Rated M: violence, fist-fight and electric batons
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Chapter Ten: Hydra
Harry was startled by the sound of their garage door opening. He wondered if he'd dozed off on the couch. It was possible. Having put the kids to bed a couple hours ago, he'd done nothing but sit here in the dark, trying desperately not to think. At the cranking sound of the garage door, which opened by hand, Harry jumped to his feet and practically ran to the door in the laundry room. He was nearly blinded by the car's headlights as it slowly drove into the garage and parked. Once the car's headlamps dimmed to parking brightness, Harry went around the back of the car and pulled the garage door closed.
Hermione climbed out of the driver's seat. She moved slowly, but more like one who is simply exhausted than someone who was injured. Even so, Harry's heart beat hard in his chest as he hurried to her and pulled her into a hug. His wife trembled slightly in his arms, but she hugged him back fiercely. For a few moments, they stood there silently in the garage, illuminated by the garage light and the inside lights of the still-open car.
"Love?" Harry whispered, rubbing Hermione's back slowly. "Are you alright?"
"Yes," Hermione whispered back. "I'm not hurt, if that's what you're asking." She pulled away and shook loose hair out of her face. It had all come down from the bun she'd pulled it into before dinner. There were tears and tearstains on her face.
Gently, Harry reached up and wiped the small teardrops away before he planted a comforting kiss on her forehead. "Come inside, and I suppose we need to talk."
Hermione let out a breathless, mirthless laugh. "I suppose we do," she murmured.
Going inside, Harry shut off the lights and Hermione closed up the car. Silently, they puttered around downstairs, locking the doors, setting the alarm wards, hanging up the car keys and kicking off shoes, etc. Hermione took a shower while Harry made tea, and by the time they were both settled in the living room with the soft light of a mason jar full of bluebell flames, and a tea tray beside it, they were in pajamas and more than ready to simply sit with one another, thinking deeper thoughts than they managed to voice.
They silently snuggled together on the couch, watched the blue flames Harry had spelled into the jar, and sipped their tea. After a few minutes, Harry broke the silence, unable to bear it anymore.
"Was he there?" he whispered.
Hermione simply nodded. She was leaning against his shoulder, even with her wet hair, but he didn't mind in the least. He could feel her head motions better, even if she was leaving a damp spot on his pajama shirt.
"Fury and I talked a bit before … well, he gave me directions, and I ended up driving to Steve Rogers' apartment."
"Rogers?" Harry repeated incredulously. Why couldn't he have guessed? "You didn't tell Fury we know Steve, did you?"
"It didn't come up," Hermione huffed, giving her husband a little elbow nudge. "And you know I wouldn't do that. It would have thrown a wrench into Fury's plans, and Steve has a right to keep friends private from his boss, right?"
"What happened?"
"We sat in the empty apartment for almost an hour before Rogers showed up," Hermione murmured, tracing the rim of her teacup with a finger. "We talked a little bit, but once we heard him arrive, I used the cloak. Even so, he somehow knew I was there. He must have hearing like a bat."
"I'll bet," Harry agreed. "That super-soldier serum he was dosed with must have enhanced all of his senses."
"He and Steve didn't talk for long before an assassin shot Fury through the wall."
Harry gasped involuntarily. After all his effort to keep the poor muggle alive …
"He was still alive the last I saw him," Hermione said sadly. "He'll probably be alright after the healing spells I was able to use. And … after all that you did before after his … crash."
Her husband sighed with relief. "They took him to hospital, then?"
"Yes," Hermione whispered, curling up just a bit tighter, but there was anger and frustration in her soft voice. "After … after Fury was shot, Steve and I went after the assassin. It was … definitely him. But we lost him. He deflected my stunner and just … jumped off the roof."
Blinking hard against a shudder of fear and helpless anger that rippled through his frame, Harry hugged his wife more tightly and rested his cheek against her hair. "I'm so sorry, love," he murmured, for lack of something more intelligent to say.
"I almost had him!" Hermione hissed, thumping her fist on her knee in frustration. "Steve threw a round shield at him, and that man caught it. He used it to deflect my spell back at us."
"Perhaps you should have tried to hit him with a tracking spell," Harry said thoughtfully. Maybe the next time they saw the Winter Soldier they could try that instead of pitched battle. It was obvious that this assassin knew how to fight wizards. But could he deflect or neutralize all spells? He doubted it. Even wizards armed with ward-stones and warded dueling robes couldn't do that.
"What is going on in the world?" Hermione demanded in exasperation. "Why is all this happening? Why now?"
Harry absently shook his head. "I'm sure Draco knows something," he murmured.
"I swear I'm going to torture it out of that blond Slytherin next time we see him," Hermione seethed. "Why is he being so secretive about what he knows?"
"If this is a worldwide conspiracy, I'd think he has a right to be paranoid," Harry mused, rubbing his wife's shoulder to calm her down. The very thought of knowledge being purposefully kept from her … Harry almost smiled. Never change, Hermione. "I never would have ever guessed Malfoy to have the guts it must take to chase this story to the ground," he went on. "I don't want to think what these sorts of people would do to him if they found out what he's doing."
Hermione sighed and slumped against her husband, tapping her nails on her cup. "I gave Steve our phone number," she said quietly. "Asked him to call if he learned anything."
"Well, then I guess we wait for the call," Harry replied softly.
HP~W~I~N~T~E~R~HP~S~O~L~D~I~E~R~HP
Early in the morning, the tension in the Potter home was already high. Harry tried his best to act normal for the kids' sake, and he could tell Hermione was doing the same thing, but after a late, stressful night, they hadn't slept. They had stayed up practically all night, trying to rest, but ending up talking again.
By the time they heard James' alarm clock going off, Harry and his wife hadn't caught more than a few short dozes. They had talked mostly about what it could mean if they could catch, or track, the Winter Soldier and find out who he was working for, and if Sev might still be alive. They wondered if Malfoy or Rogers would help them. They speculated about possible plans and dared to hope, for the first time in months, that they would finally rescue Sev. Or at least find out what had happened to him. The possibilities were so exciting and terrifying that it was little wonder they were high-strung and wrung out by the time they finished cooking breakfast.
They were just sitting down to eat when the telephone rang, and Hermione was closest. She jumped up and snatched the phone from the hook, and Harry gave her a raised eyebrow as he tried to wipe porridge off Lily's chin and shushed Rose's grumpy whining for more juice.
"Hello?" she said cautiously into the speaker. Harry watched her closely as her face registered surprise, and then annoyance. "Yes, he's here," she spoke sharply. "How did you get this number?"
Harry felt a chill race down his arms and tilted his head at her even while he was filling Rose's sippy cup with apple juice. Hermione covered the mouthpiece with one hand and mouthed a name at him along with a grimace.
Draco.
Harry blinked in surprise and then grumbled under his breath. How had that little snake gotten his home number?
"Fine, keep your secrets," Hermione huffed, looking extremely irritated. She paused for a brief second and then sighed. "Yes, yes; I know. Alright; hold on a tic." She stepped closer and held the phone out across the table to her husband. Harry flashed her a grateful look and put the device to his ear.
"Malfoy, you'd better have a good explanation for this," Harry said as soon as he knew Draco would hear him.
"Oh, I do," Draco's serious voice came through. "Steve Rogers handed me your number before SHIELD took him away."
"What, they arrested him?" Harry demanded, his pulse picking up frantically. Why would anyone arrest Captain America? Hermione's face pinched in concern and she arched her eyebrows in a questioning look. Obviously, she was asking who got arrested, but he gave her a quick look before he excused himself from the table, not wanting to worry the kids any more than they were. James was glancing from his mom to his dad with wide-eyed confusion, and the girls were already demanding that their mother tell them who was arrested.
"Relax, Potter," Draco drawled, only half-mockingly. "Nobody arrests Captain America, come on."
"Well, what happened? Why are you calling me?"
"Nicholas J. Fury was pronounced dead last night during surgery," Draco explained grimly. "Less than an hour after, SHIELD sent some folks to bring Rogers in for questioning. Have you ever heard of Alexander Pierce?"
Harry frowned. "Should I have?" he asked.
"He was the Director of SHIELD before Fury," Draco sighed. Harry could practically hear him rolling his eyes. "Honestly, don't you know anything? And now he's –"
"Wait, wait, wait!" Harry interrupted, kicking the bedroom door closed behind him and dropping into the armchair in the corner. "You've lost me already, Malfoy. So what exactly is SHIELD anyway?"
"SHIELD?" Draco repeated incredulously. "We were literally talking about it the other night! Why didn't you ask me then?"
"I didn't really think about it," Harry huffed. "All I know is that you … you said you suspected them of being infiltrated and corrupted. But …they're the spy agency you mentioned, aren't they? The one that Carter helped found?"
"Right," Draco grumbled. "Honestly, Potter. You can be remarkably dense, you know that?"
Harry scowled and let out his sudden irritation in a sigh. "Thanks."
"You are most welcome. Now, my ignorant young friend: SHIELD stands for Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division."
"That's a mouthful," Harry muttered.
"As a counter-terrorism and espionage agency, they have a great deal of power in matters that are not public knowledge, like alien threats and magic," Draco went on without acknowledging his comment. "We know that they actively work with the magical community in America, and we also know that not everyone within the Intelligence Agency is a scrupulous individual. According to my research, the corruption of SHIELD goes to the very top. Alexander Pierce was the one who signed the order to retrieve Severus Snape and take him to a secret wing of St. Winifred's for 'processing'. They never planned to take him back to England, Potter."
"How do you know that?" Harry demanded in an unsteady voice.
"Sources, Potter," Draco replied wearily. "Anyway, I have reason to believe that Rogers believes himself in danger. Or he would not have dropped the pamphlet for me to collect, or hidden the small device Fury gave him."
Harry's mind spun frantically. "Device?" he repeated.
"A red-haired woman took it the second Rogers was out of sight," Draco went on in an annoyed tone. "But I've got a tracing charm on her. She hasn't left the premises. In fact, one might think she was waiting for him to come back for it."
"Red hair?" Harry repeated dumbly, his brain feeling like it was going through fog for how fast it was spinning through the information and what this might mean. "Wait; that must be Black Widow, right?"
"Natasha Romanov," Draco corrected him. "I'm impressed, Potter. Been doing some research of your own?"
"Just looked up the Avengers," Harry frowned. "And I may have bumped into her once. She picked Steve up in a fancy car."
"Cute," Draco snorted with amusement. "But anyway, Rogers has one of my tracing charms on him too, and since I'm keeping an eye on the spider here at the hospital, think you could drop by the Triskelion with that fancy invisibility cloak of yours? I have a bad feeling Rogers might need backup."
"If SHIELD didn't arrest him or threaten him … what exactly makes you think Steve might be in trouble?" Harry asked slowly.
"Intuition?" Draco replied innocently.
"Malfoy," Harry growled in frustration, gripping the phone tighter.
"Alright, fine; I have an imperiused agent working in Alexander Pierce's office," Draco confessed in an irritated rush. "The chap has been incredibly useful … and he intercepted some highly encrypted orders from the top to detain Steve Rogers if he, and I quote, 'does not cooperate'."
Harry ground his teeth. However morally questionable Draco's spy-actions were, this was terrible news, and the Imperius curse simply enforced that the information was legitimate. "So you want me to waltz in there and rescue Rogers, and consequently tip those agents off that Captain America is in league with wizards?" he demanded incredulously, even as his brain shifted into planning mode. Sneaking around was something he had always been good at. Just checking up on Steve Rogers might not be a bad idea anyway. Hermione was terribly tense this morning after what happened last night with the Winter Soldier. And if Draco had a bad feeling about whatever SHIELD wanted with Rogers, it might be a good idea to serve as back-up, just in case. Plus, Harry was burning with impatience and needed to be doing something other than sitting around, waiting for whatever was going to happen.
"So … you want me to waltz into a muggle spy agency and kidnap Captain America?" Harry asked, throwing enough incredulity into his tone to sound reluctant, but intrigued. He needed more information before he rushed in half-cocked. It may have worked out in his school days, but he was a little wiser now. "Wouldn't they deduce that it was magic and track down my family?" There was that too. Magical tracers were not Harry's area of expertise. While Hermione was better at complicated spells like those that hid people from magical means, there was no telling if those were foolproof.
"SHIELD's in league with all sorts of wizards and witches already," Draco pointed out as if Harry was an idiot. "It's not like they would suddenly deduce it was the famous Harry Potter helping under that invisibility cloak. Or they might. I don't know. And besides, the Winter Soldier would have reported your wife chasing him around with those stunning spells last night, you know. I'd say you're already 'under the radar', as the muggles say it."
Harry swallowed hard and rubbed his forehead. Malfoy had a point, and his use of muggle idiom was slightly disturbing, on a ludicrous level. "You think my family's in danger?" he demanded rather than teasing Malfoy about his new vocabulary.
"Possibly," Draco replied flippantly. "You have anywhere for them to run off to while you deal with this?"
Harry grumbled under his breath, anticipating the fight he would have with Hermione about just that sort of thing. But she was logical enough to see the merit in taking the kids off somewhere SHIELD wasn't likely to target them. Sam Wilson's face suddenly popped into Harry's mind and he shook the thought away. This wasn't his friend's problem.
"I'll … figure something out," Harry said, rubbing his forehead.
"Well, make it quick, Potter," Draco retorted. "You need to be at the Triskelion in ten minutes, minimum. Mind if I apparate to your backyard to pick you up? Side-along is quicker." Without waiting for Harry's reply, Draco kept going, that flippant tone of his setting Harry's teeth on edge, even as he recognized worry under it. "Great; I'll see you in one minute."
The phone hung up and Harry groaned as he rubbed his face. What a mess. And Draco's attitude certainly wasn't helping. Oh well; nothing to do about it now. He had things to take care of right now. Harry stood up and hurried out of the bedroom, letting the door bang on the wall as he left in a hurry.
"Hermione!" he called as he stormed into the dining room, and then stopped himself and took a deep breath. It wouldn't do to panic the kids right now.
"What did Draco say?" his wife demanded, startling him as she came out of the bathroom door right behind him.
He gently pushed her back in and shut the door behind them. He heard the dining room chair thunk as James got up, and Harry threw a muffliato at the door, recognizing his own obsessive need to eavesdrop in his son.
He turned to his wife and was suddenly struck. This could be the last time he saw Hermione for a while. This national conspiracy would not go down prettily, he knew that for certain. But Hermione looked more serious than she ever had, and to Harry, recalling days and years of her youthful enthusiasm, dogged determination, and loyal stubbornness at his side that had not faded, but had only matured, lending to her a beauty that could not be compared. His heart swelled with love and pride and determination. They were a team. They had always been a team. He knew without a doubt that he could trust her to take care of this.
"What did Draco say?" she asked, her tone level and calm even as her brown eyes smoldered with worry and suspicion.
"Steve Rogers was called in by SHIELD for debriefing, but Draco thinks they're going to arrest and detain him," Harry explained, keeping his tone as level as hers. "He needs back-up; specifically, me and the invisibility cloak. But he thinks the Winter Soldier might have reported your involvement last night."
Hermione's lips thinned and she folded her arms across her chest as she nodded, calm and collected as her mind went into overdrive, analyzing their options before the conclusion even made it out of her mouth. "So we're in danger."
Harry reached out and gently gripped his wife's shoulders, causing her to look up into his eyes. "I'm trusting you to get the kids out of here while I go fish Rogers out of the snake-pit," he said quietly, knowing how painful it would be to separate, but both knowing it was the only way. "Perhaps we can catch up later? Meet at a prearranged rendezvous?"
"Phone lines can be traced," Hermione murmured, her eyes going glossy as her brain whirred ahead of Harry's. She was already calculating how they would communicate. "And Patronus charms are too big and flashy, especially ours. We should use those magic mirrors we made."
"Good idea," Harry agreed. "Do you … have any idea where you could go? Where the kids could be safe while I help Malfoy and Rogers take care of this?"
Hermione made a face and tapped her arms with her fingers. "Apparition can be traced," she murmured, lost in thought. "But I can obfuscate our car license plate, and probably change the color a few times while we drive around … any muggle ideas? Muggle places? I don't know much about America, or at least what's around here, but it's not all wilderness and cowboys I'm guessing."
Harry swallowed hard and glanced at the phone he had put on the sink. "I can … check if Sam is home today," he suggested. He looked up into his wife's face and was relieved to see the same determination mirrored in her gaze.
She nodded and took a deep breath, squaring her shoulders and looking him in the eye. "We can get out of here in ten minutes or so. Give us thirty minutes to get lost in the city and maybe the countryside too. Do you have his address?"
Harry let out a frustrated curse and dropped his hands to his sides. "No, but I can see if I can weasel it out of him without being obvious."
"Ask to send him a birthday card," Hermione suggested with a hint of a smile. "If he's a smart guy, he won't correct you on when exactly his birthday is."
"Right," Harry chuckled with relief. "Good idea. What would I do without you?"
"Precious little," Hermione smirked. She suddenly reached up and pulled him into a fierce hug that lasted several seconds. Harry hugged her back just as fiercely, knowing that this could be the last time he was able to hug her like this for a while.
"I'll be fine," Harry assured her unspoken warning.
"You should take the death stick," Hermione murmured against his shoulder. "Never hurts to have two wands."
Harry's stomach twisted. Using the Invisibility cloak and carrying the Elder Wand … it made him nervous to use the Deathly Hallows. The Resurrection Stone was safely locked away in the Potter Vault back in England, so all three weren't united, but still …
"I'll use it if I have to," Harry conceded. "But I'm just sneaking in and getting Rogers out. Nothing's going to happen."
Hermione pulled away from him and gave him a scolding glare. "Harry James Potter," she said sternly. "Since when has 'nothing' happened when you're involved, hm?"
Harry just laughed, because he couldn't tell her how his nerves fizzled with dread and his heart pumped with adrenaline at the thought of fighting again. He couldn't tell her how the fear and the excitement were combining to turn him into a dangerous warrior who had survived more encounters with death by the time he was seventeen than most people on earth. He had missed this, he realized, and he was suddenly very glad he hadn't gone into the Auror Department. It felt wrong, somehow, to look forward to action and a potential battle this much.
But he wasn't going to think too hard about it, if it helped him take down the monsters that had ripped his family apart and were trying to take over the world.
He wordlessly tipped Hermione's head back just enough to give her a good-bye kiss, filled with all the words he couldn't say.
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The instant Draco Malfoy appeared in the backyard, Harry was waiting for him. His heart was thrumming in his chest and his wand was in his wrist holster. The Invisibility Cloak was rolled up in a small bundle in his sweater pocket, and under the black sweater, he was dressed in a gray shirt and dark jeans and sneakers that were well broken-in and comfortable, and the Elder Wand was strapped to his right ankle under his pants. Just in case.
Draco Malfoy, on the other hand, was dressed in a severe black suit, complete with sunglasses and what looked like a secret service earpiece. His blond hair was windblown, but not completely a mess. It gave him a rather nice, devil-may-care appearance that Harry was suddenly amused at for some reason. When Malfoy yanked his sunglasses off directly after apparating into the Potters' backyard, he was scowling, his lips set in a tight line and his silver-gray eyes red with exhaustion.
"Ready?" Malfoy demanded, marching the three steps across the grass to grab Harry's arm. "Good, let's go."
Harry didn't even have time to open his mouth as the world condensed and he was being squeezed through a vacuum. He wasn't sure side-along apparition ever got any better.
They landed a second later and Harry managed to keep his footing, and his breakfast. Barely. "A little warning next time?" Harry growled, yanking his arm out of Malfoy's grip so he could look up at where they had apparated to.
They were in an alley with a row of huge green rubbish bins behind them and on Harry's right, an enormous silver building stretching up into the sky for what looked like miles. When Harry peeked out of the alley, he could see security barriers, fencing, and a lot of vehicles and people milling about like ants.
"Welcome to the Triskelion," Draco said, the weariness in his voice making Harry twist and look at him briefly. The sunglasses were back on, but there was no missing the lines in his drawn face or how pale his skin was. He hadn't apologized, and Harry suddenly realized he wasn't going to insist on it. Malfoy looked so dead on his feet that he was actually rather pitiful. Little wonder the Slytherin had practically begged for his help.
"Have you slept at all this week?" Harry demanded, though his stomach flipped in apprehension at what could have kept Draco Malfoy running ragged in the two days since they had seen each other at the family dinner.
"Pepper-up and wide-eye potions can only go so far, Potter," Malfoy replied with a dry smirk. "Besides, when one is saving the world, you can't worry about petty mortal concerns like 'sleep'."
Harry almost laughed. The dry sense of humor in the face of such dire odds was rather ludicrous, but comforting. It relaxed his tense muscles and helped him to focus on something other than the fact that any one of those SHIELD people walking around out there could be in league with evil wizards and attempting to take over the world. It made him feel like trying to see Death Eaters among the mindless Ministry workers back in the day.
"Okay," Harry exhaled and reached into his pocket for the invisibility cloak. "Do you have a location on Rogers?"
"Passing the trace charm to your control," Draco murmured. Harry turned around to see the blonde wizard waving his wand in a complicated pattern he'd never even heard of, murmuring a chant in Latin that Harry only half caught. Suddenly, the faint glowing light of the familiar charm appeared at the end of the slender stick of wood, and lifted off as lightly as a bubble. Harry flicked his wand from his holster to his hand and caught the pulsing globe of light on the end of it. Immediately, he felt the pull in his chest that signified t had worked. He saw a brief flash of Steve Rogers behind his eyelids before he suddenly knew exactly where the man was. Harry's eyes went instinctively up several dozen stories to a shining glass wall where his senses told him Rogers was.
"I never knew you could pass tracing charms," Harry commented, shoving his wand back into his sleeve.
"There seems to be a lot you don't know, Potter," Malfoy smirked, looking slightly less tired. "Alright, enough small talk. You need to be careful when you go in there. The American Aurors have layered the whole place with wards and protections that I imagine your cloak should help you avoid, so long as you don't use magic unless you must, understand?"
"Is that the reason you can't do this yourself?"
"That and the fact that this blasted Dark Mark on my arm gives off a signature that their wards deem 'threatening'. No alarms, but there was a nasty tingle before I jumped back out. That's why I had to Imperius one of these idiot muggles to do my dirty work for me."
"Polyjuice doesn't erase the mark?" Harry asked drily.
Malfoy gave him such a withering look that Harry didn't even wait for an answer. He threw the cloak over his head and vanished from view.
"One thing," Harry commented before he set off. "How do you know this alley is safe?"
One of the silvery-gold eyebrows behind Draco's sunglasses went up. "Muggles see what they want to see," he said cryptically, and made a shooing motion with his hands. "I'll be here. No way is Rogers making it out of this rat's nest without aid if they decide to apprehend him and lock down the headquarters."
Harry took a breath, and darted forward. Dodging agents and workers and other people, Harry kept all of his focus on the sense of Steve Rogers up dozens of floors above him.
He entered the Triskelion's front lobby, hardly paying any attention to the expansive space around him. If he weren't so focused on his mission, he might have been more impressed, but as it was, he paused at an elevator shaft, detecting that his tracing charm was moving. Harry waited for a few seconds, and then, when a group of men marched up and punched the up button. Harry squeezed in at the last second. There were three men, dressed in combat fatigues, bulletproof vests, and small communications devices in their ears. Harry relaxed after a few seconds, knowing that the men couldn't see him. He just had to control his breathing and make sure none of them bumped into him on their way out.
"Target ETA two minutes," one man murmured into his communicator. "All teams get in position."
One man took a deep breath and flexed his hands, looking supremely uncomfortable. Harry could see sweat trickling down the side of his face. The other man leaned against the elevator wall with his arms folded, his head down. Harry's heart bumped up its rhythm and he felt suddenly cold. Target? Were they going to arrest Captain America? Harry debated for a second whether he should knock them out or maybe Imperius one of them … but in the next second he decided to simply stick with his mission. If they attacked Rogers, he would be invisible back-up.
The elevator dinged and the three men stepped out. Harry tilted his head briefly in thought before he simply followed them out before the doors closed behind him. They moved only a few feet away and stopped in front of another elevator door. The buttons glowed orange, showing that it was occupied. One of the men reached out and pressed the down button.
Harry scowled and stepped a bit closer. If he hadn't been suspicious of their intentions before, he definitely was now. He waited, tense and worried, as Steve Rogers' signature came lower and lower … until it stopped right in front of them.
A silent flick of his wrist, and Harry was armed. The elevator doors opened.
Rogers was there in a dark blue uniform that was both form-fitting and reinforced. A silver star on the front fanned out into red and white stripes reminiscent of his old costume/uniform, the one Harry had become familiar with in the museum. A round shield was stuck to his back like a turtle's shell, and Harry had a keen feeling he knew what pattern he would see on it if he saw the front. But more surprising than the new, much more sleek uniform Captain America was wearing, was the absolute weariness on his face. He was pale and drawn, and though his posture was straight, it was straight with a stiffness that only came from bruised and aching bones that longed to lie down for two or three days straight. The man's blue eyes were rimmed with red and they flitted over the new men outside the elevator doors with a kind of resignation that made Harry's stomach turn. He knew. He understood that he was being betrayed. But Harry would be damned if he didn't help Rogers out of this hopeless situation.
There were already some men in the elevator, looking aloof and expressionless, but they stood like apprehending guards around Captain America, who stood tall and steady in the center of his enemies, and even moved aside politely for the new men to enter. Harry took a breath, threw a small charm at the man on the right, causing him to stumble, and squeezed past him, pressing against the wall opposite the panel of buttons.
"Rumlow," Rogers murmured in polite greeting, though Harry was sure he didn't imagine the frosty undertone. The scarred man only gave Rogers a grim smile before he punched one of the buttons. Ground floor. Harry gripped his wand and wondered if too much magic would strand the elevator between floors.
The crowded box started to move smoothly, and Harry found himself captivated by the view outside the elevator itself. There were windows all around it and he could see Washington D.C spread out below like a children's Lego city. The streets were all precisely marked out and strung between the shining skyscrapers and towering monuments like the tracks on a computer's motherboard. Sev had been interested in computers for a while not too long before he was taken, and the memory made Harry's mouth twist into a bittersweet smile. Sev would have loved this. The elevators swooping downward motion, the open windows and the view … If he was able to take down this conspiracy within SHIELD, it was entirely possible that he could find his son again, whether dead, alive, or changed. And that hope kept Harry going with a fire that was probably not entirely rational. But he would hold his peace until Rogers moved, or the men with them, not a second sooner.
As if sensing Harry's impatience, Rogers stirred suddenly.
"Anyone who wants to get off," the man's voice was low, but tinged with deadly warning. "Now's your chance."
Harry took a deep, silent breath to ready himself, and noticed two men who had sweaty bald scalps or necks. They were right to be terrified, Harry thought with grim amusement. All at once, the fight started. Two men launched themselves on Rogers, attempting to pin him by surprise, but the super-soldier shrugged them off and laid one of them out with a punch that sent him crashing into his companions. Harry cast a silent sleeping charm at the downed man to keep him out, and wondered when it would be prudent to reveal himself. Several men drew short batons that suddenly sparked with electricity. Without warning, two men jabbed the sparking devices into Rogers' back and he cried out in pain as his body buckled.
Harry didn't throw off his cloak, or use his wand. He was too horrified and angry to think, let alone use spells. He threw himself on the men and wrestled one of the batons away from the Captain, twisting the shocked agent's arm and stabbing the sparking end of the baton into his side. The assassin screamed in a jerking, twisting manner that made Harry's stomach turn. Rogers recovered with shocking swiftness and batted the second baton away before he wrenched the man's arm and broke it. The sound of a man screaming in agony never ceased to twist Harry's insides, drag him back to darker days.
He bared his teeth and jabbed his wand into the squirming man he'd tackled and electrocuted, giving him a swift somnius curse to keep him out. Magic would have a hard time detecting that after the fact, especially if they were not looking for it. Stupefy and other obvious curses left their own fingerprints that a halfway trained wizard could catch all too easily. Harry tackled another, enjoying the pandemonium as Rogers fought off another man attempting to pin his arms to the elevator walls, flinging dark-clothed assassins left and right with his struggles. Harry's man was screaming about invisible demons, but nobody paid any attention to him. Harry punched him in the face for good measure before casting the sleeping charm, and then, purely by mistake, one of the men tripped over him, getting his boot caught in the cloak. The two of the rolled to the side, tripping another man in the process, and Harry was revealed. He abandoned his cover and realized he'd dropped his wand. Oh well. He grabbed the sparking baton lying closer and jabbed the shocked agent into the chest gritting his teeth as the man howled and jerked with the current before going limp, his uniform smoking.
"This ain't personal, Cap!" the scarred man from before suddenly shouted, drawing a knife from his boot and jumping at him. Rogers jerked his arm away from the wall where some kind of magnetic cuff had been pinning him there, and Harry used the brief instance to jerk up his pant leg and retrieve the elder wand. With several precise jabs, he stupefied every man still awake in the elevator, and the scarred man didn't even see Harry before the red jet of light hit him in the back. Rogers caught him and threw him down on top of the other bodies with a finality tinged by sadness.
"It sure feels personal," the Captain murmured, slightly breathless.
For several seconds, there was silence in the elevator, and then Harry realized that their movement had stopped, and the doors were sealed. A racket on the other side alerted Harry to the fact that SHIELD or whoever the infiltrators were would stop at nothing to apprehend Rogers. Since apparating was out of the question, Harry had to think of something else.
"Where did you come from?" Rogers demanded, a bit shakily. He looked awful; rumpled and bruised as he was.
"Invisibility cloak," Harry shrugged, shoving one of the unconscious agents aside so he could pick up his silvery cloak and his wand, which had fallen to the floor under him. He stuffed the death stick in his back pocket and threw the cloak around his shoulders, though he left the hood off and didn't fasten it in front. Rogers eyed him dubiously.
"That just looks … wrong," he commented. "But however you got here, I'm grateful."
"You're welcome," Harry replied, glancing up at the security camera in the elevator, thankfully, blown to bits by some stray blow. Or no … it was smoking from the inside. Harry had fried it with magic, apparently. Maybe there was just too much tech in this place to protect it all from magic. In any case, he was grateful that it was out of commission.
"Why're you here?" the Captain demanded, though he didn't look accusatory.
"Draco Malfoy dragged me from my house ten minutes ago," Harry replied with a shrug. "I suppose he took your apprehending seriously."
"Thank God," Rogers replied fervently. He pried the magnetic cuff off his wrist and threw it on the floor with a look of disgust before he slung his shield off his shoulder and gazed down at the men lying unconscious at their feet.
"Any plans to get out of here?" Harry suddenly asked.
"I was hoping you had one," Rogers huffed, giving him a wry smile.
Harry sighed and shook his head. "My biggest problem, and greatest strength, lies in rushing forward and making things up as I go. Any ideas?"
"Can you fly?" the super-soldier asked point-blank.
Harry gave him a look that asked if he were crazy. "No?" he replied dubiously.
Rogers grimaced. "Than I hope you have nine lives, kid."
And with that, he raised his shield and smashed the glass of the elevator wall. After a few blows and some kicks, Rogers had a decent looking hole in the clear wall. The men on the other side of the sealed elevator doors were calling for some kind of a laser to cut through. Harry suddenly realized how very high up they were. He didn't have a broom and he couldn't fly like Snape, (oh, that's why Rogers was asking if he could fly).
"We're jumping?" Harry asked, his voice going high-pitched with apprehension.
"Unless you want to march into a row of machine guns," came the Captain's grim reply as he nodded toward the elevator doors, which were getting thumped and dented by whatever battering ram they were employing until the laser could be brought.
Harry swallowed hard, feeling ill. "They would actually … kill, Captain America?"
"I'm prepared for the possibility," Rogers replied tersely. He held out his hand to Harry. "Do you have any magic to help slow our fall? I'm planning to let my shield take the brunt of impact."
The wizard's mind whirled as he sorted through his mental catalogue of spells and found a few he could use. Not flight spells, per se, but they could act like a rocket's thrusters, slowing their fall by pushing back against the ground as they drew closer to it. Plus, the cloak would help keep them from becoming a falling target.
"I've got a few," Harry replied nervously.
"Climb on my back and hold on," Rogers ordered, and with only the slightest hesitation, Harry obeyed. He was a lot smaller than the super-soldier, weight and height wise, and it was hard to believe that seventy years ago, this man had been smaller and scrawnier than Harry on his worst day.
"I can't imagine you were ever smaller than me," Harry commented, latching his arms around Roger's broad shoulders and keeping a death grip on his wand. He shrugged the cloak's hood up high enough to go over the Captain as well and swirled it around both of them.
"I have trouble remembering I'm as big as I am," Rogers admitted in reply. "Ready?"
"No," Harry grinned a little maniacally. "Let's do it."
Rogers held the shield out in front of them and threw himself forward just as the elevator door was pried open behind them. Even with the cloak wrapped around the two of them, the wind of their fall was blowing the material so that they were probably invisble from above, save for a weird shimmer, and from below they would have looked like a two-dimensional picture falling from the sky, flickering and blurring on the edges.
Harry's spells didn't really do much, judging from the impact. The concrete under the shield gave way with a sickening crunch that jarred Harry up in the air. He came down hard on the concrete a foot away from Rogers and lay still, stunned, breathless, and bruised. But it had been fun, while it lasted. Almost like doing a Wronski Feint that ended wrong.
Groaning and gasping, Rogers and Harry both sat up, squinting and blinking at the shocked onlookers around them. From high, high above, in the shadow of the smashed window leading to the elevator, tinny shouts came down, but thankfully, nobody was shooting or dropping electrical nets.
"Come on," Harry rasped, grabbing Rogers and throwing his cloak over the both of them. Several people screamed, more than one yanked out a cellular phone, and Harry managed to remember where to go. Rogers followed without a word.
"I would've grabbed a motorcycle," the Captain grunted, cradling his shield to his chest.
"I've got a better idea," Harry grunted back. Looking up, he thought he spotted a flash of blonde hair in a familiar looking alley. Wondering if there were muggle-repellent charms up there, he nodded toward it. "We're heading there," he whispered. "See anyone yet?"
"Is that … Malfoy?" Rogers said incredulously. "He never struck me as …"
"Someone who would stick his neck out for a stranger?" Harry finished with some amusement.
Rogers made a noise of agreement, but they picked up the pace. When they made it to the alley, the Captain slipped out from under the cloak and rolled his shoulder with a wince, the one that had been underneath them when the shield hit the concrete.
"Honestly Potter," Draco groused, yanking off his sunglasses. "Can't you do anything quietly?"
"Hey," Harry shrugged. "It's just my style."
"And completely my fault," Rogers interjected. "Now … do we have transportation out of here? I think they're calling in the quinjets."
Harry gave Rogers a funny look at the unfamiliar word, and even Malfoy looked mystified.
"Portkey, right here," the blonde replied, holding out a crumpled soda can. "I imagine you wish to return to the hospital to pick up that device Fury gave you?"
Rogers narrowed his eyes suspiciously, but then let out a weary chuckle and shook his head. "I guess it's no use asking how you know about that."
"Be warned," Draco said as Harry reached out to take the soda can portkey. "You little red-headed spider took it, but she's still near that machine that carries the snacks. I believe she wishes to interrogate you."
Steve Rogers looked even more exhausted as he nodded.
"I'll help," Harry volunteered. When Rogers looked at him incredulously, Harry gave him a wobbly smile. "I wasn't always a doctor, Captain. And a few spells might not be amiss if she turns out to be … whoever these globalist infiltrators are."
"Hydra," Draco supplied flippantly. "They call themselves after the many-headed beast which regrows heads if one does not cut them all off with one blow. Ready?"
"Wait, what? Hydra?! Are you kidding?!" Rogers demanded, sounding so shocked and bewildered that Harry felt pity for him, especially because Harry was pretty sure Hydra sounded familiar to him too. But there was no time. Hoards of armed agents were pouring out of the huge skyscraper's front lobby and Harry had no wish to fight them all. He shoved the portkey can into the Captain's hand, and muttered 'Portus', activating the travel spell. The hook behind their navels jerked them from the alley and sent them spinning through space to their destination.
HP~W~I~N~T~E~R~HP~S~O~L~D~I~E~R~HP
Yes, it has been quite awhile since I updated. Life'll do that sometimes. So, if you've been following my other stories, I may have mentioned in my last update (to Avenge 3) that I will be leaving fanfiction for a few years while I'm overseas etc. So yeah.
Sometime in September will be my last post, but I will definitely try to update all of my in-progress stories at least once before all that.
Thank you for supporting this story and for reviewing, favoriting, following, reading, and enjoying! You mean a lot to me, all of you!
