For 40+ advance chapter: p atreon.com/Snowing_Melody
The air over Manhattan was suddenly still, heavy with a cold, unnatural silence. The only sound was the sickening thud of thousands of alien bodies hitting the ravaged asphalt below.
The Avengers looked at each other, unable to reconcile the scene. The massive Chitauri army, the swarm that had just been overwhelming them, was gone. Wiped out.
Tony, moving cautiously, flew his armor down to the nearest corpse, his repulsor light illuminating the dead alien's face. "Jarvis, deep scan. Cause of death."
"Sir, external injury: non-existent. Internal organs: intact. Vital signs: absolutely zero. The subject is simply… dead." Jarvis's voice, for once, sounded less like an AI and more like a scientist profoundly disturbed by an impossible reading.
If elemental powers like lightning and fire were within the realm of understanding—a force applied, a structure broken—this green light was something else entirely. No explosion. No impact. Just a cessation of life. Clean. Total.
A chill ran from the soles of Steve Rogers's feet to the top of his head. He gripped his shield, his knuckles white.
"What kind of magic is this?" Thor asked, his voice low and thick with genuine fear. He was a god; he knew magic. But the sheer, silent finality of the green light had made his very soul tremble. It was a cosmic predator.
"Avada Kedavra," Hermione's voice said, soft but perfectly clear. She floated down among the dead, her eyes scanning the corpses. "The most evil of the Dark Arts. No scars, no burning, no melting. Only one effect."
She looked up at them, her gaze cold and intense. "Anyone who is struck by that curse dies instantly. No matter how strong you are. No matter what armor you wear."
The Avengers were horrified. Tony swallowed hard, his throat dry. He had seen explosions and death, but this silent, absolute void of life was fundamentally more terrifying.
Hermione's voice rang out again, cutting through their thoughts. "It is the most forbidden magic in the wizarding world, precisely because it is nearly impossible to resist." She shrugged, a careless gesture amongst the carnage. "If this last wave of Chitauri hadn't been so frustratingly difficult to deal with, I wouldn't have resorted to it."
She gave them a sly, challenging smile. "But, I'm here to save the world. You should understand me, right?"
The Avengers were silent, the silent horror of the green light clinging to their minds. Is this what Hogwarts teaches?Are wizards this brutally efficient?
But the rationalizations began immediately. She's a good person. She's fighting for Earth. Power is just power; it's the user who matters. They desperately clung to the narrative that she was the good guy, even if her methods were pure, biblical terror.
Hermione, however, was already debriefing her own mission performance. She yawned, stretching her arms and rubbing her eyes. Her lovely, exhausted appearance instantly dispelled some of the terror.
Right, she thought, checking her internal grimoire. The clean-up was successful.
The entire Chitauri army, lured to their doom by Loki, had become a massive, one-time soul harvest. They thought they were invading; they were actually signing up to become experience pills in the Manhattan Cauldron.
Hermione Jean Granger
Magic level lv4 (198473/500000)
Dark Harvest [Remaining Soul Energy: 395821]
Not bad. Not bad at all. She smiled, profoundly satisfied with the haul. Poor Thanos got scammed by Loki, and the Chitauri were lured into a trap built on the scam in northern Myanmar narrative. They thought they were getting rich, but they just became Level Up fuel.
She consumed the stored energy. The power surge was immense, a silent, cool rush that made the arc reactor in Tony's chest feel like a AA battery.
One minute later, her core magic power jumped.
Hermione Jean Granger
Magic level lv5 (1/1000000)
Dark Harvest [Remaining Soul Energy: 93754]
I knew it! Her mind raced. The jump to Level 5 was a qualitative leap. She now possessed the raw magical power of the strongest non-Dumbledore wizards in existence. The old man must be Level 6, she concluded, rolling her eyes. No fair. But for the time being, she was the strongest active player on the board.
Just as she was calculating her next research project, Fury's voice erupted over the comms, sharp with anxiety.
"Stark! We have an inbound nuclear missile! Two minutes to detonation over Manhattan!"
"A nuclear bomb?!" The remaining heroes stared in utter shock. They had won the battle, only to face annihilation from their own side.
"Damn it! Are these politicians' brains filled with shit?!" Tony yelled, his focus snapping instantly to the new threat.
"Wait!" Tony looked up, his expression hardening into sudden resolve. "I have an idea!"
Before anyone could react, the Iron Man suit fired its thrusters to maximum, becoming a red-and-gold streak tearing through the sky. He was heading for the portal. He intended to send the nuclear bomb into the Chitauri dimension. A one-way ticket.
But Tony was fast. Hermione was instantaneous.
With a silent, violent CRACK, Hermione vanished, Apparating directly next to the streaking nuclear warhead. She didn't rely on brute strength. She didn't waste time on physics.
She raised her wand and tapped the missile.
"Flavi!"
The lethal, technological terror of the nuclear missile slowly deformed. The metal softened, the wires twisted, and the plutonium core rearranged itself. Under the shocked, disbelieving gaze of the entire Avengers team, the ultimate weapon of Muggle destruction transformed into a harmless white bird, which blinked, chirped, and fluttered away.