KEYnote: Ripple effects, the Harry Potter timeline no longer follows the events of the fifth book. I.E. the DA club has dissolved but Dumbledore is still present as Head Master.

Chapter 2 - The Calm Before the Storm

Harry discovered there was some truth to the muggle notion that it took believing in magic to make it work.

Because even without Sirius removing the spell, each morning he would wake up and look in the mirror and call himself by his true name;

Aleksey Yakovlevich Romanov.

And each day, he would see that his eyes were a little more blue than emerald, his hair a little more chocolate than a raven.

He couldn't see his face being different at all, but his jaw felt different beneath his fingers.

But the strange thing, the unexpected thing, was the lessening of his magic.

What was stranger was that he didn't care.

He couldn't teach Defense anymore, he couldn't play Quidditch, everything he liked about the Wizarding World was being poisoned, and he just couldn't bring himself to care about his upcoming OWLs.

Without magic, Voldemort would kill him.

Which was sort of relieving.

If there was nothing he could do and if didn't want to spend the rest of his life hiding behind others, then he was free to do as he liked.

And if Dumbledore wouldn't tell him the truth and neither would Sirius, then he would find it for himself.

He owl ordered from the bookstore in London several books on learning Russian. It was difficult and confusing.

But now that he was no longer doing his other homework or studying for his OWLs or submitting himself to Snape or Umbridge's torture, he had all the time in the world.

When he was ultimately expelled, he was going to live off the money in his vault and go searching Russia for his history.

His birth family.

Stupid idea?

Probably, but what else did he have to live for?

Soldat stared at the Black Widow, "But you don't have a uterus."

Not when he bedded her at least.

"But I had one," Natasha said.

"You cannot have babies without a uterus."

"I'm not concerned about the uterus, Soldat. There are other important bits they put on ice."

He shook his head, "Even if you're right, he would be better without us."

"I was abandoned, I will not abandon him."

"Like you abandoned your sisters?" Soldat asked. The words were foreign but when she flinched, he realized that had been the desired result.

A son.

He had a son.

But it wasn't safe. Soldat was not safe, he couldn't take care of himself, couldn't protect himself, protecting another, smaller, human being?

Impossible.

Soldat was not safe.

"I destroyed the Red Room. Yelena should have been safe."

"Invalid. I am free but I am not free. The Widows are a similar danger."

"Which is why we are rescuing them first."

"No," Soldat said. "Handlier, Dreykov. I will not go back."

"If we want to break you free you are going to have to be able to handle the words."

He shook his head, "The Widows will bring me back."

"Not if I'm the one who uses the words."

"I will kill you," he threatened. Had been out of Hydra's hands for all of fifty-two hours. No pain.

He didn't want to be in pain.

That thought alone would garner him punishment.

"No reset," Natasha said employing. "No cryo chamber, no punishment. You can still think while under command, can't you?"

"It isn't the same."

"So you'll what, keep running? Hydra is everywhere, Soldat. I can help you beat them."

"In exchange for helping you save your son."

"Our son."

"No one wants to be my son."

"We won't know that until we rescue them."

Soldat sighed, "What will this involve?"

She laid a map down with sticky-notes attached to it.

Step one, prison break.

Step two, destroy Red Room.

Step three, steal an alien weapon from SHIELD.

Step four, Big Guy, India.

Step five, Stark Industries, recreation Hydra technology.

Step six, recover son.

Step seven, protect son.

Soldat sighed, this was far too many steps.

"You in."

"You're trouble."

"I never enjoyed being idle."

Soldat sighed, this wasn't going to be unpleasant.

But maybe a little fun.

Natasha was wrong about his son wanting to know him, but he liked Natasha and if she wanted to help her son while trying to help Soldat regain himself that he could agree to.

"You're missing a step," Soldat said.

She gave him a sharp look, "It is just an outline."

He shook his head, "The Widows are changed, Hydra fears them."

"So?"

"We need the Red Dust."

"The what?"

"The Widows are chemically programmed now, they tested the Red Dust on me to be sure it couldn't break their Soldiers."

"Are telling me my sisters are chemically programmed to serve?"

"Yes."

Natasha let out a harsh breath, "Then we are missing two steps; because Melina Vostockova is alive."

Minerva McGonagall is worried about Harry.

Yet somehow, more worried about Albus Dumbledore.

Something about Harry was changing, it wasn't until a week before the first OWLs she could really put a finger on it.

His eyes were the most noticeable thing, rather than being Lily's emerald colour, they were blue.

Sea blue.

Not a hint of green.

And his hair had changed dramatically, rather than being a chaotic mess, it had softened, losing its wild curls till it looked as if it would be silky to the touch. It was hard to see but the colour had changed, and when he walked through a sun patch that one could see it was chocolate brown with copper highlights.

This was strange, stranger was when Harry stopped wearing his glasses.

Minerva figured it was some form of transfiguration, but the glasses worried her, if he tried spelling his eyes he could have blinded himself.

So she found herself trying to spy on the golden trio, difficult when the three were so paranoid.

But one day she succeeded as they walked to the great hall for lunch.

"I still can't believe you got away with skipping detention with Snape and Umbridge," Ron said.

Minerva paused a bit at that. Why hadn't Severus insisted on teaching him Occlumency? And why hadn't Umbridge?

"I told her that I would tell her I would fail my OWLs if she let me go and that if she pushed, I would tell McGonagall what she has been doing."

"I still think we should tell her," Hermione said.

Harry shrugged.

Minerva decided that they definitely would be telling her.

"More importantly, Harry," Hermione said then lowered her voice to a whisper than only decades. "We should talk to the professors that you've lost your magic."

Minerva nearly tripped over her own feet but what Harry said next stunned her even more.

"I told you, my name is Aleksey, not Harry."

Hermione shook her head, "I still can't believe you're adopted."

"I can't believe you're Russian," Ron joked.

Harry— Aleksey laughed, then said something Minerva could not translate.

"If you studied for your OWLs as much as you have been studying Russian, it wouldn't matter if you couldn't pass the practicals."

"Strangely," Aleksey said. "I don't think Voldemort is going to be impressed by Charms Essay even if I got an 'O'."

By then, they had all reached the table and as the three walking chaos magnets sat, Minerva got a good look at Harry's face.

As she thought Aleksey it was more than his hair and eyes that changed his appearance. She saw him as someone else.

A handsom boy that would have made him the envy and the object of attraction for the entire student body.

And part of that handsomeness came from the lack of stress around his eyes. Minerva could never imagine losing her magic, that magic had become such a stress to a student that the lack of it made him happier.

Minerva didn't know why this was happening but when she sat down beside Albus determined to brooch the subject, she could sense the man's unhappiness as he stared at the Boy Who Lived.

Albus already knew, and Minerva couldn't but wonder if he was upset for Harry or upset because he had lost a pillar in the war against the Dark Lord?

Soldat does not like Melina Vostockova, she pokes at him and says the trigger and compliance words until he feels like he can't breathe.

But she helps, marginally.

He likes Yelena Belova, she is light-hearted and delights in little things that Soldat had long learned to ignore.

He admits that he likes Natasha and her family. He strangely feels like he belongs among them, they make him feel less alone.

Watching Natasha and Yelena kill Dreykov together is almost as satisfying as helping drop the Red Room from the sky and helping free the Widows.

Things get better from their, and SHIELD is week, and they a several steps ahead of Hydra.

Every day, Soldat gets stronger and gains more control over himself.

Until one day the Red Guardian brags about beating Captain America's ass.

Soldat's metal arm snaps out and punches the man so hard, that the other man goes soaring into the wall, leaving a dent in the sheetrock.

Natasha and Yelena laugh.

Soldat just stares, he doesn't know why he did that.

No one had even ordered him to.

Was he broken?

Natasha says, "Soldat was Steve Rogers' best friend, I'd be careful about what you say about him."

The name Steve Rogers does strange things to his head. Flashes of memories, flashes of a warmer life and flashes of punishment.

"You know who I was?" Soldat asked.

Natasha nodded and stood, going to her bag and returning with a folder, "This is yours, Sergeant Bucky Barnes."

Soldat shuddered at that name but accepted the folder.

He reads it twice over, and he felt conflicted, in one hand, it was like reading about a stranger he's never met, and in the other, he felt increasingly possessive of every sliver of information.

"Steve is dead," he said, voice hollow even as his heart felt heavy in his chest.

Natasha laid a hand over his right hand, "I'm sorry."

He retreated afterwards, giving himself space.

Steve was dead.

Soldat doesn't understand why that knowledge hurts so much. He's over ninety years old, he knows a lot of people who are dead.

He has made a lot of people dead.

But this loss... it hurt.

It hurt worst than anything he had ever felt before, and he knew pain.

Fury was furious, "What do you mean, you lost her?"

Clint flinched, "She's gone along with the Tesseract."

"You vouched for her," Fury growled.

"She's not working for Hydra."

"She was spotted with a Winter Soldier."

That brought Clint up short.

"Do you know what she wants with the weapon?" Fury pressed.

Clint shook his head because he couldn't even begin to guess.

AN: Thoughts, compsognathus, or feedback, pretty please?