FicWad

DISCLAIMER: See the Prologue.

NOTE: After thorough consideration, I have switched from my original idea for this story, and I have decided on the loyalties of Harry's friends back home. You're just going to have to wait and see...

/IMPORTANT:/ I changed the name of my OC from "Alex Drake" to "Damian Dracon," so sorry for any and all confusion!

This chapter is dedicated to Satans Angel Pyro, for working with me on this chapter!



Chapter 7: Meet the Brotherhood

After a few days, Harry began to feel more comfortable with going outside and around town. America functioned differently to the way Britain did. Well slightly different. Harry was still getting over the culture shock but with the help of the other mutants he was adjusting, many of them also came from overseas, the most obvious being Kurt from Germany.

With Damian's help, he was able to magically create a temporary disguise for himself. He could not risk being seen as "Harry Potter" by anyone, Muggle, Wizard or Mutant. He now had neater auburn hair and hazel eyes (from a distance, he even looked like Damian's twin), and with a confident new look, he set out about town.

A couple of girls giggled as he walked past, while a middle-aged woman eyed him for a moment before walking past. 'Am I really that attractive?' he thought to himself. Walking past a shop window he paused to look at his new image again. He certainly didn't have anything on his face so they weren't laughing at that.

Harry really had no particular place to go, so he just walked around town, familiarizing himself with places for future reference. A restaurant over here, a shop over there... He also just enjoyed simply being outside. He used to be outside a lot in Surrey. It was just a familiar thing to do. At least it was something that connected himself with his former life.

But even as he walked down the streets of Bayville, he couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching him for rather covert reasons. Certainly not the Order of the Phoenix this time.


Four teenage boys were walking on a sidewalk not too far from Harry when one of them saw him.

"Hey, take a look at that one kid over there," said Todd, a small sort of kid with a funny walk.

"What about him?" Lance retorted, obviously not interested.

"He came from the Institute," Todd responded. "You know, the X-Geeks."

A rather uneasy silence followed this. Granted, at one point, the Brotherhood had been enemies of the X-Men, but after they had all worked together to defeat Apocalypse, things had gotten easier between the two groups. This also had something to do with the relationship growing between Lance and Kitty. Even so, some of the old rivalry still lingered; it wasn't exactly an overnight change.

"Of course they get more mutants," Fred commented. "They seek them out and invite them in. We just hang around."

"Since-when-did-you-just-get-a-flash-of-insight-like-that?" Pietro inquired rather rudely. He tended to speak quickly because of his mutation of fast reflexes. Sometimes it was like he lived outside of their time completely.

"It's just obvious," Fred said shortly. While rather slow, Fred wasn't stupid.

"Another X-Guy?" inquired a new female voice. They turned to see Pietro's twin sister Wanda coming up to them.

"What's new, Wanda?" Pietro asked. He was still careful around her; before Magneto got Mastermind to "rewrite" her memories, she was a walking disaster - quite literally. Normally, Pietro would have objected to messing around with his sister's mind like that, but since it stopped her from "hexing" everyone and destroying everything in sight, it was fine by him.

"Obviously the new guy," she said, glancing over at him.

"Hey, who are those guys?" Lance asked, seeing a few young men in trench coats walking a certain distance.

"Friends of Humanity toadies," muttered Pietro. The Friends of Humanity (FOH) were nothing more than evil people who wanted mutants separated (or some who even wanted mutants dead, if possible). These few FOH members were obviously spies, of sorts, to see who were mutants and who weren't.

"I think they're out to get our new friend," Todd said with some apprehension creeping into his voice; the new kid had stopped outside a dinner and was now walking into it.

"Then why don't we do a good deed for our friend?" Pietro asked with a grin. Catching on, the other four mutants followed him.


Harry walked inside the diner, deciding to get some lunch.

After being seated at a table (no one seemed to suspect him of being a mutant), he ordered a hamburger and something to drink.

Not too long after being seated, Harry noticed three young men, hardly any older than himself, walk into the diner. While not one to judge people by their appearances, something about them seemed to concern Harry.

Shrugging it off, Harry went back to waiting for his meal.

About half an hour later, after he finished his meal and was waiting for the check, he noticed how all the sound of the diner seemed to switch off, and turned to see the three teenagers standing in front of him, while the rest of the diner stopped to see what would happen.

"Can I help you?" Harry asked neutrally. He did his best to remain calm; in fact, he seemed to be channeling more of his sneaky Slytherin side these days.

"We just wanted to let you know you're not welcome in this town, you mutant freak," the one on the center spat. 'Obviously their leader,' Harry thought, strongly reminded of Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle.

"I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me," their leader said again. "We know you're one of /them/; we saw you come from that Institute place."

"So you think I'm a mutant just because I'm a guest of Professor Xavier's hospitality," Harry repeated flatly. Then he laughed at them.

The FOH leader grabbed Harry by his clothes, pulling him face-to-face. The occupants of the diner tensed, and the Brotherhood (who had just walked in) were now ready to use their powers if they had to.

"You think it's funny?" the leader said while his two goons made fists.

"As a matter of fact, I do," Harry said calmly, smirking. "It's like saying that all creatures from Antarctica are penguins; /wrong/."

There were a few snickers around the diner (and a few smirks from the Brotherhood), which the bully pointedly ignored. After a moment, he dropped Harry back in his seat.

"Prove to us you're not a mutant, then," the bully said.

"And how am I supposed to do that? Besides, I know how you'd think with that mindset. It's basically like those old witch hunts, were you care less about the truth and more about being right. For you, 'yes' means 'yes,' and 'no' means 'I'm lying.' You're not going to be satisfied with either answer I give."

"Well, even if you aren't a mutant," the bully said, obviously determined not to lose an argument, "you shouldn't go hanging around with them or their sympathizers. They're a bad crowd to run with."

'Yup, definitely like Malfoy,' Harry thought. 'If he and this guy ever were to meet, would they argue each other to death?'

"And who should I be with? You? I've met hypocrites with you before. Different values and scapegoats, but same hypocrisies. Besides, I've heard enough stories about the 'Friends of Humanity,' and before you ask, no, I didn't hear them all from mutants. I wonder how you guys can even exist, your values are so warped. If they're so dangerous, why do you keep attacking and antagonizing them? If you're so correct and right in your beliefs, why do you keep having to resort to wearing ski masks and attacking them with blunt objects like criminal thugs?"

"He's got you there," said an unfamiliar voice.

Both Harry and his new adversary turned to see five teenagers - four boys, one girl. Harry's memory clicked; he recognized them as the Brotherhood.

Unfortunately, it also seemed that the three FOH members also recognized them, and paled considerably.

The one in the lead, a tall boy with silver hair (who somewhat reminded Harry of Malfoy in terms of appearances) spoke again. "Friends of Humanity members assaulting and arguing with innocent, non-mutant people in public places? Tsk tsk, whatever is the world coming to? You somehow imagined they'd be... friendlier."

About half the diner laughed quietly at this newcomer's play on words.

The bully's face purpled a little. The owner of the restaurant came out, looked at the three FOH members, and threw a glare at them. "I thought I told you three never to come back here," she hissed.

"Actually, it's not a problem," Harry said with a cheerful smile to the owner. "I've actually had an interesting time, really, putting dents in their biased, anti-mutants arguments."

The owner turned to the Brotherhood and asked, "You need a table?"

Lance shook his head. "Nah, we were just afraid these FOH goons would lash out at our friend here."

'Friend?' Harry wondered, now paying the check, which one of the waitresses had bought to him.

"Thanks for the meal, it was delicious, and my compliments to the chef," Harry said to the owner. "Will try to come back here when I get the chance."

The owner blushed a little and said, "You're certainly welcome."

"How can you let those freaks around here?" the bully said indignantly to the owner, gesturing to the Brotherhood, which bristled.

"They don't harass or drive off my customers," the owner replied evenly. "As a matter of fact, you may want to remove yourselves from this diner before I call the police."

As the diner owner was threatening the FOH thugs, Harry was walking out. Going for one last jab at Harry, the bully said, "Mark my words, kid: One day, you'll regret this."

Harry stopped, only to then laugh out loud. Turning around, he said to the guy, "Empty threat. I've dealt with people much worse than you. In fact, you even bear a striking similarity to one of them. For all his tough talk, he was pathetic. Same holds true for his dad and his associates, especially after I was through with them."

"Why, what did you do?" the bully challenged.

Harry smirked. "I got them arrested and put in jail for it."

As Harry walked out, the bully could somehow tell that he wasn't bluffing.



As Harry exited the dinner, he decided to walk to a park which bordered on the woodland area around the town. He enjoyed the crisp autumnal weather, and was glad for some quiet and solitude.

Just then, the Brotherhood came into view, walking up to him. "We need to talk," the silver-haired teen whispered, and then they furtively entered the woods.

After a minute, Harry got up and walked in, looking for them.

It was only a minute after walking into the forest that Harry saw them hanging around in a clearing.

"Hey-thanks-for-sticking-up-for-us-back-at-the-diner," the silver-haired teen said quickly.

"No problem, and I can say the same," Harry said, unpacking the fast speech without much difficulty.

Changing the subject, Harry asked, "You're the Brotherhood, right? Pietro, Lance, Todd, Fred and Wanda?"

The five aforementioned mutants looked somewhat impressed at Harry's knowledge of them. "We know you came from the Institute," Lance said. "We can tell that someone there told you about us."

"Yes, they did, and don't worry, they were fair when they told me about you," Harry said reassuringly.

"So what's your name?" Todd asked.

Allowing his own disguise to falter for a moment, Harry revealed his own true form. "My name is Harry, and my ability is magic..."



By the time Harry was done explaining everything to them, the five other mutants were in a state of semi-shock (and Wanda, given her own powers, looked rather impressed).

In fact, Wanda approached him with a rare smile on her face. "Nice to see I'm not the only person around here who can do 'magic.'"

The other four boys were completely thrown off by this out-of-character personality which Wanda seemed to have acquired. Even Pietro, being the motor mouth he often was, could only gape like a fish as no words came out.

Wanda took Harry's hand and shook it. "Nice to meet you, Harry."

After hearing some of the horror tales of Wanda's destructive capabilities, Harry was just grateful that she was in such a good mood.

"Nice to meet you too."



TBC...

A/N: I tried to make things with this as realistic as possible with the Brotherhood... OK, so some things didn't go quite as I'd hoped...

Next chapter... you know what, I really don't know what I want to write next. This may take a small while, so please hang in there... -Quillian