Prologue
Phil Coulson had grown accustomed to multitasking – he had had to. It was a fact of life at SHIELD that when Nick Fury told you to do something, you did it, or, more commonly, you added to the list of a hundred other things that you had to do by the end of the day. On this particular day, he had a UN security council meeting to spy on, the CIA was meddling again, and one of his agents, Clint Barton, was going on holiday! On holiday, really, who did he think he was? To think that SHIELD agents could just get up and leave the agency for a few days, to 'take a break,' it was unacceptable. I mean, who did he even have to holiday with? And that wasn't even starting with the topic of one Bruce Banner, a man who had recently skyrocketed to the top of SHIELD's radar, and was making their lives absolutely miserable (from South America, they suspected).
It was not a surprise, then, that Phil's hair had begun to grey recently. His face was a kindly one, with soft lines and features. He prided himself on his approachability, and that he could approach people and usually, he would have them spilling more secrets than even the Black Widow could. But even then, Phil liked to think that he was a good man, and a kind man, whose goodness and kindness were not merely painted on for the sake of a mission, but rather a deeper part of him.
The new addition to his list today was an odd one, and came from below, from the analysts in the surveillance department, and he knew he would have to elevate it up to Fury. He always wanted to be kept up to date with any sightings of 'enhanced,' as they called them. Banner was an enhanced. Thor was an enhanced. Captain America had been an enhanced. Romanoff might be considered an enhanced. That was a list of the most dangerous people on the Earth. And his new addition had enough irregularities on his file to earn him a prestigious place at the top of the 'Of Suspicion' list, that Fury kept on his office wall. And his phone. And his laptop. And above his bed. Paranoid bastard.
SHIELD had no idea who the new suspect was. He appeared out of nowhere a year ago, before selling an immense amount of gold – the largest amount sold in recent history. In a few days, he had become one of the richest men in the world, with SHIELD's best guesses hovering at somewhere around twelve billion US Dollars. From what they knew, he travelled occasionally, although he seemed to have a certain affinity for Britain, spending time either in London or at an old manor house he bought in northern Scotland.
But the money wasn't really the worrying thing. There were plenty of rich billionaires, and only a few were on SHIELD's watchlist. What concerned him was that whenever he travelled across a border, he was always waved past, without a single check. When he bought his houses, there were, similarly, no identity checks. His bank had no passport or driver's license for him – something completely against their policies. SHIELD had sent one agent out to investigate his Scottish house, and had returned a few hours later, muttering about needing to turn the stove off.
It was for all these reasons that Phil Coulson knew that his to-do list was about to get a lot longer. He sighed as he looked down at the grainy pictures in his hand, of the man with black hair. He had a few names, it seemed.
He would know. James Evans. Black. Peverell. Godric Gryffindor. Whatever it was, he would know.
-o-
One hour later, in the Director's office, the conversation proceeded much as Phil had predicted. Upon his entry, he had received a snippy "What?" from the tall, bald, eyepatch-wearing Nick Fury in front of him. That was fine. Phil knew exactly how to get him to listen quickly.
"We have a potential enhanced," he cut in quickly. Fury fell silent. His eyes were locked on the folder in Phil's hand (he held the belief that Fury's other eye was behind the patch moving around erratically, like some sort of possessed gyroscope).
"Go on," Fury said, willing for the moment to let Phil speak.
"This is the Delta Target, an unnamed and unknown character suspected to have some kind of telepathic abilities. This is the best photo we have of him. He has four names associated with him, none of which have any evidence suggesting they might be real. We don't know his birthday, his age, his parents, or anything about his personal life. He sold over two hundred tonnes of gold last year, and is now sitting comfortably as a multibillionaire. He spends most of his time in his houses in London and Scotland, but seems to be able to move from country to country at will without a passport."
"A John Doe, then? When did he appear?"
"Early last year."
"Why do we think he's a telepath?"
"We have some videos of him being waved past border control in several different countries without any sign of a passport. We have a body-cam video from British police last April which shows them approaching him for a speeding ticket, but the officer turns around and drives away without even entering the incident into the database. One of our agents tried to approach him at his house, but he returned to the base, talking about having missed a date and needing to pick the kids up from school."
"So? Demote him for disobeying orders."
"He couldn't remember the incident, or even the orders he had, the next morning. He's also single. We think his mind was tampered with in some way. We have him under close observation for signs of anything permanent, but so far nothing else has come up."
Fury took a moment to breathe and think to himself. After a few minutes, he motioned to Phil.
"Where is he now? And what do you suggest we do from here?"
Phil briefly consulted the files he had in front of him, before looking up and responding:
"We don't know exactly what he does, but we usually see him once or twice a week, usually going to or from one of his houses on an unregistered motorbike, of which we don't know the make. There is some regularity in his schedule, so he seems to have some kind of job, but he seems to know exactly where to go to get out of the cameras, so we don't know exactly where he goes.
I think we need to make contact with him, otherwise we just won't get anywhere. He seems to have some technology that lets him turn off cameras around him when he needs to go somewhere. He is simply too dangerous to have running around with this kind of power. I want to send in the Black Widow. He is clearly well-trained, a master of disguises and evasion."
-o-
Their target whooped and ran his hand through his hair as he sped down the motorway at twice the speed limit, once again thanking the stars that he had thought to bring his godfather's bike – the newly-christened Nimbus. He looked to the side and noticed a speed camera to his right. It flashed. That was bad, wasn't it? There was smoke coming out of the top? He was pretty sure smoke was bad. There was a larger flash, and … was that fire coming out from inside?
He would have to look into that, as that was the third time one of the boxy camera things had blown up around him. He had started to take the back routes more often so as to reduce the risk of blowing stuff up. It was just polite, right? He looked down at his hand and noticed the red mark he had drawn on earlier to remind him to see if he could figure out the strange whistling he heard earlier while he was out. It felt to him like it came from the wards around his house. He still wondered why, as he didn't have any guests who would want to visit him. How strange.
He thought he was quite intelligent.
The black-haired man was completely clueless.
Author's Note:
This story will be a reasonably long Harry Potter/Avengers story with a focus on Harry. Harry/Natasha. The plan is to have the first few chapters from the perspectives of various SHIELD agents, before transitioning to a primarily Harry-centric viewpoint. Might eventually have mature content.
