip the band-aid off. "I attend Hogwarts." She paused for a beat, then added for clarity, "It's a wizarding school."
"Oh, a wizarding school," Pepper repeated, nodding absently before the words fully registered. Her eyes went wide. "Wait. A what school?"
Hermione tilted her head. "I'm a witch," she said, as if explaining the most obvious fact in the world. "So naturally, I have to go to a school for witches and wizards. Where else would I learn all my magic?"
Pepper just stared at her. When she had called Hermione "Miss Wizard" at S.H.I.E.L.D., it had been a sarcastic nickname, a way to process the impossible by framing the girl as a character from a fantasy novel. She had assumed Hermione was a gifted child, a mutant, someone with a rare genetic anomaly that gave her superpowers. She thought the "magic" talk was just a child's way of understanding those powers, a fantasy she'd built for herself.
But now, looking into Hermione's serious, sincere eyes, a new, far more reality-shattering possibility began to dawn. "You're not joking," Pepper whispered, her voice filled with a dawning horror and wonder. "You're telling me that wizards… that magic… it's all real?"
Hermione sighed. To prove her point, she flicked her wand and transfigured a stack of Stark Industries quarterly reports into a flock of fluttering, paper doves that circled the office before settling back into a neat pile. After another demonstration that involved levitating Pepper's desk chair, she finally seemed to accept it.
"So… you spend your time at… Hogwarts," Pepper said slowly, testing the word in her mouth, "and you only come back here when you're on break?"
Hermione nodded, and then gave her a more detailed, curated version of the story she had told S.H.I.E.L.D., explaining the basics of the hidden magical world. As Pepper quietly absorbed this world-shattering information, her expression shifted from shock to something much sadder.
"I'm sorry, Hermione," she said, her voice full of genuine regret. "After Tony got back, I should have brought him to thank you in person. But I couldn't reach you, and… well, Tony didn't believe it. He was convinced S.H.I.E.L.D. had hired a child actor and used some kind of advanced hologram technology to fool me."
Hermione nodded. That sounded exactly like Tony Stark. She wasn't angry. From his perspective, it made perfect sense. He had been through a hellish, traumatic ordeal, escaping a terrorist camp only through his own genius and the sacrifice of a good man, Yinsen. To be told that his survival was preordained by some magical prophecy would feel like a complete negation of his suffering and Yinsen's sacrifice. She wouldn't have believed it either.
"He's been… different since he got back," Pepper continued, a deep, weary frustration seeping into her voice. "He's locked himself in his workshop, building these… these armored suits. He shut down the entire weapons division, the company's main source of revenue, without a single thought for the consequences. And he's left the entire mess for me to clean up. I'm just his secretary, but suddenly I'm running a multinational corporation and trying to stop our stock from tanking, all while he plays with his toys." She let out a long, tired sigh. "He just left this morning. Flew to the Middle East to test his new suit. He just got back from there, and now he's running right back in."
Hermione's head snapped up. The Middle East. The Mark III. The plot was moving faster than she'd thought. Tony had just gone to Gulmira to destroy his own weapons and the terrorists using them.
"Sister Pepper," she said suddenly, her voice urgent. "I'm so sorry, but I have to go. Something just came up. I'll be back later, I promise."
And before Pepper could even form a question, Hermione had summoned her Nimbus 2000, hopped on, and shot out of the open window, a small, black-robed figure disappearing into the bright blue sky.
She flew at full speed, the roar of the wind in her ears. This was a reckless, impulsive decision, driven not by strategy, but by the pure, unadulterated fannish glee of her past life. It was a chance to see him in person, in the suit, in the air. A chance she might never get again.
She cast a Disillusionment Charm, her form blurring into the sky, and headed out over the ocean, following the flight path she knew he would have to take back to his Malibu mansion. Soon, she saw it: a glint of gold and hot-rod red, breaking through the clouds like a miniature sun, moving at a speed that made her own top-of-the-line racing broom feel like a child's toy.
It was the Iron Man armor. And it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
She pulled her broom alongside the suit, flying parallel to it, completely invisible. The sound of its repulsors was a powerful, satisfying hum. In her past life, she'd had the action figures, the posters. She had dreamed of flying in this very suit. And now, the real thing was right here. Overcome by a wave of pure, childish awe, she reached out a hesitant hand and gently, reverently, touched the cool, smooth metal of the armor's shoulder plate.
Inside the suit, Tony Stark was running a post-mission diagnostic, the satisfying glow of victory still warming his chest. The raid on Gulmira had been a success. The suit had performed flawlessly. But there was always room for improvement.
"Jarvis," he said, his voice echoing slightly inside the helmet. "Run a stress analysis on the flight stabilizers. I felt a bit of a wobble during the vertical ascent."
"Right away, sir," the calm, British voice of his AI replied. "And sir… I may be detecting a sensor malfunction."
"Lay it on me, J."
"I am detecting a tactile contact on the outer shell, starboard pauldron. The shape and temperature readings are consistent with…" Jarvis paused, as if re-running the data. "…a human hand, sir."
Tony snorted. "A hand, Jarvis? At thirty-thousand feet, going Mach one? Did a flight attendant get locked out? Recalibrate your sensors."
"I have, sir. The data remains consistent."
"Then it's battle damage," Tony said dismissively. "A piece of shrapnel probably bent a sensor plate."
There was a moment of silence.
"Sir," Jarvis said again, his voice now laced with a note of genuine confusion. "Although what you say is logical, the contact appears to be… moving. It has trailed down the arm and is now on the primary repulsor casing."
"Jarvis, I swear, if you're developing a phantom limb syndrome, I'm replacing your code with a Speak & Spell."
"With all due respect, sir, the contact is now… caressing the arc reactor housing."
"It's what?" Tony's annoyance was quickly turning to genuine concern. "Okay, now you're just being creepy. There's definitely a bug in your code. I'll run a full diagnostic when we get back."
Another long pause.
"Sir," Jarvis said, his voice now sounding almost… nervous. "The data remains consistent. And… the hand appears to have been touching the suit for the duration of our return flight. From head to toe. Almost as if it were… taking inventory."
"That's it, you're grounded," Tony declared. He was convinced his multi-billion dollar AI was having a full-blown digital meltdown.
But what happened in the next second made his heart stop, and his breath catch in his throat.
A crisp, clear, and distinctly female voice, with a prim British accent, spoke, not through his comms, but seemingly from the empty air right beside his helmet.
"Jarvis isn't wrong," the voice said cheerfully. "I'm right next to you."
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