Those easy hours after the procedure, the ones spent causing reckless explosions for the fun of it and restocking Harry's energy with the biscuits Peggy left behind, made them complacent. Howard kept an eye on Harry in the days following of course; every hour on the dot he would ask for a status report from Harry, he'd measure the growth in his magic, any changes that might be marked even long after the drugs had worn off. And every hour on the dot he would declare Harry healthy, changing still but he and his magic were stable.
The problem was Howard was muggle and mortal. He was a genius, no denying that, but there were some things he didn't and couldn't understand about this power simply because he had no experience in it outside of the single test subject he had found in Harry. The magic they'd meddled with was quiet in the days following the procedure, complacent, and so it fooled them all into believing it was tame.
Until the moment it proved that it wasn't.
It began with the return of Rogers and his team. They'd been in Slovakia, storming a HYDRA base in some mountain range Harry vaguely recalled Peggy naming when he was freshly through with the procedure. The mission had been a test to see how well the unit worked together and they proved without a shadow of a doubt that they worked well.
It hadn't been a very large base, housing a dozen agents at most, half of which had taken the route of cyanide capsules hidden in teeth before they could be apprehended, but the rest were taken into the team's custody and all of their work was rounded up and brought back to the SSR. A few more of the energy guns were brought in for Harry and Howard, a welcomed gift as Howard had broken down all of the others in his quest to understand what made them tick.
"The shields are just about done and ready to be handed off for field testing." Howard said even as he began unpacking the bag stuffed haphazardly with a whole array of HYDRA's energy weapons. "But it wouldn't hurt to give the ones we've got one more test here in a controlled environment."
Harry couldn't find any reason to object, there hadn't been much for him to do the past few days save for sit around and endure Howard's endless questions. But he'd stuck around, suffering his boredom in not so silence, so Howard could keep an eye on him.
"What do we have to work with?" Eagerly he bounced over to Howard's side to take in the assortment of weapons.
The pack must have belonged to one of the HYDRA agents as, along with the weapons stuffed into it, there were a few personal effects stored within it as well; a pair of spare socks, a compass, some laces, and other oddments to that effect.
"Doesn't look like much," Howard said. "The standard rifles for the most part, a few grenades, a normal knife." His hand found the bottom of the bag and he paused, Harry caught confusion and, oddly enough, recognition cross his features, but then he withdrew the only remaining item from the bag and he understood.
It was a wand.
A real wand. Harry didn't even have to touch it to feel the innate magic radiating from its core.
"Is this what I think it is?"
Harry could only nod even as his mind scrambled to form a practical explanation for the wand's presence. It being a lucky find was the most obvious one, a souvenir picked from the corpse of one of HYDRA's many victims. And yet his mind kept falling back to a wilder, much less likely rationale for no other reason than it just felt right: the pack from which the wand had come belonged to a wizard. A wizard was working with HYDRA.
"Where are the prisoners being kept?"
Howard startled at the sudden question, as lost in his thoughts as Harry had been until just a moment ago. "The interrogation rooms, Phillips wanted to ask them a few things before they were sent off to a camp. Do you think…"
"We need to find Peggy. Or Phillips. Or both."
They were together, the two agents, in Phillips' office no doubt going over the mission debrief and making arrangements for their prisoners.
Harry rapped sharply on the open door, then marched right in, Howard close behind and the pack containing the wand clutched tight in his fist. "Do we know who this belongs to?"
"Glad to see your picking up Stark's impressive manners," Phillips drawled sarcastically, not even bothering to look away from the report in his hand and to the bag in question.
Peggy was another matter though. Harry must have looked as off as he felt as a frown of concern was already beginning to wrinkle her forehead. "Has something happened?"
"Not yet. Do you know who this bag belonged to?"
His sharp tone finally drew Phillips' attention, but it was again Peggy who responded. "One of the HYDRA agents Captain Rogers took in I believe. I wasn't there to see though. Tell me what's wrong."
"We found this inside of it."
Peggy, and Phillips to a lesser degree, had seen his wand enough to recognize one on sight, even if the one he held aloft was noticeably darker and longer than the one he kept tucked up his shirtsleeve.
"Could it have been stolen?"
Harry shook his head at Peggy's question. "It was hidden in a false bottom of the bag, it belongs to him."
"Let me see."
He obligingly handed the bag over and watched as Peggy searched through each compartment and pouch, coming up empty in every one, just as he and Howard had.
"Captain Rogers would know who this belonged to," she finally concluded.
"Then have someone go and get him." Phillips said only to immediately call for the young woman working at the desk just outside of his office with orders to find Rogers and bring him to them immediately.
But the man had left already, along with his Sergeant and almost the rest of his team. A Gabe Jones was still in the facility though, resting in the infirmary with a strained ankle, but he was quick to leave his bed and the boredom of the medical wing when the urgency of the situation was relayed to him.
"Dugan grabbed it off the back of one of the agents we took in," he confirmed the moment he saw the bag. "Tall guy, real skinny with dark hair cropped short and a mole just beneath his left eye.
The one matching his description had been set up alone in the third of six interrogation rooms, he hadn't spoken a word since arriving, the same as all of his other colleagues.
"Let me talk to him," Harry all but demanded.
Phillips laughed right in his face. "And why would I do that?"
"Because he's one of mine. A wizard working with HYDRA, we have to understand why, if someone ordered him and others there or if he's working alone."
"I have real agents for that. Men and women trained and cleared for interrogation. You are not."
"No SSR agents but the ones in this room have been cleared to know about the wizarding world."
Phillips raised a sardonic eyebrow. "It's a good thing Agent Carter has the proper training and clearance to carry out an interrogation."
"He won't tell her a thing," Harry said certainly.
"Why do think that?" Peggy finally spoke up.
"Because not everyone in my world is as forthcoming with our secrets as I am. He won't say a word about magic." Harry chanced a quick glance at the glass that allowed them a perfect view of the wizard but still kept them hidden from his sight. "And just looking at him I can tell that he's the sort who wouldn't speak with you even if he was allowed. Too much of the wizarding world is home to some very narrowminded men, nothing is more beneath those men than a muggle."
Peggy nodded, she knew of the war with Voldemort and the disdain he and those like him had for those without magic. "Let Harry talk to him," she told Phillips. "He's best equipped for this job."
"He's not qualified."
"He's most qualified out of all of us."
Phillips looked between Peggy and Harry and an unusually silent Howard, then snorted ruefully and waved his hand in clear permission. "I know when I'm beat. But if this goes bad the blame falls on you, Agent Carter."
"Understood."
"Finding out if he even is a wizard and what affiliations he has with any others is the most important thing to get out of him." Phillips was speaking directly to Harry now. "But if you could get any of HYDRA's plans out of him while you're doing it, that would be just fine."
"I'll keep that in mind."
"Good. Now get in there."
The room was tiny, barely ten paces from end to end and only just large enough to fit two uncomfortable looking chairs and nothing else. The man who might be a wizard was in one of the two chairs, each wrist bound securely to the metal arms of the furniture. He kept his eyes cast down when Harry entered, a move that might be viewed as submissive by some but just looked bored to Harry.
The silence lingered while Harry took the time to get settled into his own seat (it was just as uncomfortable as it looked), and lingered for a while longer as surveyed his interrogee.
He wasn't all that fine looking of a fellow with his smooshed up nose and thin lips naturally curled in a scowl, the unnaturally gray pallor of his face and the crooked way he sat in his seat wasn't doing him many favors either. The man seemed dedicated in his cause to pretend Harry didn't exist, right up to the moment he pulled out the wand.
"This yours?"
Steel gray eyes flitted from the knobby length of the wand to Harry's impassive face once, then twice, before settling back onto his lap.
"Is that a no?" Harry tilted his head curiously. "It sounded like it might be a no. All right then…"
The wood of the wand made in ominous groan as Harry gently began to fold it into itself. The shoulders of the man across from him stiffened in a move that was only noticed because Harry had been looking for it. He ceased his attempts at breaking the wand in two the moment he saw it.
"You're a wizard." The prisoner's words were thick with an accent of Eastern Europe and spat with all of the reluctance of one who knew he'd been outsmarted.
Harry gave a noncommittal hum as he allowed the wand to fall safely back into his lap. "Why are you working with the muggles?"
"Why are you?"
"They're a means to an end," Harry shrugged. "I'm helping them so that they will help me."
The wand in his hand twisted between his fingers, there wasn't any intent to cast behind his actions but the wood still hummed happily in his grasp.
Wary gray eyes met unflustered green for the first time since the start of the conversation. "Who are you?"
Harry offered a bland smile. "Oh no," he said, "I've already answered one of your questions. It's only fair you answer one of mine. I'll even be kind and give you an easy one to start. What is your name?"
There was no answer from the man, he seemed to have clammed up without reason.
"Have you forgotten how to talk all of a sudden?" Harry goaded.
When that second question went unanswered, Harry reached across the small bit of space between them and placed his hand on one of the man's cuffed wrists.
"Please, brother," he said, layering as much sincerity into his words as he could manage, "none of us have want to hurt you, but your silence will not be stood for much longer. Can you give me your name at least? Just your name and I'll give you mine. A trade."
The man's eyes fixated to the point where Harry's skin met his own, the hairs on the back of that arm had stood on end.
"I am Adalgar."
"Adalgar." Harry carefully tested out the sound before offering another, more sincere smile. "A pleasure. I'm Harry. What did you want from the muggles?"
And once again there was silence.
"Adalgar," he repeated with a bit more steel in his tone. "What did you want from the muggles?"
In the few seconds Harry was waiting for an answer, his attention was redirected once again to the point of contact between him and Adalgar. He was struck with the sudden realization that this was the first physical contact he'd had with another magic user in almost a year, once the thought took hold he found himself hyperaware of the touch between them. If he sat still enough he could feel the man's magic, a faint hum just beneath the surface of his skin. His own magic let out what almost felt like a contented purr at the contact.
As if acting on commands other than his own, Harry's hand wrapped firmly around Adalgar's wrist, seeking out every instance of magic that it could. But not much was to be found there so he sought it out, searched higher until just the tips of his fingers came to rest at the center of his chest, only millimeters to the right of his heart.
"What are you doing?"
"You haven't answered my question yet," Harry reprimanded. "We trade, remember?" There was a point just beneath his finger where magic or energy or something was gathering, attracting much of Harry's focus as it did.
"The muggles, Adalgar," he prompted, when the silence dragged on for too long. "What do you want from them?"
Adalgar squirmed uncomfortably in his seat, exhaling shakily as he finally responded. "Recon. I was sent to find their energy source."
"The stone?"
"Yes."
"Who sent you?"
Adalgar shook his head. "We trade, remember?"
"I did say that, didn't I?" Harry crooked his finger and felt a corresponding tug from something inside of Adalgar.
The other wizard hissed in discomfort, cringing back in his seat in an attempt to escape Harry's touch. "What are you doing?"
"I don't know."
He bent his finger again. Then he drew away, but he was caught on something, a curling strand of iridescent light that unraveled from Adalgar's chest the further away he pulled.
"Stop."
"Who are you working for?"
"Please, stop."
"I just need a name, Adalgar."
"He will kill me."
Harry's smile this time was a gentle thing that held just an edge of mockery. "No. He won't."
"Grindelwald."
Somewhere in the back of is mind, the name registered as one that meant only the worst of news for him. Harry had done so well avoiding Voldemort, the last thing he wanted to do was tangle with the dark lord of this era. But another part of him, the part entranced by the lustrous thread coiling from within Adalgar and around his finger didn't have the slightest care for the name or what trouble it could mean for him.
"What does he want the stone for?"
Instead of an answer this time, he received a broken sob.
"Adalgar? What does he intend to do with the stone once he has it?"
"Please, I do not know," Adalgar's wail was one full of pain, but from what Harry didn't know, he was barely touching him. "He wants to defeat the man…the professor."
"Dumbledore." A harsh tug and enough of that silvery thread unraveled to fill the palm of his hand. It was weightless, barely registering as anything in Harry's hand.
"Prosím, nič viac." Adalgar was trembling violently in his seat, tears streaked down his cheeks but they remained completely unnoticed by Harry. "Have mercy."
The door swung open and hit the wall with a concussive banging. Harry jolted in his seat, jerked suddenly from the trance he had fallen into, his gaze swung upward to meet Peggy's eyes, wide and maybe just a bit fearful.
"Harry?"
He blinked rapidly, then clarity came crashing down on him and he snatched his hand away, the strand of light curled its way back into Adalgar who fell silent the moment he was released. Harry fell from his chair and stumbled as far from the suddenly prone man as the tiny room would allow.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't know what I...I don't know that was."
"Is he dead?" Peggy's usually steel laced tone wavered just the slightest.
Harry shook his head and just barely refrained from turning his back on the whole, awful scene. He watched terrified as Peggy touched two fingers to the base of his throat and waited near half a minute before wilting in relief.
"He's alive. Only unconscious." She turned to Harry then, no judgment in her gaze and the fear gone now that he'd found control again, but there was still something deeply unsettling in the way she looked at him. " What happened?"
"I don't know."
"You were doing something."
"And I don't know what it was."
Harry's voice rose and broke with distress, he didn't miss the way Peggy took a half step away from him at the outburst.
"We need better than that." She moved forward, and this time there wasn't a moment of hesitation when she took hold of his hand. "Focus."
Harry sucked in a breath that audibly trembled. "I just…I just need a moment. To collect myself."
A few wrong questions and he would be falling into a full blown, breakdown, and knowing what she did about the unusual and often violent ways his magic reacted to stress, Peggy wasn't at all inclined to let it get that far. "That's fine, darling. The conference room down the hall, go there, take as much time as you need. We'll get him sorted out in medical and then we'll take care of this, yes?"
"Yes." Harry tightened his grip on her hand for only half a moment, seeking out the comfort she was so readily offering. Then he stepped away and out of the room, Howard and Phillips were waiting just outside the door, but they said nothing to him and he didn't even look their way as he rushed to lock himself in the conference room.
Death had once told him that when he fell into his moods of overwhelming fear and anxiety while pondering the Heart or really anything else to do with it and the entity they once belonged to, it was like a beacon, a cry into the void for him. Well if that were true he must be screaming, shouting, wailing for Death now. Only this time it was intentional.
He was still too shaken to be able to muster a smile when the entity arrived, but he felt a marked sense of relief all the same. Whatever had happened in that room was linked to the Heart, Death would have answers.
"Your new method is better than the sticks and the flowers at the least, but I would appreciate a less…deafening call for my company the next time you might have need for me."
"Maybe you can teach me that trick." Harry tucked his hands in the crook beneath each arm, more in an attempt to hide the way they still shook than for the confident pose it might look to some. "But later. I need help."
"You always do. You're an insufferable, helpless little quark."
"I think I almost killed someone."
That earned him a sarcastic little smirk. "And why would I, Death, find any issue with that?"
"Because I didn't realize I was even doing it until it was almost too late. There was just this light and I felt so powerful but I had no control. It was like all that there was was the consuming need to have it, whatever it was."
"The light?"
"Yes. It was coming out of him, Adalgar." Harry rapped sharply on his own chest in a rough approximation where he had been connected to the other wizard. "Here."
"Oh, quark." Death laughed and it did nothing to comfort him. "You were reaping his soul."
"What?" The word was barely a whisper, pushed with enormous effort past trembling lips.
"You can do all that I can. I reap souls, it's perhaps the thing I'm most well known for, and so you can too. How is he? The man whose soul you tried to take?"
"I don't know…he was unconscious when I left."
"Yes, well the process when done before their time is very painful. Like extracting one's organs through their nostrils with a rusted hook."
Harry stomach rolled, a quick hand clasped over his mouth saw him heaving violently but not expelling his lunch all over the floor.
"This is because of what we did," he whispered once the heaving had passed and he had some form of control again. "Isn't it?"
"I could only presume. You showed no propensity for the ability before whatever little experiment you conducted on yourself came to pass."
"This is what I was afraid of."
"Being granted the power of a primordial being?"
"Not having control," Harry snapped and felt bad for it almost immediately after, even if Death remained as unphased as ever. "I could have killed him."
"Lucky then, that you didn't."
"Your words of comfort are doing wonders for my stress levels, thanks."
"Anything for you, quark." Sarcasm dripped from every syllable and Harry couldn't help but laugh humorlessly at Death's ability to just not care even when it felt like his world had, once again, been shifted on its axis.
He sank into the chair at the head of the table and folded his form in half until his forehead was resting against his knees. "I never wanted this."
"But it's yours anyway." The touch Death placed on the back of his neck was freezing and wholly unexpected. "You're fighting it. Stop. You don't want this power, this mantle, I understand, but it will not be ignored. If you do not use it and embrace it, it will find its own way."
"And if I hurt someone trying to wield this power?"
"Then comfort yourself with the knowledge that one lost life is nothing compared to the hundreds more that would be taken if you do not learn to control yourself."
And then he was gone. And Harry could do nothing but contemplate the harsh truth of Death's words.
Peggy returned sometime later- he'd stopped keeping track of how long he was in the room the moment Death disappeared- and Howard and Phillips were right behind her.
"Ready for your debrief, agent?"
"No." But he stepped to the side anyway and watched them file into the room and to their seats before reluctantly joining them at the table.
"So, explain to us what the hell happened in there." Harry could almost appreciate how little time Phillips wasted getting straight to the point, it would certainly make this entire, painful process go a little quicker.
"I lost control."
"No shit. How?"
Harry shifted restlessly in his seat, then glanced to first Peggy then Howard. "It's because of what we did."
Neither seemed surprised but Phillips was understandably lost. "What did you do?"
"We've been helping him try to access more of his magic," Howard stepped in to explain for Harry. "Just as Erskine promised. We made a breakthrough only a few days ago and have been keeping an eye out for side effects since." He turned back to Harry. "This is one of them?"
He shook his head. "Not a side effect. This is it working. I wasn't prepared for the reaction my magic would have when it came in contact with another's, it was overwhelming and I lost control."
"What were you doing to him though? He was screaming, but you were barely even touching him."
Harry hesitated, all the time he'd had in this room alone and he hadn't considered a proper cover story. He couldn't tell them he'd been reaping the man's soul, but he had to tell them something. "It's um…it's not something I even understand. My magic felt threatened by his so it tried to neutralize the threat. Snuff it out. I didn't even realize it was happening until Peggy stepped in."
Phillips didn't seem at all enthused by the response, and if he was being honest Harry couldn't really blame him. He wouldn't be at all happy to hear he had a nineteen year old wizard with only the most tenuous control of his power taking refuge in his agency either. "Is this something we should expect from you often?"
"No," Harry said immediately. "None of you have any power my magic might view as a threat, and I know what happened now, I won't be caught off guard again."
"And we'll be keeping a closer eye on him as well," Peggy input.
Phillips still didn't seem entirely pleased, but his scowl of disapproval had passed at the very least. "It'd be in your best interest that you do. Another incident like this and we might have the wrong people trying to look into our affairs." Once he received confirmation from the other three in the room, he gave a satisfied nod and leaned back in seat, relaxing infinitesimally before moving onto the next order of business. "It sounded like he was giving you names before it went tits up. What were you able to gather from what he told you?"
"Well he's definitely a wizard," Harry sighed. "And he's not working alone. He's answering to a man named Grindelwald, he's a dark wizard. He wants the artifact, the energy source of all those HYDRA weapons. It's powerful and it's magic in its own form, I could see the appeal of possessing it, especially for a man like Grindelwald."
"What would he do with it if he had it?"
"That's harder to say. He'd wreak havoc on the wizarding world, that much is certain, but anything outside of that…"
Phillips leaned forward in his seat, his entire attention focused on Harry. "Is he a danger to us?"
"Him particularly? No. But wizards in general..." Harry hesitated. "Where there's one there's more. You won't find them fighting on the frontlines, they'll be in the HYDRA bases trying to track down the energy source."
"So it's Rogers and his men who might find themselves in danger of them," Peggy surmised.
Harry nodded. "They're the ones most likely to run into them. When confronted the wizards might run, but if they deem them enough of a threat, some will try to fight."
"With magic, you mean?" Phillips sighed.
"Yes."
"Is there any way they could defend themselves against it?" Howard asked.
"The shields will be of some use. We've tested my magic against them, we know they can deflect certain curses."
"But not all."
"And they'd be going in blind," Peggy added. "They don't know what to look out for. What they're defending themselves from."
Harry could hear the request she was avoiding putting into words. "You think I should tell them?"
"I think it might be the difference between life and death for them."
And maybe that was true, but a selfish part of him didn't care. He wasn't here to save lives, Rogers and his men would be going up against Grindelwald's spies even if he weren't in this time and they surely didn't have a wizard to tell them what to look out for then. His focus should be getting home and not mucking up the timeline anymore than he might already have.
But he was Harry fucking Potter and he had morals, he couldn't let these men die if he had the means to prevent it.
"If it's any comfort, they already have some experience in the arcane," Peggy said as if she could scent his wavering resolve. "We've given them a full debrief on the possible origin of the artifact that's powering HYDRA's weapons. They know the consequences of speaking any of the SSR's secrets."
"And you can have them take the same vows we did," Howard added. "Sign in their blood and everything."
"I'm sure that would go over about as well as it did with you lot," Harry snorted.
"We signed them didn't we?"
They had.
"When?"
"As soon as we can get them back in the building," Phillips said. "Tomorrow? 0600."
"0800," Harry countered. "It's been a long day."
Harry knew only two of Rogers' men; Barnes who he was at least somewhat familiar with and Gabe Jones, the soldier who had identified Adalgar as the pack's owner the day before. The rest were strangers to him and while they all, at first glance, seemed nice enough they wouldn't exactly have been the sort of people he'd have felt comfortable sharing this secret with if it had been any other scenario.
They were already assembled in the same conference room he'd held the debrief in the previous night, wide awake despite how early it still felt for Harry and curious about the purpose of the meeting. This probably wasn't the usual place they gathered to be briefed for missions, deep in the bowels of the facility, away from curious agents and listening ears.
All eyes fell on Harry the moment he entered the room, the last to arrive, and while the members of the team he hadn't yet become acquainted with appeared confused by his presence, Rogers and Barnes smiled and rose to greet him.
"Agent Potter," Rogers' enormous hand engulfed Harry's own when he reached out to shake it. "Curious to see you here."
"Yeah," Harry winced, "it's sort of my fault you all are here to begin with."
"We weren't really told what to expect from this meeting," Barnes hand was just as large but a touch less formal when he added a quick pat to Harry's shoulder. "Want to fill us in?"
"Or you could wait long enough to be seated, Seargent Barnes," Peggy cut in. "After which we could begin debriefing you all and you'll know exactly what you've been called for." She was smiling as she spoke though, taking away any bite the reprimand might carry.
"Good morning, Peg."
Her smile widened and she turned her focus on Harry, a soft hand reached out to smooth over his cheek before resting just beneath his chin to tilt his head up enough for them to make eye contact. "Good morning, darling. How did you sleep?"
"Like shit."
"So crass," Peggy laughed, not the slightest bit perturbed.
"Sorry," Harry murmured. "Had a lot on my mind."
"Well let's get this over with quickly then so we can't get you some more rest. No lab today, straight home after this."
"Oh come on, Peggy!" Howard complained from his seat at the table. "You can't keep stealing my assistant."
"I'm not stealing him. I'm giving him a day off, a much-needed day off. Now come on, sit so we can start."
He was guided to the seat opposite the only exit to the room, bracketed by Peggy on one side and Rogers and Barnes on the other. Phillips was in the same seat he'd claimed the day before, at the head of the table and needed only a quick clear of his throat to silence the room. But before he could even speak, Peggy was interjecting.
"Introductions first." When it seemed like Phillips might protest, she added, "He needs to know who he's being expected to trust."
"Go on then," the Colonel grunted and Harry had to hide his smile at the fact that even Phillips caved so easily to Peggy's whim.
"Gentlemen," she said, addressing the room at large, "we're being joined today by Agent Harry Potter, he works with Stark developing the weapons and defenses you use to fight HYDRA. Harry, meet our anti-HYDRA combat unit; you're already familiar with Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes, and you briefly met Gabe Jones yesterday evening. Across from you is Timothy Dugan."
The burly ginger being introduced tipped his hat, a bowler hat of all things, in greeting. "Only Agent Carter knows me by Timothy, most call me Dum Dum."
"Dum Dum is a child's name," Peggy snorted. "Beside him you'll find Jim Morita, to his left is James Falsworth, and across from Sergeant Barnes is Jacques Dernier."
"Pleasure," Harry smiled awkwardly and dipped his head in a nod.
"Agent Potter is here to brief you on a a worrying addition we've recently discovered to HYDRA's ranks, a sort of people you've not ever encountered before. They work very closely with HYDRA and so we think it safe to assume your unit is most at risk of encountering them during operations. If you're not equipped with the proper knowledge in who they are and how best to defend yourselves against them then those encounters could very well lead to your deaths."
"Okay," Barnes leaned forward in his seat, "I'm interested."
"I'm sure it goes without saying that everything that is about to be disclosed to you is highly classified. If we have any reason to believe you have spoken of this with anyone not in this room, you will be court martialed and prosecuted to the fullest extent."
It had been Harry's decision to forgoe the vows; not because he had an overwhelming trust in Rogers and his men (even if he'd at least come to accept the super soldier wasn't completely awful), but rather because he trusted Peggy and, to an extent Phillips, and their ability to ensure these men's silence without him having to put in the work of crafting seven different vows and taking the time to convince each man to actually break skin and sign with their blood.
The combat unit were soldiers first and foremost, not spies or politicians, they knew how to take their orders and keep their silence. So he would tell them and not worry about this coming back to bite him in the arse.
And as if he could hear Harry's unspoken resolve and wished to further prove he was making the right choice, Rogers spoke up. "You know we won't say a word, we understand the importance of discretion."
Peggy nodded in thanks. "You've proven that you do. But assurances needed to be made all the same."
"Consider them made."
"It's time then, I suppose, to begin. Harry?"
The Boy Who Lived. The Boy Who Lied. The Man Who Conquered. Harry was used to being thrust in the spotlight, the unwilling center of attention, but it was still never easy. Especially when the eyes on him were so few and so personal. But the sooner he started the sooner it would be over, so he breathed out heavy and spoke.
They didn't doubt his story once. Even before the demonstrations and the endless questions, when Harry was only telling them of the sub-species of humans who could defy laws of physics and bend reality to their will, the group of soldiers showed no sign of disbelief.
There was confusion. As to the wizarding world felt the need to hide so many for so long.
There was wonder. Barnes had been thrilled when Harry apparated him across the room and even more impressed when he vanished his vomit.
There was even a bit of exasperation. Because of course HYDRA would find a way to get their hands on a few of these wizards.
But there was no doubt. No accusations of tricks or lies. Not even Erskine had been so quick to believe him, and yet these men listened to what he had to say and believed him. After so many times being called a liar, it was a nice feeling to be so easily trusted.
"What's your favorite bit of magic?" It was Barnes who asked, he above all the others seemed most taken with the entire idea of magic and the little of the wizarding world Harry had explained.
"My favorite bit?" Harry, who had noticeably relaxed the more he spoke, took a second to ponder the question. "I think the Patronus would have to be it. It's really meant to be a defensive spell but it's got a few other uses and mine is a bit…sentimental."
"What does it do?"
Figuring it would be easier to show rather than tell, Harry maneuvered his wand in the series of flicks and twists as he spoke the incantation; the stag that burst into the room drew gasps of delight from even the hard to impress Morita, who went so far as to reach out and touch the specter.
"I can feel it," he said, hand running through the silver mist, "but it's not actually here."
"A Patronus isn't fully tangible," Harry explained. "Only dementors, the dark creatures they're meant to be defending the caster against, are physically affected by a Patronus."
"Dementor?"
"Wraith like creatures that feed off your souls and leech all happiness from a room, literally. They're disgusting and terrible and I hope you never have to encounter them. If I recall correctly using dementors among his forces was never Grindelwald's thing." Only Voldemort's. "But if you do come across one, don't try to fight it, or shoot it, or blow it up, run."
Phillips finally took that as his cue to reenter the conversation, steering it back to its original point. "Agent Potter is capable of some incredible things, looked like something fresh out a fairy tale when he introduced me to it, but that's only because he's on our side. The wizards with HYDRA aren't going to show you pretty lights and neat tricks, they're going to be using their magic to kill you."
"We're telling you of all of this so that you can learn to defend yourself against it," Peggy added. "Some spells have only a physical effect on you, they might cut you up, knock you off your feet. Others can be deflected with the shields we've been working on to defend you against the worst of HYDRA's weapons. And others you simply have to avoid contact with altogether. We want to make sure you can tell the difference in a fight."
"How is that going to be done?" Rogers questioned.
Harry was the one to answer this time. "You're going to fight me."
"Fight you?"
"Yes, magic against whatever you have. You need to see it in action, being used against you for you to learn to defend against it."
Neither Peggy, Howard, or Phillips had been privy to this particular decision until just now, it was one Harry had made alone, after returning home the night previous to consider the days to come. Telling them which spells to look out for wouldn't be enough, showing the spells wouldn't be either, if these men were anything like him, which now that he met them he was sure they had at least a few similarities, they would learn best by actually being put in the situation and learning as they went. And if teaching them had the side effect of preparing him for his eventual fight with Voldemort, that was just an added benefit. Who cared if they were only muggles? One was a super soldier and the others members of an elite combat unit, he had to start somewhere.
Rogers seemed to find merit in the idea too. "How soon would you like to start?"
Harry glanced over to Peggy, then over to Phillips, both were good enough at their jobs to keep the surprise from their faces, while Howard was totally unconcerned. He probably assumed he'd been too deep in one of his projects to hear of the plan to use Harry as a sparring partner against Rogers and his men.
"We'll have to arrange a space out of the way of curious eyes for you to use," Peggy finally said. "There are a few places here in the lower levels I can think of, I'll take some time today to look each one over and get back to you with what I decide."
"We're going to hold off sending you boys after anymore HYDRA bases until we get you comfortable fighting against this kind of weapon," Phillips said. "We can't have any of you getting killed by a spell you didn't recognize when we've got the means to teach you right here. No one wants you out of commission for too long though, so believe we're going to make this process as quick as we possibly can."
"We appreciate it, sir," Rogers thanked with a crisp nod. "Is there anything else we need to know?"
"Not at the moment, no. If anything else comes up we'll inform you."
"And if you have any questions, feel free to ask any of us," Peggy tacked on.
There were no more questions from any of the men so Phillips allowed them to head out while Harry, Howard, Peggy, and Phillips remained behind. The moment the door clicked shut behind Jones, Peggy was rounding on Harry, a smile that only barely hid her exasperation already rounding her cheeks.
"So you're going to fight them now?"
Harry shrugged. "We need to get this done quickly if we want them back to busting HYDRA bases, this is how we do it."
"Are you sure you're up for it?"
She wasn't just asking after his stamina or even his magical endurance, they could all hear the hidden question, the unspoken reminder of yesterday's debacle. To Harry's credit he didn't get defensive, or even flinch away from the reminder, he stopped to consider the question with seriousness then nodded.
"Yes, this is different. I'm calling on the magic I've always had in a controlled, non-hostile environment. The Hallows should have no reason to react."
"Will you let any of us sit in during these sessions?"
Harry rolled his eyes. "As if I could keep any of you away."
"Of course you couldn't. It's good of you to acknowledge that." Peggy laughed. "But now I actually have to go and find that practice space. I expect your help with that."
"Just let me know when."
"Now, if you have nothing else planned."
Howard heaved a sigh, finally breaking his uncharacteristic silence. "Just the other an hour ago she claimed she wasn't stealing you. This looks like theft to me."
"It's only for a few hours and then you can have him back only if he's feeling well enough to do so. If he even looks too pale for my comfort we're going back to my original suggestion of taking the day off. Whatever you boys get into down there will have to wait."
"Uh, that would be pioneer advancements in modern technology."
"I'm sure that's what you would have us believe. If that's all, Colonel, we'll take our leave now."
Phillips nodded in short acknowledgment. "Go on. I expect an update by the end of the day."
"Of course." Both Howard and Phillips received a nod in parting, then she was gripping Harry's arm and leading him from the room. "Let's make this quick, I have real work to be doing."
She didn't need Harry, if they were being entirely honest, Peggy already knew exactly what she wanted and where to find it. He was just being brought along for the company. And to annoy Howard.
There were three potential rooms Peggy had in mind to utilize for the practice room, they only visited one before she decided she liked it best. After came filling out the proper paperwork to stake their official claim on the room and a visit to Phillips for an update and that was all. It barely took two hours and Harry was left with still way too much of his day ahead of him.
"Maybe figure out how you plan to go against Rogers and his men without killing them or yourself," Peggy suggested.
"No one is going to die," Harry huffed. "I have a few basic spells to put them up against that can give the same effect as the nastier ones just fine."
"Then I'm sure Howard would love your company."
"Are you trying to get rid of me?"
Peggy smiled sweetly. "Yes. But for your own good. I have an afternoon full of strategy meetings and paperwork, unless you want to sit in on either you should probably find something to do."
He didn't want to sit in on either. But neither did he want to lurk around in the lab with nothing to do. But then he remembered the medical wing one floor up and someone he needed to visit.
Adalgar was a prisoner, a dangerous one with magic, but the security surrounding the private room he'd been put in amounted to a single lock on the door to which only one member of the medical staff had a key to. Harry would have been outraged by the lack of caution, but then he actually laid eyes on the man.
"He's unresponsive, has been since he was brought in." The nurse heading his care was immediately forthcoming with any information Harry requested when she was told he'd been present during the event that had put him in this state. "It's still too soon to tell if he'll come out of it or not, it just depends on the level of trauma."
Having one's soul improperly extracted before its time by an untrained protégé of Death had to be pretty up there on the trauma scale.
"Is there anything physically wrong with him?"
"He's running cooler than normal and he gets bad sleep terrors every few hours. But he's healthy otherwise. Whatever's wrong with him, it's in his head."
"Yeah, but that can be just as dangerous as a bullet in the gut. More painful too."
"Maybe." The nurse didn't sound entirely convinced, but the people of this era hadn't ever been known for their progressive thinking regarding mental health. "But I've got to go on and make my rounds, will you be all right with him in here?"
"He's not any danger to me." It was the other way around really.
"I'll be back around in a half hour or so, if you leave before then make sure to lock the door behind you."
Harry didn't respond outside of a curt nod and she didn't seem to want much more than that. He watched her leave, attention already moving on to the next patient in her care, and found himself wondering over how little care seemed to be going into keeping Adalgar secured. No member of the SSR was lazy and he'd learned all too quickly that every agent and member, no matter their assigned position, was incredibly competent in all that they did. So the lax security wasn't borne from laziness or an improper understanding of the threat Adalgar could pose when awake, there was something else, something more, and the only thing he could think of was they didn't believe he would be waking.
But why would they jump to that conclusion? How had they come to it so quickly? He'd been there not even a full twenty four hours, and yes all of it had been spent unconscious but a long rest after a traumatic experience wasn't unheard of. Was it?
He scrubbed a hand through his hair, hoping somewhere in his hindbrain that if he was rough enough he might scrub the thought, and the unpleasant turn it had the potential of taking, from his head altogether.
He was just guessing anyway. He could be completely wrong, the security could be airtight and he and his untrained eye just couldn't tell. Adalgar could already be on the mend and the SSR was just giving him a nice bed in the infirmary to recover in peace.
But a part of him, a part he needed to learn to stop ignoring, wasn't feeling at all optimistic.
Merlin, he needed to sit. But there were no chairs in the room, just the small cot and its unresponsive occupant. It was low to the ground though so Harry just folded his legs beneath himself and settled on the floor just beside the cot.
The position put him just about level with Adalgar, close enough where every one of his features could be picked out in clear detail. He looked well enough, maybe a bit pale and he'd been thin even before having his soul halfway ripped out, the rings of purple bruising each eye was new but everything else looked normal, just as the nurse had said it was.
But Harry was plenty experienced with seeing men reduced to drooling vegetables when subjected to too much pain, he'd been privy to some of Voldemort's darkest moments for the better part of three years after all. And what he had done to Adalgar was beyond the Cruciatus; like having one's organs extracted through their nostrils with a rusted hook, is what Death had likened it to. It was no wonder his mind had broken.
The thought sent a wave of conflicting emotions rushing through him. Torture, accidental or not, wasn't his thing and would never be his thing, just the thought of inflicting pain to that degree on another person made his stomach turn. But…
"But you work for Grindelwald."
He almost didn't realize he'd spoken, he definitely hadn't meant to, but it was almost a relief to do so. He had a thought that was weighing heavy and it might only be relieved by speaking it aloud. So he did.
"He's not as bad as Voldemort was or will be, I don't think. But he's still killed, he's still tortured and terrorized and his followers are no better." He paused, waiting for a reaction or a response or something that never came. "You chose the wrong side and now you're suffering for it. I guess some would call that karma, justice, and maybe it is. I just wish it hadn't had to be dealt by my hand. I'm just…what I'm trying to say is I'm sorry. I wouldn't have done this to anyone, not to the man who spent years torturing me, and especially not to a stranger. No matter what he may have done in his past."
The nail of his ring finger scratched insistently and almost unconsciously at the inside of his thumb until the skin felt raw and burned red with pain. He forced himself to focus on that, that point of discomfort rather than the awful feeling of violation.
He felt guilty, of course he did, but that was so easily overshadowed by the reminder that in that moment when he was reaping Adalgar's soul Harry had had no control. His consciousness had been booted to the backseat and his magic, the Heart's magic, had taken the reins. It had been like the Imperius curse even while it hadn't: nothing had been forced, he'd wanted to do it. The need to find that spark within Adalgar and hold it in his hands had been consuming, there had been no thought outside of that single one. But where usually that thrall came from an opponent's curse, this came from within Harry, from the power he'd only just been helping to cultivate. And because of that there was no escaping it, he couldn't shake it off the way he might sometimes be able to with the Imperius. His body and his magic had no way to defend themselves against something they thought to be one of their own.
That didn't mean he was going to stop. Not even remotely. He was going to go back to Howard, allow himself to be strapped to that table again and injected with all manner of drugs until the terrors in his mind became indistinguishable from the terrors of the real world and his magic flared and attacked and expanded. Because he was too close now, the end was in sight and he would be damned if something like a little fear was going to stop him from getting back. And maybe people would get hurt, like Adalgar or maybe even worse, but that was a small price to pay. The entire wizarding world was at risk, the were thousands of witches and wizard who didn't even know they were relying on him to get this done. A few lives in exchange was negligible.
There had to be sacrifice if his world was going to survive. People were going to die; good people, innocent people, but not all of his people. And that would be worth it.
But then he looked up at Adalgar, pale and haunted even in sleep. Broken, potentially irreparably, because of what he had done, and that resolve broke.
He was off the floor before he realized he was moving, crossing the room and yanking open the door too quickly for there to be any real thought behind his movement. When he left he couldn't remember if he'd locked up behind himself, but if he hadn't who cared? Adalgar was going nowhere.
Something was burning in his throat, not nausea or tears or a scream ready to tear its way free, maybe shame? Or disgust? Or maybe it was all of that combined. Whatever it was it hurt bad as a collapsed lung and made him feel out of control. It made his breath come out short and sharp in a way that wasn't helping him feel any more composed and was drawing the eyes of the nurses and doctors already there. He left before they could stop him, ask him questions that meant well but would only make things worse.
It didn't matter that he didn't know where he was going or where he wanted to be, or that his world had narrowed to one blurred out tunnel that made navigating difficult, or that if he didn't take a full breath soon he might drop right there in the middle of the hall. It didn't matter because five, ten, fifteen paces out of the infirmary his face met an immovable object that really just turned out to be one Sergeant James Barnes' chest.
For a moment what Harry now realized was the panic attack he'd been all too quickly spiraling into stopped in its tracks as he gawked at Barnes and Barnes gawked back at him. But then the moment was over and he went back to heaving for breath that wouldn't come, then Barnes had him by the arms and was dragging, dragging until they burst through the door of the washroom and he was collapsing forward onto the tile.
A hand fell onto the back of his head, the other wrapped around his wrist and maneuvered his whole arm until his hand was pressed into the center of the chest his face had only a minute or two ago been getting very well acquainted with.
"Hey, c'mon kid, breathe for me. You're okay, just breathe with me."
Harry felt the low rumble of Barnes' words beneath the palm of his hand more than he heard it. But those first few words and the soothing lilt to each of them was just enough to draw him out of his head to listen.
"Match my breathing."
A warm hand settled over the one Harry still had pressed to Barnes' chest, pushing it close enough where he could feel each rise and fall of his breath and track the steady pulse of his heartbeat. He kept his eyes closed tight, forcing himself to focus on that alone as he struggled to do as instructed and match the steady inhale and exhale.
"Good job," Barnes murmured. "Just like that. Can you do it again?"
It was audibly shaky the next breath he drew in, but it was still large enough to inflate his lungs and chase away the lightheadedness that had been beginning to take over.
"There you go. Try for one more."
He took in each word of praise greedily and followed every gentle instruction to just keep breathing until the world no longer felt as if it were closing in on him and his lungs had stopped rebelling against his body. But the worst had not yet passed. Harry took in his first full breath, something shuddered down his spine and he crumpled. His forehead hit his knees and he screwed his eyes shut even tighter to try and hold back his stinging tears even while he gasped out a painful sob.
Barnes didn't move away or even seem surprised by the burst of emotion, he only shifted his grip from Harry's head and wrist to cradle both of his shoulders; the contact should be terrifying considering what he'd done to Adalgar just the day before through touch alone, but he only felt warm and grounded.
"I'm sorry." Harry choked the words out of his aching throat with an enormous effort. "I'm sorry."
"Hey stop that," Barnes chided. "There's no reason to be sorry, I ain't judging. Just keep breathing.
"Okay."
And for a long moment Harry focused on doing just that until the heavy knot that had been constricting his chest and turning every other word into a choked off sob had dissipated for the most part. By then Barnes had made himself comfortable on the floor right across from him and seemed to be itching with a question he wasn't able to hold in for long.
"This wasn't us, was it?"
Harry finally allowed his eyes to blink open as he swung a confused frown up at Barnes. "What?"
"You didn't look much like you wanted to tell us all about your…you know. Did it upset you, having to do that?"
"No. No, I wanted to tell you. If it meant keeping you all safe, I wanted to do it. This," he gestured at himself and the sorry picture he must make, "was something different."
"Do you want to talk about it?"
And the crazy thing was, Harry did. Unburdening himself to Peggy and Howard each time that he had was always a cathartic experience even if it made his hair stand on end the entire time he did it. It was nice not having to hold onto a secret any longer, and it was a feeling he was in sore need of at the moment. But how could he say even half of what he wanted to without sounding completely mad?
"I'm afraid." Is what he finally settled on.
Barnes cocked his head curiously. "Of what?"
"Me." Harry tapped at the center of his chest in an indication of his magic. "This. What it can do with or without my say because it's not just mine anymore. It's been altered without my consent, made into something I didn't want, something I can't control. But I need this power if I ever want to see my family again, if I want them to be safe then I need more of it even while I'm terrified of what will happen when I actually get it."
One long second dragged on in silence and Harry worried for a moment that he hadn't chosen his words quite as sanely as he'd hoped. But then:
"I kind of know exactly what that's like."
Harry squinted at the man in front of him, surprised and confused at the same time. "What?"
Barnes heaved a troubled sigh as he dragged his hand through his hair. When he spoke, his voice was pitched so low Harry, who was sitting mere inches away from him, almost had trouble hearing.
"In Azzano HYDRA would take guys to their labs, strap 'em to tables, and pump 'em full of some drug they were trying to make right. They took me back there one day, strapped me up and pumped me full and I was sure I was gonna die like all the others. Only I didn't, because of Steve; he got me off that table and whatever they did to me failed. Or I thought it did. Now I ain't so sure."
Barnes' face was guarded, maybe even a little afraid, but he spoke with an open honesty Harry couldn't bring himself to doubt.
"No one knows. What they did, that I remember, that it's working."
"What did they do?" Harry whispered.
"They made me like Steve. Only difference is he got the way he is in minutes, mine is taking weeks."
Harry felt something in the bottom of his stomach drop, whether it was fear or awe he wasn't entirely certain. "They perfected the serum?"
"Perfected might not be the right thing to call it," Barnes said with a shake of his head. "They did something right, but I'm not sure they even knew. They wouldn't have been so quick to let me get away if they did.
"Since then I can see and hear and smell and shoot and fight better than before. Everything Steve says he can do my body is trying to mimic, only slower. And it's just like you said, having what you are changed and twisted into something you never asked for is fucking terrifying and…violating. But what's even worse? Needing what those bastards did to me. Because with it I know I can keep Steve safe long enough for him to win this war."
Harry's brain struggled to wrap itself around the bomb shell that had been dropped on him. HYDRA had developed their own version of a working serum and it was enhancing Barnes even as they spoke. How had they managed it without magic? And in the seedy, underground lab Harry had heard described to him too many times. It had taken Erskine years and outside intervention to get what he needed and they'd managed with less resources and even less backing than the SSR.
If anyone else were to find out...
Harry forced himself to abandon that line of thinking. No one could or would, not from him at least. Barnes had told him this out of trust and with the desire to see him comforted, he wouldn't betray that.
"Thank you."
The smile that quirked the other man's lips was just a hint bashful as he brought his shoulders up in a shrug. "I think it helps having someone who knows what it feels like. Shared experiences and all that."
"It does," Harry agreed. "It really does. I won't tell anyone, if you want to keep it quiet for a while longer or forever, they'll hear nothing from me."
Barnes' smile morphed into something more genuine and grateful. "Thanks, kid." He fell back onto his heels, rocking back just far enough to get a proper look at Harry's face. "How do you feel? Up for walking?"
"If I have to, yes," Harry said, taking note of the way his legs, still tucked up beneath him, no longer trembled.
"You should head home, then, take the day to get your head on straight. I'll make something up with Stark."
He really shouldn't, he had work to do. But it was barely past noon and Harry was exhausted, Howard would forgive him for giving himself the rest of the day off, especially considering how light their work load was at the moment.
"I can walk the way with you, if you need some help."
Harry smiled but shook his head anyway. "I should be able to make it fine on my own. But thank you." He gripped Barnes wrist for just a second and gave it a gentle squeeze, trying his best to convey every ounce of his sincerity through his gaze alone. "Really, thank you."
"Hey," one broad hand gave his a gentle tap, "we take care of our own, that means you too. Now get on home, get some rest. I expect you to have some more color in your cheeks next I see you."
Harry laughed as he hauled himself to his feet with only a hint of uncertainty. "I don't think there's ever been a spot of color in my cheeks, no reason to start now. But before you run me out…" Harry's feet stalled before they could cross the few steps that would lead him back out into the main hall, there had been a question lingering in the back of his mind since he'd first run into Barnes, now that he was clear headed and in control again it plucked at his curiosity even louder. "What were you doing headed into the infirmary?"
And suddenly Barnes looked bashful. "I, ah, was looking for you actually. Agent Carter mentioned you'd gone up this way, I just wanted to ask you a bit more about…well, you know. I grew up reading stories about this kind of thing, I guess I wanted to know how much of it was actually true."
Harry couldn't stop the smile that inched across his face; it got tedious telling the same unhappy stories of his past, he didn't think anyone had even once asked him to speak of the wonders of his world rather than all of its horrors. "Most of it is, actually," he confessed. "I can tell you all about it, if you'd like."
Barnes grinned, delighted and not even embarrassed to show it. "Oh I would, tomorrow."
He laughed and nodded and easily agreed. "Of course. Tomorrow."
"Do you not wonder what made you all that you are? What gave you this power? This right to wield as you do."
Twelve wizards and witches, representatives of twelve of the many ministries of the European continent, stood in silence; they waited impatiently but wisely for the answer they knew would come with or without their prompting. Eight months had been spent working with this man, this muggle who had sworn to them salvation, they knew better than anyone how much he liked to talk.
And true to form he did, he talked, showing no interest in any response other than his own. "I did. Before I knew even what you were I wondered, and when I finally got the chance to understand, when your wards fell and your people, broken and beaten, finally revealed themselves to my curiosities I wondered more. It didn't take much work once the first of yours surrendered to my study for me to find what I wanted."
The baron named Strucker led them through a labyrinth of tight white corridors; the halls of his home and his workplace, where the magics and miracles he'd promised to provide were being performed even as he spoke. They'd come to collect on his promises, see the progress he'd made in all the time he'd been given, and he was only too happy to show them. Only after a bit of monologuing however.
"I've met others like you, not identical but similar. They considered themselves other than human, unique from the homo sapiens from which they descended, all because they could do what you could; bend matter, harness energy, rewrite the rules of the universe. They were lesser in some ways, only able do one rather than the multitude you're capable of. But the one that they could was with a force that outstripped the tricks you cast."
"I studied you both and found what was needed to make this possible. You two share a common history, descended from the same few altered and enhanced by a race not seen on this planet in centuries. They wanted to make your ancestors more than human, soldiers for a war they couldn't win alone, they thought they had failed and left them to die. But they didn't fail and their subjects didn't die, they evolved.
"Some remained with a single devastating ability that needed to be triggered through certain circumstances. And some were born with a latent capability of manipulating them all on a smaller scale. As they evolved they grew apart, considered themselves separate from the other; one called themselves wizards, the other inhuman. But they both thought it wise to isolate themselves from those different, lesser, than them, tucked away in their own little worlds safe in their anonymity. Until now."
"As fascinating as this," a representative no longer able to hold out as patiently as his colleagues finally spoke up, "we did come here for a history lesson."
"No," Strucker agreed, "but if you want to understand what is being done here, you need to know."
At last they came to something other than the twisting, seemingly endless corridor; a room, wide and tall equipped with technologies none of the gathered wizards, even the more progressive among them, had any hope of recognizing.
"I mentioned that your inhuman cousins needed to be triggered through certain circumstances to obtain their abilities, they need a very specific catalyst." The baron led them further into the room, to the epicenter of the controlled chaos. "While those of your race are born able to cast, no trigger necessary. However, the catalyst that unlocks the abilities of the inhuman kind does have a rather interesting effect on your own as well."
He took a moment to allow the assembled witches and wizards to take in the sight of the strange devices that would change their world. The best way to describe them would be with a word like coffins, completely transparent glass in the front, metal across their backs, upright coffins. They were identical in make and height (standing several heads taller than the tallest in the room) and connected across the less than foot of space between them by a similarly transparent piping system that would, when opened, circulate the breathing air in both capsules with little effort.
The only visible difference in the two devices was a compartment at the base of the first capsule, empty for the moment but reserved for something that would no doubt be integral to the overall process of…whatever Strucker was aiming to do.
It was an impressive sight in theory, but one none of the members of the wizarding council truly understood.
"What exactly are we looking at here?"
The smile Strucker granted his nonplussed guests was something close to amused, as if he found their confusion endearing.
"These chambers are where the transformation from man to inhuman take place. In the traditional procedure only one is needed, one similar to this chamber here." He gestured to the capsule with the yet unexplained compartment at its base. "We've made a few modifications to suit our purposes but the core idea remains the same.
"We begin with the catalyst, a crystal if you would believe it. Unfortunately the kind needed to make this work aren't ones you could dig up in just any mine, the Terrigen crystal is very rare, very hard to find; fortunately I have access to resources not many do." Strucker's words, unremarkable as they might seem at first, were taken as the warning they were meant to be. Even if the wizards could find some way to replicate the setup he had, they would be unable to get any further than that without these rare crystals he spoke of, highlighting the undeniable if not slightly bitter truth; they needed Strucker.
The man in question carried on without a hitch in his speech even as a little smile tugged at his mouth. "When exposed to very specific conditions the crystals produce a mist that triggers the evolution of the inhuman to their higher self, they are entombed within a cocoon like covering and their potential is unlocked. With wizards, there is a notable difference.
"Any of yours who have lost their magic to disease are given the ability back tenfold, but within a week they're dead, overwhelmed and burned out. At our request you provided us a dozen fully functioning wizards, eleven of those twelve died when exposed to the mist same as the others. One didn't."
Strucker inclined his head just so and two men were immediately dragged into the room, both heavily shackled and dressed in garb reminiscent of a prisoner, and shoved into a chamber each.
"You'll find him to be the one on your right."
The wizard in question appeared a mere shadow of the man he might have once been, inches away from collapse, or death as one of the aide's fit a mask over the lower half of his face before shutting him in.
"He's what I've heard you call a pureblood, it's because of that he survived. His family's history of magic dates back several centuries, their ties to their inhuman ancestry is stronger than any of the others I'd been given and so when he was exposed to the mist his reaction was much less fatal. We did as we always do, we studied him, experimented, and in doing so found a rather convenient solution."
The compartment at the base of the first chamber disengaged at Strucker's command, an aide sporting protective gear up to his elbows carried in a vessel that radiated neon light. The crystals. They fit perfectly into the space beneath the chamber and were locked within with no issue.
"The power of the crystal is too much for just any wizard, magic or no."
A dull hiss played as soundtrack to Strucker's explanation, the glass granting them sight of the crystals fogged with sudden humidity as temperature controlled rain filled the compartment.
"But our pureblood friend can take it within himself."
The mask attached to the strangely compliant wizard was attached by a thin tube to the compartment containing the crystals, where a thick, billowing mist began to curl from them. With every breath he dragged in, the mist crawled its way through the tube until it filled his mask and he was pulling it into his lungs with each inhale.
"But his magic sees it as the intrusion that it is and tries to fight it."
Within the capsule the wizard began to jerk, small uncontrollable spasms that sent arcs of raw magic dancing across his skin in violently hued sparks.
"This is usually the part where they die, too much power overloads the body and they just crumble. But whatever manipulations were done to his ancestors guard him from the same fate, and instead of killing him that influx of power is expelled."
The wizards tore the mask from his face as he heaved, choking on the viscous fog that poured from his mouth, thicker and darker than it had been when it went in.
"What is returned is different, tempered, attuned to a lesser wizard's physiology. They can intake it and what happens after is similar to the crystal's original purpose. Only bigger and better."
When the heavy, storm colored fog completely filled the capsule, the piping system connecting the two tanks slid open and the fog was vacuumed into the neighboring tank. The wizard was left slumped over the best he could in the small space while his neighbor pressed himself against the glass, struggling to break free as he suffocated on the suddenly too thick air.
Strucker watched his desperate bid to escape with a practiced sort of dispassion. "We've found that only those with the potential for magic produce the desired results, like those who've lost their magic to your disease, or your squibs, but there seems to be no shortage of those at the moment."
Through the fog and the desperate press of fists against glass, a blue-silver light was beginning to emanate, the first sign of power the man had shown since losing his magic near half a year ago. Strucker raised a clenched fist and immediately a pale gas was flooding the capsule rendering the man unconscious in a matter of seconds.
Strucker turned his back on the scene, two men, one void of consciousness and the second clinging to it by the tips of his fingers, the smoke from the experiment and the sedative mingling at the bottom of their glass prisons, a look of contentment began to make its way across his features.
"He'll be revived sometime later this evening, it's always best to give them several hours of uninterrupted rest before testing the effectiveness of the procedure, but from the display he showed just then he's sure to be on the more powerful end of the spectrum."
"And what are the side effects to be expected?"
"With our newly awakened wizard? None, save for a brief period of difficulty in control, he'll have much more power at his disposal than what's he's grown used to."
"And with the first?"
"Fatigue is our greatest setback at the moment." Strucker gestured to the man and the way too prominent bone cast shadows across his drawn gray skin. "We've worked him hard these past months, each session with the crystal takes more and more from him, he'll be dead within the week if we continue as we have been."
The wizards could already guess where this line of conversation was leading them, the representative for the German Ministry spoke up to save them the time it would take for Strucker to finally get to the point. "You want us to provide you a replacement."
"One is all I need," was the immediate assurance. "I was able to restore a sizeable amount their power with just him, if you can find me one more with old blood, I won't need another and you'll have your army."
"How old?"
"How far back can you trace?"
"Even one is asking too much," Austria's representative denied. "This plague has hit us hard, the old families that haven't been altogether wiped out have gone into hiding to protect themselves and their lines."
"Humor me," Strucker coaxed. "The oldest families in your history. Who are they?"
"I can't say much for anywhere outside of Europe," France at least seemed willing to play along for the moment, "but the Blacks were one of our oldest."
"But the last Black heir nearly a decade ago," Germany reminded. "Lady Malfoy was a Black and so her son was as well, but the entire family was killed by muggles just two months ago."
"The Lestranges dated back nearly to the start."
"All passed in the plague."
"The Slytherins were of the oldest," Spain added. "They were absorbed into the Gaunts."
"And if rumor is to be believed, the last Gaunt was killed in the war."
There was a ripple of unrest through the crowd of wizards at that reminder.
"Anyone else?" Strucker prompted.
"The Peverells."
Germany scoffed. "The Peverells have been extinct for over a century."
"No," Croatia said. "The last Peverell was a daughter, the blood remained even if the name was lost when she married into another pureblood family."
"The Potters."
If the mention of the last Gaunt had the wizards uneased, the single mention of this one family had all of their hackles erect.
"Are there Potters remaining?" Strucker inquired.
"Only one."
His guests' strange behavior had Strucker curious and maybe just a bit unnerved. "What has you so concerned?"
"Harry Potter is the last of his line," Spain clarified when no one else would. "Three years ago we were at war with the rumored Gaunt heir. It was Potter who killed him and ended the war. But he did it by collecting three dangerous artifacts, those artifacts were cursed and because of that curse we are now at war with muggles and dying everyday from plague."
"One man is the cause behind all this trouble?" None of the others seemed to share Strucker's amusement. "Do you at least have him in your custody?"
"There was an attempt to detain him, in hopes of finding some way to reverse the curse through him, but he and an accomplice used an illegal ritual to send him into hiding."
"And none of you have been able to find him since?" Incredulity dripped from every one of Strucker's words.
Great Britain bristled, not appreciating the muggle's condescension one bit. "The ritual sent him through time. We have no way to find him."
"Perhaps you don't. Tell me first, are there no other viable options?"
There was a round of denials, of the old blooded families of Europe only Potter remained.
Strucker hummed, deep in contemplation for a moment. "If I were to find when he has gone, do you at least have the means to retrieve him?"
A strange spark of hope was beginning to light Great Britain's eyes. "We do. But can you really find him?"
"I have access to resources not many do." The recall to his earlier words were accompanied by a slow, slick smile sliding its way across Strucker's face. "I'll find your Harry Potter."
A/N: Finally some quality time with Bucky, I love writing him!
But Infinity Wars though, right? Come scream with me on Tumblr.
