Doom Days (Harry Potter/MCU Crossover)

Pre-Chapter A/N: Happy New Year! Here we go with the first chapter of 2025. Lovely to have you all here, and I hope you enjoy this one. If you do, feel free to head over to Patreon(www.patreon/Oghenevwogaga) and read the next three chapters- I update there daily so there's always something for you to read. It's also a new year, so this is probably the best time to buy an annual membership on my page if you're the kind of person that would do well with one. Have fun. 

I looked at my surroundings, careful not to give anything away about my internal thoughts or feelings about my present position. When I came up with this plan, I definitely had not foreseen ending up here. It was so remote from my reasoning that hit had not even been considered as an edge case. In every single situation, I imagined Dumbledore working to bury or otherwise obscure the happenings within the castle, just as he always had at the very minimum. I expected some protection or respect on account of my position as the boy-who-lived. I had received neither. 

The Aurors had been called, I was forced to surrender my wand to them for inspection, and then I was invited to return with them to the 'Office' where I'd 'answer a few questions'. My major source of irritation was the fact that the Aurors that had shown up had been led by one John Dawlish who seemed to misinterpret every word I said. If not for the fact that I knew they had no reason to possibly send me to Azkaban or snap my wand, I would have resisted the glorified arrest because of the risk it presented. Attempting to fight off the aurors would pose the greater risk of ruining all my plans for the future. 

Never mind the fact that I remained an active participant in the tri-wizard- fugitives definitely wouldn't get to participate, and I had no idea what the goblet would do to me if it felt my escape as attempting to welsh on the 'binding Magical Contract'. Still, the fact that I was tossed in an interrogation room and not a cell was a point in favour of merely disembowelling Dawlish when the time came and not full on castrating him. The fact that he'd left me here for close to an hour made me want to add rat torture to his list of punishments. Maybe the feeling of a rodent squirming in his intestines would do wonders for his manners. 

"Mr. Potter?" The woman asked as she stepped in as if she did not know who exactly I was. I was still wearing the robes that had been ripped in the fight, I realised and pressed my lips tightly together to avoid showing my displeasure. A mark of robes of their quality was that they resisted magical alteration of any form, so repairing them with a wave of my wand would be far from easy. This was the wrong way to begin any form of interaction. I was so firmly on the back-foot here that it was almost comedic. But that mattered little in the end, I thought to myself as I relaxed my lips into an easy smile and pulled back my shoulders to ensure I was seated straight. 

"Madam Bones, you must be" I said, as I observed her monocle and massive mammary glands that were apparent even through the conservative robes she wore. Something she shared with her young niece, I thought with an internal chuckle. 

"I apologise for my present state, and do wish I could offer you refreshments, but this is indeed the wrong kind of venue for polite entertainment" I said, leaning back and allowing myself to seem unbothered about my present situation. At least, I enjoyed the benefit of not being bound. Most likely, Dawlish judged me not to be a threat without my wand, a fact that I would be sure to correct the second I was released from this place. 

She just completed her last few steps to the seat opposite me and took it with a hum. Behind her came another man. The lion's mane beard left me in no doubt as to his identity. If the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was here, then with her would obviously be the Head of the Auror Force. 

"Dawlish says you told him you thought the man you fought was Bartemius Crouch Junior, who had been impersonating Alastor Moody" 

"True" I said, but offered nothing else. If she wanted something from me, then she would have to ask a direct question. 

"How did you know it was Bartemius Crouch Junior?" She asked. 

"His face was slapped all over the Daily Prophet for weeks on end" I replied. 

"Not, how did you identify the man? I mean how did you know Moody was being impersonated?" She asked. 

"Just a gut feeling." I replied. 

"A gut feeling? You confronted him about being an impostor because of a gut feeling?" Scrimgeor asked, basically accusing me of lying, 

"An old family heirloom helps me know the names and identities of people near me if I have it out. I checked it during the class, and it told me the man in front of me was Bartemius Crouch. I confronted him about it and expected him to laugh it off, but he attacked me and I had no choice but to defend myself." I said with a shrug. 

Scrimgeor looked at Bones, and she returned the look with pursed lips. "We have to see this family heirloom" Scrimgeor finally said, and I actually snorted. 

"It's Potter family magic" I said, using the excuse that pureblood families had used to keep the ministry out of their business for centuries. It worked just as well now as it had back in the 1700s, and both of the ministry workers just gave me flat looks. 

"That's bullshit" Scrimgeor said, and I shrugged at him. I didn't make the rules. Even if the Marauder's map wasn't family magic, they needed a way to prove that and since I was declining to even show it to them based on the fact that it is family magic, then there was nothing that could be done. Basically, the law was that the ministry was prohibited from examining relics or practices deemed or claimed to be family magic unless it could be proven that there was no family magic involved or the claimed family was extinct. The best part about the law was that the burden of disproving family magic fell to the ministry instead of me having the burden to prove family magic. And you couldn't legally mandate examining something that qualified as family magic. A perfect example of a catch-22. They needed to examine it to prove it wasn't family magic, and they could only get to examine it by proving it wasn't family magic. 

The old families loved their little privileges. Percival Potter might have opposed the Family Magic Act of 1722, but his descendant would be getting a lot of use out from it. 

"Well, that's that then. Eyewitness testimony from Hagrid the Care of Magical Creatures Professor confirms that he recognised Bartemius Crouch Junior as the one you dueled, and examining memories provided by several eyewitnesses has given the both of us the same conclusion. On examining the quarters he occupied, we were able to locate the body of Alastor Moody contained in a trunk. Thankfully, he was unconscious and not dead. His preliminary testimony includes that he was taken by Crouch Junior and held hostage while having genetic material harvested for the poly juice potion. Your wand also reveals that you did not cast any illegal spells during the duel and while I have several reservations about where you learned several of the counter-curses you used, there is nothing that can legally be done about that…" 

"So you're saying I'm free to go" I cut in with an easy smile. I could work with this woman. I really could, but I was getting impatient, and the indignity of sitting in this interrogation room with sullied robes was beginning to wear on me. 

"Yes I am, Mr. Potter" She said with a sigh. 

"So what are you going to be doing about Crouch" 

"None of your…" 

"Rufus" The Director cut in. 

"To answer your question, Mr. Potter, the present international situation is far too tenuous for much to be done, but a bounty on his head will be placed, and we will be looking to arrest him." 

"And I trust you have arrested Bartemius Crouch Senior at this point?" I asked. 

"Aurors found him dead in his home this afternoon" She replied. Fuck. 

"Dead? How?" I found myself asking almost instinctively, forgetting that these people did not answer to me…yet. 

"That is for us to find out, Mr. Potter." Bones said with pursed lips. 

"Now that you are cleared, you can be on your way, Mr. Potter. We hope not to see you here for a while" She said while unclasping the bracelet in her hand to release the wards around the cell. Scrimgeor took out my wand from his jacket pocket and held it out towards me. I reached out to take it, and he pulled the hand back, leaving me grasping at nothing but thin air. I resisted the urge to scowl at the action. 

"Those counter curses might be legal. They might even not be frowned upon, but I know that one doesn't learn counter curses like those without knowing the curses that they counter. Stay away from dark magic, Potter. We all saw the killing curse" He said before passing my wand over. I felt the urge to shatter every bone in his body with a wave of my wand, but I killed the voice and pocketed the wand. Not here. Not yet. They would bow before my will, but not yet. 

X- 

I twirled my wand between my fingers as I stared at my would-be opponent. "Are you sure you want to do this?" I asked her, not feeling apprehensive quite, but just a bit cautious of what could happen here. 

"Yes, Harry. You dueled a Death Eater. I would like to see what that means and how far away I am from something like that" She said for the upteempth time. 

"Yes, I heard you the first few times, but like I said, this will be painful, and you could really go out looking for easier opponents" I felt the part of me that was Harry Potter wince as those words left my mouth. Hermione had a form of pride that was not difficult to see. She was proud of her intellect, of her skill with magic…being called the brightest witch of her age hadn't just gotten to her head, it had seeped into the very fabric of her being. I saw the fire as it lit itself behind her eyes and knew that there was no way I would manage to get out of this one without having to fight my way out. That was good enough, I figured. We had a week until the Yule Ball, and the duels that were scheduled to take place afterward. 

"People like me are the ones who will be hunted by people like them. I need to be able to defend myself". 

"But-" I had barely begun when she cut in 

"Just take your stance, Harry" She said, and I nodded, but remained in my position. 

"Suit yourself, then" To her credit, the first spell was silent. Silent casting from a fourth year was impressive…but failed to be impressive enough. I batted the disarming charm into the ceiling of the room where I had once fought Quirell and now served as our sort of meeting spot. The spell did little, and the two others that followed were sent back to their caster. 

Even more to her credit, she did not panic at seeing her magic so casually turned against her. She screamed the incantation for the shield charm to the heavens and managed to produce a gleaming blue one that swallowed both spells. I nailed it with a silent shield breaker before she could even react. 

She stumbled backwards from the force of that one and took a stinging hex to the midsection for her inattention. She bent over, nearly retching, and I ended things with a disarmer to spare her even more pain. I wanted to say something, but I could see the tears building in her eyes, so I just tossed her wand back to her before I waved my wand at her stomach and muttered one of the pain relief spells I'd seen Pomphrey use on Cedric back when he'd returned from getting the scores. 

"I'm sorry" She said after she'd wiped the tears. 

"Nothing to apologise for. That was my fault, more like. A stinging hex was the wrong spell to use in that situation. I should have just disarmed you and let that be that. I just saw you lose focus, and the spell came almost instinctively" I explained as I twirled my wand and used another spell to reduce the inflammation. I'd come across this one in one of Flitwick's memories, using the pensieve the room provided. Ali Patil had been one hell of a duelist, I'd thought, on watching her take multiple spells and heal the damage almost instantaneously with waves of her wand. She was also a famous parselmouth, so a lot of the spells she used in her healing were only possible because of that talent. One didn't need to be a genius to figure out what Flitwick wanted me to learn from those memories. 

"Can we go again?" She asked instead of replying. I just lifted an eyebrow at the request. Was she insane? 

"No. That should have been more than enough data for you to see what you need to improve," I replied instantly. 

"It wasn't. That was over in seconds." 

"Do you expect to last longer this time?" I asked, perhaps unkindly, but I would rather not hurt her. 

"Just take your stance, Harry" she said again, echoing her words from the first time around. 

I just shrugged and stepped back from where she laid slumped against the wall. She pushed against it to rise and walked forwards as well. This time, I was the one to start things off. Her shield came in time to block my first disarming charm, but this time instead of using a shield breaker, I decided to break her shield the old-fashioned way. It would not do for me to get used to using shield breakers, since they only tended to work against Protego shields and would fail to achieve anything against any of the other shield charms out there because of their unique arithmantic structures. 

I silently chained three stunners with four stinging hexes, and smiled when I saw Hermione begin to be forced backwards by the magical backlash after the fourth spell hit. The next spell I used was a blasting charm- bombarda- not to be mistaken with the darker explosion curse, Confringo. The spell hit her shield and shattered it in one swoop, sending her flying backwards. I flicked my wand to summon hers as she had lost her grip on it when she was sent flying backwards. 

X- 

"Have you found a date to the Yule ball, yet?" Hermione asked. 

"You, Flitwick and Mcgonagall are the only people I talk to in this castle, Hermione. I assure you I don't swing that way, so Flitwick is out, and Mcgonagall had some concerns about the age gap that I couldn't adequately handle, so she's out as well. Since we both know you have a date, who exactly do you expect me to be going with?" I asked her with a smile. 

"Oh hush you. You could have asked me earlier to go as friends, and I would have said yes." She said. 

"But then who would poor Neville have taken? You guys are going to have a fantastic time together" I said with a smirk. She nodded at my words, but I could still see that glint in her eyes. Of course, it was still there. In hindsight, I should have seen this coming. Hermione's crush on Ron had only built in their final two years when he began to grow up and take more responsibility. It only made sense that since I was in the body of her other best friend and showing some modicum of maturity, that she would gain some feelings from it. 

"So you're not going to go with anyone?" She asked. 

"Nope. I am working on a plan even now" I replied. 

"There's only a week until the ball. Who are you even going to ask at this last minute, and how are you so certain they haven't been taken?" She asked. 

"She's rejected everyone who has asked so far, so I have no worries about that. I just have to impress her enough and she'll say yes" I said. 

"You can't be serious. You want to ask Fleur Delacour?" She asked. 

"Fluer Delacour? Of course not. She tried to steal my kill, why would I ever ask her?" 

"Then who?" 

"Mathilda McKinnon. She's a Seventh year Ravenclaw" Hermione's eyebrow went up instantly. 

"I didn't know you liked them older, Harry" 

"Was my crush on Pomphrey not an obvious enough sign? I mean you can't really believe that I just accidentally happen to get injured that often" I said, enjoying the way she flushed and looked like she was about to throw up. Served her right. Mathilda McKinnon was a beautiful young woman with ink black hair and an arse you could bounce a galleon off of, but I would have asked her even if she had been some plain doe. Her father was Britain's representative in the Wizengamot. Her twin elder brothers were powerful wizards, with one serving as an Auror, and the other serving as an ICW Hit wizard. That was the kind of family that I would not mind tying myself to when it came to my plans for the future. 

A/N: In proggy proggy progress with the story. It feels like the pacing is a bit all over the place. The Yule Ball is still a fair bit away because some things happen between the beginning of the Christmas holidays and the ball. As always, the following two chapters are up on Patreon(www.patreon/Oghenevwogaga). If you just want to read complete chapters and not my work in real-time, then feel free to purchase this story as a collection on my Patreon(www.patreon/Oghenevwogaga) page so you get to read each chapter after I finish it and not neecessarily the daily updates available with a regular pa-treon membership- nice way to support this story and me while you're at it. Enjoy!