An American At Hogwarts: Book Three

Chapter Thirty-Nine

"...You're not Alexa."

I barely held back a laugh as I finished setting up Ana's camera so Harry and I would both be in frame. I heard my Uncle Loki's voice as the call connected, and saw Harry looking a little terrified and completely unsure what to do. When I finally came around to sit next to Harry on the beanbags, I found him and Loki locked in a very uncomfortable staring match.

"Relax, Uncle Loki. This is Harry, my friend. You met him briefly last year I think, when you came to Hogwarts for the tournament."

"Oh. That's right." Loki cleared his throat and straightened up, and I heard Harry let out a relieved sigh from next to me. "Well, welcome to both of you then. And it's good to see you, Alexa. I hope you've been causing absurd amounts of trouble."

"You have no idea. You are going to be so proud of me."

Loki grinned, but quickly got pulled off camera as the rest of my family poked their heads in to say hi. Harry seemed a little overwhelmed as he sat next to me through it all, but my family adopted him into the fold without missing a beat. After the initial whirlwind of introductions, questions, and jokes, Harry noticeably relaxed and even joined in with some stories of his own.

"So, where's Jackson?" asked Harley a few minutes into the dinner. "I'm having to pull almost all of the snark weight without him on the call."

"He's an old man, so he left to go to bed. He didn't want to stay up for this call since he'd already stayed up for last night's," I said. Harley scoffed.

"Weak."

"Yeah. He also might've been ditching us all for his boyfriend."

"Ooo!"

The Avengers already knew about Adrian, but there hadn't been nearly enough teasing and cajoling, especially after Jackson had told everyone about Cedric last year. Now it was time for a little payback from me.

With some help from Harry, we filled everyone in on Jackson and Adrian, and mercifully managed to keep the conversation away from me getting teased about Cedric (largely thanks to Harry, my new MVP of the night). Finally, the teasing settled down, and the conversation shifted to other things.

"So, Harry, how has your year been going so far?" asked Pepper, leaning forward with a kind smile on her face. Mom to the core.

"Oh! Uh, it's been alright..." he said, clearly trying to be polite. I sighed.

"We've both been dealing with a monster for a teacher, but she's singled Harry out with special focus on making his life hell," I replied for him. Pepper frowned, the rest of my family looking similarly displeased.

"You know, we'd be more than happy to take care of the problem," said Loki, leaning forward menacingly across the table. Peter and Thor, who sat on either side of him, gently eased him back in his seat, the two tag-teaming the effort to keep him from getting too worked up.

"Why are you pulling him back, it's a good idea!" Pietro jumped in instead. "Things have been too quiet around here anyway."

"I could probably be talked into helping," agreed Nat with a shrug. I laughed and shook my head.

"No. The last thing Harry and I need is the Avengers starting a war with the wizarding government. No matter how satisfying it would be to see The Black Widow beat up Umbridge."

"That would be pretty cool," Harry agreed with a grin. Aunt Nat winked at him, and he beamed back at her.

We stayed up way later than I'd originally wanted to, the dinner finally wrapping up at half past one in the morning. Harry smiled and waved as my family each took a moment to say goodnight to him as well as me, and I could tell at least half of them had already decided he was the newest adopted member of our extended Avengers family.