The Spy and the Painting
by J. Merrick
Chapter Five
Harry didn't immediately react, instead choosing to pick up his shot of vodka and slowly swirl it around while he collected his thoughts. The right thing to do in this situation – nay, the thing he was probably expected to do – would be to go into SHIELD, tell them everything that he knew about Voldemort so as to give them a fighting chance, offer his assistance in any way possible, and then sit down for a nice chit chat with Fury after it was all over.
Or...
He slammed back his vodka, and shook his head as if to clear it out. He stood up and offered his hand to Natasha.
"How well can you walk and talk on that thing?" he asked.
"Decently well," she responded, taking his hand after tossing a few notes onto the bar. She allowed herself to be guided out of the bar and into the sunlight and snow by Harry.
"Good, I need you to call Fury while we're moving," he continued once they were outside, "There's an old friend of mine that I need to speak to."
He immediately felt Natasha square her feet into the ground, stopping his movement by pulling on his arm.
"We are not going directly to face Voldemort," she said, Harry noticing that all signs of her creeping accent gone as sobriety had taken over, "That would be suicide."
"First, stop saying his name," he responded, "I don't know how advanced he's gotten but he used to be able to track people just by them uttering it. Second, get Fury on the phone so I can relay a few things to him. Third, that's not the friend we're going to meet."
Natasha looked at him for a few seconds until comprehension dawned on her face.
"Are you sure?" she asked, already walking forward hand in hand with him as she pulled out her phone.
"Never," Harry muttered as he pulled Natasha into an alleyway.
X X X
Nick Fury had thought today was going to be bringing a headache, he just hadn't figured on it growing to be this large. When he had first taken over as Director of SHIELD he had been briefed on the dying embers that were the magical world, and had been grateful that one piece of of his puzzle no longer was a player on the board. Now that it had dug it's way back it seemed that each passing moment granted his mind another variable to deal with.
He was lucky that after dealing with the last major crisis on Earth that the Avengers had found a way to cohabitate, balancing each other and SHIELD's needs out easily. Stark contributed more than Fury ever thought he would be able to give him credit for, and the fact that Banner continued to work with him meant those two were pumping technology out that far outpaced everything that there had been access to before.
Thor and Captain Roger's natural abilities had been augmented by this technology, Stark's Iron Man was a scientific miracle in motion, Agent Barton's skills were much better accounted for (even if he had been having off days, something Fury was hoping he would pull his head out of his ass about), and Agent Romanoff's own unique talents were flourishing.
Which brought him back to Potter. The notes that had been provided about him had left much to be discussed, mainly focusing on that he was suspected of being behind the death of the magical world and was a conduit of Death itself. He was an unknown, a variable that needed to be analyzed before it was allowed free reign. He had wanted the vessel that he had been trapped within brought in for reasons of controlling his reintroduction to the world...but that hadn't happened.
Instead, the past 24 hours of madness had occurred. Potter was let free and had casually brought SHIELD to it's knees with a wave of his hands, Romanoff had removed herself politely from the chessboard, and the most powerful dark sorcerer that the magical world had left notes about – a Voldemort – had returned to the land of the living, and announced it by raising an army of what his notes had told him were Inferi.
He had tasked out the Avengers he had left – Barton, Rogers, Stark, and Banner – to try to contain the problem with a warning of the situation there were walking into. They had been reporting a small measure of success in containment, but the numbers kept growing.
Then there was the voice in the back of his mind that was telling him that It was almost going to easily. That worried him.
His personal office phone started ringing, and he hit the button on his screen that would answer it.
"What?" he growled. No one had the ability to dial him directly, and those underneath him knew that to send something frivolous to him was akin to asking for death.
"Sir, it's Agent Romanoff," came the voice of his best Agent. Fury's mind immediately zeroed in on it.
"Agent Romanoff you had better be calling to tell me that your little vacation is over because right now-" he began before getting interrupted.
"I'm sorry sir, but this is important," she cut him off, causing Fury to tilt his head. She would never do something like that unless there was a very good reason, "Potter needed me to relay a couple of things to you."
"Why can't Potter tell me them himself?" he asked, knowing he was wasting time, but also knowing that technicians were busy pinpointing the call's exact location as they spoke.
"He said that his magic would probably break the phone," was the answer he received, "Sir, he said that the dark magician we're fighting would only reveal himself if he stood to gain from it, and that every time you say his voice he is able to track your exact location."
"You mean like Bloody Mary?" Fury snorted. He heard some fumbling before the voice he had been hoping to hear took over.
"Fury, listen closely," came the clipped British voice, "We will have our words after this mess is all taken care of, I promise you that, but you need to pull your men out immediately. He would not have let you known he was there unless it was to lure you in. The thing about his name? Almost got me killed multiple times."
"Potter, if you know so much about him why don't you just replace my people then?" Fury growled, "I would prefer to treat this how you magicals used to do so."
"I have something much more pressing to worry about," came a short answer, "I'm only telling you this because I know deep down you have the protection of this world in mind. If you're fighting Inferi, fire is your best bet."
Fury was about to say something when the call was suddenly cut off. He quickly shot off a message that would get related to the Avengers about using fire before looking up to see Agent Hill standing before him.
"Were they able to trace the call?" he asked.
"Yes sir, but they had already left," Hill replied, then hesitated to continue, "Sir, what if Potter was right about being drawn into a trap?"
"I have no doubt we are," Fury replied, suddenly feeling very old, "But what other choice do we have at the moment?"
X X X
Harry felt Natasha moving behind him, slightly irritated. He had to admit to himself that he enjoyed apparating away with her with little to no warning, if only for the glare she leveled at him each time he did it. He also knew that he was going to have to find a way to make this worlds electronics work better around his magic, as he didn't need a repeat of Natasha's phone blowing up in his face.
Also because some of Natasha's gadgets looked like they could be quite useful if he could find a way to make them work.
They walked out of the train station where Natasha had picked up a dead drop of equipment. He had to admit that it was a plus that she was a Master Spy and Assassin because they were able to go to just about any major city and have tools to work with.
"I'm giving you one more chance to back out of this," Harry offered after Natasha had indicated that they weren't being tailed.
"I'm too deep into this already," she replied, "I've already walked out on my boss, hung up on him, and shown you my favorite bar. Clint would say I've been compromised."
"Wouldn't be the first time I was compromised by a redhead," Harry joked as Natasha rolled her eyes, "Are you sure that everything in there isn't electronic?"
"Yes," was the short reply that he got.
"Good, because where we're going I don't think I would be able to uphold a shield around everything long enough before it blew up," Harry remarked, grabbing her hand and pulling her into a phone booth and closing the door.
It was in this moment that Harry appreciated that the last time he had been in this phone booth he had been much smaller, with a less vixen-like woman. He also noted that in the little light that they had her eyes were absolutely stunning.
"There a reason you pulled me in here in you aren't going to kiss me?" Natasha asked, her naturally husky voice coming out in little more than a whisper as she looked into his eyes. Harry had to close his eyes to refocus on what he was doing.
"Remind me after this is over the answer that properly," he whispered back, picking up the phone and dialing a five-digit code into it.
The look on Natasha's face as the floor dropped out underneath them was almost as good as the glare she gave when he apparated them without warning.
X X X
Tony Stark hovered above the street, helping to direct the other Avengers from above. He had never seen anything like these Inferi before, it seemed for each wave they killed they only kept coming back stronger and stronger. The piece of nasty business that was directing them also seemed to be getting more bold with each passing minute. There was also the fact that it seemed that each wave almost let itself be defeated just a little to easily...
"Hey Captain," he said, radioing down, "Is it just me or are these guys giving up just about every ten minutes?"
"No, it's like they want us to kill them," Captain Rogers, the Captain America, responded, "Are Hawkeye and the Hulk having the same issues?"
"Roger," Clint Barton chimed in over the radio, "It's like they're waiting for the Hulk to attack them."
"Very interesting," Tony murmured, "JARVIS you have any suggestions?"
"If they are luring you in for a trap why are they willing to sacrifice so many of there numbers, sir?" the voice of Tony's AI, JARVIS commented.
"Indeed," Tony replied, "It would mean they think they have something bigger...for...us..."
Tony trailed off as suddenly a golden light appeared from off in the distance of the city center.
"Hey guys, big golden light," he radioed down, "When in the history of cliches has that ever been a good sign?"
Their response was drowned out by the light suddenly exploding outwards and the entire sky going dark immediately after.
X X X
Every sense of Natasha's was going haywire as Harry led her through the run down former Ministry of Magic. Her flashlight was doing little to dispel the dark nature caused by the underground structure which had long since had the magic powering it evaporate. She made sure she kept her hand in Harry's, not because she was scared but because she did not want to get lost in an area that she had a sneaking suspicion that she wouldn't be able to leave without him.
"You certainly know how to show a girl a good time," Natasha snarked as Harry pulled her along a slightly familiar (due to the memories she had gleaned from Harry) path.
"Creepy places that scream 'you seriously do not want to be here' are sort of a special of the magical world," Harry answered back with a grin in his voice. They finally got to an elevator that had long since ceased to work.
"Do you have that rope?" Harry asked her. She grabbed the rope out of her bag and watched as he fastened it to the wall with a spell. She then handed him a pair of light grenades which he dropped into the elevator shaft so that they could see where they were going. He turned to her as he grabbed a hold of the rope, "I'll go first, if the area is all clear I'll call up for you."
Natasha nodded as she watched him descend. The time that they were separated seemed to creep to a crawl. It wasn't the darkness that bothered her, she in fact loved the feeling of total sensory deprivation due to her senses having been fine tuned by the people that had created her.
No, it was the feeling that was pressing in around her that there was something inherently wrong that had happened here. She had gotten the same feeling right before she had went into the mission where Clint had spared and saved her in more ways than one; she had gotten the same feeling right before Loki launched his attack on Earth.
Something about coming here just didn't sit right with her, and her entire body was screaming at her to save herself. Save herself from what though?
"Natasha you're safe," she heard Harry yell up. She quickly squashed all the thoughts that were screaming through her and grabbed the rope and descended down to wear Harry was waiting for her. When she disengaged herself from the rope she was greeted by what looked to be a magical wasteland being lit by a faint, deathly green glow.
"What happened here?" she questioned, as the back of her mind whispered that she knew if she looked at her thoughts more deeply.
"This is where they put me into that painting," Harry replied, grabbing her hand and leading her forward, "I'm pretty sure that if the rest of the Ministry building was lit it would look something like this. I wasn't happy."
Natasha snorted in mild amusement. It once again became apparent to her just how powerful Harry was if he was able to be responsible for this much damage. Then again, most people overlooked just how much damage she herself was capable of when she put her mind to it.
"If this is where you were put into that painting, why are we here?" Natasha asked, as both of their bodies seemed to direct them on the path that they needed to walk on, "This can not be a happy place for you."
"It isn't," Harry responded, "For more than one reason."
He took a deep breath as they walked out of a corridor and into a room that had an archway glowing in the middle of it, at the bottom of what appeared to be an auditorium. The Veil of Death the back of Natasha's mind whispered at here.
"We're here because it's the only place I know of that I can talk to my old friend," Harry said, dropping Natasha's hand as he walked forward to the veil. He stopped about ten feet away from the veil, looked over his shoulder at Natasha one more time with a small look of fondness before turning back around. Natasha could feel the power the was welling up around him in a quick instant.
Harry's voice suddenly boomed out, "DEATH! I COMMAND YOU TO ATTEND TO YOUR MASTER!"
The veil went pitch black as suddenly that feeling of Natasha's overwhelmed her.
End Chapter Five
Author's Notes: Sorry for the small delay in getting this chapter up. I realized halfway through my first attempt to write the chapter that I had left a plot point un-addressed that was going to be important later and thus had t redo my story outline to fit it in where it wouldn't be dropping out of nowhere. I also have had a hectic couple of days of work.
I appreciate all the reviews, especially ones with constructive criticism in them. I'm very grateful that so many people are taking the time to not only stick there way through so much of the story so far but to also take the time to drop a few words as well.
Once again, thank you for reading, thank you for reviewing, and I will see you next time!