A/N: I don't own Harry Potter and wouldn't particularly care to. I would like a rental agreement with option to buy for Hermione Granger. A short term contract with Nymphadora Tonks wouldn't be turned down. A Long-term agreement with Luna Lovegood would probably be a whole lot of fun. Any time Padma Patil wants to open negotiations, call me and oh for a weekend with Fleur. Oddly Lavender and Padma's sister (despite being her twin) Parvati do nothing for me…

The Assignment

The girl stood before her leader and tried not to tremble. She was so honored to be here, so very proud that her achievements had brought her before this man.

The leader looked between her and the file in his hand. His noble features were only enhanced by the scars that covered the left side of his face, over his left eye and up over his scalp. She knew that he had earned those scars in defense of all they held dear, and despite being only eleven (almost twelve) years old, she knew that she loved the man. She loved him with all her heart.

"For the duration of this mission," the leader said, his kind voice causing her heart to skip a beat when he spoke to her, "Your name will be Hermione Granger. Obviously, this is an assignment of utmost importance. Under any normal situation, we would never task someone your age with any sort of mission. However, at this time it is utterly necessary. Fortunately, you have the abilities and drive needed to achieve success."

He manipulated a control on the table before him and one wall of the room lit up with a photograph of a young boy. "This is Harry Potter, 10 years old. Like you, he is a magical adept, and he has been accepted to Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. You will meet and befriend him. He is going to need protection, and we want you to give it to him."

"I don't understand," she said, daring to speak. "Why will he need protection?"

The Leader smiled and manipulated the controls again. The photo on the wall changed from the young boy to a handsome man of middle age, a man with disturbingly red eyes. "This is Tom Riddle, known to British Magical Society as the Dark Lord Voldemort," the Leader suddenly laughed. "No, that isn't true. The vast majority of the cowardly wand users in Britain know him only as 'He Who Must Not Be Named'. Throughout the 1970s, this wizard ran a barely organized resistance to the established government known by the unimaginative name of the 'Death Eaters'. For reasons as yet unknown, on October 31st 1981, Riddle conducted a one man assault one particular family. The Potters."

Again, the photo on the wall changed to a photo of a happy family. The father was a tall bespectacled man with messy black hair. The mother, a tall beautiful red-head with piercing emerald green eyes, in her arms was an infant, who apparently was a mixture of them both, messy dark hair with his mother's eyes and a hint of her cheek bones beneath the baby fat.

"What exactly happened that night is unclear," the leader continued. "What is known is that both of the adult Potters were killed, and Riddle apparently so, leaving the Potter's infant son injured in a destroyed cottage. No one else was there, so of course, rumors of 'what really happened' spread like wildfire through the British Magical Society."

The photograph of Harry Potter returned to the wall. "Harry Potter was proclaimed as the 'Boy Who Lived', and stories of his enduring the unsurvivable killing curse spread through the population in a day."

The photograph faded from the wall and the lights of the room came back up. Hermione, already she was thinking of herself by that name, returned her attention to the man she was devoted to.

"The surviving Death Eaters quickly sorted out into three factions. The true believers, who stay true to their master and ravaged the country trying to locate him, dilettantes, who used their family names and money to purchase their freedom and returned to the society they had been waging war on, and of course, the traitors who turned on their fellows in hopes of securing their own freedom," her leader continued. "Potter has been hidden by obscurity. So few of the wand users know anything of the mundane world that placing the boy with his mother's powerless sister hid him utterly from any of the followers of the fallen Dark Lord that might have done him harm. This obscurity will end when he goes to school."

Hermione nodded, "so, I am to protect Harry Potter because he figures into your plans."

"Exactly," the leader beamed. "It precisely because of your clarity of thought that you were selected for this mission. You will be operating under deep cover, only returning to the fold while out of school, summers, the Yule and Spring holidays. Beyond that, your communication with us will be through coded letters to your 'parents'. You will be further briefed by your mission handlers, report to the quartermaster and requisition your required supplies. Dismissed."

Hermione came to attention, and yearned to offer the traditional salute, but did not. She had not yet earned the right.

This one came from Marvel Comics, and was intended to follow Harry and the young, unnamed, woman through a canon-ish telling of Harry's story, with small asides to her 'real life' as she rose within her organization.

Unfortunately, it died out me. After more than 5 years, all I've got is what is posted above, the final punchline, and a lack of interest in continuing it.

The punchline?

Harry swallowed hard, his wand still firmly in his grip. Hope started to swell within him. Minerva had Dumbledore was back on his feet with his wand also aimed at Voldemort and Bellatrix, with the Dark Lord on his knees, his most faithful Death Eater at his side.

He was going to survive this… then perhaps he and Hermione could find the time to…

Agony flared in his left side, the pain so severe that he couldn't make a sound, his wand falling from his fingers to clatter on the forest floor. Slowly, so slowly, his strength failed and Harry fell to his knees. Dumbledore made a sound of pain before also falling. Voldemort had time to scream before he slumped to the floor in death.

Harry rolled from his knees to lay on his back, finding himself looking up at his assailant. It made no sense… it couldn't be Hermione holding the bloody knife. It couldn't be.

Harry's last thoughts were wasted noticing an aircraft of some kind landing nearby, so close he could feel the heat of the engines as they spun down.

The young woman known as Hermione Granger looked over to Minerva McGonagall, and then to Bellatrix Lestrange. The three women nodded and raised their bloody knives in salute to the man who exited the aircraft.

As one they offered the salute. "Hail Hydra!"

So, yeah. Cliché, I know, but just the sort of crap Hydra did in dozens of comics, both Captain America and Nick Fury: Agent of Shield.

Harry's always getting to be an agent, why couldn't Hermione? Okay, so maybe not an agent you would want to hang out with, but still…

Free to a good home.