Disclaimer- I don't own.
Hermione was asleep when Loki was marched in early the next morning. After throwing the paperweight she kept on her bedside table at the poor intern Sitwell sent Hermione threw on a loose jacket on top of her leggings and t shirt and padded down to the bridge and joined the rest of the Avengers in discussing Loki. Ignoring the dissaproving stares of the professional agents Hermione wasted no time in pouring herself a large mug of coffee and plonking herself down on the seat next to her mother. No one said anything, instead focusing their attention to the live feed of Loki's interrogation.
"In case it is unclear, you try to escape, you so much as scratch that glass," Fury began, pushing a button that sent wind flying into the room from underneath the cell, "thirty thousand feet straight down in a steel trap. You get how that works? Ant," He gestures to Loki, "boot." He turns back to the panel and closes the door.
Loki laughs, "It's an impressive cage. Not built I think, for me." He says.
"Built for something a lot stronger than you."
"Oh I've heard," the Asgardian turns to face the camera, "the mindless beast, makes play to be the man. How desperate are you? You call on these lost creatures to defend you." Loki taunts.
"How desperate am I? You threaten my world with war. You steal a force you can't hope to control. You talk about peace yet you kill 'cause it's fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did."
"It burns you to come so close. To have the Tesseract, to have power, unlimited power. And for what? A warm light for all mankind to share, and then to be reminded what real power is."
Fury rolls his eye, "Yeah, well, you let me know if Real Power wants a magazine or something."
The video feed cuts out before the team could find out whether Loki wanted a magazine or not. "He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Banner broke the silence around the table as Hermione took a sip of her coffee.
"Loki's gonna drag this out. So Thor, what's his play?" Asked Steve, who still wore his suit but without the cowl. Apparently they still wanted to keep the bright colours of his old costume even though for the things SHIELD had planned for Captain America; bright colours weren't exactly going to assist him take part in a black ops mission. They're called black for a reason.
"He has an army called the Chitauri, that's none of Asgard nor any world known. He plans to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth. In return, I suspect for the Tesseract." The Norse god told them. Someone really had to update him on 21st century English. Though his arms were something else. Obviously Darcy Lewis wasn't lying about anything on the report.
"An army. From outer space."
"So he's building another portal. That's what he needs Erik Selvig for." Bruce realised.
"Selvig?"
"He's an astrophysicist."
"He's a friend." Ohh yeah. Selvig was there when Thor arrived on Earth for the first time. I wonder if anyone has told Jane anything yet.
"Loki has him under some kind of spell, along with one of ours." Natasha explained.
"I wanna know why Loki let us take him. He's not leading an army from here." Steve reasoned easily.
"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki. That guy's brain is a bag full of cats, you could smell crazy on him." Bruce kindly pointed out, doing his best to switch the conversation and get back to doing his job.
"I don't care how you speak. Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard, and he's my brother." Thor defended.
"He killed eighty people in two days." Natasha pointed out bluntly.
"He's adopted."
"I don't think the adoption excuse is good enough here Thor," Hermione started, "It may be different in Asgard but most people that have only just discovered their heritage maybe run away for a few days or become detached to their surroundings; not try and take over a planet his people haven't done anything wrong to. The Loki that arrived on Earth wasn't the Loki you grew up with."
Thor looked ready to argue, but his face fell short. He obviously thought that Hermione was at least partially correct. Getting Thor to agree with Hermione was a start in preventing too many casualties caused by the man trying to show him some mercy.
"Iridium, what did they need the iridium for?" Bruce asked himself, trying to work out the list of things bought or stolen by the missing agents or known enemies of S.H.I.E.L.D.
"It's a stabilising agent," Tony says as he walks in with Coulson, who then pauses to tell him something about Portland, "Means the portal won't collapse in on itself like it did at S.H.I.E.L.D. No hard feelings Point Break, you've got a mean swing," Tony stopped by Thor and tapped his arm a few times to prove his statement, "Also, it means the portal can open as wide and stay open as long as Loki wants." He explained, before walking up to Fury's command centre and looking around, "Raise the mizzenmast. Jib the topsails," He ordered the command agents who stared back at the billionaire blankly.
Hermione rolled her eyes at the man and took a sip of her coffee. Genius Tony Stark may be; his rather rude sense of humour was going to get him punched be someone at some point during his stay here.
"That man is playing Galaga!" He shouted, pointing at the intern at the back, "Thought we wouldn't notice, but we did."
Steve looked confused, "It's an interactive game that requires you to shoot down a fleet of alien spaceships before they get to where you are positioned." Hermione quickly explained. He nodded and tuned back out.
"How does Fury even see these?" Tony asked.
"He turns." Agent Hill replied.
"Sounds exhausting. The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. Only major component he still needs is a power source. A high energy density, something to kick start the cube." Did he just put something under the command system?
"When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?"
"Last night. The packet, Selvig's notes, the extraction theory papers. Am I the only one who did the reading? And is that coffee in your hand Blair Witch?"
"I got a page in before the words got too big to be comprehensible at eleven pm." Hermione chipped in.
"Says the girl who speaks fluent Latin, Russian, French and Spanish and passable in about seven others, is possibly capable of summoning a demon and knows people capable of meddling with the fabric of space" He bit back, trying to swipe Hermione's coffee mug for himself.
"I'm passable in 9 now, and for the last time demons do not exist Tony. I've checked every book in the school's library. And if you want coffee you can get your own."
"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?" Steve interrupted.
"He's got to heat up the cube to a hundred and twenty million kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier." Bruce recalled.
"Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunnelling effect." Tony suggested, ditching his attempts for Hermione's coffee and moving around the table to talk to Bruce.
"Well if he could do that he could achieve Heavy Ion Fusion at any reactor on the planet."
"Finally, someone who speaks English."
"Is that what just happened?" Asked Steve, turning so that he could see the two scientists shake hands.
"It's good to meet you Dr Banner. Your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."
Bruce looked taken aback, shocked at the passiveness about the Hulk comment, "Thanks." Tact is evidently something that Tony Stark doesn't have. I think he may be worse than Ron at it.
"Dr Banner is only here to track the cube. I was hoping you might join him. Same goes for you Hermione; you know magic better than anyone. Let's see if there's a signal you can trace." Fury told the group. Hermione smoothly got out of her seat and picked up her mug.
"Let's start with that stick of his. It may be magical but it works an awful lot like a Hydra weapon." Steve suggested. I need to dig one out of storage then and see if the energy used to power them is the same.
"I don't know about that, but it is powered by the cube. And I'd like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys."
Thor looked rather confused, "Monkeys? I do not understand."
"I do! I understood that reference." Steve proudly exclaimed like it was an achievement. Which is was, in terms of having to put up with Stark's antics for who knows how long.
Hermione on the other hand refilled her cup and passed another full one to her mother who really looked as though she needed it. After that she turned to Bruce and Stark who were waiting on the hallway, "Let me get changed and grab a few things from storage and I'll meet you in the lab. Does that sound okay?"
"Perfect."
Headmaster's office- the same time.
After two weeks of thinking and planning, the old bearded man snapped his fingers and called in his greasy haired, hooked nosed advisor.
"I have decided I do not want to eliminate the mudblood, Severus," the old man began, "She may become useful to us as a way to keep an eye on Potter as the years tick by. No, killing her would be far too dangerous on my part."
The bat looked around at the various ticking instruments around the room, taking notice of the dimming in the one with the glowing orb in the centre, "So what do you suggest?" He asked in surprise. He'd already began concocting the potion that would line the bullets after all. Basilisk venom was highly potent ingredient to mess with.
"We still bring in the asset of course. But instead of him killing her the night of the first task as originally planned we send him in during a class changeover the next Wednesday."
"That way she'll be dealt with in front of a large group and there won't be anywhere for her to run," Severus concluded, "How will this change things for us, for her?"
"What I noticed during the years spent fighting Grindlewald and the Nazis is that bullets won't ever be removed by magic. When the mudblood is placed under anaesthetic we can slip compliance and trust potions into her system. When I ask her to jump, she'll say how high? I feel that compliance would be the only way to solve our little issue with the mudblood."
"Why not just use the imperious curse?"
"It would be too obvious to those too close to her. The change in her behaviour would be too obvious."
Severus thought for a moment, "I see. How strong would these potions have to be?"
"Strong enough to last until the end of her time at school or until my death at least. Can't have her following anyone else now can we?"
Severus turned to leave the room, "Very well then." His hand twisted the gold plated doorknob and pulled it open slightly, only to be paused by the bearded man.
"Oh and Severus, should be not survive the ordeal I wanted her painted in a bad light. So make sure that Mr Malfoy and his goons give her a lot of special attention. Perhaps extend the invite some of the boys from Drumstrang when they visit? After all, the wizarding world hates a scarlet woman. I want Potter to be butter in my hands."
"Of course, Albus."
Dun Dun Dunnnn!
Not really if you think about the way Hermione is treated by Skeeter and Molly Weasley during Goblet of Fire. So do expect some little scuffles or spy awesomeness from Hermione during those chapters. I do sort of have an idea of how the attack in Hogwarts is going to go but I have three possibilities and I can't decide. It's either:
Hermione gets shot trying to hide and she "dies" from shock (aka Tetradoxine B) and Pomfrey has her body sent out via train and then SHIELD pick her up and she joins the Avengers in New York.
Hermione gets shot trying to stop the man from hurting anyone else but still kicks ass in the process because why not?
Dumbledore calls in a favour for Captain America to visit when the attack happens so that Hermione can be shot in front of him. That causes SHIELD to cut ties out of safety concerns but they still pull Hermione out because they were there because Captain America needed a lift.
At the minute I'm going for the last one as it has an awesome fight dynamic where the two tag team and take down a lot of people without anyone knowing.
Anyone of the three ideas work with the way I want the plotline to go but I want to know what you lovely people think first before I get to that part. I'll let you know when that scene is going to be typed up so the voting can stop.
Thank you for reading. And please take the time to review. It does mean a lot to me.
Lauren.