Report
Phil sat in the visitor chair sipping his coffee. Fury sat in his chair on the opposite side of the desk doing the same. None of them wanted to be the first one to talk. The last time they played that game it took two hours for Maria Hill to put an end to it by asking Phil for his report, as his commanding officer he had no choice but to answer. But with Fury, he knew the man would be the first to talk, he usually was as he hated not knowing something. Phil knew what he had was gold, and he planned on holding on to it for as long as he could. Not that he thought Fury was unaware of some of what happened during the week, the man was in NY for starters, which Phil knew wasn’t on his schedule for at least 10 more days, and the CCTV live feed on Fury’s screen was showing the front of Stark Tower as well as the parking entrance, the building holding the Ministry, and the coffee shop he stopped at on his way to headquarters.
“Magic,” Fury finally asked after almost an hour.
“Yes, Sir.”
“Care to explain,” Fury inquired but Phil could see his eye twitching.
“Secrecy Wards were put on myself, Agent Barton, Agent Romanoff, and Tony Stark,” Phil informed him, following Ragnok’s instruction.
“What about Sirius Black, Severus Snape, and Harry Potter,” Fury asked or rather demanded.
“Harry,” Phil wondered. While he could understand how Fury knew about Sirius and Severus after all Tony did take their warrants off the No-Maj’s servers before it could cause problems for them, but if Fury was keeping an eye on them, he would have seen it.
“Did you seriously expect me not to gather Intel on how exactly a 15-month-old managed to defeat a Dark Lord that was scaring the Council,” Fury asked.
“I knew you would,” Phil conceded, “but I did not expect you or anyone else to know what he looked like.”
After all, a baby wouldn’t have his picture taken at school, or to get his license, only private pictures would be available.
“His picture was on the front page of the Daily Prophet Special Edition that night,” Fury explained and took the paper out of his drawer and handed it to Phil.
As Ragnok had informed them, the Prophet had indeed bestowed the title ‘Boy-Who-Lived’ upon Harry, what the goblin king kept to himself was the picture. It was from Harry’s first birthday party, a cake could be seen in the corner, and a toy broom sat still wrapped on the coffee table, the size and shape recognizable even to someone who never saw one. The picture itself wasn’t what was angering Phil, no, it was the clear manipulation. Harry wasn’t sitting with his parents, or playing with toys, no he was on Dumbledore’s knees looking up at the old wizard, a hand tugging on his long beard. Clearly, Dumbledore chose that picture as a way to make people believe he was friendly with the Potters, and familiar enough with Harry that everyone should trust him to care for the little boy, have his best interest at heart.
The article was full of the same things they learned from the books, no one knew what happened, but as Dumbledore said Harry survived the Killing Curse then that was what happened, even though it had never happened before, no one but Hagrid and McGonagall saw Harry afterward and they were not qualified to find proof of the old man’s theory. Harry was the ‘Boy-Who-Lived’ and everyone was speculating on where he was and with who, Dumbledore assuring the reporter he was safe, and with family, which according to Sirius meant about anyone in the Wizarding world.
Oh, this was interesting, under Sirius’ picture and the small article claiming Aurors were looking for him in connection with the Fidelius Charm, though not mentioning anything about him being or not the Secret Keeper, there was a piece on gifts and donations made in Harry’s name. Phil knew Ragnok had mentioned it in the future, but they all thought it had been a spontaneous thing, that people with dying family lines simply chose him as their heir, they never considered Dumbledore instigating it. He’d have to talk about it with the others, maybe they could have it sent to an orphanage, or a hospital instead.
Phil handed the paper back and asked, “What do you want to know?”
“Sirius Black and Severus Snape?”
“They are of no danger to any of us. Black wasn’t the Potters’ Secret Keeper, and Snape was a spy for the light side, they both met with the Aurors and were left free.” Phil pulled the copies of the Innocence and Release Amends given to him. “Here are the official papers, as you can see the goblins witnessed it.”
“Why does the Prophet keep asking for Black’s testimony, then?”
“To smoke out Peter Pettigrew, the real Secret Keeper, who, it turns out, is a Death Eater,” Phil explained and Fury nodded.
“If he thinks they are still after Black he might come out in public. Though he could stay hidden, the Aurors aren’t going to be the only ones who will want a word with him if he was behind Voldermort’s disappearance.”
“Only if others knew,” Phil pointed out. “Snape never saw Pettigrew at a meeting. Neither he nor Black know when he turned his back on his friends. It could have been the first night.”
“Who is the third man?”
This question surprised Phil, though he had been wondering why Fury didn’t mention Remus, the man worked in the No-Maj world in London, there had to be pictures of him somewhere, a working history, something.
“Remus Lupin. The second baby, Luna is his daughter. He, James Potter, Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew have been close friends since Hogwarts.”
“He was mentioned as being present at the funeral,” Fury explained why he didn’t make the connection.
“Clearly it wasn’t the case, he has only left the tower to go to Gringotts with the rest of us since the 31st,” Phil assured him.
“What’s the story, Phil,” Fury finally asked, on a friendlier tone, after he put his office on a recording blackout.
“I know you looked into Stephen Strange,” Phil told him.
“Yes, he is one of our on-call neuro-surgeons, he was involved in a car crash a month ago, he is still in rehab. CCTV shows he was in his hospital bed on the 31st, yet, it also shows an older version of the man on the roof with Barton.”
“You know I can’t tell you what is going on, not with the ward in place,” Phil told him when Fury glared.
“I hate wizards.”
“You know that’s not true,” Phil said with a smirk.
“I hate secrets,” Fury amended.
“You might not be left in the dark for too long,” Phil assured him. “I have Intel I am allowed to share, I just can’t explain how I got it.”
“Should I turn the security recording back on?”
“It depends,” Phil said with a raised eyebrow, “How long were you planning on keeping Captain America a secret?”
Fury looked both surprised and shocked before he could begin wondering who betrayed him Phil continued, “it was part of the information packet.”
“It doesn’t reassure me,” Fury told him.
“Look, Nick, I’ll be honest, there is a lot we still don’t understand about magic,” Phil said, “And from what I gathered this week even the wizards I interacted with don’t know how to explain everything to us, but they are willing to work with us. Part of that work is sharing Intel they have access to as they come across it, part of it is joining the Avengers.”
That got Fury’s interest.
“They won’t join SHIELD, they have kids and their own mission to think about, but for major events, they were authorized to collaborate as long as any questions related to them are either ignored or answered in such a way that people will think they are mutants,” Phil explained, before adding, “Stark talked to Xavier, he agreed.”
“Fine,” Fury sighed, clearly he was hoping to recruit them, and might still try. “What about the Intel?”
“What about the Captain?” Phil retorted.
Fury sighed, “Follow me.”
They left the office, took the elevator to the underground medical level. It was the only place in the whole building not under surveillance, POTUS was once sent here for surgery so no traces could be found. Fury had them enter last room to the left, which Phil knew to be the most secure of the ward, as you needed a Level 7 clearance for the elevator to go underground, then a Level 9 or a special authorization to enter this room which looked like a doctor’s office, with a couple of chairs, a desk and an outdated computer, unless you knew the code allowing for the right-side panel to disappear and reveal a fully furnished hospital room. On the bed, linked to all kinds of machines, Steve Rogers was sleeping.
Phil was about to question Fury, trying to figure out what he should ask first when he felt a familiar weight in his arms, which luckily were crossed at that moment.
“S’ve!”
Phil saw Fury move to the dark corner as he looked down at the little boy who just appeared inside the most secure room SHIELD had outside of the Triskelion.
“Harry,” Phil sighed. “Does Sirius even know where you are,” he asked but got his phone out of his pocket anyway, calling JARVIS as he knew it would be automatically secured. “JARVIS, I need to talk to Sirius.”
Mister Black is busy at the moment.
“Harry is with me,” Phil told him and after a couple of seconds of silence Sirius apparated at his side. “How did you find me?”
“I had Tony engrave a tracking rune onto your tie pin after Harry said you were in danger,” Sirius answered absentmindedly as he tried to coax Harry into his arms.
“S’eve! Pa’foo’! S’ve!” Harry was saying excitedly while not taking his eyes away from the sleeping man.
“I know Pup, but we told you, Steve needs to sleep for a little while longer,” Sirius assured him.
“S’eve col’,” Harry said nodding dutifully.
“Yes, they need to warm him up,” Sirius agreed.
“Ho’!” Harry squealed and disappeared, only to reappear sitting on Steve’s chest.
“I thought Strange said he was only attached to Severus,” Sirius asked Phil with a deep sigh. “I don’t understand.”
“From what I know about the Captain and Harry, they have similar stories, they might have bonded over it,” Phil wanted to reassure Sirius but he was aware Fury was still in the room taking in everything that was said and done.
“Can you open the door, so I can grab my son and get out of here,” Sirius asked but instead of looking at Phil when he said it, he looked at Fury surprising them both. “I am an Auror and I went through a war which started before my birth. I knew he was there, and Harry knew it too.”
Fury gave a brief nod and opened the door to the room as they all kept an eye on Harry who was laying on Steve, hugging the man and looking ridiculously small on Captain America’s chest.
“Harry, it’s time to go back home,” Sirius said, but Harry didn’t move. “We’ll come and see him when he wakes up,” still nothing.
“Harry, I need to go back to work, I’ll keep an eye on Steve to make sure he is okay,” Phil promised.
Harry just shook his head refusing to move still.
Sirius dragged Phil out of the room, but not before glaring at Fury and getting his wand out. While he trusted Ragnok’s words, Fury was still an unknown to the wizards, a potential enemy, and he wasn’t going to leave Harry alone and unprotected.
“He won’t do anything to him,” Phil assured him, not a 100% certain of his statement, but he trusted Harry to pop away if Fury tried.
“Something is going on with Harry,” Sirius told him once in the other room.
“We know it has nothing to do with the ritual as he didn’t react this way to the boys or Clint,” Phil agreed.
“I don’t like not knowing what he went through,” Sirius said with a deep sigh. “Not even Severus knows. He said Harry stopped the memory transfer when Severus died, he didn’t even know about Dumbledore’s deception until we read the books.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Phil assured him. “For now, he needs to get back to the tower before someone else tries to access this room.”
Sirius walked back into the room and simply grabbed Harry holding on to him tightly as the little boy started crying, “We’ll visit Steve,” Sirius told him. “Fury will schedule a secure time for us to come every day.” With this parting order, he apparated away.
“I can see it now,” Fury said cutting into the silence that followed.
“See what?”
“How he beat Voldemort,” Fury told him. “You, Barton, and Romanoff are officially on a long term mission. You stick to the wizards, and Stark like a leech,” he ordered. “Deep cover operation, you only report to me. Keep them all away from cameras and the public, we don’t need wizards to look into SHIELD if they can just pop in to do whatever they want. This kid can’t fall into the wrong hands.”
“Speaking of wrong hands,” Phil said, as he wasn’t going to argue the mission, it was their plan all along. “This intel I promised you?”
Fury nodded.
“Operation Paperclip allowed HYDRA to grow inside SHIELD,” Phil said and though Fury looked disturbed he knew he would wait for the rest of the story before reacting. “According to our source, the Strike teams are compromised. These...” he handed Fury a list, “are the people you can trust without a doubt. While none of the possible Avengers are on the list, Barton, Romanoff, Stark, Rogers, and Thor are clear, no one spoke of Banner yet, I’ll look into it.” He suddenly realized what Luna meant when she talked about ‘green cuddles’. “These...” He handed over a second list, “are people we are certain are HYDRA.”
Fury looked at the HYDRA list and swore as he read the names.
“If you need us, you know how to contact us,” Phil told him, sparing one last look for the Captain he walked to the door. “We have one more adult wizard at the tower, Arthur Weasley, and his five sons, along with Darcy Lewis, who is Stark’s niece and a witch,” He informed Fury, “We will visit Ilvermorny sometime this month.”
“If you feel like you are in over your head, I’ll send reinforcement. Otherwise, I trust you to know what to do,” Fury told him. “I’ll call on your team if a mission requires it.”
“You know we’ll be there,” Phil told him with a smirk, “I don’t think Barton and Romanoff are up to babysitting 24/7.”
“Make sure to keep me in the loop,” Fury ordered. “I’ll tell you if we get new names.”
Phil was going to leave the room when Fury said his last words.
“What’s coming, can we stop it? How bad was it,” Fury asked.
“It would make Schmidt look like a purring kitty. If we work together and keep trusting each other, we’ll overcome it, we have time to prepare,” Phil told him.
“I’ll make sure this room is empty at 3 pm every day from now on.” Phil knew it wasn’t so much to appease Harry, as it was to make sure the wizards they had stayed on their side.
“He’ll wake on the 22nd, prepare for it,” Phil said and left.