Reviews:

zugrian: Honestly, if I had the skill and ability then I'd do the same if I ever find myself in the HP world, poor guy deserves a break.

HowlnMadHowie: Thanks for pointing out my mistakes. As for your second point, Snape also should have known better than to join the death eaters or bully a child because he looks like a man Snape hates. Snape might be a genius in some ways, but he's a few spells short of an arsenal in other ways.

The Hallowed Man: Really? Thanks.

SHWAT: That's happened to me a few times with other stories.

Chapter 20 - Naughty Tony

As Natasha entered Professor Quirrell's office, she quickly took a look around, after spotting no paintings or anything else that looked like it could report her, she closed the door behind her after she was satisfied. Though if the truth was told then she wasn't completely satisfied as she was under no illusion regarding her magical knowledge, she knew a lot, but she didn't know everything. It was entirely possible that Professor Quirrell had rigged his desk to explode upon a stranger touching it or even for the door to try and capture her if she accidentally triggered something.

So with that thought in her head, she carefully made her way further into the room, after a few seconds of examination she noted that Professor Quirrell had not cleaned his office lately, which was why there were small bits of barely noticeable dust everywhere. Less so on his books and desk though. She looked through his bookshelves and didn't find anything too weird for a defence against the dark arts teacher to study, he even had a couple of muggle novels here as well.

She moved onto his desk, she found nothing out of the ordinary when examining the things on top of the desk, nor did she expect to, given that it would have been pretty dumb of Quirrell to leave something important on the top of his desk. She started opening the draws of his desk, she closed them all after examining them, she found school-related stuff in all the draws until the last one. She pulled at it but it wouldn't open, she let out a small sigh before taking out her wand and aiming it at the draw.

"Alohomora," She whispered the incantation for the unlocking charm. "thank you, Professor Flitwick." She smirked slightly before raising her hand and grabbing the handle, she pulled and her smirk vanished instantly when it didn't open. 'I definitely got that spell right.' She thought to herself. "Alohomora." She tried again and it still didn't open, with a frown she got up and grabbed a pair of paperclips from Professor Quirrell's desk. She knelt down and straightened the clips before she began trying to pick the lock.

Unfortunately, it didn't work, not because Natasha was unable to pick a regular lock, but because she was currently unable to pick a magical one. A short burst of fire shot out from the desk, Natasha jumped back in an attempt to avoid it but wasn't entirely successful. She yelped as her left hand got burnt, she let out several curse words in varying languages before she picked up the paperclips that she had dropped and quickly rushed out of the office, it was entirely possible that she had just set off an alert ward that could have alerted Quirrell to someone being in his office, she most definitely didn't want to risk a one on one confrontation with the man given that he was superior to her in magical knowledge and power, not to mention physical strength. She had fought people bigger and stronger than her before, but right now she didn't have any weapons besides a wand and limited spell knowledge, not to mention that one of her hands were burnt and that a body her size and age has limits on how effective it would be against an adult.

As she left she began to consider how lucky she was that the magical defences hadn't been more destructive, more lethal, but she understood why they weren't. Having a defensive ward to protect your property was considered normal in the wizarding world, having one that causes serious harm was not. If another teacher had been trying to look through the desk and came upon a destructive ward then that could cause a whole lot of problems for Quirrell.

A short while later, after many tries at a healing spell, Natasha headed down to Hagrid's hut where she found Hagrid sitting outside on a big rocking chair, his dog Fang had his head sticking out of the hut door but was refusing to move beyond it. Fang's gaze, which was currently filled with a healthy dose of fear, was locked onto Knight who was laying down a small distance away and watching as Harry and Clint fired arrows into wooden targets a small distance away.

"Still, I just think it's a cool spell." Clint nocked his arrow onto his bowstring.

"It's a spell that gives you a cold," Harry scoffed as he nocked his own arrow.

"Yeah, and?" Clint asked as he pulled the string back and aimed at the target.

"You realise how useless that spell is against anybody who lives in Scotland or England?" Harry snorted as he also aimed. "Scotland's cold and the weather in England changes more times in a day than you change clothes in a week. I bet even the weather itself doesn't know if it's supposed to rain in England or not."

"What's your point?" Clint asked.

"My point is that everybody here already has a cold, and if they don't then they'll probably get one soon enough without the help of a spell." Harry fired his arrow and smiled when he saw it was just shy of hitting a bullseye. "I'm getting better." Harry grinned at Clint.

"Yeah?" Clint asked casually before firing his own arrow, a second later it penetrated the centre of the target. "I'm still better." Clint grinned, causing Harry to roll his eyes. "And about the spell, the cold I give them with that will be worse."

"It's a boogie spell," Harry laughed. "you really want to make that your signature spell?"

"No, I want to make it my funny spell." Clint amended.

"Hi guys," Natasha said, causing both of them to look at her.

"Hey Nat," Harry smiled. "do you want to take a shot?" He asked, holding the bow out.

"No, thank you." Natasha politely refused. "Hi Hagrid." She smiled at the big man who had just walked over.

"Alright?" Hagrid smiled down at her. "I've just been getting to know your brother and Harry, quite an interesting pair they are."

"That's one way to put it." Natasha gave Hagrid an amused smile.

"Nat," Harry spoke up, staring at Natasha's hand. "what happened?" He asked.

"It's nothing," Natasha said dismissively, the only thing she had been able to do so far was make the burn smaller, but it was unfortunately still noticeable.

"You're burnt, that isn't 'nothing'," Harry argued as he gently grabbed her by the wrist and examined the burn.

"Harry, it's really nothing, I was practising the fire-making spell and it went a bit wrong and I got burnt." Natasha lied, not really thinking that Harry was at the point where she could tell him that she snuck into a teacher's office and tripped a defensive ward.

"You ought to be more careful," Hagrid told her. "there's a reason that spell is for second years. I've got some burnt paste in my hut, we'll put some on and then I'll take you to the school nurse. Let me just go and find it."

"I'll help you," Harry told Hagrid. "wait here, we'll be back in a second," Harry added to Natasha before following Harry inside.

"Okay, you want to tell me what really happened?" Clint asked quietly after the took a few more steps away from the hut to reduce the chances of being overheard.

"I saw an opportunity to investigate Quirrell's room and I took it," Natasha replied, just as quietly. "I was checking out his desk when I got burnt by his magical protections. I got out of there as quickly as I could since I wasn't sure if he would have been alerted by what I was doing, I cleaned up as well, I don't think he's onto me."

"Not yet at least," Clint sighed. "Nat, that was stupid. You should have contacted me and..."

"And what?" Natasha cut him off. "By the time I could have contacted you I would have lost a valuable opportunity."

"Nat, a teacher staying out of his office for longer than a few minutes is not that rare of an opportunity and can certainly be replicated at a later date when you have some backup with you," Clint argued.

"I'm trying to keep Harry out of harm's way and..."

"I know," Clint interrupted. "in case you haven't noticed, I'm doing the exact same thing. But if you're hurt then that'll make the job a whole lot harder for all of us. Besides, this isn't like before, Nat."

"I know that, but in case you forgot, Clint, I'm one of the best. I'm trained and I know what I'm doing." She glared at him.

"No, no, you knew what you were doing." Clint corrected. "Right now, we're living in a world that we know frighteningly little about. We know more than some people, but not more than all people. The people we are trying to stop were born and raised in this world. This isn't dealing with tech that we can easily work out, we're in a world of magic where the rules fall out the window, where dragons exist and where eleven-year-olds can fly on brooms and ride magical horses. We need to..."

"Hey Nat," Harry spoke as he stepped out of the hut. "we found the burn paste."

"I'm coming," Nat called back.

"Nat," Clint began. "I..." Clint trailed off as Natasha walked away without waiting to hear what he had to say. "...fair enough." Clint let out a deep sigh. "Sometimes I think young girls are my biggest nightmares, what do you think?" He asked Knight. Knight let out a snort before he laid his head down on the ground and closed his eyes. "Your help is valuable and highly appreciated." Clint's voice was undeniably dry.

"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Natasha Romanoff heard Bruce Banner comment after she and the group had just finished watching Loki talk with Director Nick Fury. Loki had talked a big game, gotten in some verbal jabs and tried to project a confident appearance, unfortunately, that was somewhat hard to do when he was still in a considerable amount of pain and his body would shake randomly. Needless to say, he was still suffering from his battle with Revenant.

She was currently sitting at a table in the shield cockpit, sitting with her was Steve who was wearing his costume but had his headpiece pulled back like a hoodie. Standing around the table was Maria Hill, second in command of Shield, Bruce Banner and Thor who they had ended up picking up after Revenant had teleported Loki back to Shield. Thor had arrived shortly after Revenant had disappeared and demanded to know where his brother was.

After the men 'flexed' as she liked to call it, Thor had thankfully agreed to come with them and work together to stop whatever it was that Loki was doing. Natasha gaze shifted to a corner where she saw Revenant leaning against a wall with his arms crossed, looking like somebody had pressed his off switch. It was only the glowing green orbs hanging from the shadows of his hood that let her know he was paying attention.

"Loki's gonna drag this out," Steve spoke up. "Thor, what's his play?" He asked.

"He has an army called the Chitauri," Thor began. "they're not of Asgard or any world known, he means to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth. In return for the Tesseract, or at least that's what I believe."

"An army? From outer space?" Steve asked, looking far from pleased.

"So he's building another portal, huh, that's probably why he took Selvig." Bruce realised.

"Selvig?" Thor asked. "He's a friend of mine."

"Yeah, well, Loki has him under some sort of spell, along with one of our." Natasha looked down, hoping that Clint would be free from Loki's spell sooner than later.

"I want to know why Loki let us take him," Steve spoke up. "he's not leading an army from inside that cell."

"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki," Bruce commented. "the guy is not exactly stable, I mean look at him, the guy's brain is a bag full of cats, you can smell crazy on him."

"Be careful about how you speak," Thor said in a warning tone. "Loki may be beyond reason but he is of Asgard and he's my brother."

"He killed eighty people in two days," Natasha informed him, she understood where Thor was coming from but really wasn't in the mood to hear him defend Loki.

"He's adopted." Thor shifted awkwardly.

"And he's playing all of you," Revenant spoke for the first time since this meeting started.

"What makes you think that?" Steve asked, slightly unnerved by hearing Revenant's less than normal voice.

"You're asking me why I think that the god of tricks is tricking all of you after he practically lets himself get captured and calmly enters a prison cell?" Revenant drawled.

"Fair point." Steve blushed a little.

"Perhaps we should be trying to work out what his plan is," Bruce spoke up after a moment of silence. "like iridium, what did they need the Iridium for?"

"It's a stabilising agent," Tony Stark said as he entered the room with Coulson following in behind him, Stark whispered something to Coulson before walking over to the rest while Coulson walked over to a corner of the room, wisely choosing to stand away from Revenant. "Means the portal won't collapse on itself like it did at Shield and it'll stay open for as long as Loki wants. Uh, raise the mid-mast, ship the topsails." Tony added to the Shield crew, they looked hesitant at doing what Tony said as he began messing around with Fury's screens, but the crew did do so when Hill nodded to them. "How does Fury even see all of these things?" Tony wondered, covering one eye with his hand.

"He turns," Hill answered.

"Sounds exhausting," Tony shrugged before turning back to everyone else. "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."

"When did you become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics?" Hill asked, sounding like she was trying not to be impressed.

"Last night," Tony said casually. "am I the only one that did the reading here?"

"Does Loki need something specific?" Steve asked.

"He's got to heat the cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier," Bruce said in a thoughtful voice. "unless..."

"Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunnelling effect," Tony finished for him.

"Then he'd be able to achieve heavy-ion fusion at any reactor on the planet." Bruce realised.

"Finally, someone who speaks English." Tony smiled and shook Bruce's hands. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Dr Banner, your work is unparalleled and I'm a massive fan about the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster." Bruce stared at Tony who had said all of that in the exact same calm tone, Bruce took a moment to try and decide on what to say.

"Thanks." He eventually settled on.

"Dr Banner is only here to find the cube," Fury said as he walked into the room. "I was hoping you would join him, Mr Stark." He added.

"Fair enough, what about dark knight over there?" Tony asked, gesturing to Revenant. "What's he here for?"

"Revenant is our best 'gun', one I hope we won't have to fire," Fury replied.

"About that, why are you called 'Revenant'?" Tony asked.

"Because it's an accurate description," Revenant raised his hand and a small device flew out from under Fury's screens and into his hand. "you might want to keep an eye on Stark." He told Fury. "He snuck this onto your system." He tossed the device to Fury who was now glaring at Tony.

"Oops." Tony's voice was somewhat innocent, though mostly annoyed.