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Chapter 11

The first war was quickly covered, even including the prophecy that led Voldemort to the Potter's on that fateful night. They explained about the bigotry and pureblood dogma that the Death Eaters promoted and terrorised people to support. Then, they explained the ministries weak response and the slightly more tangible response of the Order of the Phoenix (all of which they had researched through their time in Hogwarts preparing for the coming war.) Then, it was onto their Hogwarts years.

"Hermione and I met on the train- neither of us had any clue about magic until we got our letters. My relatives were… afraid of magic, so kept it from me, and tried to keep me from Hogwarts too. It didn't stop me going. We both knew who the other was to us when we introduced ourselves," Cassia said, reaching out and grasping Hermione's hand.

"We never told anyone, we didn't know how they would take it, not until our fourth year at least, which was a good thing because it kept a lot of people guessing," Hermione added. "And plus Ronald who had attached himself like a limpet to Cassia didn't get on with me until Halloween of first year when he almost got me killed by a troll- you know, I still haven't had an apology for that."

"A troll?" Thor asked, eyes narrowed. "As in a mountain troll? Or a cave troll?"

"Mountain troll, thankfully," Hermione answered.

"What's the difference?" Jane asked.

"Cave trolls are smarter. They can at least learn other languages and reason things out. Mountain Trolls- not so much. It was surprised by Cassia jumping up on its back and sticking her wand up its nose, allowing Ron to levitate its club and drop it on the troll's head. He seemed to think it was enough of an apology- I wouldn't have been in the girl's bathroom if it wasn't for him."

"That's true. But anyway, he was more tolerable towards you after that. He was with us when we figured out that Voldemort was after the Philosopher's Stone, which had been hidden in Hogwarts, conveniently enough just before we started school."

"Considering the traps set around it to protect it were beaten by three first years, it really was a flaky protection system- at best."

"At worst, it was a set up," Clint summed up, his hand itching for an arrow- and he wasn't the only one who wanted to reach for their weapon.

"Pretty much what we thought," Cassia confirmed. "It also turned out that Voldemort wasn't dead, as everyone believed, but was possessing our defence teacher of that year. He was sticking out of the back of Quirrel's head. And then there was the Basilisk in second year- Dumbledore had to have known that it was a basilisk- especially if he's as powerful as he's supposed to be."

"You have fought a basilisk? The two of you?" Sif was stunned. "How old were you when this happened?"

"Twelve and thirteen- but I didn't fight it- Cassia was relatively alone in that. I had been petrified by it earlier in the year."

"Just after figuring out what it was. Well done on that by the way."

"Thank you."

"Whoa, what's a basilisk?" Pepper asked, terrified of knowing.

"It is a giant serpent that would struggle to fit in this room and can kill if you look it in the eyes. There is also no known cure for from its venom," Thor supplied. "Taking down a beast such as that is a feat that has proven fatal to even the greatest of warriors."

"Actually, phoenix tears can cure someone poisoned by it," Cassia supplied. "And you'll only be petrified if you see say, a reflection of its eyes, or see it through something like a camera lens."

"And yes, she does know that through experience," Hermione sounded exasperated.

Cassia shrugged. "Not my fault a murderous raving lunatic set the damned thing on me."

"Wait- what murderous lunatic? There's another one?" Jane was beginning to regret listening to this. The two teenage witches were going to provide even more stress for her and Pepper than the Avengers already provided. Were they the only normal ones in the group?

"Nope, this was the memory of a young Tom Riddle, who later grew up and created an alias for himself- Voldemort."

"How could a memory do that much damage?" Loki asked, leaning forward. There was more to this than met the eye.

"Well, it was preserved in a diary, which we later discovered (last year in fact) was one of his Horcruxes."

"Ah, I see. We will need to find and destroy those."

"Later, I want to hear more of this first. It's getting more dangerous by the year. What's next- dragons?" Clint asked.

"No that's fourth year. Third year was soul sucking Dementors and finding out that Cassia and her parents had been betrayed."

"I hate Dementors." Sif said darkly.

"So do I," Cassia agreed.

"They suck out your soul?" Bruce asked wearily, his brown eyes flecked worryingly with green.

"First they drain you of every happy memory, bringing to the forefront of your mind the very worst of your memories, and then, if given the chance, they will suck your soul out and leave you as an emotionless husk," Hermione nodded.

Cassia's face was dark. "I don't know what would be worse- the end state or the memories they pull forward."

"What do they make you remember?" Steve asked gently.

"The night Voldemort murdered my parents. And every other time I've met the bastard."

"Ok, Dementors equal kill on sight," Tony said.

"If you can see them. With the bond, you may be able to, but because you do not have magic, there is the chance you will not be able to," Thor informed him.

"Just look out for the sudden loss of light and warmth and the sudden feeling as if you'll never be happy again and you'll have a good idea what's coming- if you see a tatty cloak wearing figure, you know for sure."

"Thank you for that vivid picture Hermione."

"No problem Tony."

"The sarcasm is strong in this one," Clint drawled from where he was still perched.

"I get it from Cassia."

"Hey!"

Hermione maturely stuck her tongue out at the Neko. "But Hermione's right, a high security prisoner called Sirius Black had escaped Azkaban. Everyone believed he'd betrayed my parents, but it turns out my godfather was innocent. It was another old friend of theirs, Peter Pettigrew, who had betrayed them. We managed to get Sirius out of being kissed by a Dementor."

"Illegally!" Hermione chimed in.

"Yeah, he was on the run up until the end of our fifth year when his crazy cousin, Bellatrix LeStrange killed him. But, anyway, fourth year was this insane tournament where I was forced to compete- Voldemort was responsible. The first task had me trying to get a golden egg from a nesting mother dragon. The second had me and the other champions rescuing hostages from the bottom of a lake. For some reason the judges thought Ron would be the person I'd miss the most, when everyone at that point knew Hermione and I were dating. I'm pretty sure they were trying to get us to stop seeing each other," Cassia snorted. "That was never going to work. The final task was an enchanted maze. The first person to reach the trophy at the centre won. Except it was a trap."

"Voldemort?" Pepper sighed.

"Yep. We had this teacher, an ex Auror, who happened to be an imposter using polyjuice- the same thing the wizard earlier used. He was a spy for his master and well, Voldemort killed a friend of ours, well, he had Pettigrew kill him, and then used this ritual which included my blood to regain his proper body. He should have stayed as the ugly baby. He looked better."

"Then in fifth year, everyone believed you were a delusional murderer and you had killed Cedric and was blaming it on Voldemort- everyone believed he was dead. We had a ministry flunky that year to teach us Defence against the Dark Arts. She happened to like torturing students," Hermione's eyes were narrowed.

"Her preferred method was the use of the blood quill. It doesn't use ink. You write with it, and the words carve themselves into the back of your hand while red writing appears on the paper. Writing lines became an awful detention past time."

"What happened to her?" Natasha asked, leaning forward.

"We led her out into the forbidden forest. Got her carried off by a herd of centaurs. Hermione's idea. They didn't take well to her calling them Half-Breeds. They're all very proud. She was never the same after Dumbledore retrieved her. Not while we still saw her. All through the year, I'd been seeing into Voldemort's head, and feeling strong emotions from him- it wasn't pretty. That was the Horcrux, of course I didn't know it at the time, but he became aware of the connection. He wanted what we believed was a weapon in the Department of Mysteries. So he fed me a false vision of him being in the department of mysteries and torturing Sirius. After Umbridge had been carried away by the herd, we and a few others went to rescue him. I'd tried contacting him, but got no response, and everything pointed to the vision being real. In the end, it got Sirius killed, almost got us killed, and smashed the prophecy, which was what Voldemort was after. Last year, Dumbledore finally began to teach me about the Horcruxes. Voldemort likes things of historical value to the wizarding world, or to him. Artefacts belonging to the four founders of Hogwarts, his mother's family heirlooms, his pet snake. Oh and Dumbledore almost got killed when we went looking for Slytherin's locket. Voldemort had a whole army of inferi guarding the thing and it turned out to be a fake in the basin filled with lethal potion that he drank to get to it. It was substituted by someone called R.A.B. Nothing else has been figured out yet."

"Holy shit," Tony said. "The fuck sort of school did you go to?"

"Hogwarts," the two answered in union.

"Apart from discovering my creature heritage on my birthday and finding Bucky, oh and what happened earlier, nothing else has happened that we know of. You just heard all of what Ragnok said, so you know about as much as we do now," Cassia said.

"Why do I get the feeling we just experienced the extremely edited version of events?" Pepper sighed.

"Because you did. We'd probably have been here for days telling you everything in minute detail, but if we remember anything else important, we'll tell you," Hermione said.

"Damn that's a lot to go through. And none of this was checked out by your police?" Bruce asked.

"The wizarding world has Aurors, and no, it wasn't. Most of it was just swept under the rug and left at that. Cassia has vacillated between being the saviour of the wizarding world and complete attention seeking nut job in the eyes of the wizarding world for years. Either way, they don't seem to think there's anything worth investigating," Hermione answered.

"I am going to guess that Dumbledore may have had a large hand in that?" Loki asked.

"Probably. He is, after all, head of the Wizengamot, and the International Confederation of Wizards. I mean, he was able to leave me on the doorstep of my Aunt and Uncle's house wrapped only in a blanket with a note pinned to it, explaining the situation to my relatives and no court ever contested my placement there."

"At least tell me it was a warm night," Jane groaned.

"November first, so I doubt it."

"So, let's sum this up, we have a bunch of homicidal maniacs, a manipulative and thieving son of a bitch with a superiority complex the size of the planet, and a society that will quite happily support Cassia and anyone like her being enslaved?" Tony asked.

"Yeah that's the gist of it," Hermione responded.

"You got that apartment sorted, right?" Clint asked.

"Of course I did," Tony answered, before looking at the two witches. "On the floor below us is another apartment that's been set up for you and your parents," his eyes flicked to Hermione, "with the attack earlier and the multiple threats, I'm pretty sure we'd all be a bit more relaxed knowing that was where you were staying. It's up to you though. Of course there's also a room ready for Bucky as well, but I don't really anticipate his parents pitching some sort of fit."

Bucky burst out laughing. "If they did, I'd be worried."

"With everything we know, ghosts are highly possible," Steve said.

"Hogwarts has tons of them," Cassia chimed in.

"I wasn't expecting that as a response, but alright," Bucky shrugged. He looked at the girls. "What do you want to do? This place is far safer than the hotel, and it was a close call earlier. In a way, it'll be like living in an apartment block."

That's not too bad, Cassia thought to Hermione who nodded.

"My parents should be alright with moving here after earlier. But if we're going to be staying for a while then we need to think about how to get Crookshanks and Hedwig over here."

"Who and what now?" Pepper asked, an eyebrow raising at the strange names.

"Hermione's cat Crookshanks and my owl, Hedwig."

"You weren't kidding about the owl post thing, huh?" Steve asked.

"Not one bit," Cassia said.

"If that owl's just for mail, do you need it?" Tony asked.

"That owl was both my first present and my second friend. I'm not leaving her behind."

"Ok," Tony said, raising his hands, but latching on to the comment.

"Sorry about him, he doesn't always think before he speaks," Pepper said, sending a glare at Tony.

"Yeah, we know the type," Cassia smiled.


A few hours later, all the things the Granger Party had brought to New York was in the apartment below the penthouse. Dan had been satisfied with the girls being on a different floor to the others and him and Emma staying with them, so he was easily convinced with the multiple threats in mind.

JARVIS was handling arrangements to have Hedwig and Crookshanks brought over from the places where the Grangers had had them placed to keep them safe and fed while they were away. Emma and Dan were currently discussing selling their practice, and making the move to New York a permanent one. With the contacts and influence several of the team had, it would be easier to get the needed visas, and it seemed they already had a place to stay, so things were easy on that front.

It had been Natasha and Pepper who had come down to talk to them about that particular issue. "It may be an idea, once the transfer of lands and property has gone through, for you two at least to get a permanent visa to stay here, or at least something that means you won't be deported," Pepper said. "The nightmare that the others might become trying to keep an eye on you if you went back to Britain permanently would be quite large."

"If needed I can file for you to be under SHIELD protection, meaning any and all files about you would become classified and there would be a guard keeping an eye on things when you weren't in the tower," Natasha added. "They won't interfere with your life, but they would be there to step in if needed. Given the circumstances, Director Fury may push to get you some form of Diplomatic immunity, depending how the situation pans out. I was briefed yesterday on the existence of the magical world, not as thoroughly as what I learnt earlier, but I knew there was prejudice, but thought it was limited towards those without magic. As such, SHIELD is rather… on edge around them. I'm sure Fury's just itching for an excuse to bring them in line. He gave off that impression anyway."

"When did things get this complex?" Emma sighed. "Do they really need a bodyguard?"

"After what happened earlier, we just want to air on the side of caution. Like I said, no one needs to know the agents assigned to the post would be there. Unless something happened, they wouldn't step in."

"I've been under guard before. I got attacked by Dementors and almost had my wand snapped for defending myself," Cassia said.

"Whoever was at the post must have been incompetent. They'd never have made it as a secretary in SHIELD," Natasha told her. "There'd be absolutely nothing to worry about if someone was assigned to you. They'd only step in if needed."

"It's something to think about," Pepper said. "Like Natasha said, they'd be inconspicuous and it beats having Tony hire someone who'd end up having to live here."

"We'll think about it," Hermione replied.


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