"Next time," Little Fu said bitterly. "When I've recovered, next time I'll definitely beat you."
He'd never admit it out loud, but he couldn't deny the truth to himself: Hermione's talent was on a completely different level from his.
How did someone like this even exist?
It was deeply depressing.
He had never encountered a wizard like her. The dark magic he'd spent years painstakingly developing, she could master with a single glance. Copy-paste. That was the only way to describe it. And she used it more fluently than he did.
"Is it really that hard to admit you're not as good as me?" Hermione said, amused.
"Shut up!" Little Fu snapped, face hot with embarrassment. "I just — haven't been fighting at full strength!"
Pure reflex. He couldn't help it.
Hermione didn't push. She knew he needed a way out. He had been the Dark Lord once, after all — the younger version, but still. Some habits died hard.
She shifted topics.
"What about Lockhart? How's he coming along?"
Little Fu's lip curled. He clearly had opinions.
"The talent's there. His mind just isn't on magic."
"At the start he was completely useless. Lazy, slack, zero effort."
"But then..." A thin, cruel smile crept into his voice. "I introduced him to the Cruciatus Curse a few times. He became much more cooperative after that."
"Practices every day now. Progress is impressive."
Hermione nodded. She wasn't surprised. She'd assigned Lockhart to Little Fu specifically because Little Fu had no soft edges.
Lockhart's role was essentially an actor, yes. But the stage he'd be performing on was full of dangerous people. Dark wizards. Desperate criminals. The kind who wouldn't hesitate. There would be moments when Little Fu couldn't step in to save him, and if Lockhart ended up dead, Hermione's entire investment went up in smoke.
He needed real combat ability.
And when it came to that particular field of expertise, who on earth was more qualified than Voldemort himself?
Using him to train Lockhart was simply putting the right tool to the right job.
Hermione glanced at Little Fu.
"Lockhart's Ravenclaw. The foundation is solid. He just spent years pointing his mind in the wrong direction and let his magic atrophy." She paused. "With proper training, he should still be salvageable."
Lockhart, for his part, was suffering in silence. All he'd ever wanted was to be a beautiful man who coasted on his looks. Combat magic held zero appeal for him. And yet here was Hermione, sending actual Voldemort to personally teach him Dark Magic Offensive Techniques. A truly one-of-a-kind educational experience.
Other people would call it special training. Lockhart called it torture.
"His overall strength is decent now," Little Fu continued, though his expression soured. "But for some reason he refuses to use Avada Kedavra. It's Obliviate this, Obliviate that, Obliviate, Obliviate, bloody hell Obliviate!"
"Does he have some kind of fixation?"
Even Little Fu sounded genuinely baffled.
The strange part wasn't the preference itself. The strange part was that when Lockhart cast it, Little Fu could actually feel a flicker of danger. Which made absolutely no sense and left him full of questions he had no answers to.
Hermione wasn't concerned. As long as enemies went down, the method was irrelevant. Obliviate followed by a fistfight? Fine by her.
"By the way," Little Fu said, shifting. "There's something that's been bothering me for a while. Can you stop calling me Little Fu? It makes me feel like I'm a tier below the main body."
"Of course," Hermione said pleasantly. "Tom Marvolo Riddle."
Little Fu stared at her.
"Fine. Brother Tom it is."
He gave up entirely. His tone went flat. "You think I didn't watch Mission: Impossible when I was in that world?"
Over the past several days, Hermione had brought Brother Tom to the Marvel world a handful of times, and summoned him from the Horcrux a few times on top of that.
The first time he'd seen it , the skyscrapers, the traffic, the sheer roaring chaos of it all — he'd stood completely still, struck dumb.
Hermione could travel between worlds.
The shock of it had been almost physical.
Towers of glass and steel. Streets choked with cars. Strange objects and stranger people everywhere he looked. This world was so much more interesting than his own cramped little corner of existence, where the only remarkable thing was wizards.
The moment he understood what this world was, his ambition ignited.
Harry Potter. Dumbledore. His own main body.
Who cared about any of them.
His head was full of Marvel now.
He still remembered the moment Hermione mentioned he'd eventually get to cause trouble here. The excitement had been immediate and total. Since then he'd thrown himself into every task she gave him with unusual enthusiasm.
"Mission: Impossible," Hermione said, deadpan. "You're watching movies now. Truly, ambition corrupted by leisure."
She couldn't help the comment.
A thought later, the two of them materialized on a New York street.
"Go on," Hermione said, giving Brother Tom a light pat on the shoulder. "Go experience the new world."
She let him loose without another word. She could monitor him through the Horcrux at any time, and pull him back by force if needed. He wasn't going to cause any real trouble. And honestly, if his existence did get exposed, it would only help confirm that wizards were real, which would add a certain entertaining chaos to this world.
Besides...
Hermione's eyes flickered.
There was something she'd recently noticed.
Perhaps because the Mysterious Magic Book had full control over the Horcrux, the Soul Energy harvested when Brother Tom eliminated enemies outside was flowing directly to her. All of it.
So what did that make him? Her magical summon?
The discovery sparked something. New possibilities began to take shape in her mind.
Her phone rang before the thought could fully form.
She checked the caller ID. Of course. That bald egghead, needing something from her yet again. She answered at her own pace.
...
S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters.
Fury hadn't left his office in days. He was eating here, sleeping here, haunting the place like a stakeout photographer waiting for a celebrity, all so he could catch Hermione the moment she surfaced.
He knew better than to chase her. She was a ghost. Even Tony couldn't track her movements. The only option was the oldest, dumbest one: sit still and wait.
On the screen, the signal light assigned to Hermione shifted from gray to green.
Fury moved fast. The call was already dialing.
He hadn't entirely ruled her out in the Skrull situation. Talos had vanished without a trace , no body, no sighting, nothing. But the forensic report on the scene had been unambiguous: Skrull infighting, mutual elimination. Fury knew Hermione was capable of mind control, but he couldn't picture a group of Skrulls standing in a patient line while she worked through them one by one. If they'd fought back, there would have been destruction. Magic leaves marks. The scene had none.
He'd reluctantly cleared her.
"Hey, egghead." Hermione's voice came through the moment the call connected. "What's the big news today?"
Fury took a slow breath and pushed the irritation down.
"Thank God you've finally surfaced." The relief in his voice was genuine, if grudging. "I've got a situation. I need your help."
"Yesterday, one of our bases was attacked. An important item was stolen."
"Oh." She sounded completely unbothered. "What'd you lose?"
Fury hesitated. Took another breath.
"The Tesseract."
➤ Next: Tony's Big Day
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