17 17. GOD OF MARAUDERS.
Time passed in quietly, from Christmas. Harry and Domino had celebrated the arrival of 2012 quietly at the apartment, having had enough excitement on Christmas.
Business had not picked up but Harry was not particularly worried as their expenses were minimal, he still had plenty of funds in his account and SHIELD provided him a retainer even if they hadn't made use of his abilities yet.
Domino continued her adult education classes while Harry toyed with enchanting, learning more about Ancient Runes and finally mastering the animagus transformation.
Harry had discovered his animagus form, a large green eyed raven, during his last year at Hogwarts but hadn't had the time to complete the transformation.
Winter turned into spring and spring to early summer.
With nothing but idle time on his hands, Harry had honored his father and godfathers legacy by cautiously completing the transformation, taking extra measures to minimize the risk of being stuck in his form.
Harry was interrupted in his study of Ancient Runes by a ringing coming from his desk drawer.
Harry picked up his barely used cellphone and accepted the video call.
"Potter, we need you to come in. Something big has come up. Can you poof over?"
Harry stared at agent Sitwel's image on his screen. The man appeared to be on an air strip of some type. Men in safety gear could be seen running behind the agent and a fighter plane being refueled.
"Poof?" Harry asked incredulously.
"This is an unsecured line Potter. We need to get off it quickly and I'd rather not use certain keywords".
"Sure … how far are you from New York?"
"About 15 miles away".
Harry spent a few moments converting those miles to kilometers and staring intently at the image on his phone before nodding to himself and shutting off his phone.
With a crack the wizard disappeared from his office and appeared behind the startled shield agent.
"So what's the situation agent Sitwel?" Harry asked the startled agent.
"Damnit Potter! Don't DO THAT!" the man replied as he put away his suddenly drawn weapon.
"Sorry, sounded urgent." Harry explained with a shrug.
"It is. Several hours ago Loki, the Norse god of Mischief attacked one of our research facilities, compromised one of our best field agents, some soldiers and some of our best scientists and walked out with an item known as the Tesseract."
"The what?"
"The Tesseract, an ancient power source of unknown origin discovered by Hydra in 1942 in the town of Tonsberg. As far as we can tell it's a vessel of unlimited energy. It was lost in 1945 when Captain America crashed a plane containing atom bombs into the Arctic waters. You know that the Captain was found, you were the one tasked to introduce him to his new reality but what you don't know is that in the 1970's, during search efforts made to find Steve Rodgers, the Tesseract was discovered and brought back to the US. In the 1980's, it was handed over to SHIELD and we have been studying it since."
"The literal Norse god of magic and mischief, son of the Ice Giant Laufey and adopted by Odin? That Loki?" Harry asked his eyes wide open in shock.
"You seem well informed." Sitwell pointed out.
"Between the 8th and 15th centuries Viking and Norse settlers colonised parts of what is now Scotland, mainly around Orkney and Shetland. I spent eight years in a magical school in Scotland where my best friend studied ancient runes including Norse runes. I've also been studying them myself for the past year. Norse Runes and Norse Mythology are intertwined with Ancient Futhark runes representing Thor and Odin directly. We also had a class called History of Magic. Of course, my information might not be relevant here." Harry pointed out.
"And that's one of the reasons you were called in. This Loki seems to be using magic so we need your expertise on this."
"And so the GOD of magic and mischief now has a source of, as far as you know, unlimited power?" Harry asked, staring at the man incredulously.
"Yes."
"And what's he planning on doing with it?"
"That, Potter, is the million dollar question. Of course, this is a major crisis so we've pulled a team together to work on this. Here are some files on your team mates or potential team mates." the agent explained as he handed Harry a binder filled with reports, profiles and photographs.
Harry accepted the binder and leaned up in the shade of some crates to review the files.
Harry, quickly scanned the team profiles, recognizing most names and faces. Natasha Romanov, Steve Rodgers, Tony Stark. The one name Harry did not recognise was Bruce Banner, codenamed Hulk.
"Robert Bruce Banner, respected biochemist and nuclear physicist. Has more degrees than I have scars which is kind of impressive." Harry read off the cover page.
"Thanks, it's nice to be recognised for that instead of for the … well … other thing."
Harry turned to see a short nervous man dressed in well worn clothing.
"Dr. Banner I presume?" Harry asked, extending a hand to the man who hesitantly accepted it.
The man felt familiar. Not that Harry believed he had ever met the man before but his forced quiet, calm demeanor, worn clothes, apparently academically inclined mind. This man reminded Harry of his surrogate godfather, Remus Lupin.
"And you are?"
"Harry, Harry Potter." Harry replied as he put down the info packet.
"You don't look like a shield agent. No gun, no uniform … I'm assuming you've been called in like I have. What's your specialty?"
"I'm a … private detective would be the best way to describe what I do I guess." Harry temporised
A Quinjet landed nearby, disrupting the two men's conversation and down the ramp came Steve Rodgers.
"Dr. Banner." Steve walked up to the two after exchanging a few words with the Black Widow and shook Dr. Banners hand.
"Oh, yeah. Hi. They told me you'd be coming."
"Word is you can find the cube."
"Is that the only word on me?"
"Only word I care about." Steve replied earnestly.
"Harry. Not surprised they dragged you into this." Steve greeted with a smile and a warm handshake.
"You guys know each other?" Dr. Banner asked.
"Yes. Harry helped me adjust after … waking up."
"Gentlemen, you may wanna step inside in a minute." Black Widow interjected. "It's gonna get a little hard to breath."
Suddenly the ship began shaking as massive machinery sparked to life.
"Is this is a submarine?" Steve asked looking about with some confusion.
"Really? They want me in a submerged pressurized metal container?" Dr. Banner asked sounding worried and incredulous.
"I don't think so, the planes and crates on the deck would get washed off by water or damaged by the pressure." Harry pointed out.
The three men moved closer to the edge of the Helicarrier. Massive fans on the side of the ship began to spin and miraculously the entire carrier began to lift into the air.
"Bloody Hell!" Harry cried out, his words were drowned out by the wind while Steve watched in AWE as Dr. Banner smiled a strained smile.
"OH, NO. THIS IS MUCH WORSE."
Harry surreptitiously shrunk his files and put them away for later perusal as the group made its way to the Helicarrier's control center.
Again, Harry was utterly amazed at Muggle enginuity. Here they had created a flying aircraft carrier, something Harry was certain was beyond the skill of the Ministry of Magic or any magic government from his old world.
The doors parted and the group entered the bridge of the ship. The large room was a flurry of activity as dozen of SHIELD agents worked on various high tech computers.
"We're at lock, sir." Informed agent Hill.
"Good. Let's vanish." Ordered Fury.
Fury walked over to Doctor Banner, who appeared rather nervous and uncomfortable, and extended his hand. Banner, reluctantly shook it. "Doctor, thank you for coming."
"Thanks for asking nicely. So, uh... how long am I staying?" Banner asked nervously.
"Once we get our hands on the Tesseract, you're in the clear."
Banner nodded apparently relieved by the words. "Where are you with that?"
Fury turned to Agent Coulson to explain
"We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet. Cellphones, laptops. If it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us."
Harry's eyes went wide in surprise, finally understanding how they had managed to keep track of him so easily.
"That's still not gonna find them in time." Romanov added in from her position at one of the computer terminals.
Banner and Fury exchanged a few words of technobabble that Harry wasn't even sure was English before Banner and Romanov left to find the scientist a place to work.
"So while Dr. Banner is going to try and find the cube, I can try and find your missing agent." Harry offered pointing to the monitor where Romanov had been working that showed an image of one agent Barton.
"What do you need?"
"Ink, a way to quickly print maps as needed and something from the missing agent: Hair, nails, blood …"
Agent Hill made her way to them. "Medical team may have some of his blood samples and the rest is easy."
"I'll also need someone to help with the computer. If you let me touch one of them I'm liable to bring this whole place crashing down." Harry kidded.
Hill and Fury looked at him with a serious expression.
"Not literally, I'm just not very good with computers is what I meant."
"I'll have an agent help you out but before you get to that, what can you tell us about Loki. He kidnapped our one Norse mythology expert."
"Norse god of trickery and mischief. A Jotun or frost giant, adopted son of Odin. A trickster, gifted with magic. An illusionist and shapeshifter."
"Shapeshifter?" Furry asked.
"Yes, fond of using illusions and different forms to trick his enemies." Harry confirmed.
"So facial recognition is pointless?" Hill asked.
"You're running it for the other missing agents anyways. Now how did he compromise your agent?"
"He has a bladed staff that can fire energy blasts and if he touches you with it, it puts you completely under his control."
"Like a zombie or a puppet …"
"No, Barton was in full control. It's like his loyalty was switched over to Loki."
Harry refrained from mentioning how that sounded eerily like the Imperius curse.
"Ok, that reminds me of a few things I encountered in my own world. I might be able to do something about that." Harry explained.
Harry was escorted to an empty storage area while several SHIELD agents fetched the materials he required. With a few swishes of his wand, Harry had a decent workspace transfigured.
The men returned with a portable computer, a printer, paper, a vial of blood and a pack of black ink cartridges.
"Start by printing a general world map, then we'll drill deeper as we go." Harry explained as he mixed a few drops of blood with the ink extracted from the printer cartridges.
An incantation later, Harry tracked Barton to Europe. A few more tests and Harry found that the agent was in Czechia and, following the slow movement of the ink drop appeared to be traveling north-west with his path potentially crossing Germany, Holland and Scotland if it continued in a straight line.
"The magic should last a while, probably another hour or so, can you keep an eye on it and let Fury know if it stops?" Harry asked the agent.
Harry walked back up to the bridge, not daring to apparate around so many high strung armed soldiers.
Coulson and Steve appeared to be in a discussion. Coulson appeared eager and excited while Steve appeared to be rather uncomfortable.
"I mean, if it's not too much trouble."
"No, no. It's fine." Steve replied, obviously uncomfortable with whatever it was Coulson had asked of him.
"It's a vintage set. It took me a couple of years to collect them all. Near mint, slight foxing around the edges, but...:"
Harry coughed to hide a snort of laughter as he realised that Coulson had gone full on Colin Creevy on poor Steve.
"I got a trace on Barton." Harry announced gathering what was essentially the executive branch of SHIELD.
"That was fast. Where is he?" Steve asked.
"Currently at the border of Czechia going north west'ish. If he keeps in a straight line he'll cross into Germany in a few minutes and then potentially Holland and then Scotland if he doesn't stop or deviate. I have the agent you assigned to me keeping an eye on things. My spell should last another forty minutes or so."
"Since he's going in a straight line, he must be on a plane." Hill offered.
"We might want to start making our way in that general area." Harry suggested.
"We got a hit. Sixty-seven percent match. Wait, cross match, seventy-nine percent." Sitwell exclaimed from a computer console.
"A hit on who?" Harry asked.
"Loki."
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(edited chapter.)
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