There was one question that nagged at him. One he'd forgotten to ask in the days following Erskine's death and funeral. What was to happen to Rogers?

Howard had mentioned that night at the bar that the SSR had already given up trying to reverse engineer the serum through his blood as a lost cause, so that at least meant he was being kept locked up in some far of lab. But that still left all too many options. Was he to join the front with the rest of the US' soldiers? Form his own team? Become a covert operative for the SSR? Any of those options were viable.

The truth, however, was much more disappointing.

"He's teamed up with Brandt and the USO to travel 'round the country selling war bonds."

It took a long moment for Peggy's explanation to fully register with Harry. Erskine's first and final success, a literal super soldier was gallivanting around the US in tights with a team of showgirls and a false Hitler. His mentor hadn't been buried long and he already must be rolling in his grave.

"I know what you're thinking," Peggy said before Harry had time to decide on a response. "I thought the same thing. But he wasn't presented many options, it was either that or be shipped off to a lab. He chose the option he thought would make the most difference, and, knowing the sort of man that he is, he won't remain there long, he'll find some way to the real fight."

"It doesn't make any less disappointing."

"I know. But I have faith in him."

"You would be the only one."

Harry was saved a reprimand from the older woman when their car came to a smooth stop at one end of a small airfield, owned, of course, by Howard. The man had left for London the day before to get started on his next SSR assignment as soon as possible, but he'd still allowed Harry and Peggy the use of one of his private planes to make their own trip to England a little more comfortable.

But even after they'd boarded and settled in, the conversation regarding the disappointment of a super soldier wasn't picked back up then or at all in the hours long trip.

It was strange being back in London, the architecture hadn't changed much in the sixty or so years he'd traveled. But just like New York the fog of war had touched and warped the city; there was less color, less cheer, everyone moved with a resolute purpose. And then there were the more tangible reminders of the war. Entire cities blocks had been decimated, bombed and reduced to charred rubble in the blitz. Seeing the city in such a sad state was jarring.

The facility Harry had been assigned to work out of was unnervingly close to the muggle entrance of the Ministry of Magic, less than a ten minute walk away. But he didn't worry (much), he'd been actively working alongside muggles for some time now, almost a full year at this point, and the Ministry had yet to descend upon him. If they hadn't yet, they likely wouldn't now. He'd still take precautions of course, but it seemed the measures put in place to enforce the Statue of Secrecy were much different in this time.

Howard and the SSR allowed him the day to settle in, get comfortable in the boarding house they'd set him up in and recover from the long flight. But on his second day back in London, it was down to business.

"Our job, in a nutshell, is to utilize whatever tools we have in our possession to arm our soldiers with the best weapons and supplements to keep them alive and whole long enough to see old Adolf tossed into the pits of hell." Was the introduction Howard presented Harry with his first day as an official agent of the SSR.

Unfortunately it left him with more questions than answers, the first one being: "Supplements?"

"Drugs."

"Erskine's serum wasn't the only thing the SSR's been trying to cook up, but it was granted priority because of its potential. For their everyday foot soldiers they're still looking for whatever can make them less susceptible to cold, exhaustion, hunger. You know those inconvenient human frailties, even if its temporary."

"And they want you to produce them?" Harry wondered. "I thought you dealt with mechanics, technology."

"You will find, my friend, that I wear many hats. Tech is where I'm at my best, but my intelligence goes beyond that."

Harry barely suppressed a roll of his eyes, it was going to be a joy working with someone with such a high opinion of themselves.

However, Howard quickly proved that while his hubris was truly massive it was at least well deserved because the man was brilliant. He'd never had the chance to truly appreciate it while working alongside him with Erskine as his focus had been the vita ray machine, but just listening to him explain his newest project, a supplement that might dull the effects of wounds inflicted on the battlefield, most notably the blood loss, long enough to see get soldiers to some semblance of safety, reminded Harry all too much of the way Erskine once passionately ranted about his serum.

"And for you," Howard said once he'd finally run out of things to say on the project, "there are two things we can do for your situation." He reached into a bag tossed haphazardly onto one of the work tables, from it he produced a vial of dark red liquid. Rogers' blood. "We can try to reverse engineer the serum through this. Or we can go a different route, mix magic and science to go for something on a smaller scale but still just as effective."

"You have something in mind already?" Harry asked.

"I have the start of something, soon it could actually be something."

"Of the two options, which do you think you'd have a better chance succeeding at?"

"That would be door number two." Howard carefully set the vial down between them. "What you wanted to do with Erskine would have worked, I'm almost sure of it. But I can't do what he did. The serum was a culmination of decades of study and training in sciences I can admit I've not even close to mastered. Maybe somewhere down the line, if I threw all of my energy and resources into it, I could do what he did, maybe. But the idea isn't even a little appealing to me, my mind and money are best suited elsewhere, and I'm sure you don't have twenty to thirty years to spare."

Technically, Harry did, but he wasn't at all keen on waiting that long. "So we start from scratch."

"In a way," Howard hummed noncommittally. "But if we can find a way to build off of your initial plan of enhancing your magic to get you home then we may not have to. It will take some work though. And time."

Harry didn't even blink. "I've got nothing but. Let's do it."


Harry would have liked to spend every moment in the day working with Howard on enhancing his magic, but the man did have real work to do, actual lifesaving products to innovate and create for the war. And Harry himself had signed on to aide in the production of those same products, that had been the deal he'd made to remain with the SSR and enlist the help of Peggy, Howard, and all of their resources to find a way home. So they split their time between the workloads as evenly as the could with the entire organization breathing down Howard's neck for the supplements.

It was four months before he managed to produce a batch of the highly experimental blood clotting aid that could be considered passable enough to be handed off to those in charge of testing and distribution. Harry's own situation was even slower going.

Howard had very little idea of how his magic really worked, and if he was being honest with himself, Harry didn't either, not beyond the basic point the wand and utter some half-Latin gibberish. Howard was convinced if he could understand the fundamentals of how it worked, how he could draw upon it and the magic of the Hallows, amplifying it would be a simple matter.

"We'll start with EEG." Howard held up cap of some sort covered in small metallic discs and protruding wires. "It's meant to track electrical pulses let off by your brain. If your neural activity when you cast is distinct enough we might have a chance at pinpointing what areas are most in use when you draw upon your magic and through that we can look at ways to amplify it."

"I don't understand at all how any of that might be done," Harry confessed. "Just promise not to do anything that might leave me a drooling vegetable and you can have at it."

"What about something that might put you in the ground?"

Harry confessed. "Dying's not what I'm afraid of."

"You've found yourself in the right place then."

Howard settled the cap over Harry's head and secured it with a strap beneath his chin. Then he had Harry cast, any spell he might think of was to be used while he monitored the readouts.

"You've got spikes that go a little higher than what could be considered normal brain activity," Howard said after nearly a full hour had gone. "But not nearly as much as you'd think would be happening considering how much power you're throwing around. I wonder what the difference in the magic from the Hallows might be, could you cast some of that?"

Harry considered the request for a moment before shaking his head. "None of my abilities from the Hallows are voluntary," he said. "They only occur in moments of stress and heightened emotion."

"Like a defense mechanism?"

"Exactly."

Howard hummed thoughtfully. "This should be enough to work with," he stopped to look over the readouts again. "Even if I don't know where the hell I'm going to start. What you do is against everything I ever learned. You're not just bending the laws of science with some of these spells, you're outright ignoring them. You're disproving theories and rules established centuries ago with incantations you teach children."

"But you can work with it? Right?"

"Yes. Or at least I think I can, but not overnight."

"Just tell me what I need to do."

"You won't need to keep casting for me, but I am going to need a more complete list of the different categories of magic you practice, if I can start breaking down the elements manipulated with each spell we might be able to get somewhere."

"I can-"

A sharp rap at the lab's closed door stopped Harry mid-sentence, before either he or Howrad could call out in response, Peggy was pushing the door open and entering the lab. Her easy entrance had the resident wizard rounding on Howard with a furious glare; he had sworn he'd secured the room before Harry had begun casting, if anyone else had walked in even five minutes earlier that would have been the end of that secret.

Knowing that the younger man's ire was fully deserved but not at all willing to endure a tongue lashing from him, Howard turned fully away from him to offer Peggy his full attention.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything important," she said, eyeing the machines surrounding Harry with a hint of trepidation. "But something's come up."

That at least worked in temporarily distracting Harry from his irritation. "What's happened?"

"An infantry was attacked by HYDRA several days ago. Most were killed or captured but those who survived spoke of weapons that spat blue fire and disintegrated men where they stood. You're our resident experts when it comes to weaponry and the arcane so we'll need your input on this one."

The two men exchanged worried glances, Harry had never been called to provide his magical expertise on anything larger than the enhancements Howard was working on. "Where?"

Peggy sighed heavily through her nostrils. "Italy."


Captain America was in Italy. The super soldier had arrived just a day before they had and was scheduled to perform for the troops the evening of the next. Those first few hours Harry did an admirable job avoiding the man, mostly because he wasn't sure he'd be able to face Rogers without displaying some degree of his disappointment, but also because, from the moment he, Peggy, and Howard had touched down in Italy their time and attention was monopolized by the dilemma of HYDRA's newest weapons.

Of the two hundred men to go against Schmidt's forces only fifty had returned and none with anything more than the shell shook tales of disintegration guns and blue fire. They had all been too busy fleeing for their lives to collect even one such gun from the battlefield, so neither Harry nor Howard had anything at all to work with outside of the soldiers' testaments.

But the task of interrogating the traumatized men only kept him busy for so long, and by the time evening of his first day in Italy drew near he'd been cut loose for the night to mull over the next best move. It was then, of course, that he ran into Rogers, right before it was time for him to head to his performance.

His getup was ridiculous, the garish colors of the flag stitched into the tight mesh of his costume would have been funny if the very sight of the man didn't leave something leaden in Harry's stomach.

They caught sight of each other at just about the same time, and while Harry would have been more than fine with carrying on his way, Rogers immediately readjusted his course to intercept him. He halted a good meter away, growing noticeably more hesitant the closer he drew. Perhaps he could sense the disquiet Harry was already beginning to radiate being in his proximity.

"I didn't expect to see you so close to the front," Rogers said, as an awkward attempt at a smile quirked his lips.

"I could say the same for you."

The smile was immediately replaced by something that could almost be interpreted as bitter. "Yeah, the senator thought I might be of some use lifting the spirits of the men out here."

Harry looked pointedly around the camp; they weren't even a full week into November yet but the bitter chill of early winter had already begun to descend upon the place, an earlier rain shower had left every tent and barrack soaked in mud, and the place stunk of gunpowder and discontent. Then he looked at Rogers, mockingly cheerful and perfectly groomed in his bright suit and shining boots.

He wilted under the stare alone, catching every word Harry hadn't said. "I didn't say I agreed with him."

"But when the senator says jump…"

"I didn't ask for this." Finally something more than the hangdog expression he'd been sporting since the start of the conversation flashed across Rogers' face. It reminded Harry of what had convinced him to agree with Erskine about Rogers being the right candidate for the serum. "When I signed up to become this it was with the intention to fight, I wanted to do some good, not sell war bonds while others were dying in the mud and the trenches."

"Then why aren't you fighting?"

"Because that wasn't one of the options I was presented."

Harry didn't even try to hide his eye roll. "Erskine gave you a gift, Rogers, not just with the muscles and the strength. He made you special, he made you valuable. It's high time you started acting like it."

Harry would later feel bad for how harshly he'd treated "America's New Hope", he'd been nothing but sincere when he said the USO show hadn't ever been part of his plan. But in that moment Harry had been too blinded by the rage of seeing Erskine's work utterly wasted to feel any form of sympathy for him. He certainly would later, but by then Rogers would have already skipped camp to prove just how wasted his talents were lifting showgirls and motorcycles overhead.


Harry learned of Rogers' suicide mission only a few hours after he departed; for most it was meant to remain a complete secret, but he'd been called in to confer with Phillips because apparently both Peggy and Howard had assisted Rogers in not only skipping camp but also making it into enemy territory.

He wasn't all that upset that they'd gone AWOL and potentially committed some sort of felony, if he was being entirely honest he would have done the same thing if he'd been presented with the opportunity.

The problem was that he hadn't been presented the opportunity.

He would have expected to at least be warned by one of the two people he considered to almost be friends before they went gallivanting off to Nazi territory, maybe even invited to come along. Sure he couldn't navigate a plane, but he liked to think he was good for moral support.

Maybe he was just used to being one part of an inseparable trio and had considered Peggy and Howard to be suitable, temporary replacements until a time where he could return to the real thing.

"It happened so quickly," Peggy explained when she got back from the unsanctioned mission sans Rogers and noticed Harry's ill-concealed hurt at being left behind. "Rogers was in a frenzy and he needed a pilot."

"Don't let me make this about me," Harry assuaged. "You did something good. Reckless and stupid, which honestly I expected from Howard but not you, Agent Carter, but it was good. You didn't have any need for me there and you don't have to explain why I wasn't."

"We should have at least given you a warning before we just took off."

Harry waved her away as if he hadn't been thinking the same thing not much earlier. "I didn't even notice you had gone until Phillips pulled me aside. Just tell me what happened, why it happened. What lit that fire in Rogers? Phillips wouldn't tell me anything."

"I let slip to him what happened to the 107th," Peggy said without hesitation. "He hadn't known about their recent losses. His friend was a part of the unit, his best friend, and he had been among those captured. Phillips had no intention of sending men to retrieve them, it wasn't a battle he thought we could win, so Rogers decided to go in alone. He wouldn't be persuaded otherwise, I knew that, so I offered him the help that I could."

"Do you think he has a chance at making it out alive?"

"I want to believe he can. What he's capable of due to the serum is beyond incredible, if anyone could do it, it would be him."

Phillips didn't share her faith, especially after two days with no word from Rogers or the transponder he'd jumped with. Even Harry doubted enough to call on Death to see if Rogers had been ferried to the afterlife.

"I would have noticed a soul as unique as his pass through," Death told him, "even if it hadn't been reaped by my own hand."

"So he's lost then, or injured," Harry said, a surprising amount of relief sweeping through him at the confirmation. "Let's hope the serum is good for keeping him alive long enough to make it back."

And in the early afternoon of the third day it proved that it was. Rogers returned with not just the one hundred odd men from the 107th, but with men from at least a dozen other units who had been captured in the time before the 107th and written off as a lost cause just as they had been. With them came the guns he and Howard could do nothing without, and grenades and tanks.

Howard was in nirvana. Harry was just a bit more subdued. The energy emanating from the weapons was strange, unsettling. It was intense in a way he couldn't describe, especially in the way it caused his magic to roil within him.

"We still have no word of what powered these?" Harry asked. Cautiously he reached for the rectangular shaped grenade Rogers' had personally recovered from the HYDRA labs. At its exposed core it glowed with the same ominous blue fire he had heard many a tale about.

"No," Rogers said. "the prisoners were forced to assemble the weapons, but the process of actually powering them was done somewhere no one was allowed."

"What you hold is a weapon imbued with the power of an immensely destructive artifact."

Harry was slowly growing used to Death's unannounced visits, but he still nearly detonated the grenade in his hand from the jerk of surprise he was barely able to surpress. Carefully he set it down on the nearest worktable.

"I have to step out for a moment," he announced to the room at large before quickstepping from the lab. Death followed him like an eerie, black clad duckling into the closest room and waited patiently for him to close and seal the door behind himself, then he continued his explanation as if he hadn't even been interrupted.

"It is the space stone, one of six infinity gems."

"I don't even like the way those sound," Harry groaned.

"You will like them even less when you understand the full scope of their power. No man, especially no mortal man, should be attempting to harness that power."

Harry could already feel he was going to regret asking the question, but he had to know. "What exactly can an infinity gem do?"

"Each represents a different facet of reality," Death explained, surprisingly forthcoming. "And so each is capable of something different. The space stone manipulates exactly that, space. Its master could go anywhere, be anywhere, if they were using it to its full potential they could be everywhere."

"But it's being used to create weapons."

"That are said to be capable of disintegrating a man," Death stressed. "Wiping him from existence, from space. This mortal does not understand the danger he possesses."

"Then why not take it from him?" Harry asked.

"It is not my place.

"How convenient."

"If I could pluck the stone from that foolish little man's grasp and reap his soul in the most painful scenario imaginable just for deluding himself into believing he was worthy of even gazing at one such object I would do so with relish," Death snarled.

Harry felt his eyebrows climbing his forehead as he studied the uncommonly upset entity. "You're worried. Why?"

"The stone was meant to be hidden. The longer it goes unsecured and unaccounted for the closer you and your world will find itself to annihilation."

So much for being forthcoming, it felt as if every question was being answered with an increasingly confusing riddle. "What are you talking about?"

"Thanos."

Harry groaned in horrified exasperation and threw his hands in the air. "Him again."

"Yes, him again. He gifted me what remained of the Heart but he would never be content without his own objects of power. The gems were his next best option."

"What does he intend to do with them? He already tried wiping out the universe and found it not to be to his liking."

"I don't know," Death admitted. "And I pray that I never do."

"The SSR intend to fight Schmidt, if they win they'll possess the stone."

"They cannot."

"Then who?"

Death had no answer for that.

"This isn't my fight," Harry said in the ensuing silence. "This war isn't my responsibility, but if there's anything I can do to retrieve this cube…I'm willing to try. If only to stop Thanos."

"That is noble quark." And the look that lit Death's face for just a fraction of a moment almost appeared fond. "But not even you are capable of wielding it, controlling it. One day, but not today."

"That seems to be the common problem when it comes to me," Harry sighed. "I'll keep working on that then, and in the meantime I suppose all we can do is hope this mad titan doesn't get wind of the stone's presence."

"I suppose it is."

Harry did his best to stifle the unease bubbling in his gut. Sitting back and hoping for the best had never really been his thing, but there was nothing more he could do. He made to exit the room, expecting Death to take his customarily silent leave, but the entity spoke up once more, pausing him midstep.

"Have caution when dealing even with the byproducts of the stone. It and the heart are two entirely different but incredibly powerful sorts of artifacts. That much power is not meant to mix."

"Duly noted."

Rogers had departed from the lab in Harry's absence, but he'd been replaced by Peggy who was watching a safe distance away as Howard poured over the assortment of weapons.

"The weapons are a product of something more than science," Harry said, wasting no time in announcing his return and relaying his newest discovery. "It's magic. Powerful magic."

Howard looked up, shock written across his face. "How do you know?"

"I could feel it," the half-lie came easily, he didn't even need a moment to think it over. "That's why I had to step out, it's potent once I opened myself up to it. I needed to collect myself."

"So Schmidt…is a wizard?"

"No. This isn't magic my people ae capable of wielding. Whatever his source is, it's old and foreign."

"Foreign as in found only in the depths of uncolonized rainforests?" Howard hedged tentatively.

"Foreign as in potentially not from this earth."

"Well that's just great. Now there are aliens."

"I didn't say that," Harry refuted before the scientist could work himself up. "But the energy emitting from these weapons are unnatural, I know for a fact nothing from my world is capable of it." He hesitated for a second, considering how much he wanted to reveal. "I can say for certain that whatever Schmidt is playing with, it's powerful enough to annihilate us all."

"We won't give him the opportunity," Peggy said firmly. "He'll be dead before he even gets the chance. But in the meantime," she pinned the both of them with a stern glare, "you have the weapons you've been begging for, now we need a defense. Hop to it boys."

She marched from the rooms, her heels clicking ominously with each step as Harry and Howard rolled their eyes in unison.

"I'm looking forward to the day where the only person giving me orders is the woman in my bed," Howard sighed.

"The sooner we win this war for them, the sooner that day will come," Harry said with a commiserating pat to the other man's shoulder. "But until then, you heard her, let's hop to it."


There was very little science involved in the copious amounts of blowing shit up Harry and Howard got up to in the following days. But honestly there was no better way to study and understand HYDRA's weapons than seeing how they operated first hand, especially considering Harry wasn't any kind of scientist to begin with.

Their preferred method was simply setting up a line of dummy soldiers in varying forms of protections and armor and letting off round after round until they had all been reduced to nothing. And, surprisingly enough, they were able to learn much more than to be believed with the simple if not destructive method.

"They don't leave any residue," Howard noted as he walked along the line where the dummies had once stood. "No ash, no scraps of cloth, nothing."

"They're ripped from space. Vanished as if they were nothing," Harry said, reiterating what Death had told him once already.

"And your people can't do that?"

Harry shook his head. "Not to this degree. We can vanish objects, small animals maybe, not entire people."

"Is there a counter?"

"A good solid shield."

Howard sighed. "But these guns will vanish any shield we put in those men's hands and then them right after."

"Physical shields, yes," Harry agreed, but slowly an idea was beginning to take form. "But something magical based, energy based, might be capable of deflecting this power."

Howard's face lit with interest. "What did you have in mind?"

"The energy from the weapons vanishes everything on contact, but it's able to be contained within the weapons for extended periods of time. Not only that, it's powering them. What about these," he hefted the bulky energy gun cradled in his arms, "is so special to be able to hold that energy and not be vanished or melted or exploded from the amount of energy it's containing?"

"If we broke the weapon down," Howard said, realization dawning on him the same as it had Harry, "we could replicate the safeguards that stabilize the weapon into some sort of shield. Kid, you're invaluable."

"You would have figured it out eventually," Harry said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"Maybe. But you did first." Howard's eyes drifted to the gun Harry held, behind his gaze his racing mind was clearly visible. "I have a few shield prototypes already lined up for Rogers, we could redesign them and have them mass produced. Actually breaking the gun down will be the tricky part, you saw how well dismantling the grenade went."

He had indeed. Taking apart the weapons hadn't been much of an issue, it was when they tried to handle the energy contained within that the results got a bit more explosive.

"Leave the energy alone for the time being," Harry suggested. "Our focus should be the mechanics of the things, the safeguards within, the materials they're using." He frowned when he realized how much mechanical knowledge would be required for such a task. "I don't think I'll be of much help when it comes to that."

Howard laughed at the reminder. "Don't worry, that's my area of expertise. I'll try my hand at breaking this fella down when you're a safe distance away."

Harry grimaced in thanks. "Did we want to continue studying the energy blasts in the meantime?" he asked. "Or am I done for the day?" It would be kind of nice to have some time away from the facility, it felt like majority of his waking moments were spent toiling for the SSR. And he really would be no help in dismantling the weapons other than handing over whatever tools Howard might have need of.

"I'll need your time for just a bit longer," Howard said, dashing his dreams of having a quiet night in. "You've been holding up your end of the bargain for some time now without any complaint, I figure it's my turn to hold up mine. Peggy and I had some time to talk it through on our way back from dropping Rogers off in Italy.

"There are some things we'll need to know before we can get into it though, more secrets you might have to share."

Harry sighed heavily. "I figured as much."

"I warned her to expect us sometime this afternoon, she'll be in office all day so we can't miss her."

When Howard and Harry arrived in her workspace with the request, Peggy seemed more than eager to step away from the monotony of her paperwork to join them in the privacy of the lab.

"That was quicker than I was told to expect," she said as she pulled up one of the few seats available in the room.

"We had a productive day," Howard grinned, opting to use the edge of one of the many worktables as his own perch. "I've got a bit more work cut out for me tonight, but I wanted to tackle our boy's issue before I sent him off home."

"Ah, yes. We did promise to, didn't we?" Peggy turned her gaze onto Harry, who had settled a bit nervously in the seat across from her. "I'm afraid the most I can offer is a second opinion and whatever resources I might be able to provide, it will be Howard doing most of the work."

Harry shrugged. "That should work just fine. But Howard said there were some more things you needed to know first. Secrets I would have to give up."

"Yes, well it never escaped our notice or even Erskine's that you never stated exactly were home was."

Harry was only just able to suppress his wince, of course that would be the secret they wanted unveiled. And he thought he'd been being subtle about it. "That's not so easily answered," he said evasively.

"When we spoke of it last you said it wasn't anything near as exciting as being from somewhere other than this world," Peggy pointed out. "Anything outside of that should be easy enough to explain."

"You'd be surprised, he could be like the guy from that Heinlein novel and home isn't where but when."

And of course Howard would be the one to hit the nail on the head while only joking. Harry could deny it of course and they wouldn't think anything else of it, but if he really wanted to get back it might be in his best interest to give up at least that secret. If he were being honest, there really wasn't much danger in telling them, Howard and Peggy had already made their vows, and more than that they'd proved to be trustworthy.

"Yeah," he said, choking down his hesitation, "that's about right."

Howard and Peggy laughed at first, assuming he was playing along with Howard's joke, but then they saw his face, grim and serious, and stopped short.

"You're taking the piss."

Harry couldn't help but laugh, the words were unusually crude coming from Peggy's lips.

"He sure as hell is," Howard agreed. "Ain't no way I'm going to believe you're some kind of time traveler come stumbling in from the past."

"I'm not." Harry said, his two companions only had a moment to exchange glances, triumphant at calling him out on the joke before he carried on. "You're the past, I'm from after."

"The future."

And saying it as deadpan as Howard did of course made it sound far-fetched and ridiculous. But Harry only nodded. "It was two thousand and eight when I was displaced."

"That's…" Peggy floundered, trying to calculate the amount of time he'd traveled while still attempting to work around her disbelief.

"…sixty-five years."

"How?"

Harry shrugged. "It was an accident. We'd only intended to go back a year at most, but I have the worst sort of luck."

"So you intended to only break the laws of-of science and time and reality just a little bit but ended up breaking them much more?"

"We messed up."

Howard shook his head, he'd taken finding out Harry had magic much better than this. "We need everything from the start."

"The start is a long way back." A small smile quirked Harry's lips. "Or forward."

Peggy glared at him for the ill-advised joke. "We have nowhere to be. Start at the beginning."

The beginning was the union of the Hallows, but with that came the power he was granted and the curse it had placed upon his world. He purposely refrained from explaining everything that came with being the master of the Hallows, specifically his relationship with Death, not because he didn't trust them but because they could barely wrap their head around the fact that he had been able to move back in time. Revealing that he spoke with the abstract entity that was Death on a regular basis would leave them catatonic he was sure.

But he made up for it by detailing everything he was able to and believed he may be capable of doing, sans the whole reaping souls bit.

It was strange talking about it, he'd held these secrets so close to his chest since arriving in New York. Finally speaking such long held secrets was uncomfortable but there was also something cleansing about it, like he was finally unburdening a great weight that had sat constantly on his shoulders.

"She'd practiced the act of the ritual so many times," he said, speaking of that night in the manor, his last with one of his two best friends, "she knew what she was doing, but something still went wrong. Maybe in her haste she said the wrong word or drew the wrong rune, maybe because the time wasn't right, or because the ritual had been prepared for two to be sent back rather than just the one that was. I don't know. But whatever happened it landed me here, in this time, with you.

"There's nothing I can really do to prove what I've said," Harry continued when it seemed Howard and Peggy were too deep in thought to say anything. "It's not as easy as whipping out my wand and casting a few spells. All you really have is my word."

"We know you're not lying," Peggy said affectionately exasperated. "There'd be no reason to lie when doing so would only prolong us finding a way back for you."

"Not to mention, the idea is already so out there no one would choose to lie about it," Howard added.

"But I'm afraid I'm even more out of my league than I'd thought beforehand. Time travel isn't exactly something I'm well versed in. Could we see the ritual you used to go back?"

Harry shook his head. "That was one of the first things I tried to find when I began looking for a way home. But it's nowhere I've looked, maybe it hasn't been published yet. I can write out all that I remember from the ritual, but it's not much."

"No," Howard said, "Erskine was always better at working your magic into his science."

"You were relying on his serum to help you get home," Peggy recalled. "And now Howard is working at another method to amplify your magic, but how will having more power do you any good if you still have no idea how to put it to use?"

"It's not the magic I was born with that I want to amplify, but the Hallows. I did what little research I could on them and it's been hinted that they can manipulate the time stream, or rather my place in it. All I need do now is gain access to the power from the Hallows."

"So really all we need do is find some way to amplify your magic and you'll do the rest."

"Essentially."

Howard nodded. "Give me a few days and I'll have something for you."

Harry frowned dubiously. "Just like that? You'll have a solution."

"I've already been working on it, the reading from the EEG and the list of magics you and yours are capable of was a much bigger help than I'd thought. If I don't figure it out entirely I'll at least be on my way to. Tonight I'll work on the guns, tomorrow, your magic."

"It seems like you've got your work cut out for you then," Peggy said, she'd already begun to rise from her seat, sensing that the conversation was coming to a close. "Unless there's something else you need from us, we'll leave you to it." She held her arm out to Harry, a silent request to walk with her back to her desk. "Try not to kill yourself while no one's here to keep an eye on you."

"I've yet to make a promise I could keep, I won't start now." Howard's dark gaze settled on Harry for a moment. "Take tomorrow off, I'll have this figured out the day after."

Harry tilted his head in a nod of acknowledgment. "See you then."

"Well," Peggy sighed when they were in the lift on their way back up to her workspace, "that was rather enlightening. And productive."

"I'm sorry I had to keep that from you," Harry said, a touch sheepishly, but Peggy waved the apology away.

"Don't be. If I were in your place, I would have to. Just don't make a habit of it."

Harry could only laugh and nod in acknowledgment. "Yes, ma'am."

"Good boy." The lift came to a slightly juddering halt. "This is me. Go straight home and get some rest, I daresay these next few days will be rather eventful."

"What was it Howard said?" Harry said with a teasing quirk of his lips. "I've yet to make a promise I could keep…."

Peggy rolled her eyes. "He has the worst influence on you. But you'll do as I say."

"Of course."

Satisfied with the half promise, Peggy stepped from the lift at that same moment Rogers and a second man with an easy smile and a head of dark hair approached. Peggy murmured a quick greeting to Rogers and his companion before moving on while the two men joined Harry on the lift.

"Agent Potter," Rogers greeted with a duck of his head, "headed up?"

"Yes, I'd like to get out of here before Agent Carter finds another task to keep me 'occupied.'"

"It's a hard thing telling her no."

Harry smothered his smile at the clear affection in Rogers' tone. "It gets easier. But never easy."

"I'm not looking forward to the day she and Buck meet proper," Roger's nodded to the dark-haired man at his side. "They'd get on too well bossing me around."

"From what I hear it's a task getting you to follow orders," Harry noted with a small laugh. "Maybe you need the two of them teaming up against you."

"It'd save me a couple gray hairs," Roger's companion said with a sage nod, however the super soldier eyed his head full of flawless dark hair dubiously.

"You're as worried about your looks as the skirts you used to chase," he muttered. But then he straightened and flashed Harry a guilty look. "Oh, I forgot to introduce the two of you. This is Bucky…Seargent Barnes, I mean, my best pal. Buck, this is Agent Harry Potter, he was Doctor Erskine's ward and student."

Harry offered the man a smile and his hand. He'd heard plenty about Seargent Barnes, the one Rogers had run off on his suicide mission to rescue. He'd seen the man in passing when he'd first arrived to camp, beaten and battered and fresh from HYDRA's clutches, but he looked to be a whole new man after a few good night's sleep and some proper clothing.

"Call me Bucky," he said with a charming smile.

"Good to meet you, Bucky. Are you two headed into a briefing with Phillips?" Harry asked as the lift began shuddering to a halt.

"Just left it as a matter of fact," Barnes said. "We were thinking about grabbing a drink now that our day's through."

"You're welcome to join us if you'd like," Rogers offered.

Harry immediately shook his head. "Oh, I'm not much of a drinker."

"You're friends with, Stark."

"He drinks enough for the both of us," Harry laughed as he stepped out of the lift. "And then some."

"How about dinner then?" Harry felt his brow furrow in confusion at the offer from Barnes, he'd only just met the man but he seemed almost eager to speak with Harry. "I heard all about what you did with Erskine," he explained as if sensing Harry's confusion. "I'd like to get to know the man tasked with keeping Stevie alive, especially when I know from firsthand experience that it's no easy job."

"Not to mention we could really use a native to show us around a bit," Rogers tacked on.

Harry was certainly not the one for that particular task, London was sure to have changed a great deal in the sixty year difference between his times, but he was finding it hard to say no when faced with these two earnest men and he had nowhere else to be anyway. "I can't say I'll be much help showing you around," he finally conceded, "but I suppose a quick bite wouldn't hurt."

There was a vendor at the end of the block who boasted sandwiches made to order with bread baked fresh every morning. Just the sight of it sent a jolt of grief filled nostalgia through Harry but both Rogers and Barnes were taken with the idea of having their meals in hand and taking advantage of their small bit of freedom to roam about a bit.

"I'm buying," Rogers insisted when they stopped off at the cart, "but I don't know a thing about these British pounds so I'll at least need help with that."

Harry rolled his eyes in Rogers' direction, but didn't bother putting up a fight, he'd heard enough stories (read: rants) from Peggy to know that the man was just as, if not more, stubborn than he was. He simply helped the man count out the right amount of currency for the ridiculous number of sandwiches he'd collected and held his tongue.

The city wasn't all that great for a scenic walk considering the recent onslaught of bombings, so Harry steered them away from the storefronts and residential areas that had been hit the hardest and over to the rivers and docks. Soon enough, he found a familiar sight in the London Port.

He took a contemplative bite of his sandwich (corned beef, he didn't think he'd ever be able to eat a cold cut again without feeling some modicum of sadness) as he watched the bustle of crew and passengers scurry about the port and its many ships.

"I snuck aboard a ship here," he said, struck suddenly with the mood to share. "It's how I got to the States."

Rogers looked surprised by the admission while Barnes was merely interested. "Erskine never mentioned…."

"He probably didn't mention a lot," Harry shrugged, "he was good at keeping secrets. But this is where it started, the ship was called the Orion if I remember right, I'd never been on one before and that was an awful first experience. Unfortunately there was even less for me in the States than there was here."

"He did mention that," Rogers said sheepishly.

"Yeah, well he was always a sucker for a good rags to riches story," Harry smiled fondly. "I slept in alleys and ate scraps for months before we found each other."

"And he took you in, taught you, even offered you the serum." This seemed to come as a surprise to Barnes who looked between Rogers and Harry with an inquisitive frown. "He didn't tell me why you didn't take it."

"I'm not a fighter," Harry said simply. "Not that kind. Not anymore. My talents could be used elsewhere, I wanted him to give it to someone who deserved it, who would put it to good use."

A deprecating frown turned down Rogers' lips. "And all you got was me."

Barnes bristled and Harry snorted. "You're more stubborn than a bull," he said, "and probably the most righteous person I've ever known, myself included…but you're not all bad."

"If that's not a ringing endorsement, I don't know what is," Barnes said, an enormous grin replacing the ire he'd been directing toward Rogers.

A matching if not slightly less boisterous grin settled upon Rogers' face as he dipped his head in that clumsy little nod he did. "Thank you."

Harry could do nothing but smile back. They'd gotten off to a rocky start that was certain, but maybe someday, one day, he could accept that the man was more than the cocksure asthmatic starting fights he'd never be able to win or the reckless super soldier wasting the gift he'd been given. Maybe he might start seeing him as someone capable of bearing the mantle he'd been given, someone worthy.