Harry raised his eyebrows. "Well, that's a surprise…and you're telling me about a different kind of infiltration, and not the usual type of infiltration."
Maria nodded in response, and she looked over her shoulder. Calm and determined she pressed on. "We hoped to get ahold of you before they did."
"Well you did," Harry fired back and they brushed that thought off. Harry cleared his throat and got completely down to business. "Anyway, you were saying….."
Natasha jumped onto the conversation and made sure that no one interfered with it. "Several of the magical users are on SHIELD's watchlist, and they are mostly the followers of the self-styled Dark Lord that you recently defeated. Somehow, your government let them back on the street."
Harry whistled. "The Imperius defense, they're stupid enough to fall for it again, but anyway….."
"One of these Death Eaters as you call him used his connection to smuggle stolen goods,' Maria added and Natasha jumped on in.
"And, I tracked him for a long week, before I came up to him," Natasha said and she recalled the battle. Her new husband looked at her, and the redhead shifted her form towards him. The casual white shirt that she wore tightened against her breasts when she inhaled or exhaled. "And…I thought something was entirely odd about him."
"In what way?" Harry asked her.
Natasha promptly answered. "He didn't try and kill me straight off like the other one did. It seemed like he was surprised to see me there. He did try and kill me I was attacked, but that didn't end too well to him."
"There's a reason why she has a codename the Black Widow," Maria chimed in helpfully, but her husband smiled in response.
"I'm well aware," Harry told her and he waved her on to try get more information.
"With is last breath, his skin gave away," Natasha said, and she paused, almost as if she debated to tell him anything.
"By his skin giving away, do you mean….."
"He changed his form, and changed into a more standard form," Natasha informed him and Harry raised his eyebrow. "He had green scaly skin…..very non-human like features. I've never seen anything like that in my life."
"And you've seen a lot?"
Natasha nodded in response and folded her arms.
"I managed to obtain a drive from him, but we could only crack part of the program," Natasha said and Harry frowned in response.
One could tell that his mind worked overtime and he tried to mentally process this in his head. The fact of the matter was that magical users didn't really care about any kind of technology, for the simple fact they didn't understand about any technology.
"What do you think?" Natasha asked him.
"I think that this is far deeper than that world," Harry said.
"You as well?" Maria asked and Harry turned around. "Do you have any idea what they could want from that world?"
Harry didn't take that much time to think, rather he pushed his hair from his face. "Much actually, more than you can think."
"Exactly how much?" Maria prodded.
"Well, there's the Department of Mysteries…..not sure what is all in there, and how there might be something that someone of extra-terrestrial origin might want," Harry said to himself.
"Is this Department of Mysteries well known?"
Harry got Maria's line of questioning immediately. He thought about it for half of a second and added. "Pretty much everyone in that world knows it exists, although they don't have any idea what's in it."
Come to think of it, the more that he thought about, it seemed like a really lame top secret facility. And a top secret facility that could be easily breached. Then again, given that the Ministry's security left a lot to be desired, he shouldn't be surprised.
That being said, Harry knew what a magical person's impression of security was. You slap up a couple of enchantments and call it a day. And hope that no one had a few brain cells. Which was a pretty good gamble for a lot of people in that world, but Harry digressed greatly about that.
"I do admit that anything of value, might not be hidden there," Harry said and he stopped and sighed. "Unless they are completely and utterly stupid, which is likely."
Harry didn't know what to believe.
"This might just be the public entrance to this Department of Mysteries," Natasha said, the more Harry told her about it, the more she highly thought to recommend put a tighter chain around the neck of the magic users. They presented a nightmare waiting to happen. "It's located in the Ministry of Magic…"
"Yes, and the Ministry is located in the middle of London….not a very secure location when you think about it," Harry said, and he sighed with a thought. "But, I don't think that it's going to get us that far to talk about the magical users and their various flaws."
Harry lead both the women over, they didn't want to be left in the hallway for too long, because such an extended meting just wasn't natural.
"None of the magical governments are officially sanctioned by the governments," Maria chimed in. "The closest is the United States, but that doesn't really have a magical government to speak of per say."
"That's right," Harry said. "And there are hidden pockets of different species of magical users and sentient creatures who would rather be hidden. Most of this is because of the wand wavers, putting them in danger. And the sentient creatures that did decide to stay in this realm…."
Harry paused and added in a low voice.
"They're rights are nonexistent," Harry told them and both women looked at him.
"The magical creatures…..we didn't get briefed on them," Natasha said to him and Harry raised an eyebrow in response.
"I figured that you wouldn't have gotten briefed on them, that's an even greyer area of delegation than magical users and nonmagical users," Harry said and he walked over. "SHIELD isn't much better…"
"We're not known to most people," Maria agreed, but it seemed to her that Harry knew a lot more about them before they met then he was telling.
"And I understand the need for secrecy," Harry added. "But, if that veil gets removed, then the shit's going to hit the fan."
Harry didn't want to say anything more than this, so he didn't.
His bodyguard waited for them at the end of the hallway, but Harry turned around towards them.
"Do you have a picture….of the visitor?"
Natasha pulled a picture out and showed the grainy picture of the alien. Its skin was green and it ears pointed upwards. Its crimson eyes flashed in the picture, with the wounds of a fresh battle present on it.
"I see," Harry whispered and he looked over the creature a little bit more and studied every inch of it. "There are aliens among us."
Natasha paused, perhaps it was just her, but there was something to Harry's tone that indicated that there was something more going on then she could have guessed. Or they thought that there was something more about them.
'Especially these aliens,' Harry thought and he gave a long sigh. 'Oh boy, there goes the neighborhood.'
Harry held the picture in his hand and they walked up the hallway.
"Ladies, this is Nymphadora Tonks, who doesn't like being called by her full name, you can call her Nym, Dora, and anything other than Nymphadora, and you'll be cool with her," Harry said and he leaned forward to Nym. "Nym, I'm sure you remember Natasha and Maria from last night."
"Yes, and what about…."
"I'm sure that she'll join us after a moment," Maria said and she got a call back from headquarters. She was going to have to take this one.
She was actually surprised that they didn't send a search party out for them. Maria took a moment to excuse herself and take that call.
"I hate to say this, but I think that I saw someone shady out there," Nym said and Natasha looked at her with a smile.
"So you're the infamous Dora Black, aren't you?" Natasha asked her and Nym paused.
"Um, yeah, that's one of my aliases," Nym said and Natasha smiled at her in response.
"Our director might want to talk to you, your talents could be more useful outside of your little corner of the world," Natasha said and Nym whistled.
Color her intrigued, but a Ministry Auror didn't pay that much.
"Why don't you two talk more about this?" Harry asked both of them. "Now play nice though…"
"I'm sure that you're share the wealth," Nym said with a smile on her face.
Harry swatted her on her ass in response and pulled her in close. "Behave, Nympahdora, or you'll get a lot worse than this."
"Where are you going?" Natasha asked him, and Harry smiled at her.
"I've got to make a call to one of my sources…I'll explain when I get back."
Harry shifted into a private room and left Natasha and Nym standing alone in the hallway.
"So, are you serious about being someone shady out there?" Natasha asked, she didn't want to alert whoever was out there that something was going on.
"Um, I gave him the slip, but…."
Natasha loaded a gun and peered around the corner. It was very possible that someone caught sight of the SHIELD agents in Vegas and wanted to find out what they were doing. They shouldn't be here.
Nym followed her, and gracefully avoided everything. The clumsy act was mostly a put on to lure her enemies in the false sense of security.
She nearly tripped over an overturned chair, but she caught herself. Natasha gave her an exasperated look for a second and then she turned into Black Widow mode.
Okay most of the time.
There was one person that Harry thought could get to the bottom of whatever this situation was, and who might be able to dig up information. This person happened to be the smartest girl of her age, and one's whose intelligence was considered to be above most. Along with Harry's best female friend in the world, although there were rumors that their relationship was a lot more; something that Harry was not denying.
That being said, Harry made sure he was in a more secure location. Nym and Natasha checked out the disturbance and Harry got on the other end of the line.
"Hey, are you there?"
"Yeah, I'm here, what the happened?" the voice said on the other end.
"Sorry, Gwen, I didn't mean to duck and run like that, especially when we had a meeting."
Gwen Stacy shook her head. "Don't worry, considering the circumstances, I don't blame you. And besides, our little…..network managed to cover well for you. Along with running interference to keep certain people from following you over to Vegas. I mean the last thing we needed to do was cause an international incident."
"You did good, I'm sure," Harry said with a smile on his face.
"So, how is Vegas?" Gwen asked him.
Harry answered without missing a beat. "I got married."
Gwen responded without missing a beat or taking a breath. "Again?"
"Yes, Gwen, again," Harry said.
"This must be about the third or the fourth time this has happened to you?" Gwen asked.
"This has only happened twice, and you know it, Mrs. Potter," Harry told her and Gwen blinked and smiled.
"I know, Mr. Potter," Gwen told him in response. "And I'm sure you know that if you insert tab A into Slot B…."
"Have you be talking to Nym lately?"
"Maybe," Gwen said in a mysterious voice, but she spoke. "Anyway, who are the lucky girls?"
"Well two of them are Natasha Romanov…"
"No fucking way, you bagged the Black Widow," Gwen said and she was caught off guard by this.
"Yes, fucking way…..and do you seem surprised by this?" Harry asked.
"With anyone else, yes, with you, I'd be an idiot to even doubt what you're capable of," Gwen said. "And who is the other lucky party?"
"Maria Hill."
Gwen could have bust a gut laughing and she shook her head. "Well, she's second in command….with SHIELD you know."
"We really know more than we're supposed to," Harry said, not that was a complain, merely an observation in general.
"We knew SHIELD was after you about six months before they made comeback, and not because we have access to someone who has access to someone who talks in her sleep," Gwen said.
"Speaking of that person…"
"Don't tell me she's number three?" Gwen asked.
"What do you think?"
"Yes, I'm going to take that as a yes," Gwen said and she smiled in amusement. "You know if you bump off Nick Fury, you have an in."
Harry decided to let that one go without a comment. He knew that Gwen was joking, at least he thought he was. Besides, Fury struck him as the type that had more lives that an entire army of cats.
"So, I'm going to send you what little information I have, but are you sitting down when I'm telling this?"
"Yes, I am," Gwen said and she waited for Harry to give her the information.
"So, I take it won't come as a shock to you that the Ministry has been infiltrated."
Gwen slapped her palm down in mock indignation. "Oh my god, I feel faint, the Ministry has been infiltrated. This is…..expected. "
Harry laughed and then gained his bearings. He actually went through a few scenarios in his hand.
"I don't think that it's the Ministry that they are after. I mean, why would you go for a society that's a very small part of the Earth's population? They would have to be the most unambitious alien invaders ever, wouldn't they?"
"Oh, we're talking about alien invaders, are we?" Gwen asked with a smirk on her face. "Well we all know that there's absolutely no way possible that aliens can exist for any way whatsoever."
"At least officially," Harry chimed in.
"As for what they're after, well I'm sure that there are a few toys in the Department of Mysteries that might tickle their fancy," Gwen suggested, but then she realized. "Or it could be something as mundane as information…."
"The fact that they could access to the Prime Minister and by proxy other high ranking government officials through the Ministry," Harry said, and he could hear Natasha having returned. "Just find me what you can find me. SHIELD might have found something already, but if they made their move today, it's unlikely."
"So we're going to help them out," Gwen answered and Harry nodded in response.
"Now, I need to go, because one of my newest wives needs to talk to me."
Harry turned around to face Natasha, who stepped back for a second.
Natasha pressed herself against the wall. Being a world class spy, she found herself in some extremely perilous situations more often than she would even care to admit. And the fact that her new husband backed her into a corner proved to be just a little bit more perilous.
"So, can I help you?"
Natasha smiled, and they were nearly touching when they backed up against the wall.
"It seems like you have a few surprises of your own," Natasha said.
Harry smiled. "Indulge my curiosity."
"Yes, what about it?" Natasha asked.
"You knew that I had already did the Vegas marriage thing once before this, didn't I?"
"You were talking to Gwendolyn Stacy, or is it Gwendolyn Potter now?' Natasha said and she reached forward and was allowed enough room to press her finger on his chest, where she traced around it. "You do have that habit of ensnaring spiders of all sort into your web, don't you?"
Harry felt like she tried to wind him up, but he stepped back, to give her a little bit of breathing room.
"Well, I managed to net myself the deadliest spider of them all," Harry whispered in her ear. "And my venom is much stronger than hers."
Natasha could see that she was backed into the corner and she was about ready to challenge Harry to put his money where his mouth was. Or rather put another part of body in her and she closed her eyes.
That being the sexy spy allowed herself room to breathe.
"Yes, Gwen and I have been friends forever, and we've become more, obviously," Harry said and he wrapped his arms around her. "I'm sure that you knew all about that, and even more. That's why you jumped on that mission, and why Maria tagged along to supervise, didn't she?"
"There was another, wasn't there, along with you and Gwen?" Natasha asked and she deflected the question.
"Answer my question with another question, can't say I ever tired of that game," Harry said and he leaned in towards her and whispered in ear. "Be a good girl, and you might be rewarded. Don't be a good girl and well…..you know what could happen."
He dropped his hands and allowed her just a bit of movement, to maintain the illusion of control.
"Yes, we were interesting to see what you were about and what you knew, and obviously…..well obviously we heard the rumors about what you were capable of," Natasha said and she reached forward and placed his hand close to her inner thigh. Harry didn't remove it. "And one thing lead to another…"
"You got sucked into this situation because you didn't know how magically binding a magically binding marriage is," Harry said and he saw her hand stroke him slowly. He wasn't sure if she knew what she was instinctively doing. Then again, given who she was, Harry hazarded a guess that she knew precisely what she was doing and got off on it. "And it doesn't have any limits or guidelines for the amount of women a wizard could have."
"So, it doesn't work on the contrary?" Natasha asked.
"We live in a society where the females outnumber the males by a wide margin, so it wouldn't make any sense," Harry said with a smile. "Most women…..well they turn to each other for comfort to kill time until they wait to see if the latest generation comes into their own, or if they're a pack of duds. Those who develop certain qualities will attract women to them like bees to honey."
Natasha was intrigued. Needless to say, a lot of her missions had a little skin, a little grope, maybe some tongue action, but she easily got the information that she wanted before it escalated seriously, not that she saw them having a little staying power. Then it was a nice little zap with the stun gun, and she was off into.
"The Triumvirate are and always will be the three smartest students to ever come out of Hogwarts since the founders…."
"I was unaware that Miss Stacy had magical gifts," Natasha whispered and she played with the zipper of his pants.
"Well, I guess I was able to hold some secrets from SHIELD, and that didn't come until much later," Harry confirmed for her. Although he knew that they suspected, so it really was no use holding vital information. Otherwise he would have to develop a lemon drop fetish and a twinkle in his eye.
"So how did that….."
"The pureblood idiots were half right about how you could potentially empower a Muggle to have magical powers. Of course, it's an ingredient that I would only part with…..and you're in abundant supply of it after last night."
Harry squeezed her ass and got her attention.
"Although there is a ritual that's required, but the ritual is pretty much just a pretty light show without that ingredient," Harry said. "Something my mother did when I was young, it had some interesting ramifications."
Natasha opened her mouth and wanted to find out more.
However, the door opened before Harry could tell her more. Or reveal more, Maria stuck her head in.
"We found her."
Natasha removed her hand discreetly from Harry's pants.
"I'm not interrupting anything, am I?" Maria asked.
"Don't worry, we'll finish it later," Harry said to his wife. "I'm sure you know a lot about me, but I know a lot about SHIELD, so that's going to be an interesting meet when we meet with the big man."
And speaking of interesting meetings, Harry came face to face with Vegas Wife #3.
"Hi, Carol, how are you doing?"
True to form, a tall blonde woman dressed in a tight white shirt and blue jeans showed up. She had a body that rivaled both of the other two agents of SHIELD. She viewed Harry and thought about how she got here.
She knew Harry for a while, mostly through her adopted sister. That being said, she worked with SHIELD and later SHIELD's outpost, SWORD, which dealt with matters that were far beyond the scope of Earth. Given the gifts she received, Carol thought that she was the proper person for the job.
"I can't believe that happened," Carol said and Harry raised his eyebrow in response. "Okay, I can believe that happened, but you know…"
"You were trying to make sure that these two of them didn't do anything that they might regret," Harry said.
Maria raised her eyebrow. "That's the mission…"
"Upset Harry, and you upset my sister, and you know what she's like when she's upset," Carol said with a smile.
"I think they we did an admirable job in not upsetting Harry," Maria said and she leaned against the wall. "How is she by the way?"
"Well, the three of us returned from our little camping trip that we were on just recently," Harry said, answering Maria's question for Carol. "Then, I beat Voldemort."
"You went camping when there was a dark wizard out in the country?"
Maria tried to process the logic of that, but Harry laughed.
"Well, we got his little artifacts dumped on our head at the last minute, because my old Headmaster…..he has a bad habit of withholding information," Harry said with a smile on his face. "But I'm sure as Agents of SHIELD, you can appreciate my agitation a bit more. I'm sure Fury keeps some secrets hidden close to his vest."
Natasha folded her arms across her chest. Dumbledore was on SHIELD's watch list until he was killed as well. The man's past was dubious at best. Nothing too malicious, but there were many instances where he caused headaches for SHIELD to clean up, and obviously with Harry to do likewise.
"Not to that extent, but I see where you're going," Natasha said crisply.
"The real fun part was that stupid taboo," Harry said and Nym threw her arms back in agitation, having just joined them recently.
"Yes, tell me about it, I mean…I'm sure it's a rather complex and intricate magical ritual, but could we have not used that to our advantage somehow?"
Harry smirked. "We did. I'm sure the Death Eaters might have wised up to it at about the tenth time we lured them into a trap which we took care of them."
It was a war after all, no time to give your enemies sugar cookies and hugs. There was only one way to deal with psycho mass murderers who would kill you and rape your remains if given half of the chance. Harry knew it and anyone who had the least bit of sense knew it.
"So, you all got back okay?" Carol asked.
"Kara went up to visit you, but you must have missed each other," Harry said, with a smile. "And that's just as well, because that meant that you were here."
"Yeah, I was here," Carol agreed with a smile. "And it was quite the weekend, so much that I can only remember parts of it…..but the parts that I remembered, they're quite memorable….aren't they?"
"Well, you said it," Harry said with a smile on his face and he turned to Maria. "You know, Fury's been after me for six months, but I think that it's time for the two of us to come face to face. Perhaps between the two of us, we can piece together a clearer idea of what's going on here."
Carol saw the eyes of Natasha and Maria on her and got a bit defensive. "For the record, I didn't tell my sister anything classified…"
"You didn't need to," Harry said and Carol looked at him with a sigh when she looked him straight in the eye. "You know we're twelfth level intellects. And we have a knack of finding things out that we shouldn't."
Carol sighed and she wrapped her arm around Harry. "Isn't that the truth?"
It was off to see the man himself, and Harry had a list of questions he wanted answers of from Fury.
This should prove to be a memorable meeting.
To Be Continued.
So, post-show/director's notes for this one, and I have a few things to say.
Exactly where does this fall in the MCU canon? I'm just going to say sometime before Agents of SHIELD, and just leave it at that. Then again, it really doesn't matter. Because, a story gets bogged down too much when you worry about timeline and continuity. One of my biggest pet peeves with the Harry Potter series (among many others), is the fact that it has a timeline where the story is placed. Therefore, I'm going to ignore that, because if canon gets in the way of the story that I want to tell, it's irrelevant.
This is fan fiction after all, not canon-rehash. Something that people don't really get, inspiration may be found from many locations, or strange minds think alike.
I finally did what I threatened to do for about a year, and I'm not sorry about it at all. I'm sure people will bitch and rage about it, but whatcha gonna do brother? I write the story that I want to tell.
Carol was the obvious choice to include as the third agent, because given my preference for blondes; it would be wrong if I didn't have a blonde involved. She's on my list of my top ten favorite comic book blondes.
The thing that I'm hinting at (you kind of have to read between the lines), is my own pet explanation about how the characterization for some characters might have been off in the last two books. Or at least a play off on that idea, hence we got here.
It's a running gag across many stories in my expanded universe how Harry can't even walk into Vegas without getting married. It's like commandment number two of my own personal rules.
The Taboo really shows how most magical users are idiots and how Voldemort really did deserve to win in canon because the other side was so incompetent at figuring out an extremely obvious solution in turning it against the bad guys.
I'm hinting at certain things that I feel should be obvious, although maybe not. Well it will be confirmed soon enough. Figure this will be at least eight chapters, but no more than twelve. Subject to change.
I've rambled on enough, I'm sure there's something that I've forgotten. Or maybe that was by design and I didn't want to bring it to someone's attention just yet.
Next chapter, Harry Potter meets Nick Fury. Oh boy, see you when I see you.