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From her perch on a gargoyle atop a distant skyscraper, Hermione watched, invisible, as Alexander Pierce scrambled around on his penthouse balcony, trying to retrieve his own severed ear. A quiet, cold satisfaction settled over her.
The attack tonight had been a necessity. The HYDRA assault had been a probe, a test of her capabilities. A simple, brutal retaliation against the soldiers would not be enough; it would only make their masters more determined, more cautious. It would be seen as a tactical problem to be solved. But this… this was different. To bypass his entire security network, to enter the sanctum of his home, to mutilate him and then vanish without a trace—that was not a tactical problem. That was a statement. It was a declaration that she could reach anyone, anywhere, at any time. It was a message designed to inspire not caution, but pure, unadulterated fear. For an organization that thrived in the shadows, the most terrifying thing in the world was a ghost that could hunt them back.
The next day, Nick Fury walked into Alexander Pierce's office at the Triskelion without knocking. Pierce sat behind his large, mahogany desk, a warm, welcoming smile on his face that didn't quite reach his cold, calculating eyes. A pristine white bandage was wrapped neatly around the left side of his head.
"Nick," he said, his voice smooth as polished marble. "What a pleasant surprise."
"Heard you had an accident last night, Alex," Fury said, his one good eye fixing on the bandage. "Came to see if you were alright."
Pierce gave a dismissive, self-deprecating chuckle. "It's nothing. A clumsy fall at home. You know how it is. We're not as young as we used to be."
He was lying. The magical wound from the cutting curse had refused to heal. No amount of advanced S.H.I.E.L.D. medical technology could stop the bleeding. The flesh had refused to be stitched, as if cursed with a permanent state of injury. In the end, a surgeon had been forced to perform a grisly, painful procedure, cauterizing the wound with a laser, sealing it shut in a mass of burned flesh. The ear was gone forever.
Fury stood in silence for a long moment, his gaze unwavering. "There was a firefight three blocks from your apartment building last night," he said, his voice dangerously casual. "A whole city block torn to pieces. Dozens of bodies, all professional mercenaries. Drone wreckage everywhere. Odd thing is, although we found thousands of shell casings, it seems only one side was doing the dying."
Pierce stared out the window at the Washington Monument. "I heard a group of foreign terrorists managed to infiltrate the city," he said coolly. "A tragic but necessary outcome, I suppose."
"What kind of terrorists," Fury pressed on, his voice like grinding gravel, "can take out an entire tactical team and cause every surveillance camera in a ten-block radius to malfunction simultaneously? This is D.C., Alex, not some backwater desert."
Pierce finally turned from the window, his polite facade cracking. "If you have something to say, Nick, say it."
Fury nodded. "Alright. The wizard. You sent a team after her. Why?"
When he had first seen the after-action report, the sheer scale of the magical destruction had shocked him. But the real horror had come when he'd heard that his oldest friend and mentor, Alexander Pierce, had suffered a convenient, ear-related "accident" at home on the same night. The pieces had clicked into place with a sickening finality. Pierce had gone behind his back, used S.H.I.E.L.D. assets to attack their most valuable consultant, and had gotten his entire team annihilated and himself mutilated for his trouble.
Pierce's composure finally broke. "Because she is a threat!" he snarled, his voice a low, furious growl. "She and her entire secret world of freaks! S.H.I.E.L.D. was created to eliminate threats to global security. She is the greatest threat we have ever faced!"
"She's an asset, Alex!" Fury shot back. "A gateway to understanding a part of our world we never even knew existed. Her background is a complete unknown. We can't afford to provoke a war with her people!"
"So you know about the mind control, then?" Pierce asked, his voice suddenly calm, a sly, cunning look in his eyes.
Fury's one eye widened. "What?"
"Yes," Pierce nodded. "She can control your mind. Make you do anything she wants. I experienced it firsthand. You can't imagine the horror of it, Nick. To have your will completely erased. How do you know she hasn't already gotten to you? How can you be sure your thoughts are even your own?"
The accusation, the sheer, terrifying possibility of it, hit Fury like a physical blow. He thought back to his conversations with her, to her strange, childish logic that had so easily disarmed him. Had it been logic, or a subtle form of compulsion?
"Even so," Fury said, his voice a low growl as he fought down the paranoia, "that is not a reason to attack her. I know her. She would not use a power like that unless she was provoked."
Pierce gave a tired, world-weary sigh, strategically backing down. "You're right, of course," he said. "I overreacted. I will leave the wizard's affairs to you from now on, Nick. Just… keep me in the loop. Don't forget, I am still Alpha Level. I have a right to know what my agency is doing."
Fury stared at him, his mind a whirlwind of suspicion. The sudden reversal, the easy concession… it was all wrong. And how had Pierce even known enough to mount an operation? The girl's file didn't exist on any server; it was all hard copy, locked in his private safe. Then, a cold realization dawned. The agents. The "elite" team he had let Pierce hand-pick for her first class…
He gave a curt nod and left the office, his mind already connecting the dots of a conspiracy so vast and so deep it threatened to swallow him whole.
Back in the quiet, mundane reality of the Harry Potter world, Hermione lay on the bed in her childhood room, bored out of her mind. The Christmas holiday, which had seemed like a welcome break, had quickly become a prison.
Her relationship with the Grangers was… strange. They were kind, loving people who doted on a daughter who was, in reality, a complete stranger. She played the part, of course. She ate dinner with them, watched telly, helped with the washing up. And through it all, she felt a profound, aching sense of dislocation. This was a life, a good life, but it wasn't hers.
And she couldn't use magic. The Ministry's Trace on her wand was an infuriating magical leash. In the Marvel world, she was a demigod, a kingmaker, a player in a grand cosmic game. Here, she was just a bored teenager, grounded by an invisible force. The technology of this world, this primitive late-twentieth-century era, was a joke. No internet. No decent video games. She was a being of immense power and intellect, and she was slowly dying of sheer, unadulterated boredom.
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