Men of Steel

Chapter 3

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Harry apparated into his small bedroom at his relative's house with a sigh. He had known the risks when he took them earlier that day, but now that he had to face the consequences in a matter of minutes, Harry was definitely regretting leaving without saying anything to any of the Dursleys.
Looking at his wristwatch- a gift from Professor McGonagall after he had finished his last year at Hogwarts- the Kryptonian shook his head ruefully and left the safety of his baren room for the certain doom present in the kitchen. He could already hear Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon, and Dudley eating. Or, more correctly, he could hear Uncle Vernon and Dudley eating and Aunt Petunia having a one-sided conversation with Dudley. It would be easier to have the confrontation now than in a few hours when Vernon was drunk and easily angered.
"Hello, Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon, sorry I'm late." Dudley ignored Harry as he continued to munch hungrily on a large sandwich, but Petunia and Vernon both stopped what they were doing to turn their attention onto him. Under their heavy stares, Harry silently walked up to the dinner table and sat down at his seat.
"You," Vernon growled, after he had finished swallowing a bite of his sandwich, "I have nothing to say to you other than this: If you expect to live under my roof and get fed with the money out of my pocket, you help out around this house." The Kryptonian blinked in surprise, before the great oaf that was his adoptive uncle waved at him with his greasy hand. "Now get." Harry sighed in resignation as he stood up and made his way out of the kitchen. Another sleepless night filled with hunger pains it was.
"Get back in here, boy!" Harry sighed again as he turned around and re-entered the kitchen. He already knew what was about to happen.
"Yes, Uncle Vernon?" The big whale was already red in the face, and Harry felt a small stirring of pity for the man. It was never healthy for your face to get that colored.
Faster than most would expect from a fat man, but still much to slow in Harry's mind, Vernon's hand snaked out and slapped him solidly across the face, smearing grease across his skin. However, the Kryptonian's head did not move. Vernon withdrew his throbbing hand moments later with curses falling from his lips.
"That's it, freak! No dinner tonight and no meals tomorrow! Maybe then you'll learn not to disrespect your elders."
Harry nodded with a 'Yes, Uncle Vernon', before he turned around and made his way to the bathroom upstairs to clean the grease from his face.

After he finished wiping his wet- but relatively more clean- face on his shirt, Harry sighed. It always came to blows with Uncle Vernon. He was too biased against 'freakishness' for Harry to be able to actually have a conversation with him.
Dissolving his iron-clad glamour, Harry smiled at the feel of his magic softening and flowing happily around him. The stiff shell of magic he kept around himself constantly was tiring and uncomfortable. However, when he looked in the mirror to see what kind of mark Vernon had left this time, the Kryptonian's happy feeling disappeared and his smile fell into a frown of shock and confusion. There was absolutely nothing marring his cheek, and, in fact, there was nothing marring his face at all. Even the lightning bolt scar that marked him the Boy-Who-Lived was barely visible on his forehead; it only appeared as silvery lines criss-crossing on his skin.
Looking closer, even Harry's facial features looked a little different. His jaw was boxier, and his cheek bones were higher and more prominent. Even his eyes were different, Harry realized with a small pang of sadness. They weren't the pure emerald green of his mother anymore. Err, his adoptive mother, the Kryptonian corrected. His eyes were now a mixture of sky blue and emerald.
Perhaps his birth mother had sky blue eyes? The thought settled Harry's unease a little. If these colors were a characteristic from both of his mothers, then he would be fine with having them.
His appearance must have changed because of the removal of those permanent glamours Hermione had been talking about. Harry was relieved that he didn't look completely different though. Having a few minor changes to his physic was a lot better than not even being humanoid. Kad-El shuddered just thinking about it.
However, that did lead the young man to wondering just what type of creature he was. What was a Kryptonian? Hermione- with her vast knowledge on basically everything- had never even heard of them, and neither had Ron, the one who had grown up knowing all about magic.
Perhaps the internet would know. Dudley had been very excited about it's 'all-knowing powers' when he had received a computer for his birthday last year. It was one of the few things he didn't break within a few days, so he'd have to be extra cautious.
Harry decided that trying the internet was worth a shot. Is wasn't like he had any other resources available to him, and what was the worst it could do? Get him in trouble with Uncle Vernon?

Harry felt his wand vibrate noiselessly underneath his pillow and felt the urge to groan. The fact that his wand was vibrating meant that it was two in the morning, and he had never managed to fall asleep. His body still wasn't used to not getting food, and the loud sounds coming from the Dursleys did not help the young man fall into oblivion.
Despite the lack of sleep, Harry still forced his body to work. He sat up and deactivated his wand alarm before silently climbing out of bed and opening the door to his room.
Creeping down the hallway was easy, as any sound he could have made was drowned out by the loud snores of Uncle Vernon and Dudley.
The Kryptonian slowly and gently opened Dudley's door, but didn't open it to the point where the hinges would creak. He had made a point of memorizing all of the places in the house that made sounds, so as to better avoid Aunt Petunia's and Uncle Vernon's wrath and stay undetected when clients were over.
Stepping over the piles of clothes, magazines, and papers that littered the floor, Harry carefully made his way to the desk in the corner of Dudley's room, where the computer sat innocently.
Deciding he wasn't going to sit down when he saw the state of the seat of the desk chair, Kad-El bent slightly and pried the computer open with a soft 'click'.
Gritting his teeth in worry and anger, the sneaking young man turned slowly to look at his cousin, and unclenched his jaw when the fat boy just went on snoring.
Closing his eyes and sending a quick thank you to Merlin, Harry turned back to the computer and took a moment to look at the lit screen of the device. He had never used it before, but it didn't look too difficult.
There was a long thin rectangle near the top of the screen with the words 'boxing videos' written in it, and the screen had several larger boxes underneath the thin one that were all different pictures of boxing matches and instructors. The small rectangle must be where you had to input what you were looking for in order for the bigger boxes to appear.
Harry smiled lightly at the simplicity of the device as he moved the black ovalish hand-thingie he had seen Dudley fiddling with back and forth. A small arrow appeared on the screen that followed the movements of the hand-thingie, so Kad-El maneuvered it to be right over the small rectangle and pressed down on the hand-thingie. Another soft 'click' could be heard, but Harry didn't bother looking over at Dudley. He was still snoring solidly.
Tapping on the small backspace button with a backwards arrow on the keyboard attached the the computer, Harry was glad to see the 's' disappear from the word 'videos'. Clicking that button until all of the letters were gone, Harry slowly typed in each letter to spell Kryptonian and maneuvered the arrow on the screen to click on the magnifier glass on the other side of the thin rectangle.
Instantly, the screen went blank, and Harry worried he had broken it for a second before the screen reappeared with the boxing videos gone. There weren't any of the big rectangles though. There was just a message saying, "Your search- 'kryptonian'- did not match any documents. Did you mean 'kryptonias'?"
Harry frowned, as, no that was not what he meant, but clicked on the suggestion anyway. A bunch of boxes popped up after a few seconds that looked just like with the boxing stuff, but it didn't look like anything Harry was looking for. There was just a bunch of words that the young man didn't know in each box. The most he could understand was that this kryptonia was a bacteria.
Frowning deeper in annoyance at hitting another dead end, Harry decided to keep looking. However, searching up 'kryptonians', 'kryptonian race', and 'kryptonian creature' ended with the same message of no matching documents.
Thinking just a bit harder, Harry decided that he could only really look up one more word- 'krypton'. Perhaps that was where Kryptonians were from? Sort of like Australians were from Australia.
Unfortunately, that word could not be matched either.
Harry huffed softly in consternation, but he replaced the word with 'boxing videos' and shut the computer. Maybe the internet wasn't as easy to maneuver as he had thought. Either way, he wasn't getting any answers tonight.
Returning to his room as silently as he had come, Harry resigned himself to a night of disappointment and sleeplessness.