Luna Lovegood sighed. What was potentially going to be an incredibly interesting conversation had stagnated at the 'if I stare at you long enough, you'll eventually cave and share all of your secrets first' stage. The fact that the two involved were one of her oldest friends, Harry Potter, and a potential new friend, Doreen Green, made the silence even harder to bear.

"Who wants to go first?" she asked lightly, her head swivelling between the two.

Unfortunately, her attempt at starting the conversation, fell flat.

Silence continued to reign, just as it had ever since the two had found out that they had the ability to talk to an animal, albeit animals of different species. Really, Luna was starting to get most annoyed at Harry. Yes, he had a bit of stubborn streak, but she was certain that, after spending so many years being kept in the dark from vital information, that he'd have been able to avoid picking up that particular bad habit.

After another five minutes of the pair sitting on separate chairs in Harry's apartment staring at each other, Luna was getting tempted to hex the truth out of the two of them. Unfortunately, doing so would only get the pair focussed on her and she'd be the one explaining magic instead of Harry doing so. And that wouldn't be any fun whatsoever.

"Harry James Potter," Luna began and promptly had to stifle a giggle at how 'Hermione-ish' she sounded. "You're supposed to be the adult here. Therefore, you start."

Finally, Harry tore his gaze from the teenager across from him to scowl at Luna. But that, of course, only lasted a few seconds. For some reason, Harry never could stay angry at her. Luna wasn't quite sure why, but it made her all fuzzy and warm inside and always made her smile.

After running his hand through his hair, Harry sighed.

"I can speak to snakes," he began.

It wasn't much, but it was a start. Luna nodded encouragingly at him and settled back more comfortably into her chair to enjoy the show.

"It's called parseltongue," he continued. "It's pretty rare. Only a handful of people worldwide have had the ability in the past century, at least that I know of."

"I can talk to squirrels," Doreen admitted after a half-minute of silence where Harry was looking at her expectantly. "I don't know if it's got a proper name, but I call it 'squirrelese'."

Harry nodded. "Makes sense. So, is it just squirrels or can you talk to other animals as well?"

"Just squirrels. Well, animals in the squirrel family, I think. I talked to a chipmunk once, but he sounded like he had a really thick accent. And I've never met any marmots or prairie dogs, so I don't know about them. What about you? Is it just snakes in general, or all reptiles?"

"Just snakes, I think," Harry said, before looking thoughtful. "Although, now that I think about it, it might include some kinds of lizards."

"What do you say that, Harry?" Luna asked interestedly.

"When I was in Indonesia a couple of years ago, I was out in a jungle on one of the islands visiting a local village when I thought that I heard someone talking but I couldn't see anyone else around. Not long after, there was a komodo dragon that crossed the path, so I guess that that's what it was."

"Dragon?" Luna asked, eagerly sitting forwards.

Harry gave her a lop-sided grin. "Not a real dragon, like the ones from the TriWiz; komodos are really just a huge lizard."

"Um, real dragon?" Doreen asked, her eyes bugging out. "Are you trying to tell me that dragons are real?"

Luna gave a soft laugh and settled back into her chair, ignoring the annoyed look that Harry shot her.

"Yes, dragons are real. And unicorns and griffins and thunderbirds and a whole host of other magical creatures as well," Harry admitted. "They're all simply kept hidden by magic."

Doreen's eyes flicked between the two before narrowing.

"If you know that they're real ..." she began slowly, before her eyes widened and she finished in a rush. "You're magical! That's how you can speak to snakes!"

"I am," Harry admitted. "You know, telling you this is hard for me. And quite illegal. If anyone from the magical world ever found out that you knew all of this, they'd come and take these memories away and I'd be in a whole heap of trouble that'd probably land me in a jail for the rest of my life."

"Then why are you telling me?" Doreen asked. "Not that I'm going to tell anyone. 'Cause I won't. I swear I won't tell another person. Ever."

She solemnly placed one hand over her heart to emphasise her promise.

"I know you won't, Doreen," Harry replied. "I know how good you are at keeping secrets, at least the important ones."

Once again, her eyes rounded before narrowing.

"You know I'm different, that I'm not a normal person. Hey! Is that why I'm different? Am I magic, too?" she asked eagerly.

Harry shook his head. "No, you're not. You're ... something else."

"Damn. It would have been cool to be magic, to find out where I fit in," she sighed.

"What do you mean, Doreen?" Luna asked, her head cocked quizzically.

"I've always been ... different. At first, my parents thought that I might be a mutant. Um, do you know about them?" she asked.

"Yeah," Harry replied before noticing Luna's puzzled expression. "Bruce, a friend of mine, explained it all to me a while back. Apparently, there are actually four different 'types' of people on the planet. There's the normals, who we call 'muggles'; the magicals; the mutants, those born with an extra special gene called the x-gene in their DNA; and lastly, the mutates, those whose bodies have been changed in some extraordinary, often inexplicable way."

"Yep, that's me, a mutate," Doreen said. "I like the extraordinary bit, though. Makes it sound kinda cool."

"In what way are you different, Doreen?" Luna asked.

"How much do you already know?" Doreen asked.

Harry shook his head. "Not a lot. Apart from the squirrel-speaking thing. I know that you can jump really high. And I'm pretty sure that you're strong and that you've got some amazing reflexes."

"How'd you work out?" she asked.

"I, uh, I saw you one night jumping from the ally up to your bedroom window," Harry admitted. "I gave you a couple of little tests the next morning – asked you to move a heavy box; nearly dropped a mug, which you caught. I can promise you that I haven't told a soul; not even Luna here or Gwen or anyone."

"So dumb luck, huh?" Doreen sighed. "Guess I should be glad that it was only you."

For a second, Luna could have sworn that Harry had a guilty look on his face, but it was gone much too quickly to be sure. That didn't mean that Luna had no plans to question her friend about that later, though.

"Doreen's definitely not a witch then?" Luna asked disappointedly, crossing her arms. "Phooey. I was sure that she'd used accidental magic to become an Animagus squirrel and had gotten stuck half-way."

"I have no idea what you just said," Doreen admitted, staring at the woman.

"When magical children are still developing their gifts, their magic can do strange things," Harry explained. "An Animagus is a witch or wizard that can magically change themselves into an animal – that's another rare-ish piece of magic. Once they turn eleven, they get their first wand and go to magic school to learn to control their magic."

"Wow! Witches and wizards and magic," Doreen said, shaking her head. "Who'da thought that that was real. Hang on! Magic. Magic. Like ... like Mage. That's it, isn't it? You! You're Mage! Please, please, please tell me that's true."

Harry's head dropped, but not before he saw the wide smile on Luna's face.

"I was hoping to build up to it a little more. But, yeah. I'm Mage," Harry admitted.

For a few seconds, there was dead silence as Doreen sat there, her jaw dropped open as she stared at the guy she'd been living with for the past weeks. Then, without warning, she let out a loud, long, piercing scream of excitement. Instantly, she was up, bouncing around the room. Her erratic movements sent Monkey Joe scurrying from the floor where he'd been dumped from her lap up the closest curtain to perch on the rail and begin chittering angrily down at her.

Barely pausing in her bouncing, Doreen chittered back at the squirrel, the other two guessing that she was telling her friend what she'd just found out. Obviously, she got the point across because Monkey Joe shifted position until he was nearly right above Harry and began staring down at him.

Finally, Doreen dropped back into her seat, but even then, she didn't quite stop her bouncing.

"You're him! Mage! One of the Avengers. And I've been living with you! How could I not realise that? You helped stop the invasion from aliens! And you've been flying around the city on your magic broom! Bruce! You said Bruce before. That's Bruce Banner isn't it? The Hulk! And you've been on the phone with Tony Stark. Iron Man! The one and only. You can introduce me to the Avengers, can't you? Please? I'll do anything! Anything! It's why I came to New York in the first place," Doreen said, staring intently at Harry the whole time.

Harry, for his part, simply stared back, wondering how the girl was still conscious. He was sure that she'd said that entire speech in one breath.

"You came to New York to meet Harry and the Avengers?" Luna asked.

"Well, Iron Man and the Avengers," Doreen said sheepishly. "But really, I've wanted to meet Iron Man ever since he became a hero and started doing all those amazing things and helping people and everything. And then after I saw the Battle of New York with all of the Avengers, well, I knew that I could have helped if I'd been there. So, I thought that if I came here and met Iron Man and the rest of them and showed them what I could do, well ..."

"But you're still in school," Harry protested.

"And were you any different, Harry Potter?" Luna asked. "I seem to remember you leading a group of students on a rescue mission when you were Doreen's age. Not to mention winning a war for us when you were not much older."

"But that was different!" Harry protested.

"Perhaps to some extent, but it all boiled down to you wanting to help others. I believe Hermione calls it your 'saving people thing'?" Luna countered.

Harry scowled at her momentarily before deciding that he wasn't going to win that argument.

"What exactly is it that you can do?" Harry hedged.

"Well, you know that I can talk to squirrels, which can be dead useful, especially if I need a little extra help," Doreen began. "And you know that I can jump really high and that I'm strong and have good reflexes. I'm also really fast, have excellent hand-eye coordination and great agility. I can heal quicker than normal people. And then there's my physical differences."

To demonstrate this point, she firstly held out both hands above the coffee table. Harry and Luna obliged by leaning in. Once they had done so, she flexed her fingers and small claws extended from each finger.

"I can climb just about anything, just like a squirrel," she said. "I've got those claws on my toes as well. There's also this," she said as she clenched her fists making the knuckle spike extend from its sheath under her skin on each hand.

Harry whistled at the sight of them.

"That's amazing! Looks incredibly sharp, too," he said.

"Oh, it is," Doreen grinned. "Can cut through any wood with ease. And lastly, there's ... my tail."

Harry and Luna blinked confusedly at each other as Doreen stood up and put her hands behind her, fishing her three-foot long bushy tail out from her pants and turning around for them to see.

"This is why my parents thought that I might be a mutant," she said. "I was born with it. Great for balance, especially when I'm climbing or jumping."

"I imagine it would be," Luna said with a smile as she reached out and began stroking the soft fur.

"So, do I have what it takes? Can I be an Avenger, too?" Doreen asked eagerly, her eyes shining.

"I don't think it's quite that easy," Harry said slowly. "For one, we'd have to evaluate you, test you, to see exactly what you can do. For another, like I said, you're still in school and that'd have to come first."

"Oh. Maybe ... maybe I could be like a ... a reserve?" Doreen asked, her excitement growing with the idea. "You know, when the danger's too big that you need extra help than just the seven of you – well, six of you, really now that Thor's gone back to Asgard – you can call me in to help out."

Harry's eyes sought out Luna, desperately asking for help in how to curb the girl's excitement.

"I would imagine that you'd need to do an interview," Luna stated, "to show your capabilities. After all, it wouldn't do for you to be asked to help and you get there and you don't have the right skills. What if they need someone to fly one of their planes for example."

"Quinjet," Harry corrected

"You're saying that I need extra training? To get a bigger, better skillset? To be able to do more stuff so that I can help more?" Doreen asked.

"Exactly," Harry replied. "And school will be a big part of that."

"Okay, I guess I can understand that," Doreen said. "How soon can I meet the rest of the Avengers and show them what I can do?"

Harry sighed. "I'll ring Tony later this afternoon and see what I can arrange."

Once again, Doreen squealed with joy and began chittering with Monkey Joe.

Luna, meanwhile, turned to Harry. "The good part about Doreen knowing now that you're a wizard is that you won't have to sleep on the couch any more.

Harry cocked an eyebrow at her, encouraging her to explain that statement.

"You can simply transfigure it into a bed," Luna said.

ooo00ooo

"Well, it is unsurprising that your animagus form would have wings," Luna stated as she circled the half-transformed man before her.

It really was an intriguing look for Harry, being half-man and half-bird – kind of like a hippogryph or griffin really. Except both of those creatures had the front half being the part that was bird, unlike Harry who'd decided to keep his human head and change the rest of him to bird-form. And then there was the size: Harry seemed to have yet to work out how to alter from human size down to the appropriate size for his feathered form.

"If this is your proper size," she supposed, "it might be easier to guess what you're supposed to be. Ostriches and emus are quite large birds, but neither have wings that let them fly, unlike the ones that you seem equipped with. They also have long legs and you don't. No. I don't think that you're one of them. It'd be nice if you were a diricawl or a fwooper, they're both magical and that could be fun. Well, not the fwooper, perhaps – their cries can drive a person insane and that wouldn't be any good at all."

"I think I'm more likely to be some kind of bird of prey," Harry commented, a surprising ability considering that his neck was half bird-like and half-human (obviously, his voice box was in the half-human part).

"Yes, I suppose so; your talons do lend one to that conclusion," Luna sighed in agreement. "That's not as much fun, though."

"It could be," Harry grinned and she knew that he was imagining flying through the air, much like he did with his broom, only more so.

Finally, after circling him for the fourth time, Luna signalled for him to transform back.

"I don't think that I will be of any use to you in working out how to complete your transformation," Luna said sadly.

"That's okay, Luna; thanks for taking a look," Harry said, giving the girl's upper arm a rub.

Luna cocked her head at him. "I think, Harry Potter, that you already know what you have to do."

After dropping his head, Harry nodded.

"I need to talk to Minerva," he stated. "She's a Transfiguration Master, not to mention an Animagus herself."

Luna waited in silence for Harry to finish his inner turmoil.

"I'm going to have to go back to Hogwarts, aren't I?" he half-asked, half-stated.

"England isn't so bad, Harry," Luna stated, completing the thought out-loud for her friend. "And you have been gone a long time; perhaps their interest in you has died off."

"Do you really believe that, Luna?" Harry asked sceptically.

Unfortunately, Luna could no more lie to Harry than she could to herself.

"It's possible, but doubtful," she said. "You will always be the Boy-Who-Lived and the Man-Who-Conquered no matter how long you have been away. The wizarding world has a long memory, after all, and your absence may have just increased their fervour to know where their hero has been all this time. What you must ask yourself is whether or not your need to complete your Animagus transformation is greater than the discomfort that you may experience during your return to England."

"It is," Harry whispered before continuing his reasoning in a louder voice. "Both my Dad and Sirius were animagi; it's something that I've always wanted to do to be like them. And this could be something that saves my life one day, considering the life that I've chosen."

"It sounds to me that your decision is made," Luna stated.

"You're right. It is. And I guess that it'll be good to see my other friends again – Hermione, Neville, some of the DA, even the Weasleys, I suppose. Guess I'd better buy some tickets before I lose my nerve," Harry grimaced.

ooo00ooo

"Good afternoon, Mister Potter," the disembodied voice of Jarvis said immediately after the doors to the elevator had closed on the three of them. "May I enquire as the names of your guests?"

"Hi Jarvis," Harry replied and he couldn't help but to lift his chin slightly, even though he knew that there was absolutely no point in directing his voice towards the ceiling. "The young lady to my left is Doreen Green and the lady to my right is Luna Lovegood."

"Very good. I shall inform Mister Stark that you are on your way up," Jarvis stated.

"Thanks, Jarvis," Harry replied. "Is anyone else here?"

"Doctor Banner is currently in the labs and will join you shortly. Miss Potts is awaiting your arrival in the lounge. The others are currently away from the Tower on assignment with S.H.I.E.L.D.," Jarvis said.

"I told you that it was a long shot," Harry said, noticing Doreen's disappointed look. "It's rare that we're all here at once."

"That's okay," she replied. "At least I'll get to meet Mister Stark."

ooo00ooo

As Tony stepped into the lounge area of his apartment, he noticed not only the people, but also the animals. Animals were an anomaly; definitely not something that belonged in the Tower. Well, except for Birdbrain, but he was a member of the team, so allowances had to be made.

"Jarvis, call an exterminator, we've got squirrels," he announced.

"Hey!" the young girl exclaimed, swinging around.

Tony goggled at the long busy tail attached to said girl.

"Actually, make that one exterminator and one terminator for the weird-looking ROUS," he amended.

"I am not a Rodent Of Unusual Size, thank you very much," the girl retorted, her hand on her hips and a fierce expression on her face, "and while squirrels and rats are both rodents, squirrels are much nicer, friendlier and cuter."

"And unless you've been experimenting in things you shouldn't be again, the Terminator isn't real," Pepper stated.

"It was a joke!" Tony complained, trying to keep