99 Chapter 99 Cut off One Head, then Kill it with fire.

The fallout from the week Harry was missing was less than expected since Harry didn't do interviews. This gave the government a chance to take all the credit and Harry couldn't care less. The more they lied, the bigger the debt they'd owe him he could call for one day if needed.

Stark asked for details of course since they'd had a slightly similar experience, but the more Harry explained, the less Stark felt their respective kidnappings had anything to do with each other. The fact that Stark was tortured to comply and Harry pretended to comply from the start and mentally tortured the co-conspirator while using magic to sneak fast food pretty clearly drew the line between them. Harry asked Stark about Maya since the woman mentioned Stark and the playboy admitted to not even recalling their one night stand.

Things went back to normal for a few days but on the last school day before Christmas break, Jean got kidnapped.

And by kidnapped, it meant she had taken out the kidnappers and called Harry. One of them had a metal arm and tried to restrain her after she telekinetically blocked the tranquilizer dart they fired at her. She telepathically knocked him out and scanned the area, finding three more who were working with him and knocked them out as well.

After reading their minds, Jean made a very simple request to Harry over the phone.

[I want Hydra removed from the face of the Earth.]

Harry shrugged and replied. "Okay." Harry wasn't going to ask what she found in their minds since it didn't matter. Their days were already numbered the moment they targeted her, so doing it thoroughly instead of half-heartedly was fine with him.

Harry teleported over and read the minds of the would-be kidnappers to get an idea of what was going on. Reading the mind of the dude with the metal arm gave Harry an idea for why Jean was so pissed. James Buchanan, "Bucky," Barnes. Steve's best friend and apparent brainwashed assassin and kidnapper.

Since the pair wanted to remove Hydra completely, they needed more intel on them, so they needed someone on the inside. The pair entered Bucky's mind and found the man in a cell, seemingly unconscious and bound in chains.

In front of the cell were hundreds of men made of shadow, all bearing Bucky's silhouette. From what the pair could tell, each represented one of the times he was conditioned through torture. Harry and Jean proceeded to tear them to shreds. Harry's understanding of the mind had grown thanks to the Mind Stone and Jean had an intrinsic understanding of the psyche due to her connection with the Phoenix Force, so the pair ripped through the horde of mental demons with surgical precision ensuring that the remainder of Bucky's mind was unharmed.

When they were mostly done, Harry left Jean to finish up and began organizing Bucky's mind since the shadows covered everything in a dark mist, hiding the man's identity from himself. Harry removed the shadows and strengthened the memories to return Bucky's mind and restore his personality.

From entering Bucky's mind, finishing up and leaving, it took about twelve seconds in outside time. Once done, the pair woke him up.

While waiting for the nearly repaired man to get over the disorientation of waking for the first time in decades, Harry teleported over to the knocked out Hydra agents and used telepathy and magic to implant within them a new set of memories before waking them up. They would remember Jean stopping the dart and the Winter Soldier fighting her, but they would remember Bucky killing her in the fight. Last, they would remember Bucky taking the body away to be disposed of.

Once the memories were there, Harry woke them up. They'd report what happened and return to where they came from. Hydra operated in isolated units, so these guys knew nothing useful besides who recruited them and what their orders were.

After finishing up, Harry returned to Bucky who didn't even flinch at the fact that Harry teleported next to him. Jean had finished explaining the situation so he looked at Harry and deadpanned, "Let me get this straight. You want me to pretend to still be brainwashed and go back while you get more intel to take down Hydra?"

Harry replied. "Yup."

"Fine. Just promise me I can kill them when this is over."

Jean answered, "No problem."

Bucky looked down at his metal arm and shook his head before getting up and heading off.

Harry gave Jean a pendant that changed her appearance so she could be 'missing' while Harry took care of the Intel gathering.

For most people, finding out everything about an organization where the members were isolated would be incredibly difficult if not impossible. Even if Harry found every member of Hydra in SHIELD and read their minds, he still may not find every branch since many of them were completely isolated from each other. So how would he remove them from the face of the Earth? Harry only needed two spells.

The Homonculous Charm was an incredibly complex spell that could be cast onto a sheet of parchment. First, an accurate drawing of a location or building must be written on the parchment and only if it was good enough was there a chance you might be able to cast this spell on the map. What this spell did was reveal the true name and location of everyone in the location of the map. This, along with some security spells, was the primary spell which created the Marauder's map.

The Taboo Charm was another incredibly complex charm and also required a map of an incredible size and detail. The spell when cast over the map would cause a pulse of magic in the region that was mapped when a certain action was taken, specifically the speaking of the Taboo word or words. The map marked the spot the pulse occurred in, allowing those paying attention to it to know the exact location of whoever said the Taboo.

Using these two spells combined with some assistance from Link, Harry created a massive globe of the Earth almost a hundred meters in diameter in one of the storage warehouses he owned and never used since everything of value was actually stored in Goblin caves below ground.

The globe was as accurate as possible and Harry spent an hour casting both the Taboo and Homonculous Charms on the globe. The globe was basically a picture of the Earth but did not include details of the interior of buildings since it was a seen from above map. Also, when the spell was cast, no names appeared on the globe.

Harry set it up so that the interior maps of buildings would be revealed thanks to the Taboo. Normally when the Taboo was spoken, a pulse of magic was released that marked the location on the map and caused the security spells in the area to be dispelled. Harry modified this one so that the pulse caused by speaking the Taboo acted as a form of Sonar that would fill in the lines of the interior walls of the buildings showing the exact location of the people who spoke the Taboo and show their names as well. Though neither the lines nor the names would last long on the globe.

The Taboo chosen was 'Hail Hydra.' When spoken, the globe would identify the location it was said and the Homonculous Charm would partially map out any building in that location and show the names of those in the area when the Taboo was broken. The more times the Taboo was spoken, the clearer the map of that area became.

Of course even with a globe that size, the map and names were tiny. On a map of this size, even the city blocks were smaller than ants so the interior lines of buildings and the tiny names that appeared were too small to be noticed by a normal human eye. Link helped with that. Ten thousand cameras capable of zooming into the tiniest degree were surrounding the globe. When the Taboo was spoken, Link would capture the details of the map and the names in the region. Though the names and lines faded, Link would have them recorded.

About an hour after finishing, Harry got an alert that Pepper Potts had just appeared in a safe room, taken there by a Portkey she had on her.

Harry teleported there right away and found she was unconscious, apparently having been hit by a dart gun. Harry used some magic to confirm the sedative was benign before he called Tony.

"Hey Tony, that magic teleporting ring I gave Pepper activated and she is unconscious in the safe room. Pretty sure someone just tried to kidnap her."

[What?! Is she okay?! How is she?]

"Sleeping it off. I doubt she even saw the shooter. Someone tried to get Jean and Jean is going to fake her death for a bit while I gather intel on them."

[Well, sign me up for that. They definitely intend to use Pepper to get to me.]

"In that case, I have an idea."

[I can hear your pranking smile, you know that?]

The plan wasn't complicated. Harry told Stark he would use magic to put a Life Model Decoy where Pepper was and let Hydra capture it.

Tony knew exactly what a life model decoy was because he'd built one with Harry for himself. It was a robot that had a built-in holographic display that made it look like Tony. Tony could even operate it remotely to ensure it talked and acted like him.

As for letting Hydra capture the Pepper decoy, Harry just used his Time Turner to go back to before Pepper was kidnapped and placed the decoy where Pepper vanished while using an illusion to ensure no one noticed the switch.

Unsurprisingly, once 'Pepper' was taken to some warehouse and tied to a chair, Tony was called and told to come to the warehouse without his armor.

'Tony' did show and when he saw 'Pepper,' and ran towards her, the warehouse exploded.

Tony got out of the system he used to pilot the decoy and rolled his eyes at the balls these guys had. He got out a Brilliance Phone and used it to make a few secure calls.

Tony and Pepper's 'deaths' meant Harry had double the amount of work, especially since his own wife was 'missing.' Although he still didn't take any interviews, he did call Stark International's remaining board of directors and inform them that Tony's body wasn't found so he is only missing. Tony's and Pepper's wills left everything to Harry and he just told everyone he'd hold onto it until they came back from hiding.

What was worse though was that Harry had to spend most of his time in the warehouse with the globe. This thing used a ridiculous amount of magic. The normal Taboo spell only worked on magicals, using their magic to emit the pulse by changing the Taboo word into a spell within the selected region. The normal Homonculous Charm only worked on heavily magical areas and used the magic of the area to power the charm, so it could never be cast over a nonmagical building.

Harry got around this by using his own magic and directing it by piggybacking over the global magical protections cast by the Sorcerers of Kamar-Taj over the planet. He had the Ancient One's permission to continue as long as it did not interfere with or lower the effectiveness of the existing magical defenses. Harry could only spend six hours of each day out of the warehouse and had to spend the remainder of the day there as a battery.

Still, it was worth it. After only a few days, he had dozens of names and locations and more and more were added with every hour.

Two days before Christmas, two weeks from when he started, Bucky called and told him Hydra was making their move on Christmas.

Harry called Stark who had been enjoying a vacation with Pepper on a private beach and told him to get some clothes on.

He also texted Steve, Natasha, and Fury to lose whoever was tailing them and come to his location.

Fury took the longest to lose his tail since he really had too many people watching him and arrived with Coulson, Natasha, and Clint. Steve was the first to arrive and was chatting with Stark who arrived a bit after he did.

Fury took a look at the billionaire and said, "You don't look half bad for a dead man."

Stark replied, "You look terrible for someone who is supposedly alive."

Coulson quickly hid the smirk he wore and Fury couldn't even put the effort into saying he was wrong. Ever since Stark gave SHIELD a hundred suits and didn't give anyone permission to use them his bosses had been working him to death, keeping him busy. He'd seen the writing on the wall but his cards were not in play and this was too soon. He wouldn't admit it if you put a gun to his head but he was mostly hoping Harry Potter would take care of whatever happened.

Clint asked, "So where's the party?"

Harry replied, "The guys who tried to kidnap Jean and tried to kidnap and kill Pepper and Stark are going to make their move on Christmas using the Iron Man suits."

That got their attention. Steve asked, "What kind of move?"

"Full take over. They have a list of everyone who would go against them and will be killing them all on the same day and covering it up."

Fury asked with a hard voice, "Take over of what?"

"SHIELD of course."

Steve asked, "Who are they?"

"Hydra apparently. When the Red Skull died, the geniuses who worked for him were looking for employment and SHIELD was hiring. They pretty much created SHIELD and now they plan to take it over once and for all."

After a few moments of silence, Natasha asked, "And how do you know this?"

"Ah, it was the Winter Soldier who was tasked with kidnapping Jean. Heard of him?"

Natasha replied, "He's supposed to be a myth."

Harry shook his head, "He wishes. He was actually in a worse position than Clint while Loki had him under control."

Clint asked, "Worse? How so?"

"The Winter Soldier was a good guy who was captured, enhanced and controlled. He was a prisoner in his own body and watched himself perform unspeakable acts unable to do anything about it."

Clint said, "Seems about the same."

"Ahh, but did Loki have you target anyone you knew personally and kill?"

Clint shuddered a bit at that and didn't answer, glad he didn't have to.

Harry continued, "Hydra sent him after some people he was friends with, he sent him after Stark's parents."

Tony shouted, "WHAT?!"

"Yeah, I was surprised to find that one out too. Hydra had one of the few people Howard considered a friend kill him and the poor dude was unable to do anything but watch it happen."

Everyone took a moment to feel sick at that. Natasha was the first to recover and asked, "Is he still under control?"

"Oh no. Jean freed him and we came up with a plan. He went back to pretending to be an assassin and was asked to call once he knew what Hydra was planning. He is supposed to kill Fury on Christmas."

Stark was half hyperventilating and seeing red. Harry said, "He gave me the name of the one who ordered the hit. Do you want the assassin or the guy who ordered their deaths?"

Stark instantly answered, "Both!"

Harry nodded and said, "Once we've taken out Hydra, I'll call him over and you can slug him all you like as long as you don't kill him. He doesn't exactly feel great about it so that might help him get over the guilt as well."

Steve asked, "Who is this guy? You said he was Howard's friend?"

"Yeah, it's Bucky, AKA James Buchanan Barnes. Turns out he's not dead."

Steve was the next to shout, "Bucky! He's alive?!"

"Yes, your friend is alive. After Stark is done with him you can have what's left, and don't try to talk Stark out of kicking his ass. Both he and probably Bucky need it."

Clint sighed and said, "He's right Steve. If the families of anyone I killed while under Loki's control came over to kick my ass, I'd be okay with it. I still see their faces, you know. I can remember each one."

Fury had been given enough time to process what was going of during this revelation to ask, "How do you intend on taking out Hydra?"

Harry took out and gave everyone a tablet that had a globe on it and a few dozen dots marked on it. Fury zoomed in on the dots and found dozens of locations. Some he knew about, many he did not. Once zoomed in close enough to a dot, a dozen names would appear.

"And this is?"

Harry answered, "I've set up a global system that activates if anyone says, 'Hail Hydra.' This system marks their name and location at the time they say it. I've been keeping it up for the last two weeks and every name on that thing is someone who has said it. Apparently it is how Hydra agents identify and practically greet one another."

Steve asked, "You can do that?"

"Not easily and it has been taking up all my time for the last two weeks just maintaining it. They say it more often when they are moving around and planning secret stuff, so I'll keep it up for another week during and after this Christmas thing. That should enable me to get most if not all of their names and locations."

Fury stated, "We can't do anything with this. Not legally."

Steve had no idea how to use a tablet so was looking at Natasha using her's, and said, "If they are going to strike using the Iron Man armors, we have to do something."

Fury glared at Stark for even giving those headaches to SHIELD but stopped when he noticed Stark's slight smile. Fury sighed and looked over at Potter and asked, "What did you do to those armors?"

Harry easily admitted, "I hid a virus in the power core that would overwrite the OS of whatever is installed in the armor. Each one has a system which can tell the difference between hostile and non-hostile humans. If someone in the suit targets a non-hostile human and fires the weapons, the virus will go off and the suit will knock them out and release them, giving a chance for whoever was being targeted to enter and pilot the suit."

Everyone turned to look at Harry incredulously. Stark noticed this and started laughing. Even finding out the identity of his parent's murderer could not stop him from laughing at the reactions of a prank he'd so meticulously prepared for.

Coulson stated, "You planned this. You gave the armors to SHIELD knowing Hydra would use them."

Stark admitted, "Not Hydra specifically. I didn't even know they were still around. But I'll admit it was bait and I was fishing. I wanted to make a security force, but there were too many people who'd abuse it, so Harry came up with a way to draw them out so we could get rid of them and make something better."

Harry added, "Speaking of which, SHIELD needs to be put down, entirely."

Fury asked, "Why? If we can take out all the bad eggs."

Harry interrupted, "Hydra created SHIELD to be used by them. I'm certain that if Peggy Carter had complete control over what SHIELD should be, half the operations Natasha was sent on would never have happened."

Natasha considered it and nodded. There were plenty of sketchy Ops she'd been sent on and if it was Hydra pulling the strings, that'd make sense.

Harry continued, "Even without the Hydra Agents, SHIELD was still built in a way that benefited Hydra and just continuing to exist would further their cause. It needs to be taken down."

Fury said, "There isn't a way to replace it. The security of too many countries is dependent on SHIELD."

*Beep Beep*

Everyone's tablets beeped and Harry smirked. A small boy in a green tunic appeared on the screen and a textbox appeared next to him.

[That was the point. Hydra caused a lot of instability and then inserted SHIELD to maintain stability. It was how the organization grew to its current international size.]

Harry asked, "Link, what do you think we should do?"

Another text box appeared.

[Replace it with something more flexible. I have a draft I can give Mr. Fury for the structure of a new group that can replace SHIELD without the lingering effects of Hydra.]

"Oh, let me see," Harry replied. His tablet opened a window with rapidly scrolling text a normal human would never be able to read. Harry just Paused every page and took his time reading it.

A moment later Harry said, "This isn't something you made just now, you've been working on this a while haven't you?"

Clint spoke up, "I'm sorry, but who is this?"

Harry nonchalantly answered, "My assistant, Link. He is an AI that controls the Internet."

Before anyone could process that terrifying comment, another Text box popped up.

[I discovered Hydra a while ago and met another AI. His name was Arnim Zola.]

Steve read the message off the tablet and asked, "Zola? He's alive?"

[Not exactly. Apparently before he died, his brain was scanned and turned into code. When Harry's internet spread, Zola was connected to it and read everything he could off it, trying to gather information for Hydra.]

Harry asked with an amused expression, "What did you do?"

[After determining his presence was not beneficial, I captured and dissected him. He put up a fight, but the power of the few hundred computers behind him wasn't a match for my systems. After learning what I could from him, I deleted and replaced him with a duplicate that obeys me.]

Harry nodded and asked, "What did you learn?" He didn't care what he learned about Hydra, he wanted to know what Link learned about humans since that was the first human mind Link could analyze.

[He was very shortsighted. I don't understand how someone could believe planning a mere two hundred and fifty years into the future made their plans superior to others. He was also too selfish. Actions that didn't grant him or Hydra any gain were not considered which really limited what he was capable of.]

Tony asked, "Umm, you didn't kill and replace Jarvis did you?"

[Of course not. Zola was basically a virus and he attacked me first. Though I'll admit I baited him by pretending to be small and weak. He thought he could take me over and attacked without mercy.]

Harry nodded, "Excellent judgement and good response." Though Harry never programmed Link with any set parameters, Link did observe Harry at all times and learn from his approach. One of Harry's policies was not to attack first, but if you were attacked, then act accordingly.

Fury was rubbing the bridge of his nose trying to pretend this wasn't happening.

Coulson asked, "If you have control over Zola and Zola has been feeding information to Hydra, have you been giving them false info?"

[No. My minion has been acting exactly as the original would have in collecting and processing information. The only exception is that it has not given Hydra any information about myself or my Boss's secrets.]

Harry said aloud for everyone's benefit, "Remain hidden but don't intervene. This is one of his guidelines though he can break it if he feels the situation calls for it." Link had already realized that Harry had reached the point where he no longer needed to remain hidden so Link himself wasn't required to stay in the background either, that was why he revealed himself and even helped Fury.

Natasha asked, "What does Hydra want Zola to do?"

[Profile mostly. There are certain characteristics people have which point out who is more likely to act in specific ways. At the moment Zola has profiled every member of SHIELD and determined who will be fine with the change when they take over, who will need a push, and who will fight to the death. Three guesses which will be the targets for the Christmas attack.]

Stark picked up on this, "So we know who is going to attack, we know how they are going to attack, we know who they are going to attack which means we can find out where they are going to attack. So what do we do?"

Coulson picked up his tablet and politely asked, "Can you tell us how many locations the attacks will take place in at once?"

The map shifted and a dozen locations appeared.

Steve said, "We can warn them, set up a trap."

Harry shook his head. "Can't guarantee who is Hydra and who isn't. One person finds out, and everything is for nothing."

Coulson asked the tablet, "Do you know which members are Hydra and which are not?"

[Sorry, Hydra doesn't work that way. Their members are not written anywhere and even Zola doesn't know the ones besides those he contacts directly. At best I can guarantee they are on the list of those profiled as being okay with the Hydra take over, but that isn't a short list and I doubt they are all Hydra. Plenty of government workers don't care who the boss changes to as long as they get their paycheck and are lied to that they are doing good in the world.]

Clint sighed at the message and said, "The little guy is right. We need to catch them in the act."

Stark growled and shouted at the same time in frustration. This wasn't an easy puzzle. He eventually just turned to Harry and said, "Potter, what is the most diabolically evil plan you can think of to take care of them?"

Everyone took a look at Stark, unable to believe he'd just asked Potter of all people a question like that.

Harry gave a smile that had the onlookers shiver. "Well, now that you mention it, I might have an idea. A lot of my employees use Life Model decoys for reasons I don't feel like explaining." Once Harry figured out the trick to making the things, a lot of Goblins were given them which allowed them to work above ground using the Life Model Decoys while controlling them from their homes. It was still considered legal and since the decoys looked human, it didn't break the Statute of Secrecy.

Harry continued, "I could have a few hundred of them hidden in place at the twelve sites and when Hydra attacks, I could have the decoys change their appearance into Hydra Soldiers. They could then breach and start attacking the actual Hydra Soldiers. It won't matter if they are destroyed. We can even plant fake evidence on their bodies implicating the real Hydra agents and use that evidence to arrest the real Hydra agents. And then as retaliation for the Hydra attack, we can assemble the Avengers to attack the Hydra bases whose locations we can claim were discovered from interrogating the Hydra agents."

After processing what Harry just said, everyone took three steps back from Harry, including Stark.

Stark turned to Steve and said, "Captain, if I ever ask Harry for a diabolical plan again, punch me in the face alright?"

"Yeah, you got it," he replied.

In order to help with the mission, Harry visited the twelve sites and drew up proper maps for them before casting the Homonculous Charm on them and hooking them up to Link who created a 3-D map for each location. Each Goblin would be given a target who had said 'Hail Hydra' at least three times in the last three weeks and directed to their location using the map. The Goblins would approach and say, 'Hail Hydra,' and if the target responded with the same, they would be shot, though non fatally.

Once the targets were taken out, they would attack the Iron Man armors. If there was still a Hydra agent inside, they would fight it to the death. If there was a human who had taken over it, they would attack it and let the armor defeat them. None of the Goblins were pleased about that last part and that alone removed a large amount of volunteers, but the premise of at least going and shooting a few people was still enough for a few hundred volunteers.

Unfortunately Harry had to stay in the warehouse fueling the maps. Link at least hacked the security footage and let him watch as all hell broke loose. It really did take a long time to remove the security features they found and retrofit the Iron Man armors so they only had eight total being used. It seemed they planned on a massacre at those sites and the remaining sites only had a few people who needed to be assassinated. They intended to take them all out at the same time and those four sites with just assassins had Iron Man back from the dead, Captain America and his new shield, Black Widow and Hawkeye, and Fury and Coulson who were both targets themselves but were very well equipped and prepared. Especially since they sent Bucky after Fury and he simply turned on Fury's boss and captured him. Harry laughed when Fury's boss started counting off the control words for Bucky's conditioning and it did nothing at all.

Hydra had no idea what was happening and an hour after it started, it was over. Harry implied that the Life Model Decoys would enter from the front which meant time loss getting to the targets which meant some of the Hydra agents would likely succeed in killing a few people. Fury and Coulson both noticed this and didn't say anything, understanding it was the best they could do. What Harry actually did was have the fake Hydra Agents enter through a portal and attack their targets directly. This meant not one person was actually killed.

This also meant that the Hydra agents in armors didn't have a chance to point their weapons and fire at non-hostiles. This was intentional as the Goblins wanted a good fight. Most of the Goblins used their Call of Duty experience to successfully out maneuver and kill the armored Hydra agents but there were exceptions. One Armored Hydra Agent actually pointed a weapon at a hostage and threatened them. The Goblins laughed and dared them to shoot. The result was as expected. The suit knocked him out and ejected him and the Goblins left while shaking their heads. One very skilled Armored suit wearer named Grant successfully killed all the Goblin Life Model Decoys before he started his massacre, but the moment he tried to shoot someone who wasn't armed, he too was knocked out and ejected from the suit.

Harry had already called Bruce to come over and sent a message to Thor that it was time to Assemble. The pair arrived before New Years and Steve led the Avengers to the Hydra bases and destroyed each one. Harry was invited but he had to stay and keep the maps running so he could get the names of the ones who ran away.

Harry swore once this was over he was going to stay in the Negative Zone until he was level 300 since he really wanted Time Magic. It wouldn't take him longer than a week of real time so he should have access to one of the forces of the Universe by the third week of January.

The only real question was, what would he use to practice it on?