For 40+ advance chapter: patreon.com/Snowing_Melody
Hermione watched the mixture of shock and awe on Uncle Sal's face, a slow, satisfied smile touching her lips. "I figured you'd react like this, Uncle Sal," she said. "It's a lot to process."
She raised her wand, and the scene of destruction instantly began to reverse. Glass shards flew from the floor, reassembling themselves into a pristine windowpane. Splintered tables and chairs rose, fusing back into solid wood. The restaurant, in a matter of seconds, was spotless and whole.
Uncle Sal just stared, his sweeping broom clattering to the floor.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" Hermione incanted with a casual wave. The meat-carving knife lifted from the cutting board, humming as it began to slice the shawarma meat with impossible speed and precision. The vegetables chopped themselves, and the raw potatoes leaped into the deep fryer.
"Hermione, you…" Sal stammered, pointing a shaking finger at the dancing knife. "This is what you were doing when you worked here? You used magic to make the shawarma?"
"Of course," she confirmed. "How else was I supposed to be fast enough? Hand-cutting would take all day." The memory of the sheer volume of orders she had to fulfill in the brief window of the lunch rush made her shudder.
As the shawarmas assembled themselves magically, Hermione looked at the ingredients. "Tomatoes, onions, lettuce, grilled meat… and a bit of kale…"
"NO KALE!" the entire assembled team—Tony, Steve, Thor, and Banner—shouted in unison, the sound deafening and absolute.
Hermione glared at them over the rim of the levitating pita bread. You're all still traumatized by my tastes, she thought, but relented. The matter was closed.
S.H.I.E.L.D. Sub-Level Medical Bay.
The pleasant, spiced scent of the shawarma shop was replaced by the cold, metallic smell of antiseptic and ozone. Agent Phil Coulson lay on a sterile operating table, his body unnaturally still, the massive hole in his chest neatly stitched. Fury stood by his side, his face a mask of solemn dread.
"Are you certain about this, Miss Wizard?" Hermione asked, her voice low. "GH325 is a powerful substance. But the consequences of playing with death are absolute."
Fury nodded, his jaw set. "I have to try. He's the best we have."
The lead doctor, her hands steady, injected the bright blue, viscous Kree blood into Coulson's vein. They waited. The seconds stretched into an unbearable silence. Coulson's fingers twitched once—a slight, almost imperceptible movement—and then stopped. His eyes remained closed.
"What is going on?" Fury demanded, slamming his hand on the console. "GH325 always works! His body is repaired!"
"The body is a container," Hermione explained, stepping forward and looking down at the dead agent. "But the contents are missing." She looked at the faint, residual magical trace clinging to his wound. "Loki's Scepter didn't just kill him, Director. The Mind Stone's energy tore his soul apart. It shattered, like glass. You've fixed the vase, but the flower is dust. There is no soul left to reawaken."
Fury paled. "Soul?" That word was not in any of his strategic briefing files.
The greatest threat in the cosmos is not a chemical weapon, Hermione thought, it's soul magic.
She closed her eyes and focused on the faint, lingering traces of Coulson's shattered essence. It's there. She reached into her consciousness, retrieving the Horcrux she had fashioned from a playing card. The magic, dark and terrible, was the only thing that could anchor a soul fragment.
"There is a way," Hermione said, opening her eyes. "I can try to call the fragments back from the void, piece them together, and anchor them to his body using advanced soul magic." She looked at Fury. "But it's a terrifying process, and the results are unpredictable. He may not be the Coulson you remember. And if I fail, his soul will be completely annihilated."
"Do it," Fury ordered, without a second of hesitation.
Hermione didn't argue. She nodded, accepting the terrifying burden. She drew her wand and began the ritual. It was not an incantation, but a silent, painstaking act of will. Shimmering, spectral fragments—the luminous dust of a man's essence—began to collect from the air. Her wand was the needle, and her own immense magical core was the thread, carefully sewing the pieces of Coulson's shattered spirit back together. She infused the stitched soul with a small surge of her own harvested soul energy, preventing the fragile construct from collapsing.
After an excruciating silence, the ritual was complete. She raised her wand and pointed it at his forehead.
"Ennervate!"
Coulson's body convulsed violently on the table. A raw, guttural roar of pure, unimaginable pain—the sound of a soul being brutally forced back into its vessel—tore from his throat. His eyes snapped open, wide and filled with an agony so intense it bordered on madness.
"What's happening?!" Fury shouted, rushing forward.
"He is anchoring," Hermione said, her voice strained. "A soul that has been ripped apart must be painfully re-welded to the body. He will be fine after it stabilizes."
A doctor, horrified by the trauma, stammered a suggestion. "We need to sedate him! Modify his memory! He'll be useless if he remembers this pain!"
Hermione glared at the doctor, the look in her eyes cold enough to freeze blood. "No. You will not touch his mind. He made a sacrifice for his friends. He deserves to remember it all."