Chapter 9

As Harry came into consciousness, he was momentarily confused as to where he was, why he was sleeping standing up, and why there were metal cuffs around each wrist.

'You were captured,' Loki reminded rather unhelpfully.

Harry looked around. He appeared to be in a basement or some other kind of underground facility. The room's only light was provided by a candle burning dimly opposite Harry from which he deduced that he was in the house of a wizard. He released a sigh of relief. This was possibly one of the luckiest things to happen to him in years. If the man hadn't sought to torture him, he would instead be in the Russian Ministry of Magic from which escape would be far more difficult – that was if he hadn't already been executed for murder.

Cool steel bit into his wrists, the handcuffs attached to a pipe behind him and stopping him from falling to the ground. A dirty rag was in his mouth, and Harry felt a shudder of disgust run through him. He called up his magic and pushed outwards with it – and then gasped in pain. The handcuffs were somehow restraining his mortal magic. That wasn't too much of a problem, however. He had trained for such an instance.

As he had done with Loki all those years ago, he projected his mind inwards, staring upon his magical energies. The ball of gold, blue, and white writhed, attempting to escape a cage of foreign energy. The white part was all that was actually trapped, but it was clinging onto the others. With carefulness aided by Loki, Harry forced the white energy from the rest. Agony shot through him as it had when he had trained for an instance such as this, and he was suddenly glad for the gag, it muffling his scream.

That would take a while to recover from. He had effectively purged all the mortal magic from his body as though he had expended all of it at once in a battle. Luckily, Asgardian and Jotun magic would be more than enough for him to escape.

He pushed his will upon the handcuffs and ice slowly spread though them. After ten seconds or so, they were frozen to the point where Harry could pour his magic into enhancing his strength and shatter them, magically enhanced or not. He did just that, and fell into a crouch as the pieces fell to the floor, sounding like broken glass.

Tearing the rag from his mouth, he surveyed the room for his belongings before making his way up the stone stairs. At the top was a door, and when he pulled the handle it didn't budge. He cursed. Breaking it down would probably alert anyone in the building, but this was his only option. An illusion of silence wouldn't work seeing as he couldn't see the other side of the door.

Taking a few steps back, Harry charged himself on Asgardian energy, and then kicked just left of the doorknob, suddenly glad he had been left with his shoes and other clothes – another stupid move from his captor. And then he kicked the door again, and then again. On the fourth kick, the door flew open and Harry dashed from the room, freezing cold energy already surging through his veins and gathering in his palms.

A crimson spell lashed forward and Harry dived under it, rolling to his feet as it crashed against the wall behind him. Cold ecstasy coming over him as he prepared to attack, Harry thrust his hands forward. A shield of ice formed in front of him, blocking another red spell. An icicle followed his shield, blasting from Harry's grip and shattering against an opponent's shield as a panicked voice yelled a shielding charm. A woman'svoice.

Harry threw himself to the side, dodging a bolt of sickly yellow that came from behind him. Why had he assumed that the man had lived alone?! He sprinted and skidded under a table, noticing that he appeared to be in a dining room. A banishing charm flipped his cover over after a second, but that short time gave Harry a few moments to turn and analyse his surroundings.

As he had already noticed, he was a dining room. The one who he had not recognized as a female stood near the centre of the room, though a second figure – probably the man who had captured Harry with the promise of torture – stood in the corner which had been on Harry's right as he entered the room.

When his cover was banished, Harry was already surging forward. Two colourful spells were sent flying towards him, and he ducked under both, running at the women for a moment before darting towards the man. He clearly hadn't been expecting it, but managed to put up a shield just before an icicle hit him in the chest.

What his shield didn't block, however, was Harry sliding across the ground and colliding with his feet, knocking him to the ground. Confident that the women couldn't fire any spells in fear of hitting the man, Harry engaged the man in wrestling. The wizard, untrained in hand-to-hand combat and slightly weaker than his opponent, didn't stand a chance as Harry caught his fist and squeezed it.

The man's scream of pain was cut off as Harry punched him in the nose, sending his head rebounding off of the floor with the sound of crunching bone. A scream of anguish exploded from behind him and Harry rolled to the floor as the woman shrieked out a banishing curse. The shimmer of air missing by inches, Harry was already on his feet, releasing the attack he had been charging for a few moments. The Asgardian spell rocketed forward, an orange beam of concussive energy.

Fatigue slammed into Harry as he released the spell designed for beings with much more power than him to use, but nonetheless, he didn't allow himself to lapse in his movement whatsoever, ready to charge the woman and slam a fist into her throat. That was not needed, however, as with him not having wand and not having used any other spells for the duration of the fight, the witch was woefully unprepared, only managing to erect a weak shield.

The orange magic shattered the weak barrier and slammed against the woman's stomach, joined by the magical backlash of her shield charm breaking as it picked her up and flung her backwards. A sickening crunch echoed through the room as she crashed into the wall at an angle that had probably broken her neck and fractured her skull. Oops.

Harry turned to the man and walked over to him. The Russian was now at least partially conscious, and was reaching for his wand that was laying a few feet away. His fingers just brushed the wood before Harry's boot came stomping down upon them, prompting a scream to burst from the man's throat.

"Where's my wand?" Harry demanded in Russian. "And where am I?"

"Where's my wife?" Fear filled his tone.

Harry looked over to the woman's most likely-dead form, obscured from the man by an overturned table. "Alive," he lied, "but she won't be for long unless you tell me where the hell my wand is."

The man looked around, still trying to catch a glimpse of his apparent wife. Panic dominated his eyes, but he made an attempt to calm himself. "Do you promise not to kill either of us?"

Harry raised an eyebrow. "Shall I remind you that you were the one who kidnapped me?"

"You killed my friends!" the man snarled.

"Yeah, it was my only option if I wanted to get out of there free, and if they were all prepared to torture a child as you were – not that you've managed to – they deserved it. And it was only because you tried to arrest me for a law I didn't know existed!" Harry rolled his eyes. "Fine, I promise not to kill you."

The man relaxed. "It's in my left trouser pocket."

Now that Harry looked properly, he could see the white leather of the handle protruding from the said pocket. He leant down and retrieved it with a muttered thanks.

And then he blasted an icicle through the man's neck. That had been one of Loki's first lessons: when you make promises you aren't going to keep, make sure that no one finds out.

Harry had found the remainder of his belongings in the fireplace, apparently already having been used as firewood. Luckily his captors hadn't thought to search him, so he still had his disguise necklace. Other than his wand – which he now had – all of his other possessions could be bought easily, so he didn't mind the loss of those too much. He would just have to obtain some money which never proved to be too difficult an affair.

Before he did that, however, his priority was to get out of Moscow, and it would probably be best if he left Russia entirely. It had been an absolutely terrible idea to go there in the first place, and keeping under the radar would undoubtedly be much more difficult with both SHIELD and the Russian Ministry of Magic on the lookout for him – well, his disguise, but it was the same thing.

Since he had arrived on a plane from England, it was likely that they might looking for him there as well, especially since he had spoke English to Coulson, albeit in a perfect Russian accent. As far as the Russian's were concerned, they knew that he spoke perfect Russian and didn't know about anything else, so it would probably be best to avoid Russian-speaking regions.

Seeing as SHIELD focused on North America, that was also ruled out. An illusion that changed skin colour would be substantially more difficult to sustain for long periods of time than his current one was, so most of Africa, South America, and Asia were ruled off if he didn't want to end up sticking out like a sore thumb.

That left Harry with the options of some European countries, Oceania…and Antartica…. Whilst he would be perfectly comfortable in the latter's environment, he would also be rather easy to find as a child in a place with a population with a maximum of 5,000. Well, that or he would have to survive off eating penguins.

He and Loki were both leaning towards Europe, its much larger magical population making it far easier to blend in and obtain any needed supplies. Then it just came down to which country to go to. Eventually, after much discussion and arguing, Harry decided to go against Loki's judgement and use a completely foolproof and totally not cliché method to choose where to go: throwing darts at a map.

Unfortunately Loki's training had not extended to dart-throwing, or any other throwing methods for that matter, but Harry managed to hit Europe on his fifth try. Further observation revealed that it had landed upon Italy. So Italy it was.

So Harry took a cab to the nearest airport outside of Moscow where he was fairly sure there would be less – if any – wizarding defences at than in the capital city. His thoughts proved true, and after a few hours of waiting, he was on a plane to Rome.

After arriving he slipped through the airport's security, this time not even going through Customs and Immigration in fear of Italy having a magical protection similar to Russia. Escaping a toilet window, he made his way out over the runways, taking care not to be ran over by a plane before climbing over a fence. A taxi later, Harry was in the city, magicking his way through a hotel's reception with mental commands seeing as he didn't speak Italian yet. He had began to learn on the flight, but it would probably take a week or so locked up in his hotel room until Loki was able to fully engrave the language in his mind via AllSpeak.

When he had learned the language, he would begin to gain his money back again and continue on his quest for power. He had a feeling that by the end of his stay in Italy, however long it might be, his crimes wouldn't be limited to illegal immigration.

A/N: So Harry has already decided Russia was a bad idea. Anyway, tell me what you thought, all feedback is welcome!