Schmidt did promise consequences for being ignored, and he got in a pretty good hit in the last chapter. But what now? Can the team roll with the punch and get back up swinging? And what's going on with Becky?


Steve woke up feeling disoriented. He didn't remember why he was asleep, or why his chest hurt, and it took him a minute to decide that he actually was awake, and then another one to remember how to open his eyes. Where was…This wasn't his room. He was, oh, wait, this was the infirmary, he'd woken up in here enough to recognize it. Had he gotten hurt on a mission? He didn't think he'd been anywhere since the factory in Austria. Rains had fixed his arm already from that. And he felt like if he'd been on another mission and gotten hit in the head hard enough not to remember it, it would be his head that hurt right now, not his chest.

Memory shot through his head like a bolt of lightning. Becky. Hydra had done something to Becky, and she'd stabbed him.

He jerked on the mattress, panic adding to the pain in his chest when his arms wouldn't move. Or his legs. Or…nothing would move. He tried to open his mouth to call out and no words would come, nothing but a rasping, choking sound. What had happened to him?!

"Easy, now, love. Easy," and there was Nurse Rains' voice, familiar and calm cutting through his panic, but what the hell did she mean, 'easy'? He couldn't move!

"Steve? Steve, love, I need you to look at me. Look at me," she said, and Steve's darting eyes landed on hers. "There we are," she encouragingly. "You're going to be alright, Steve, I promise," she told him. "I know you can't move, and I'm sorry, I know that's frightening, but it's only temporary."

Steve started breathing a little slower. Temporary?

"That's right, just breathe," she said. "You were attacked, do you remember that?"

Steve couldn't say anything, couldn't move enough to nod, but he blinked slowly in affirmative.

"It was the same as what happened to the others," she told him. "A knife with poison on the blade. The serum in your cells protected you long enough for Winston to get you up here, but it was a near thing. A very near thing." She put a hand briefly to the side of his face. "I've healed the stab wound, but the poison is still in your system. I've given you a potion to counteract it, but it will still take some time before it's all out. Once it is, you'll be moving and talking again, I promise," she assured him. "Tomorrow morning at the latest, if not sooner."

Steve was able to rein his panicked breathing in the rest of the way. There was still a lot to freak out about, but panicking wasn't going to help. How could he tell anyone what had happened if he couldn't talk? No one was looking at any of the students as suspects. If Becky, or whoever was controlling her, wanted to strike again, no one would see it coming, just as Steve hadn't. How long had it been? Could she have gone after someone else already? There was a whole house full of people up in Ravenclaw for her to choose from.

"Steve," Rains asked. "Do you remember who did this to you?"

Unable to do anything but blink, he did so rapidly. Yes! Yes, he did!

She nodded. "Will you give me your permission to see your memory of it?"

He blinked again quickly. Of course! A Pensieve. They could figure it out that way, without having to wait for him to talk again.

Rains nodded again and pulled out her wand. She touched it carefully to the side of his head, trailing away a wispy, silvery memory behind it. She must have been waiting for this, because a small Pensieve was sitting ready on the stand beside his bed. The memory floated up and into it, and Steve couldn't turn his head enough to see it, but he could hear the tiny, distant words, and see Rains' face as she watched it. Her hand flew up to cover her mouth in horror as he heard the echo of the knife slamming into his chest.

"Dear God in Heaven," she whispered. She swallowed hard, composed herself, then jumped to her feet. "Willow! Winston!" she called sharply. The sharp snap of magic heralded the arrival of the two elves.

"Willow, I need you to go and fetch Professor Phillips at once," she told her. "Whatever he's doing, he needs to stop and come here now. Winston, you go and find Bucky Barnes and Peggy Carter. It's just coming on time for dinner—check the dining hall first. Don't say what's happened. This is, bloody hell, this is much messier than I thought, and we don't know who's listening. Be discreet, both of you. I'll explain everything when they get up here, just get them here."

"Yes, Mistress," the elves murmured before disappearing.

Rains pulled in a shuddering breath, then dropped back into the chair next to Steve's bed. "Oh, I'm so sorry, love," she said. She turned and met his eyes, and Steve stared back, hoping she could read the questions blazing in them. How the hell had Hydra done this, and would Becky be okay?

"I've no idea what this is," she said, picking up his hand and squeezing it gently. "Oh, but that poor girl—whatever this is, it's not her choosing to do it, I know. We'll sort this," she declared, squeezing his hand tighter. "I promise. Whatever they've done, we'll fix it."

Steve felt tears springing to his eyes, and he blinked them away furiously. He could only pray Rains was right.


Bucky hurried up the stairs to the infirmary, the sound of Peggy's footsteps pounding steadily just a few steps behind him. He had no idea what had happened—Winston had been cryptic as hell about it—but given how urgent Winston had sounded and the fact that they were rushing towards the infirmary, well, it could hardly be good.

Rains waved them over to the far corner, and as Bucky approached, he realized Steve was laid out in the bed she was sitting next to. He picked up his pace, hearing Peggy do the same. He'd been concerned when Steve hadn't shown up in the common room after class, but he'd thought maybe he'd gone to talk to Phillips or something. Not seeing him at dinner had ratcheted his concern up into worry, but then Winston had shown up before he'd had time to do anything about it.

"Steve!" he exclaimed, dropping down to sit on the mattress beside him. He was lying there under the blanket and he, well, he looked okay, aside from the expression on his face. He twitched a little and sort of grunted when Bucky sat down, but didn't react otherwise.

"He can't talk right now," Rains said.

"What?"

"He was attacked," she told them. "The same as the others. The poison from the knife is still in his system."

"Will he be alright?" Peggy asked before Bucky could.

"He will," Rains said. "He should be able to get out of here in the morning."

"Someone…someone tried to kill him?" Bucky asked. He looked down at Steve, and when Steve's eyes met his they looked…sad.

"Do we know who it was?" Peggy asked.

Rains opened her mouth to answer, then closed it again. "He let me copy his memory of the attack," she said, not really answering the question. She gestured at a small Pensieve on the bedside table. "I don't…" She sighed again. "You'd best see for yourselves."

She prodded the swirling contents of the bowl, and Steve's memory flickered to life across its surface. He was talking to Becky, and a cold knot twisted in Bucky's stomach. Had Becky been there too? Had she gotten hurt?! He cast his eyes quickly up and down the ward. Steve was the only one here. That was…He didn't know if that was good or not.

The memory played out, and Bucky heard Peggy gasp as they saw Becky pull a knife from inside her sleeve and ram it into Steve's chest. Bucky just stared, unable to breathe or think, his eyes fixed on the Pensieve and watching his world fall apart. "Hail Hydra," he heard his little sister whisper.

Bucky flew up off the bed, whirling to face Steve. "What the hell is this, Steve?!" he demanded, furious fear expanding so quickly in his chest he expected his ribs to crack from the strain of it. Why would Steve show them something like this? What the hell was he thinking to…to… The pained look in Steve's watery eyes told him he wished it wasn't real just as much as Bucky did. Fury drained away just as quickly as it had risen, leaving only the fear behind. Bucky didn't realize he was shaking until his knees gave out from under him and someone caught him and steered him to sit back down by Steve's feet.

"Steady now, son," Phillips told him, letting go of his elbow once he was sure Bucky wasn't going to fall over.

"What…" Bucky stammered. "What…" He didn't know where to start, what to ask. What had Hydra done to make his sister do this? How had they…He choked on a knot in his throat and forgot how to breathe for several seconds. His sister. Hydra had his baby sister. And Steve…Bucky's hand groped on the blanket until he found Steve's ankle underneath it. They'd taken his sister and they'd almost taken Steve. He'd nearly lost everything today.

Bucky tightened his grip around Steve's ankle, and Peggy moved over so she was sitting beside him, her hand solid and steady on his arm. "This is something that can be undone, isn't it, Sir?" Peggy asked Phillips, voicing the questions Bucky couldn't put words to. "If it's the Imperious Curse or something…"

"If that's what it is, yes, we can undo it," Phillips confirmed.

"If?" Bucky asked worriedly.

"It might be something else entirely," Phillips said. "Actually, I'm inclined to think that's not your sister at all."

Bucky felt Steve shift a little on the mattress, and he looked up at Phillips, at once hopeful and terrified. "What do you mean, Sir?"

"I think we're looking at a Hydra agent posing as your sister. A hell of an actor," he admitted. "But the Imperious Curse…That changes how you act, not what you know. The knowledge she would need to pull this off—not just today, but three other times, and each one of those against a qualified, specially trained wizard? No." He shook his head.

That made it better, somehow, that Becky hadn't been cursed and forced to do this, but… "If this is a Hydra agent using, I don't know, Polyjuice potion or something, what…" Bucky swallowed hard. "Then where's the real Becky?"

"That's what we need to find out," Phillips replied. "I'd bet good money she's still alive," he went on, as if he knew what Bucky's next question was going to be. "These duplication spells need things like hair, or fingernails, or something like that, and they'd have to keep her alive to get it. They might even be thinking they could use her for leverage when this all goes south, like it's about to." He rested a hand warmly on Bucky's shoulder. "We'll bring her home."

Bucky nodded.

"In the meantime," Phillips continued. "Let's go catch this one. Miss Carter?"

"Yes, Sir," Peggy said, springing to her feet.

Bucky moved to follow her, but Phillips held out a hand. "Stay here. We'll get her."

Bucky nodded. He wanted a piece of whoever this was, but he didn't think…No, Phillips was right, going into a fight against someone who was pretending to be his sister was a bad idea. He would hesitate, he knew, because what if it really was her? If it was really her, just with her head messed up or something, and he wouldn't be able to shake that doubt, wouldn't be able to react like he should, and someone could get hurt. No, he…he couldn't do it. And Steve was stuck up here, not able to move or talk, and he had to be pretty freaked out. Bucky would wait with him.

"We'll bring her up here," Phillips said. "Gwyneth, have something ready, and then we'll need to seal the ward off for a little while. Oh, and pull the curtain around Rogers' bed. She thinks he's dead—let's start off letting her think she still has that card to play."

Phillips and Peggy left, and Rains got up and tugged the curtain around Steve's bed, promising she'd be back soon. Bucky sighed and realized he was still holding on to Steve's ankle. He wasn't sure if he could let go.

"I'm sorry, Steve," Bucky said, turning on the mattress so he could look at him. "I didn't mean to…" He shouldn't have yelled at him. Steve blinked slowly and managed to smile just a little bit at him, understanding in his eyes. "Are you okay?" Bucky asked. Steve blinked again, uncertainly this time. Yeah, Bucky got that. "Can I see?" he asked, nodding towards Steve's chest. Steve blinked again and Bucky untucked the blanket, pulling it down gently until what was left of the wound was exposed.

There was a raw, ugly line on the left side of Steve's chest right under his ribs. There was no blood, and the skin had all knit back together, though it was still knotted and swollen. If it had happened after classes, then it had been less than two hours ago. Rains had healed up the damage, but the scar would take a little longer. Bucky patted him gently on the side, then pulled the blanket back up.

"Does it hurt?" he asked.

Steve managed a slight incline of his head. It hurt a little.

Bucky nodded. With Steve being unable to say anything, it seemed unfair for Bucky to just let everything building up in his chest come spilling out, and his breath hitched in his throat a couple of times as he tried to swallow down the knot that had formed there. Going off of Marsh's murder, it had been over two weeks that this fake Becky would have been here. Two weeks. And he'd had no idea. What had Hydra done to his little sister in the meantime? Had they hurt her? Was she sitting there, locked up somewhere, scared and alone, hoping her big brother would come find her and wondering why it was taking so long? Did she think he wasn't coming?

A sob welled up and escaped his throat before he could stop it. Steve twitched on the mattress and Bucky looked over at him. His eyes were watering too, knowing exactly what was going through Bucky's head. He jerked his head in uncoordinated invitation, and Bucky let go of Steve's ankle and moved up the mattress to sit next to him. He tugged Steve up into a sitting position, carefully, in deference to his still-aching abdominal muscles, and leaned him over so that his head was resting on Bucky's shoulder.

"We're gonna find her, Steve," Bucky said, stretching an arm around his shoulders and hugging him, whether to make Steve feel better or to anchor himself, Bucky wasn't quite sure. Steve was just as worried about Becky as he was, Bucky knew. He'd been looking out for her like she was his sister too, long before he'd moved in with them. "If Schmidt thinks he can lay a finger on our sister, he'd better think again." Bucky tightened his grip on Steve. "We're gonna burn them to the ground."


Peggy took a minute to compose herself, squaring her shoulders back before opening the doors to the infirmary. She and Professor Phillips had successfully apprehended Rebecca Barnes, or whoever was pretending to be her, in one of the strangest battles Peggy had been a part of.

It hadn't been a battle per se—the imposter didn't know her cover had been blown, and so she had been summoned to Phillips' office just as any student might have been. There had been a brief fight then, and, had Peggy and Phillips not had the element of surprise, Peggy imagined that it could have gotten very ugly indeed. Some of the moves that girl knew…No, that definitely wasn't Rebecca.

Still, Peggy found herself reluctant to go in there and begin the interrogation. The girl wasn't Rebecca, but she certainly looked like her. The anger and the brutality in the way she'd fought back had been very jarring to see on that sweet, usually smiling, face.

Peggy rubbed her arm gingerly as she walked. Not-Rebecca had nicked her with her knife—just a tiny little cut—and her whole arm from the elbow down had gone numb. No wonder Steve couldn't move. (She swallowed down the nauseous realization that that was the same knife that had nearly killed him.) She approached the far end of the ward, where Phillips and Rains were getting the prisoner situated in a chair with restraints on the arms and legs. That must have been what Phillips meant when he told Rains to have something ready, and why in the hell was there a chair like that in the infirmary?

Peggy ducked behind the curtain to where Steve and Bucky were waiting. She saw a bit of relief settle into Steve's eyes as she appeared, though he didn't say anything, apparently still incapable of speech. She sat down on the mattress on the side opposite Bucky.

"Is everything okay?" Bucky asked nervously.

Peggy nodded. "We got her. She put up a hell of a fight, but she didn't see us coming, so it didn't last long. And unless your sister has been taking some sort of assassin training in her downtime at home, then Phillips was right, it's not her," she added, trying for a little levity.

Bucky kind of smiled back. "So, now what?"

"Now, we see if we can get her to talk," Peggy said. "Do you want to come, or…?"

Bucky didn't seem sure. He looked down at Steve, and Steve must have regained a little bit of motion, because he managed to nod in the direction of the curtain. He'd be fine here on his own. Bucky still didn't look sure. Peggy could sort of imagine how he felt. Her older brother, Michael, had been out of school for years now, married and working, and Francis, the little one, had a few years yet before he came to Hogwarts. If it had been either of them out there in that chair—or someone doing a hell of a job impersonating them—she didn't know that she'd be eager to see it either.

"Yeah, alright," Bucky sighed reluctantly. "You need anything, Stevie?" he asked, looking back down at Steve. Steve shook his head.

Peggy brushed Steve's hair back with her good hand and leaned in to kiss his forehead. "I'm glad you're alright," she said softly, and she had not given permission for that little tremor to work its way into her voice, but Steve and Bucky both tactfully ignored it. "Don't worry," she told him. "We'll sort this out, and you'll be on your feet in time to help bring her home," she said, resting a hand on the side of his face. She got a bit of a smile for that. "If you need to go to sleep, you can," she told him. Despite everything that was going on, he did look like he was fighting to stay awake. Considering the blood he'd lost and everything that must still be in his system, it was hardly surprising. "We'll fill you in on anything you miss," she promised.

He blinked in affirmative, but seemed determined to stay awake a while longer. Peggy stood and walked out from behind the curtain with Bucky. Phillips and Rains had set up the chair well away from Steve's bed, though near enough to be in earshot. Its occupant was shifting, as if testing the restraints keeping her in place. Her angry expression vanished as she saw them coming, and suddenly she was thirteen-year-old Rebecca Barnes again.

"Jay," she pleaded, her voice small and scared. "I don't understand what's happening. Let me out, please, I didn't do anything!"

Bucky's face twisted up painfully, but he shook his head.

"Please, make them stop," she begged, her little voice on the verge of tears, and even though Peggy knew it wasn't really her, it still broke her heart. She could only imagine how much it hurt Bucky. "They're hurting me, Jay, why…why are you letting them do this to me?"

"You don't get to call me that," Bucky growled. "I don't know who the hell you are, but you don't get to use that name."

Her tears vanished in an instant, and that wicked smile was back. "Worth a shot," she said with a shrug. "That does get under your skin, though, doesn't it? So easy," she said, clicking her tongue in mock disappointment.

"That's enough," Phillips snapped. "Who the hell are you?"

"Right now, I'm Rebecca Barnes," she replied sweetly.

Rains was standing to the side, waving her wand over the girl in the chair. "She really isn't," she said. "Though it isn't Polyjuice potion she's using."

That surprised Peggy. This girl had been pretending to be Bucky's sister for a long time—even though it had to be taken every hour, Polyjuice potion was still the most reliable way of getting such a good copy that wouldn't deteriorate.

"Oh, you clever little minx," Rains said, still waving her wand. She looked up at Phillips. "She's a Metamorphmagus."

"A what?" Bucky whispered to Peggy.

Peggy stared at the girl, slightly impressed in spite of herself. "A wizard who can change their appearance at will. It's a really rare genetic anomaly. She doesn't need potions or spells or even a wand, just…" She waved at the girl in the chair. "She can make herself look like anything."

"Hmm," Phillips mused. He stepped back, made several quick motions with his wand, and a shimmery silver bubble appeared around the girl and the chair. He shot a quick look back at Peggy and Bucky, who were watching him curiously. "Chair's not much good if she can turn into anything. Metamorphmagi aren't limited to human forms." He turned back to the girl. "I assume that's how you've been able to get past security? Transfigure into a mouse or something?"

She shrugged. "Nobody bats an eye at the local rodent population. And it certainly came in handy when I needed to get away from those house elves you set on 'protective duty'. They're persistent little suckers, I'll give them that."

"So, who are you?" Phillips asked again.

The girl just stared at him.

He leaned in, placing his hands on the arms of her chair—evidently the silver bubble was meant to keep her from going anywhere if she got out of the chair, but it didn't prevent them from crossing it. "You're not Rebecca Barnes, but you are Hydra, and I'm willing to bet you know what I can do. Are you going to answer my questions, or am I going to have to go in there and find the answers myself?"

"Alright, alright!" the girl said quickly, raising her hands in surrender as much as the restraints would allow. "You really don't have to do that. I'll cooperate." All her toughness was gone, replaced by genuine fear.

Phillips smiled and stepped back. He nodded at Rains, and she stepped forward with a small vial, containing what Peggy assumed was Veritaserum. "You'll forgive me if I want to make sure," Phillips said to the girl. She glared at him, but it lost a lot of fire coming through the fear that was still there, and she nodded, opening her mouth and allowing Rains to put several drops on her tongue.

"Okay," Phillips said when Rains stepped back. "Name."

"Yvonne Koenig," she replied.

"Koenig?" Phillips asked, raising an eyebrow. "As in…"

"As in Hydra's top engineer, Walther Koenig," she said with a smile. "My father's been with Hydra since the beginning. As have I."

"Mm," Phillips mused, taking a moment to evaluate. Peggy had heard the name 'Koenig' before in some of her reports. She'd never seen anything about him having a daughter. But then, if the girl was a Metamorphmagus, someone like that would be awfully hard to keep track of.

"And I assume you're not actually thirteen years old, Ms. Koenig?" he asked.

"Twenty-one," she replied. "Although it has been fun coming back to school. I did always wonder what Hogwarts was like."

"What are you doing here?"

"I should think it was fairly obvious by now."

"Who sent you?"

"Herr Schmidt himself," she said. She rolled her head to look over at Bucky, grinning wickedly. "He did warn you to stay out of his way," she said. "And if you're not going to listen…" She shrugged theatrically. "He had to try something a little more…drastic."

Peggy shuddered. Kendall had said that, when they'd caught him.

Yvonne chuckled. "Just think, 'big brother'. If you had listened when he warned you the first time, they'd all still be alive."

Bucky was staring at her coldly, but the way his throat shook when he swallowed told Peggy he was just barely holding it together. She stepped a little closer to him, putting her hand on his arm for support and pulling him back several steps. "It's not your fault," she whispered as Phillips went on with his questioning.

"People keep saying that," Bucky replied. "She's right, though, Pegs," he said miserably. "If we had listened, he never would have sent an assassin here." He swallowed hard. "He never would have taken my sister."

Peggy sighed. "Maybe you're right," she said sadly. This was an act of retaliation, plain and simple, and Schmidt wouldn't have done it if there had been nothing to retaliate against. "But it doesn't mean you were wrong to do it," she insisted. "And if he hadn't done this, he would have done something else. Bucky, Schmidt wants to hurt a lot of people, and you're helping to stop him doing that." She reached down and wrapped her fingers around his, squeezing his hand. "Standing up to him, it's not easy, but it's right." It was true, but she might have had a harder time saying that if it had been her little brother in that chair.

"It's my baby sister," he whispered. "She shouldn't have to suffer for the choices I make."

"No," Peggy agreed. "She shouldn't. And she won't. We're going to get her back."

"But what if…"

"Bucky, look at me." He turned his miserable eyes to hers, steel blue brimming with tears. "I swear to you, on my life, that we are going to get Rebecca back." Fury was burning in Peggy's chest now. How dare Hydra stoop so low as to threaten children to get what they wanted? How dare Johann Schmidt kidnap an innocent little girl to try to manipulate the only people that really threatened him? How dare he?! "We will find out where she's gone if I have to skin Yvonne Koenig alive to do it. And we will bring. Her. Home. I promise."

Bucky stared into her eyes for a long minute. Then he sniffed, swallowed, and sniffed again. "You're right," he said, and his voice was a little shaky but there was resolution there now, the same fire she'd seen in his eyes when they'd found Steve after Zwart had taken him. He drew in a deep breath and nodded. "We'll bring her home."

"And Hydra's going to burn for it," Peggy said.

"Hell, yes, they are," he agreed vehemently.

They moved back to where the interrogation was still going on.

"Why Marsh?" Phillips asked. "Did you target her for a reason, or were you just trying to cause chaos?"

"Oh, I had my reasons for everyone," Yvonne confirmed. "Marsh had to be first, though. She was how I got in."

"What do you mean?"

"You remember that day she was sick?" Yvonne asked. "That was me. She'd been down buying some supplies for class in Hogsmeade. I slipped something into her lunch—just enough to make her sick. Then I came up to campus—as a bird, in case you were wondering. It would take forever to walk up here on tiny little mouse legs. Anyway, I slipped into her quarters, incapacitated her and replaced her. After calling Rebecca in to talk to me, I got her out of the way, got her off campus, and no one's going to stop and question a professor, are they? Then I came back up here, modified Marsh's memory so she wouldn't remember the incident, and took Rebecca's place. I gave myself a few days to settle in, but Marsh still had to go just in case anything came back to her. Memory spells really aren't my strong suit."

"You've—you've been pretending to be my sister for three weeks?" Bucky asked. He sounded like he wanted to be sick.

"And doing a marvelous job of it, don't you think?" She grinned. "I must say, you're a very good big brother. Much nicer than mine."

Bucky shuddered, and Peggy was sure he was thinking of all the times he'd hugged or kissed Yvonne thinking she was his sister. Although…

"How did you do such a good job of impersonating Rebecca?" Peggy asked. "Metamorphmagi can copy bodies, not memories." And whatever else she'd been, Yvonne had done an excellent impression of Rebecca. She'd talked like her, known the names Bucky used for her and how to react, what to ask, what to say and how to say it.

"I didn't have to copy her memories," Yvonne said. "I could have, I suppose, a simple Imperious Curse and a demand for permission to copy all her memories would do it, but can you imagine how tedious that would be, having to sift through all of that? Trying to dig it all out anytime someone asked me a question? No, far too messy."

"So what did you do?" Phillips asked.

She gestured towards her neck. "It's the necklace." She didn't appear to be wearing one, but Phillips reached forward and found a chain under her hair and pulled it out, revealing a necklace with a green jewel that had been tucked under her shirt.

"Rebecca doesn't really wear jewelry, so I had to hide it," she explained. "But it's got a special spell on it. As long as she's wearing the other one, we're linked. I can see all of her memories without needing permission, and search through them when I need something as quickly as if they were my own."

Peggy felt a bit of the tension go out of Bucky as Yvonne said that, and the worried lump in her own stomach loosened its grip just a bit. If she had to be linked to Rebecca to have access to her memories, that meant that wherever Rebecca was, she was still alive.

"Are you hurting her?" Bucky demanded. "This linking thing you're doing, is it hurting her?"

"You know, I don't know, I've never been on her end of it," Yvonne said. "I wouldn't think it would be physically painful, no, but it didn't look very pleasant."

Bucky snarled and lunged forward, grabbing for her necklace. Phillips stepped forward and caught him before he could reach it. "Leave it," he told him.

"What the hell, Sir?!" Bucky snapped. "If that thing is hurting my sister, then—"

"Maybe it is, but it's also keeping her alive," Phillips said, cutting him off. "If it's linking her to Koenig, what do you think the people on the other end are going to do when we break that link?"

Bucky froze, sick realization dawning on his face.

"I'm sorry," Phillips said, letting go of his arm.

Bucky nodded, stepping back.

Yvonne chuckled. "Nice try," she said.

Phillips turned back to her. "So, you got Marsh," he said, bringing the questioning back on track. "That was to cover your tracks. Caan too, I'm guessing?"

"Well, you always want to be careful around someone who can see the future, but, no, actually he was by special request from Schmidt," Yvonne said. "He's gotten in his way more than once, you know."

"And Whitehouse?" Phillips asked. That was the name of the S.S.R. Auror who'd been killed.

"I did actually make it to that interview with him," she said. "And after what he did in Munich, Schmidt wanted him gone too."

"So, you had two targets, but did you have any other purpose in coming here aside from getting Barnes' sister and causing chaos?"

She smiled. "Well, that would certainly be enough, but yes. I had a whole list of targets."

"Who?" Bucky asked. They were guessing Steve had been one of them, since she hadn't brought his name up yet.

"Who do you think?" she replied. "Who around here is pissing Schmidt off the most?"

"You came here to kill the Howling Commandos?"

"Mm-hmm." She looked up at Phillips. "You too, if I could get away with it, although they were more important than you." She grinned at Bucky. "I was saving you for last. Oh, the look on your face, watching your little sister kill you?" She laughed. "Can you even imagine?"

"Yeah," he said softly. "I can." Peggy imagined it would have looked very much the way Steve's had done in the Pensieve when they'd seen her stab him.

Yvonne laughed. "Ooh, I was waiting for that. I guess I should have done you first. But the big guy was really the one I was worried about."

"The big guy?" Bucky asked. "You mean Steve?"

She nodded. "It seemed wisest to get him out of the way first."

She was looking at them all like she was waiting for their reaction. Bucky grinned triumphantly and stepped forward, grabbing her hands and pinning them to the arms of the chair with enough force to make her squeak. "Yeah, it would have been," he said. "But you should have waited to make sure you'd actually finished the job."

"What?" she replied, shock etched across her face. "He's still alive?"

"How do you think we caught you?" Bucky sneered.

The strangeness of seeing all of this on Rebecca's face was overpowered by how absolutely wonderful that expression of shocked defeat was. Peggy was going to treasure that look for a long time to come.

"Now," Bucky growled. "Where the hell is my sister?"

Yvonne swallowed hard. "Zwart has her," she whispered.

"Zwart?" Bucky demanded. "Hugo Zwart?" She nodded. "You gave my little sister to Hugo Zwart?!"

"Aah!" Yvonne cried out, not quite loud enough to cover the noise of one of her wrist bones snapping as Bucky's grip tightened. "He's the one who developed the memory spell," she gasped. "It's his last chance with Schmidt, to make up for losing Rogers."

Bucky growled and shoved her chair back as he stood, whirling and stalking away.

"You're going to tell me everything," Phillips said. "Where he is, how he's protected, and how to get in."

Yvonne started talking, and Peggy turned and followed Bucky. "I'm gonna kill him," he said. Peggy could feel that angry magic vibrating under his skin again, even from a few feet away. "After what he did to Steve, and now that, that monster has Becky, I…" He yelled and let the magic go that was building up inside him, sending one of the beds crashing into the wall. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders back, then smoothed his hair down. "He's going to die this time, Peggy," he said coldly.

"Good," Peggy said. About time.

She went back to check on Steve, giving Bucky some space to pull himself back together. Steve was still awake. "You heard everything?" she asked, coming to sit beside him.

He nodded, his expression making it clear that he was just as angry as Bucky. Maybe more, considering he had a better grasp of the sort of things Zwart could do.

"We're going to get her back, Steve," Peggy said. "Phillips is getting all the information now, and by the time you're back on your feet, we'll have a plan and the rest of the team will be ready to go."

Steve nodded, though something still appeared to be agitating him, the way his breath was hitching. "What is it?" Peggy asked. She looked down at his chest. "Does it hurt? Do you want me to get Nurse Rains?"

He shook his head, though his face was clearly straining with the effort of trying to do something. A light clicked on in Peggy's head—he wasn't struggling to breathe, he was struggling to try to speak. "Are you trying to say something?"

Steve nodded, and he managed to get his mouth open, though no sound came out.

"Nurse Rains said it might take a bit for speech to come back," she reminded him. "Can it wait?" He shook his head. "Is it something to do with Yvonne?"

He nodded. "Alright," she said. She didn't know any way to speed up this process, nor how to read his mind. Getting him to write it down was out of the question too, since he hadn't managed any voluntary movement below the neck yet. "Okay. Go slowly. Deep breaths. Try just one syllable at a time." She didn't know if he could make any syllables, but it was a place to start.

Steve nodded, taking a minute and drawing in as deep a breath as he could manage. Still, no sound came out.

"Steve?" Bucky asked, coming through the curtain. "Are you okay?"

"He's breathing alright," Peggy assured him. "He's trying to talk. It's something important."

Bucky sat down on the other side of the mattress. "Okay," he said. He locked his eyes on Steve's, and Peggy wondered if whatever Steve was trying to say, if he could say it in that way he and Bucky seemed able to communicate without words. "Go ahead, Stevie."

Steve drew in a deep breath, closing his eyes in concentration. For a long minute, his lips were moving, though his vocal cords were clearly not cooperating. Then, "…mmm. M-m-mo…" He swallowed hard, tried again. "M-m-m-more."

"More?" Peggy confirmed. Steve nodded.

"M-m-more…n…w'n." The last noise was nearly lost in a rush of exhaled air.

"More than one?" Bucky translated. "More than one what?" he asked after Steve nodded again.

Steve huffed, frustrated. He jerked his head at the curtain, at where Yvonne was sitting beyond it. "S-sss-ssaid…w-w-we," he whispered.

Peggy and Bucky looked at each other for a moment before it suddenly clicked.

"Bloody hell," Peggy whispered. "There's more than one of them."


Bucky sat back on the mattress, leaning against Steve as he did so. There was more than one of them. Steve had failed to get any more words out after that, but he'd nodded at the Pensieve. He'd been talking about his conversation with Yvonne before getting stabbed, and Peggy had realized that it was all right there, recorded for them. Bucky wanted nothing more than to scrub the image of his little sister trying to murder his best friend from his brain, but here he was watching it again for the second time in less than an hour.

Steve had been right. They'd missed it the first time around, lost in the shock of what they were seeing, but it was right there. She'd said it, clearly thinking her secret would follow Steve to his grave. There were two of them.

"No wonder she's being so cooperative," Bucky said. "What better way to keep from getting hurt than to look like you're giving up everything?" Apparently, that was one of the downfalls of Veritaserum—while Yvonne had been holding back, she hadn't actually lied, either. "Whoever the other one is, they can lay low for a while and then keep right on going, and if anyone asks her about it later, she can just claim they must have sent in someone else after she got caught."

Steve jerked slightly on the mattress beside him, pulling in a sharp intake of air and blinking furiously. Bucky smiled and brushed his hair back. "Hey, it's alright, Stevie. You can go to sleep now." He looked exhausted. Whether it was the poison that was still in his system, or the potion Rains had given him to counteract it, maintaining consciousness was a battle he was losing. He must have been fighting tooth and nail to stay awake until one of them came back in, desperate to get them the information that he'd remembered. "You did good," Bucky assured him, proud of him. "We can handle it from here."

Steve blinked up at him tiredly.

"Get your rest," Bucky told him. "We're gonna need you back at one hundred percent when we go after her. Get some sleep. We'll track the other one down."

Steve nodded and allowed his eyes to close. Bucky kept carding his fingers back through his hair until his breathing evened out and he sank deeper into the pillow, finally asleep. He looked up to see Peggy watching them with a soft smile. She leaned in and kissed Steve's cheek, then stood up.

"Alright," she said. "Let's go find this other one."

Bucky nodded. "Where do we even start, though?" Yvonne had only been caught because Steve hadn't died when he should have. "It could be anybody," he said. "Probably another student, since no one was looking at them before, but it could be a teacher or an S.S.R. agent, or, hell, one of the house elves." He arched an eyebrow at Peggy. "It could be you."

"Or you," she pointed out.

Bucky nodded. "Will you be offended if I run a lie detector spell?"

She smiled. "Under the circumstances, no. As long as you let me do the same."

He did smile at that. "Deal." They checked each other over, and they both came back clear. "Sorry," he said. "I didn't really think it was you, I just…"

"It's a bit hard to trust your instincts after that," Peggy finished for him, nodding back in the direction of Phillips and Yvonne, who was still wearing Rebecca's shape. She smiled. "No offense taken."

Bucky nodded, glad she hadn't minded. "So, at least we know we can trust each other. I'm thinking we should get the other guys up here—check them all out—and then go from there."

Peggy agreed, and they decided to send the house elves for the rest of the team, since they should all be back in their common rooms by now. They showed up quickly, were a little skeptical at first, but allowed themselves to be scanned for deceptive spells, and then Bucky and Peggy quickly filled them in.

"Bloody hell," Monty said. "Steve really almost died?"

"Yeah," Bucky agreed. "And we were all next."

"I am seriously freaked out right now that I've been sharing a dorm with her for almost three weeks," Gabe said. "I mean, we were on her list," he said, gesturing at himself and Jim. "She could have gotten us any time. I sure as hell wouldn't have seen it coming."

"Comment sommes-nous supposés trouver le second?" Jacques asked.

"Especially if it could be anybody," Dugan agreed. "Is the other assassin a Metamorphmagus too?"

"We don't know, but it's probably safer to act like it," Peggy said. "If Hydra could find one, they could find another one, and along with this memory thing, it's a brilliant way not to get caught."

"Jim, what are you thinking?" Bucky asked. Jim had been uncharacteristically silent for some time.

"I'm not sure yet," he said thoughtfully. "Is it alright if I…" He pointed down to the other end of the ward where Yvonne was still in the chair talking to Phillips.

Peggy nodded. "Just don't say anything about knowing there's another one. She doesn't know we know that yet."

Jim nodded and moved away. His face was white as a sheet when he came back. "Jim?" Bucky asked, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Jim sank down onto the nearest bed and closed his eyes, swallowing hard. "It's Esther," he said quietly.

Silence greeted him.

"What?" Gabe asked at last.

"Why do you say that?" Monty wondered.

Jim shook his head and opened his eyes. "It's the necklace," he said. "Esther…she has one just like it. I remember seeing it and teasing her about it—our parents won't let her date until she's fifteen, and I was joking that she'd gotten it from some boy, but she said it was a birthday present from one of her friends." He shook his head again. "It was a couple of days before Marsh got killed." He swallowed hard, looking like he was going to be sick. "Do you think she was the one who…"

Bucky sat down next to him, sliding an arm over his shoulders. Jim's dark eyes held the same fear and guilt that were trying to gnaw a hole through Bucky's chest. "How did I miss this?" Jim whispered.

"We all missed it," Bucky said. Jim looked up at him. "We're going to get them back," he promised. "We know where they are, and we're going to get them."

"Bucky, Zwart has them," Jim argued. "Zwart. You remember Zwart? Remember what he did to Steve? Esther, she…she's so…she couldn't take that, she…"

Bucky tightened his grip on Jim's arm. He'd been thinking the same thing about Becky. She was a tough kid, but she was just a kid. She was so little, and…

"Zwart needs them both alive," Peggy said, crouching down in front of Bucky and Jim and resting a hand on their knees. "He can't hurt them like he did Steve and risk losing them and jeopardizing this mission here."

That was true. "He could hurt them some," Jim pointed out quietly. That was true too.

Peggy nodded. "And he might," she admitted. "But they're alive, and we're going to get them out. They're going to be okay."

"How do we want to play this?" Dugan asked. "I'm thinking we can't just march up into Ravenclaw and grab her."

"No," Peggy agreed. "If she's anything like Yvonne, she's a hell of a fighter. We need to get her somewhere on her own first."

"What if I went up and got her, and told her something had happened to Jim?" Gabe asked. "She's acting like Esther, and Esther would care about that, so she'd have to come."

"That could work," Monty said. "Though I imagine she'll be a bit on edge with Yvonne missing."

"So, we'll be careful. And we need to incapacitate her before getting her in here," Bucky said. "If the fight goes bad, she could hurt Steve, or get Yvonne loose, and if they get out of sight and shape-shift again, we'll never find them."

They talked things over a little more, then decided to go ahead and send Gabe up to get her. He would act like he was bringing her to the infirmary, but the rest of them would be waiting in one of the empty rooms before they got there. Peggy pulled Phillips briefly aside from his interrogation and filled him in, and he gave them the affirmative to go ahead.

Like Bucky had when they apprehended Yvonne, Jim sat this one out. As much as he wanted to see this through, he didn't trust himself going into combat against someone who looked like his sister either.

Peggy had been right when she said these girls knew how to fight. While Not-Esther had followed Gabe willingly enough at first, she was clearly suspicious by the time he turned aside into the empty room. Her knife was out before she was all the way in the door, and if not for Gabe's athletic reflexes, she would have caught him in the neck. She ducked and rolled to avoid the Impediment Jinx Bucky shot at her, then sprang up slashing with her knife at Peggy with one hand and shooting spells at Monty with the other. Peggy spun around to avoid the knife, then kicked out and caught her wrist, sending her wand clattering across the floor. Not-Esther snarled and rolled away from Peggy, skidding under a desk and snatching up her wand again, flipping the desk on its side to shield her from the spell Dugan shot at her. Bucky and Gabe kept shooting spells at her, distracting her from Jacques who popped up behind her and kicked her hard in the back, sending her sprawling to the floor.

She lost the wand again, but slashed out at Jacques' ankles with her knife as Dugan yelled, "Stupefy!" and caught her square in the chest with a burst of red light.

"Well, that's definitely not Esther," Gabe said, stepping over to kick the knife away from her unconscious form.

"Was the other one that bad?" Dugan asked Peggy. She nodded grimly.

"Jacques, you okay?" Bucky asked. From where Bucky had been standing it hadn't looked like she'd gotten him with the knife, but he wasn't getting up from where he'd landed when he jumped away.

"Elle m'a eu dans la jambe," he winced. He lifted his hands from where they were rubbing his leg to reveal blood spreading rapidly across his pants under his left knee.

"Dugan, get him up to the infirmary now," Peggy ordered. "That's a deep cut—who knows how much poison got into it."

"Yes, Ma'am," Dugan said, scooping Jacques up into his arms and striding for the door.

"Alright, let's tie her up and get her up to Phillips before she wakes up and shifts into something else," Bucky said, nodding down at the assassin.

Bucky had to admit, the look on Yvonne's face—even though it still looked like Becky—when they brought her unconscious partner up into the infirmary was priceless.

"No, no, no, no, no," she whispered, staring in shock as they restrained the new one to a chair and set up a cage bubble around her too.

"Uh huh," Bucky replied with a smile. "You picked the wrong team to mess with."

"No, no, no, he's going to kill us!" she exclaimed.

"Schmidt?" Bucky guessed.

She nodded minutely.

"And you know what? I'd be okay with that," Bucky said. "But you give us everything you were holding back—and I mean everything—and maybe you can spend the rest of your life in Azkaban instead of us just handing you back over to him for a slow and painful death." Bucky had nowhere near the authority to make that kind of call, and maybe Yvonne knew that, but she nodded and started talking anyway.

Not-Esther's name was really Helena, and she was Yvonne's twin sister. Metamorphmagi were rare, but it was genetic, and the girls were identical twins. Their father had been deep in with Grindelwald and Hydra from the beginning, later switching his loyalty completely over to Hydra. When they were young, he'd seen that their abilities could prove an invaluable asset, and so he'd had them begin training. Combat, weapons, espionage…they'd learned it all, and Grindelwald, and later Schmidt, had welcomed their skill set. They'd racked up an impressive number of kills between them. As Yvonne was finishing her story, Bucky did wonder, if they were as good as all that, why she was caving so easily, until Yvonne mentioned that they were good enough, they'd never actually gotten caught before. She'd been killing people since she was fourteen years old, but she'd never been interrogated before.

She also couldn't escape by means of the suicide pill so common to Hydra agents—an occupational hazard of shape-shifting. The capsule hidden inside a tooth did not change bodies along with the rest of her, so she didn't have one. Bucky did wonder if she would use it anyway. She certainly had the cruelty and violence that seemed to be a requirement for joining Hydra, but she didn't seem to have an awful lot of conviction.

Schmidt had called the two of them in after the mission in Barcelona. By taking the stone, they'd interfered with something of Zola's that was important to Schmidt. The plan was already in motion when they took out the other factory, which had only infuriated him further. Zwart had been brought in because of this memory spell he'd developed, but the bulk of the work was on the Koenig sisters. Schmidt had wanted to instill chaos at Hogwarts, to remind them no one was safe, as well as taking out some S.S.R. members who'd been giving him trouble. The Howling Commandos were their main target, but anyone else was fair game too. Taking Becky and Esther had been Schmidt's idea—another reminder to the team of how long his reach was, as well as a more personal way to attack them.

"I don't know what was meant to happen to them if Helena and I had gotten all of you without getting caught," Yvonne said. "Keeping them alive is necessary for the spell, but he probably had it in his head to use them as some sort of backup in case we failed. Leverage, you know. Or bait."

Helena woke up before they had finished, and though she seemed equally as frightened as Yvonne once she realized that they'd failed, she seemed less inclined to talk and more inclined to curse—some of the expletives she came up with put Jacques' creative swearing to shame. In the end, Phillips decided they had as much as they needed and had the two of them sent downstairs to the dungeons. One of the perks of everyone being restricted to the common rooms was that, even though it was barely eight o'clock, there was no one around to wonder why Rebecca Barnes and Esther Morita were being arrested.

They checked on Jacques—Helena had gotten him pretty good and he couldn't move his leg or most of the left side of his body at all, but Rains was confident he'd be out in the morning with Steve. Steve was still asleep, but they circled up around Jacques' bed and started their preliminary planning. They could refine it with Steve in the morning.

Once that was done, they all headed back to their houses to get some sleep. Bucky stayed in the infirmary, in case Steve woke up. He accepted a mild sleeping potion from Rains—he'd be able to wake up if Steve needed anything, but he'd be able to actually fall asleep and not lay awake all night stewing in guilt. Not that he didn't deserve an uneasy night or ten after letting this happen to his sister, but he needed the rest so he could be on top of his game tomorrow when they went to rescue her. He had to get her home safe. He could berate himself later.

"I'm coming, Munchkin," he whispered into the dark. "You just hang on 'til I get there."


So, we know now that Becky didn't actually try to kill Steve, but it might be something of a stretch to say things have gotten better. Still, they know more than they did a chapter ago, so that's something.

Rescue mission on Monday!