"You have something?" Odin questioned, looking up from the game of… chess(?)… that he was playing with Frigga.
"Yeah." Harry stretched his jaw so wide that it cracked. "A sealed container, inside a small wizard space, inside a sealed trunk, shrunk to fit inside a hole in an item. I'm thinking behind a piece of jewellery. Something worn every day."
Frigga's eyes lit up. "I know just the thing…" She smiled.
"We're back." Harry called as he entered the ballroom with Loki at his side.
"And you brought Loki?" Steve asked as Harry approached him and Natasha.
"Yeah." Harry replied. "Frigga though it might be better for him, here. Get him away from the idiots that caused him to go off the rails in the first place."
"I thought it was Odin telling him that he was adopted, that was responsible?" Natasha asked.
"It was. But only partly." Harry nodded. "And personally? I think that's who Frigga was talking about."
"Ah." The two Avengers nodded and Steve continued. "Where are you putting him? It is smart to put him too near Thor?"
"Nope." Harry grinned. "I had planned on giving Thor a guest room in our cottage, but I think Loki needs it more."
"Yes, I'd agree." Steve nodded.
"So, Thor gets to stay with you guys and Loki with Mione and I." Harry patted Steve's shoulder. "Try not to eat Sirius and Bucky out of house and home, please."
"Uh... about that…?"
"Yes…?" Harry narrowed his eyes.
"Um, Peggy…" Steve hesitated.
"Spit it out." Harry sighed. "What's she planning this time?"
"Now that the world-ending danger is over… Apparently, we're getting married this weekend."
"This weekend?" Harry asked. "But…?"
"But…?" Steve asked, a little scared of the answer.
"But I thought you'd already done that?" Harry tilted his head.
"No."
Harry's expression went blank as he thought. "When did this get decided?"
"Um…"
"When?"
"She told me she'd waited long enough." Steve whispered.
"And…? When did she say that?"
"That first day." Steve answered. "After we left the sitting room but before we got to the ballroom."
"Damn it, Clint wins." Harry muttered.
"What…?" Steve blinked.
"Never mind." Harry waved him off. "This weekend? Bucky's standing with you, obviously. Who's standing with Peggy? Who's giving her away? And who's performing this thing?" The questions came out, rapid fire.
"Sharon's standing with her. Tony's giving her away and Fury's officiating. And it'll be here, in the garden." Steve answered just as rapidly.
"Got it. Initiative staff welcome?"
"Of course." Steve nodded with a smile. "Mione's been working with Peggy and Natasha, on it."
"Right, us blokes just go where we're told." Harry nodded.
"Yeah, that sounds about right." Steve grinned.
"I'll get Mione to catch me up, later. Right now, we have a mission review to go over." Harry made his way onto the dais and across to his seat. "Heya, Siri." He bumped shoulders with his godfather and ran a gentle finger down the face of the infant in the Marauder's arms. "How's she settling in?"
"She's good, finally sleeping through the night." Sirius answered and the two chatted quietly for a few minutes.
"Take your seat, please." Peggy stood in her usual place, just right of the Director's chair. "Thank you." She glanced down at a pile of notes in front of her. "First off? Thank you and well done. It's solely due to the efforts of all of you, that we held off the invasion. We saved our world, our planet, from an invading army of aliens. Now we just have to deal with the aftermath." She sighed. "It's not going to be pretty. The Statute is down and while there's been a lot of flak over the wizarding world hiding, the general feeling that most countries seem to be expressing, is that they're glad that we were prepared to expose ourselves to save them."
That got smiles and a few pleased whispers.
"That said, there are a few displeased people." Peggy said. "Not all that many and thankfully, they hold little influence with the authorities and those in power."
More pleased whispers were heard.
"Next on the list is clean up." She tapped her finger on the table as chatter broke out. "Thank you. Like I said. Clean up. New York was hit badly. Stark tower was-"
"Avengers Tower." Tony cut in. "We can use it as a staging post and apparition and portkey base."
Peggy just looked at him, until he ducked his head in apology for the interruption.
"As I was saying… the tower was ground zero for the attack, at least on US soil. Stuttgart has some minor damage but it was mostly New York, that bore the brunt of the attack. Which reminds me. NATO and ICW have released the information that Loki was under mind control and Kingsley, Bill Weasley and Tonks have provided evidence, memories and examples of what an imperius can do and for the most part, the world is accepting that Loki was the victim of a targeted attack that forced him to attack us. The fact that he did it where he did is a point in his favour."
There were a few questioning noises from people.
"Think about it." Peggy shook her head. "Attacking one of the largest cities in the world? In one of the most well protected countries in the world? That's not smart and Loki is nothing, if not smart. Plus, he's the God of Mischief and Lies, not death, destruction or war. Odin is the God of War, Hela of Death and Baldr of Destruction. Not Loki. The attack on New York showed little evidence of his reputation and a lot of someone else's."
There were many heads nodding.
"So, Loki's no longer considered the perpetrator responsible. Which is a good thing, seeing as Asgard have requested that he join the Initiative for a few years, give Odin and Frigga the opportunity to deal with the hotheads there, before Thor and Loki return. To that end… Loki has been assigned to work with Harry for the first six months of his Initiative training, while Thor will be with Draco for his, after that they'll be reassessed and new plans made. If we have any more world-ending level events, they'll probably both be called in, just as Harry and Draco will be."
More nods and a few understanding noises came from the audience.
"So, aftermath…" Peggy sighed. "Clean-up is ongoing and probably will be for some time. If anyone is prepared to volunteer their time to help with clean-up, they will be welcomed and we'll happily excuse you from other duties. The Ministry is sending its trainee Aurors over and Hogwarts and many other schools as well as the ICW's WEA are offering extra credit to any 5th, 6th or 7th year students that want to help and have parental permission to do so, over the Easter break."
There was a wave of interest and nodding.
"Clean-up is not the only place that New York needs help with, a lot of people were injured, although surprisingly few were actually killed. That can be put down mostly to the Initiative and our protection teams. Thank you." Peggy smiled at a number of people that were still wearing bruises and cuts. "Without you, the death toll would have been much higher. Our profilers estimate that the toll could have been as high as the thousands. You stopped that. Less than a dozen people died, two of them from direct contact with the invaders and three from injuries from debris, the others were medical episodes that we weren't and would not have been able to treat in the field. Without specialist attention, they would still have died. Not your fault. Understand?" Peggy was looking straight at a young man barely, out of Hogwarts, who sat with his father's arm around his shoulders. "Regulus Black, you did as much as you could, as much as anyone put in the same position could have been expected to do. His family know he wasn't alone and they're grateful for that."
The boy under Bucky's arm nodded but still leant against his father.
"Alright, as long as you understand, we won't push." Peggy nodded. "The most seriously injured of all the victims was our Director, Phil Coulson. Andi and Dennis are still working on him but are confident that he'll pull through. It'll take a few weeks before he's back to full strength." She paused when Neville raised a hand. "No." She answered the unasked question. "De-aging potions weren't going to work in this case, something to do with curse magics?" It wasn't really a question but that's how it came out.
Regardless, most people seemed to understand what was meant.
"So, in the meantime, Kingsley and I will be sharing Phil's duties between us, with Harry and Tony as back up, if we need it."
"…oh joy…" Harry was heard to mutter quietly, which earned him a chiding look from Peggy and Andi but laughs from Draco and Sirius.
A few days later, Harry brought Fury to meet with a carefully selected group of people. Phil, Peggy, Steve, Andi, Dumbledore, Hermione, Sirius, Bucky, Snape, McGonagall and Kingsley were all seated in the slightly enlarged sitting room of number Eleven Grimmauld Place, Islington. All they were waiting on was Harry and Fury.
"What's this all about? Rogers? Black?" Fury demanded as he entered the room.
"We have no idea, Nick." It was a still pale Phil Coulson that answered. "Harry only said that we needed to meet with you and it was more important than aliens invading New York."
"Well…?" Fury looked to Harry.
"Right." Harry nodded. "I'm going on what Odin and Frigga told me, here, so things could be a little more serious than it sounds. Asgard does tend to underplay the severity of a situation."
"Just tell us." Peggy suggested.
"Odin said that the tesseract held one of six of the so-called Infinity Stones." Harry replied. "The real perpetrator behind New York is hunting for them. He didn't seem to know that the sceptre held one, the Mind Stone. And the Space Stone was in the tesseract, that's how it dragged Red Skull through a portal. These Stones are semi-aware. They know when someone means them harm." He then went on to explain all that Odin and Frigga had told him and what he'd done with the Space Stone.
"So, what's the plan, pup?" Sirius asked.
"You're going to hide the Mind Stone the same way?" Steve asked.
"I am." Harry nodded.
"Where?" Fury wanted to know.
"Well…" Harry gave him a careless grin. "Initially, I wanted to use your eyepatch, but Mione talked me out of it. You still go out in the field, so if something happened to you, the patch is the most obvious way of disabling you." Fury grunted. "So, we went through each of those sitting here and ruled them out, one-by-one…" Harry shook his head. "Which brought us back to you."
"Me?" Fury stabbed a finger into his chest.
"Yeah, you." Harry said. "Everyone else was ruled out. Even me. We're too public. Even our animagi forms are known, at least within the Initiative. But you…?"
"I don't have an Animagus form." Fury said. "Neither does Rogers."
"No, he doesn't." Harry agreed. "But he's too visible, being the great-grandson of the original Captain America. He's agreed to take the potion and make his form known within the Initiative but you…? We want you to take the potion, as well, only we won't be telling anyone outside this room what you are."
"How does that equate to hiding a Stone?" Fury asked.
"Most of our other forms can wear a collar, those that do, have emergency supplies in a shrunken trunk attached to said collar." Hermione answered. "We've charmed the collars to only be… active(?)… visible(?)… accessible(?)… while we're in our animagi forms."
"Where do they go while you're human?" Bucky asked.
"Wherever our fur or feathers go." Hermione replied. "And only Lady magic can answer that."
"Hnh…." Bucky grunted but nodded.
"And do you know what my Animagus form would be?" Fury asked. "What if it's a snake or a dragon?"
"Harry can talk to snakes." Sirius reminded. "And no-one has ever had a magical animal as an Animagus form."
"No-one?" Fury asked.
"No-one." McGonagall answered. "Something to do with a magical animal's core not being compatible with a human's magical core. There's a whole series of texts on the subject, but they all agree. Humans can only become natural animals."
"Huh…" Fury nodded slowly.
"And no." Harry said. "We don't know what animal you'll become but the chances are that it's something we can work with."
"If it's a feline or canine, we can use a collar." Hermione said. "If it's a bird, we'll have to use a ring or bracelet on a leg. Same for ungulates, either that or we use an ear-tag."
"Then you'd better hope I'm a cat or a dog." Fury growled. "Cause you're not tagging me."
Sirius snickered but managed to cover it with a cough, while Bucky just grinned.
"So you want us to take the potion?" Steve asked, giving Sirius and Bucky flat looks before turning to Hermione and Harry.
"We do." Harry nodded.
"Then what?"
"Then it depends on your form." Hermione said. "We have a selection of collars, you can choose one and we'll attach the Stone's shrunken container to it. It will look like a tiny charm/ornament in the shape of a padlock. We decided that having something that looked like a shrunken trunk is a dead giveaway, so Harry spent the last few days carving a box to look like a lock. The face of the lock lifts away from the rear but only when the 'lock' is open and it's pass-phrase protected." She held up a tiny ornament for them to see. "We can enlarge it to different sizes depending on what you are. We don't want it looking too out of place."
"Huh…" Fury shook his head in disgust. "The things I do for this planet…" He muttered.
"In addition to this," Harry said, "Odin and Asgard are letting out the rumour that we actually destroyed the sceptre and it's stone. And that he destroyed the tesseract on its return to Asgard. We're all hoping that this gets to the right ears, namely those of Thanos."
"If he thinks that one or even two of the Stones are destroyed, he's less likely to come looking for them." Fury agreed. "We don't need him coming here."
"No, we don't." Steve nodded.
"Alright, I'm in." Fury sighed. "Gimme the potion."
"Same here." Steve agreed.
Andi stood and crossed the room to a small table and returned with two goblets.
"Best drink it all down in one go, gents." Andi said. "It tastes foul, otherwise." She handed one goblet to Fury, who ignored the smoke emerging from the bright purple liquid.
He sighed again and lifted the goblet to his lips. A second's hesitation and he swallowed down the goblet's contents and forced himself not to gag at the taste. A few seconds passed and his skin began to itch, a twitch of his shoulder and he changed…
It took a bare second to have Sirius and Bucky laughing, clutching theirs sides and tears falling from their eyes.
"Oh, Lord…" Phil's eyes widened in shock.
A croaked squawk came from Fury's throat and Harry, who was biting his lip hard enough to draw blood, conjured a mirror in front of Fury. The expression on his face at seeing his Animagus form was too much for Harry and like Sirius and Bucky, he collapsed in laughter.
"Only you, Nick." Coulson sighed. "Only you could be a hairless cat."
Fury gave them a flat look before beginning to mutter and curse, the sounds emerging as guttural meows and growls.
Steve was trying to contain his own amusement and gabbed the goblet from Andi to try and distract himself. He chugged the liquid down and felt his hair move, driving a shudder down his spine as he changed.
"Oh, gods…" Hermione gave up any pretence at decorum and fell back in her seat laughing.
It was McGonagall, who had until this point managed to keep a straight face, that conjured a mirror in front of Steve. The blonde soldier's eyes widened and he looked to his new wife and made the tiniest mewling sound in question.
Fury by now was back on two legs and swearing under his breath about shooting wizards and stringing them up by heels. Not even the sight of Captain America becoming a tiny fluffy blonde kitten, was enough to alleviate the denting of his pride.
"Well at least we know that the lock is the right size…" Dumbledore said, somehow managing to withhold a smile, even if his eyes twinkled brightly.
Fury drew in a harsh breath and glared at the old wizard, before stalking over to the table that held a selection of collars and ring-like bracelets. He glared at them, his glaze angry. His hand swung down and a fine strip of black leather dangled from his fingers.
"If I have to wear a bloody collar to keep this planet safe, it's going to have a little dignity." He bared his teeth at Harry and Sirius, while holding the leather strip out to Kingsley. "I don't trust them, right now. You do it." Fury told the other black man.