'Harry? Harry, can you hear me?'
'Harry, can you come to the Floo?'
'Harry?'
'Harry, are you even there?'
'HARRY!'
XXXXXXXXXX
The next morning finds both Harry and Loki in various states of wakefulness, but equally bad-humoured.
'I do not like the beds here,' announces Loki, sitting down across from Harry who is slumped over his plate, looking like he needs at least another seven hours sleep, 'this place is inferior.'
'Oh, stop complaining,' Harry grumbles, munching on some toast, 'it's clean, and warm, and the people don't ask questions. I know it's not the Ritz, but it'll do for now.'
Loki snorts, but chooses not to continue, poking suspiciously at the poached egg the waitress had brought him.
'Merlin's sake, it's just an egg,' gripes Harry, slathering honey on his third piece of toast, 'either eat it or don't, but don't keep giving it the evil eye like it's about to leap up and attack you.'
'Morning, boys!' sings Daphne obnoxiously cheerfully, as she pulls up a chair at their table, 'how did we all sleep?'
Harry makes an indistinct noise, mouth still full of toast, and Loki merely glowers at his egg.
'Gosh, aren't we a happy bunch,' sighs Daphne, 'Right, let me grab some breakfast, then we can start planning.'
When Daphne comes back, coffee in one hand and sugary pastries in the other, Harry has used most of the honey jar on his fourth piece of toast, and Loki has finally overcome his suspicion of the egg. They eat in silence for a few minutes, and then Daphne calls their meeting to order with a light tap of steel teaspoon on china coffee cup.
'Okay, so the way I see it, we have several problems,' she says, topping off her mug with slightly stewed instant coffee, 'the main ones being the lack of Harry's wand and the lack of that special runic cube he brought through.'
'Also the fact that we're currently Undesirables Nos. 1, 2, and 3,' mutters Harry.
'Well, at least you have practice in that area,' says Daphne cheerfully, and Harry rolls his eyes.
'Very funny, Greengrass,' he sighs.
'I do not understand,' frowns Loki.
'Wizard joke,' supplies Harry, 'let's just say this isn't the first time I've been top of a wanted list.'
Loki's lip curls.
'Oh, so I have ended up running around with a criminal wizard,' he snaps, 'how excellent.'
'The way I hear it, you've had your fair share of being hunted by S.H.I.E.L.D.,' Daphne counters, and Loki goes white, gripping the cutlery so hard Harry wonders if he might actually snap the metal. He swears the temperature of the room drops by several degrees. Daphne realises she's crossed a line, holding her hands up in a gesture of peace.
'I didn't mean anything by it,' she placates, 'it was just an observation.'
Ice starts frosting up Loki's water glass.
'How do you know so much stuff about the world here anyway?' asks Harry, trying to steer the conversation in a direction that does not involve catching frostbite. 'I thought you'd just been stuck in a cell for the past year or so.'
'Mostly,' agrees Daphne, 'but before that, there was this incident – around the time I met Loki, actually – when they thought he was intent on destroying the world or something, and they questioned me to see if I was in league with him.'
Harry nods in comprehension.
'They also tried this thing where they would give me information and expect some in return,' she continues, 'like this "equal sharing" technique or whatever. That didn't work either,' she adds in satisfaction, draining her coffee mug, 'but I did learn a bit about the world outside. It's all out of date now, I'd expect.'
'Well,' says Harry thoughtfully, 'a good friend of mine always tells me that no knowledge is ever wasted.'
'Is that Granger?' asks Daphne interestedly, 'what's she doing nowadays anyway?'
'Head of MLE,' says Harry absentmindedly, 'Ron's Head Auror. They're a great team, got a ton of reforms going on, it's brilliant.'
'I'd have pegged you for Head of the Aurors, Mr Dark-Lord-Slayer,' remarks Daphne.
Harry shudders.
'The paperwork,' he mutters, 'dear Merlin, the paperwork...'
'As lovely as this catch-up undoubtedly is,' begins Loki, looking bored, 'don't we have some kind of plan to be making?'
Daphne flushes.
'Yeah, sorry. Right, um, so...' she trails off. Loki heaves a long-suffering sigh, but the room is back to its normal temperature, so Harry doesn't think he's too irritated.
'Well, you clearly need your... wand,' Loki says in Harry's direction, 'and this cube-thing to get home, which, I presume, is what you want to do?'
When both of them nod, he continues talking, steepling his fingers and leaning forward. He's reminding Harry more and more of Malfoy. Possibly with a bit of Snape in there too. No wonder Daphne likes him. Merlin, she's currently looking at him like he's hung not just the moon, but most of the stars and half the planets too. He's not said anything that great. Oh wait, they're planning.
'... We'll Apparate in, of course,' Daphne muses, 'although they might have moved Harry's stuff after our escape—'
'I'd say almost certainly,' interjects Loki.
'—so we'll have to do a bit of exploring,' continues Daphne. She turns to Loki.
'How well do you know their base?'
'Assuming they're still there,' interrupts Harry, 'it looked pretty bashed up when we were leaving.'
Loki waves his hand airily, batting away the problem with a flick of his fingers.
'They will have fixed it,' he dismisses, 'they have a great mastery of technology.'
Daphne has produced parchment, quill and ink, and is attempting to sketch what little she knows of the ship into some semblance of a map. Loki leans over her.
'That corridor intersects there – no, there,' he says, breath rustling her hair slightly as he points to the corridor on the parchment.
'Right,' she mutters, correcting it with an ugly jerk of her quill.
'Is that really the best you can do?' he asks. 'It looks hideous.'
Daphne turns to snap at him, and finds him much closer than she expected. Their noses are almost touching, and she can see every detail of his face. He's good-looking, she notes, but then he is a god. He raises an eyebrow, and she realises that she's just been staring at him for the past few minutes. She ducks her head to hide her blush, and grabs her wand to magically correct the ugly corridor intersection.
Half an hour later, Daphne throws down her quill. Harry has been no help at all, but Loki has managed to see far more of the ship than her, despite his shorter stay, and between them they've managed to cobble together something approaching a half-decent map.
'Spell that thing,' Harry says, jerking his head in the direction of the map, 'you'll want to make sure it's impervious to water, won't tear, that kind of stuff.'
'Good idea,' Daphne nods, already on it.
'Right,' and Harry stretches out, leaning back on two legs of his chair, 'so, we have a map, an aim... we just need a strategy.'
'Get in, get the stuff, get out,' jokes Daphne. Harry smiles a little.
'You're actually on the right lines,' he admits, 'it never pays to overthink these things. We could afford to go into a bit more detail though,' he adds, smile widening. Daphne grins back.
'So, Senior Auror, what would you suggest?' she asks, pushing the now-spelled-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life parchment over to him.
'I can do strategy,' grumbles Loki under his breath.
Daphne pats him on the arm.
'Hush now dear, Harry's working.'
Loki mutters something under his breath, but does eventually shut up.
'Okay...' murmurs Harry, 'so, my stuff could be in the evidence room, the control room, maybe the labs if they're that serious about trying to figure out what we are... It's almost certainly under some kind of guard too,' he adds, looking up. 'This isn't going to be easy.'
'Oh joy,' sighs Daphne.
'So,' Harry continues, ignoring Daphne, 'what I'm thinking is, we Apparate in here...'
XXXXXXXXXX
'Hi, you've reached Harry Potter's voicemail. Please leave a message and I will get back to you as soon as possible. Unless you're calling from the Daily Prophet, in which case kindly sod off. '
'Harry, it's Hermione here. We've tried your Floo, we can't get hold of you and we're a bit worried about where you are. Could you please let us know you're alright? Just give me a call or something. Okay, bye.'X
XXXXXXXXXX
'Can someone get him to stop pacing? It's really distracting.'
Steve glares at the back of Stark's head.
'Distracting from what? What have you actually managed to find out from this stuff?'
Stark turns to face him, but it's Banner who speaks, distractedly, focused on the microscope in front of him, 'Stark, this one works.'
Stark throws his hands in the air. 'Finally!'
'I mean, it's not telling me anything other than the fact that this is definitely wood, but it's something.'
Stark wilts a little bit. 'How can wood cause all our equipment within six feet to malfunction?' he asks the sterile air. Behind him, Steve frowns, and walks out of the lab.
He returns with Fury not five minutes later, Barton trailing behind him.
'Well?' he demands.
'Oh, hey Director,' greets Tony cheerfully, 'nice to see you too. Great weather we're having, right?'
'Cut the crap, Stark, what have you found?'
'Not much,' murmurs Banner, focused on replacing the wooden stick with particles of black powder under his lens.
Tony throws him an exasperated look.
'It's been over eight hours,' comments Barton.
'Well, there's only a limited amount you can do when that stick thing there makes all your machines go haywire,' Stark shoots back, some of his cockiness fading as he turns to Harry's wand, lying perfectly innocently on one of the lab benches. He runs a hand through his hair.
'This may be a little more complicated that I thought it would,' he admits grudgingly.
In the corner, Steve looks momentarily smug.
'Anyone seen Natasha?' Barton asks.
'Passed her in the corridor as I was coming to you,' offers Steve, securing a dirty look from Stark, 'why do you want her?'
'We think we've got a lead on the wizards. We'll need you too, Captain,' adds Fury, 'Loki's with them.'
Steve scowls.
'He certainly can pick them,' remarks Stark, almost cheerfully.
'Barton, find Nat. Captain, control room with me.' Fury turns to go, then stops at the door.
'Gentlemen,' he says, eyeing Stark and Banner, 'I need hardly remind you how important it is to have anything, anything, on these wizards.'
'Yup, got it,' mutters Stark, attention on his computer. Banner just nods.
Fury jerks his head at Barton, who heads off to locate Natasha. He finds her shooting targets and terrifying all the other agents, and takes her back before she can scar them permanently, to join the Take-Down-The-Wizards meeting.
"A lead" turns out to be a couple of grainy CCTV pictures of a mismatched trio appearing in the same street Barton and his team had lost the male wizard (Harry) about thirty minutes later. Another shot sees them entering a hotel a short walk from there.
'This is where we believe they're hiding out. As you can see, we've got strong evidence that either Loki is aiding them, or they are aiding Loki. Neither option is good.' Fury paces back and forth, exuding tension.
'Agent Barton, I want you on the roof. You're going to be the eyes of this thing. They so much as pick their noses, I want to know.'
'Got it, sir.'
'Agent Romanov, you'll need to—'
But just quite what Natasha needs to do, they will never find out. Agent Hill's voice comes over the intercoms, interrupting Fury's orders.
'Sir, we have a breach on the starboard hull, repeat, there is a breach on the starboard hull. All operatives to positions.'
'Hill,' barks Fury, 'who has breached the hull? Who the hell is responsible?!'
'Hello Director,' comes a brisk male voice, echoing through the ship, 'I believe you've got some of my things.'
XXXXXXXXXXX
Ring. Ring.
'Hermione, it's Ron. Have you heard from Harry?'
'No, nothing yet. I guess he's not turned up to work then?'
'No, his office is empty, his shift card's not been stamped... I mean, it looks like he didn't even clock out yesterday.'
'Merlin... Look, you Floo Grimmauld Place again, see if you can't get anything out of Kreacher or Dobby. I'll try his phone and check the Department for any sightings.'
'Should I try the Missing Persons list?'
'Hmm... If you can be discreet, yes, but otherwise, no. We don't want this getting back to the Prophet, Parkinson would have field day.'
'We'll have to report this sooner or later, you know.'
'Yes, thank you Ron, I am aware of the procedures that I brought in.'
'Bloody hell, I hope he's okay.'
'If he's gone and got himself killed, I'm hexing his balls off.'
'That sounds fair. Ah, love, I've got to go, talk to you later, yeah?'
'Sure, bye.'
'Bye.'
Click.
