Pepper said nothing more. She simply kept stroking Hermione's back, afraid that if she let go, Hermione would disappear again.
Watching them, Tony couldn't help smiling, though his mouth remained as merciless as ever.
"All right, all right. Keep hugging her and she'll suffocate."
He tipped his chin toward Pepper.
"You didn't see what your big sister Pepper was like this past year or so. Zoning out in meetings, signing the wrong name on documents-once, she poured her coffee into the shredder. Distracted every single day."
"A perfectly good CEO of Stark Industries, and her performance took such a nosedive that I had to step in and help with her work every so often."
"I, the great Tony Stark, actually ended up being someone else's secretary. Talk about turning the world upside down."
Pepper didn't let go. She turned her head and shot him a glare.
Tony raised both hands in surrender, but his voice grew quieter.
"When I went to your Alchemy Laboratory over a year ago, there were fragments everywhere and scorch marks all over the walls. It looked like a bombing site, and you were gone."
"So tell us. What happened to keep you away for over a year?"
He made it sound casual.
But Hermione could feel the worry and anxiety he had felt back then. He had probably used every means at his disposal and turned every place he could search in the world upside down.
She finally managed to free herself from Pepper's embrace and smoothed her rumpled hair.
"There was a little accident during an alchemy experiment."
"I messed up, and it exploded. I was badly hurt, so I had to go back to Hogwarts and find Dumbledore first."
That was more or less what he had guessed... Tony nodded and looked at