Chapter 5 - Mind

Following the arrival of Phil Coulson, Tony explained who he was, what SHIELD was very briefly without getting into their father's involvement.

They both looked over the information Coulson had given him, the Tesseract and the links with Thor's arrival last year and the new Asgardian right now.

"Loki?" Hermione asked quietly.

"Looks that way." Tony replied morosely.

"The God of Mischief and Lies, this won't be easy." Hermione said.

"I know, but I have to go." Tony said, and hugged her tight.

By the time they had finished going through the information, Hermione had fallen asleep on the couch and Tony spent the rest of the night getting up to date on the technological aspects that Hermione couldn't even begin to grasp.

When the sun rose the next morning, Tony left Hermione a note on the coffee table saying he had to go, and would let Jarvis know to tell her if anything happened.

They had discussed the idea of Hermione joining him last night, but Tony didn't want to risk her being known by Fury and SHIELD, nor did they want to risk the Statute of Secrecy.

Once Hermione had woken up, she read the note and realised she was alone. She questioned Jarvis but he couldn't tell her much more without Tony's approval who was apparently busy trying to pin down Loki and capture him.

She went to Central Park that day, hoping to run into Steve but he didn't show, nor did he show the next day. He wasn't always there when she was so she tried to not be worried. Instead of spiralling into her own little anxiety bubble, she owled the only other person she knew was in New York even though she hadn't seen her since she arrived.


The elevator pinged and opened, Hermione ran to the small blonde woman who came out, "Luna! Thank you for coming." and hugged her tight.

Luna Lovegood returned the hug, "Of course Hermione, you're my friend."

The girls sat down on the couch, "How are you doing Hermione?" Luna asked.

"Not great. My brother left for a crisis I don't even really understand, and the one friend I made in this city isn't there. I'm worried." Hermione replied, biting her lip.

"It's going to be okay Hermione, but you are infested with Nargles, it will pass, they will both come back." Luna said serenely.

"Thank you Luna. How is Rofl?"

"We divorced a few months ago, actually." Luna said.

"Why?" Hermione blurted out and put a hand over her mouth in mortification.

"It's okay. It wasn't dramatic, we remain friends. We simply realised we weren't suited, we didn't mesh as well as we thought or did in the beginning." Luna replied.

"Oh okay, as long as you're happy. Why didn't you go back to England?"

"I had a feeling I needed to stay in New York." Luna replied with an enigmatic smile.

The girls then spent the rest of the day talking and catching up, until Jarvis interrupted them around 4 pm, "Mr. Stark and the rest of the group are coming towards New York, they believe Loki will target the Tower."

"Thank you Jarvis, Luna you should go home, I have no idea what's going to happen." Hermione said while getting up and flicking her wrist to have her wand in hand.

"I'll stay." Luna replied with a determined tone.

The girls moved to the bar in one of the upper levels as it gave a view of the deck in case someone decided to come in that way, and they realised someone already did as a device was currently being operated on the deck. Hermione had no idea how to stop it, or what it was, so she remained in the shadows, waiting for Tony to arrive.

However, Tony wasn't the one to arrive, but Loki was instead.

"Hello there, I wonder who you are to the Man of Iron, I'll be delighted to find out." Loki said by way of introduction as he sauntered into the room.

Hermione was in the middle of the room, unsure on what to do, while Luna had disillusioned herself to give them an advantage if needed.

"Loki." Hermione replied in a cold voice.

"Oh you know me, how sweet, let's make this even better." Loki said with a smirk and place the tip of his sceptre against her heart.

However, Hermione had raised her occlumency shields to their limits when he entered the room and the sceptre did nothing.

Loki was frowning, "Who are you to refuse me?"

Hermione did not reply, but instead focused on Loki, not noticing the arrival of her brother and the rest of the Avengers into the room. They had tried to come closer but Luna had erected a ward to stop them, knowing what needed to happen.

Hermione looked at Loki's eyes, they were blue but glassy, like someone under the Imperius Curse, she also knew enough about elemental magic to recognise the Mind Stone in the sceptre, he was trying to use it to control her mind but the stone was also controlling him.

She took a deep breath and placed both hands on the sides of his face, Loki was so startled he did not react, "Loki Odinson, this isn't you." she said softly.

"How dare you call me by that name!"

"Do you prefer Laufeyson? Laufey didn't raise you, he abandoned you. While Odin has his faults, he raised you, he loved you like his own, Loki. Trying to take over Midgard isn't you. Someone is making you do this." Hermione said and could finally see the war raging within him, he was trying to fight the mind control, likely have been trying since it started but couldn't. Loki had magic, she knew, but not the same kind and while he was more in tune with infinity stones than she could ever hope to be, he was also easily controlled by power.

"I'm sorry Loki." Hermione said and sent a non-verbal stupefy to him, which only made him take a few steps back and didn't incapacitate him but was enough for him to slightly release his old on the sceptre. She took the sceptre from him and immediately placed a strong ward over it to prevent the seductive power of the stone to reach out.

While this was happening, Tony was firing blast after blast to the invisible barrier trying to get through while Steve was at first frozen his shock at the sight of Hermione here of all places and trying to take down Loki by talking to him, but before long he was punching and launching his shield at the barrier along with Stark to try and get closer.

Hermione still hadn't noticed anyone though, the wards made by Luna also had a small notice-me-not charm added to it to make sure Hermione stayed focused.

Loki was frowning and clearly at war with himself, so Hermione came to him after leaving the sceptre on the counter, she took her wand and aimed at his forehead to shout, "Finite Totalum!"

Loki's blue eyes finally cleared and he looked at her in complete shock for a few seconds before collapsing on his knees. Hermione followed him and took him in his arms, "What have I done?" he repeated again and again.

"It wasn't you." Hermione said back.

By this time, Luna had removed the wards and Tony and Steve had calmed down enough to simply stare at the scene in both confusion and admiration.

Hermione continued to whisper to Loki and stroke his back, but finally she lifted her head and first saw her brother in full Iron Man suit, she smiled at him briefly before quickly scanning the others, not really noticing Steve enough to recognise him until she found the one she was looking for.

"You! Long blond hair, tall and holding Mjolnir, you are Thor Odinson." Hermione stated looking at the blonde Asgardian.

Thor's eyes widened, "Yes."

"Good, come here and take care of your brother. He was under mind-control and he needs his family, his brother." Hermione said and Thor immediately came to her and helped his brother get up before taking him away from the room while talking to him lowly.

Hermione finally took a deep breath, and looked around once more, her eyes widening when looking at the group surrounding her, a red-headed girl who looked able to kill anyone, someone with a bow and arrows of all things, her brother and finally she focused on the man in the full American flag costume.

"Steve?!" Hermione shouted.

"Hey Hermione, fancy meeting you here." Steve replied.

"What's up with the outfit?" Hermione asked.

He opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by Tony who glared at him, "How do you know her?"

Hermione rolled her eyes, "I told you about him, he's the friend I meet with in the park!"

Tony swivelled to glare at her then, "The way you talked about him made him sound like he was 80 years old!"

"I'm almost 94, actually." Steve replied, unphased by the whole thing as he was mostly still in shock and confused.

"What?!" Hermione shrieked.

Tony's eyes softened, "Right, Rogers here is Captain America, we haven't talked about him yet."

"Captain America?" Hermione asked, looking at Steve.

"Short story is I took part of an experiment for the American Army, your father injected me with a serum to create super soldiers. I plunged my plane in the ocean thinking I was about to die to save people and was frozen for decades instead. I came out of the coma last year." Steve said quickly.

"You knew my father?" Hermione inquired while walking towards him.

Steve's eyes softened, "I did, Howard was a good man."

"Thank you." She whispered.

"Right, while this is both touching and nauseating, there is still the issue of the portal thing on the deck!" Tony said, cutting in the moment and debating whether anyone would be mad if he slightly pushed Rogers to fall from the deck.

The group all followed Tony outside to look at the issue but no one was able to get close enough as a barrier of energy was blocking them.

"Is it reliant on electronics to work?" Hermione suddenly asked.

"Yes." Tony replied with a gleam in his eyes as he had found out how little electronics enjoyed magic.

"Perfect, everyone stay back and shield yourself." Hermione said to the group.

She pointed her wand at the structure and shouted "Bombarda Maxima!" and as she said "Protego Totalum!" Steve was coming next to her and shielding her with both his own body and his shield.

Thankfully her own shield charm held firm for everyone and the explosion didn't hurt them beyond making them stumble. Steve held Hermione's waist to make sure she didn't fall when the force of the explosion came back to them.

Hermione had acted early enough to stop the opening of the wormhole and the device operated by Erik Selvig no longer worked in any way, shape or form. Selvig himself was on an armchair inside, having been moved by Clint Barton when his mind-control broke at the same time Hermione removed the control from Loki.

They moved back inside and all stared at the sceptre, "Right, I'm just going to take this and hide it somewhere no one else can find." Hermione declared and apparated away before anyone could object.

She apparated to the steps of Gringotts New York and immediately went inside, requesting the deepest vault available. She was lead there by cart and placed the sceptre in the centre of the small room before placing wards over it. She wanted to make sure no one could even detect it, find it or take it from the vault. That kind of powerful mind-control wasn't necessary for any reasons, while the stone itself was essential to the fabric of the Universe, it didn't have to be somewhere specific, it just had to exist so Hermione put wards after wards to render the sceptre invisible to all types of magic and any types of technological means as well.

Once she had existed the vault, she sealed it with a Blood ward, making her and possibly Tony, the only person able to get in. Once she had paid for the vault and made sure the Goblins knew how secure it needed to be by making sure even herself had to give them a password to be able to get in, she apparated back to the Tower.

In the time she was gone, Thor had come back to the room with a subdued Loki and everyone was sitting around.

"What the hell were you thinking?" Tony immediately yelled.

"I hid it. No one can ever find it." Hermione replied and then noticed the new arrival, "Hello, who are you?" she asked.

"Dr. Bruce Banner." he replied with a nod.

"Banner, go to the lab and use the same scans you used to find it initially, we need to make sure no one can find it." Tony told him and Banner left the room.

"The tesseract, it's another stone, isn't it?" Hermione asked, looking at Loki.

"Yes, it's the Space Stone." Loki replied in a monotone voice.

"SHIELD is using it to make weapons, we won't be able to take it from them." Tony said.

"How arrogant are they! Using an infinity stone to make weapons, no one should ever wield a stone, no one is strong enough to resist its powers!" Hermione exclaimed.

"I have it right now." Loki chimed in to stop her tirade.

Everyone stared at him, they already knew that, bar Hermione.

"Give it to me." Hermione asked.

They stared at each other for almost a minute, before he relented, and plucked the Tesseract out of thin air to give it to her. She apparated away immediately to place it into the same vault the sceptre was in. She knew she would place it somewhere else when she had more time, to make it even more difficult for anyone to get.

Once she came back, everyone was feeling a bit more relaxed as Banner has confirmed he couldn't find the radiation anywhere on Earth. The sceptre was truly hidden, and now so was the Tesseract.

"Fury is going to kill us." Clint Barton said in the silence, and Natasha Romanoff snorted.

"I'm sure the little witch can protect us." She said.

"Right, about that, witch?" Steve asked Hermione who simply smiled back.

"I'll explain later. Loki, we need to talk about who was controlling you. Someone was trying to take over Midgard." Hermione said, turning towards Loki.

"He wants the stones." Loki replied, staring off at the wall.

"Who is he?" Hermione persisted.

"Thanos."


A/N - I have decided infinity stones are known to the Wizarding World, although likely a very obscure subject that Hermione learned about by herself, not at Hogwarts or anything like that.

I have read your comments and decided Luna Lovegood would balance out Tony really well and it would be hilarious, so here we are.

Pepper will likely not really be seen again, she's Stark Industries CEO but beyond that she doesn't really fit in the story.