Hermione watched Erwin's stunned expression and laughed inwardly.
She'd known it would go like this.
Not that she blamed him. Anyone who found out someone they knew was actually a Skrull would look exactly like that.
She gave her wand a light flick. The tables and chairs the fight had wrecked snapped back into place. Shattered glass shards lifted off the floor and flew to their frames, reassembling into clean, unbroken panes. Everything in the shop looked brand new.
Erwin stood there with his mouth open. It took him a long moment to come back to himself. He looked around at the completely restored shop, swallowed his shock, and hurriedly waved everyone to their seats.
They sat. Erwin got to work, laying out ingredients with practiced efficiency, and was just reaching for a knife when Hermione flicked her wand again.
"Swish swish swish!"
The knives came alive. They flew off the counter and got to work on their own , slicing sizzling, oil-glistening meat off the spit, shredding vegetables into fine strips, cutting potatoes into fries that leapt straight into the hot oil. Flatbreads floated in a neat row, hovering in midair while they waited for sauce.
"Shawarma, oh shawarma, oh shawarma..." Hermione hummed to herself.
Erwin's eyes nearly fell out of his head.
"Hermione — you... you worked like this the whole time you were here?"
Hermione nodded like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Of course. What, was I supposed to cut everything by hand? Do you know how long that would take?"
Erwin stared at her. Then it hit him.
That's why her serving speed had been so insane. She'd been a one-woman shawarma assembly line this whole time.
He felt something complicated move through his chest. This was probably the most worthwhile wage he'd ever paid in his life.
Hermione studied the chopping board, murmuring to herself. "Tomatoes, fries, grilled meat, hmm... still need cabbage..."
She seemed to be mentally running through the recipe.
That word hit like a trigger.
Every Avenger in the room shouted at once: "No cabbage!"
In perfect unison. Deafeningly loud.
Hermione: ...
---
Several days later.
S.H.I.E.L.D. secret base.
Fury stood with a grave expression before an operating table. On it lay Phil Coulson's cold body.
Medical personnel ringed the room, tense and ready.
Hermione stood to one side, watching Fury. "Are you sure you want to do this? You understand the consequences?"
Fury nodded. No hesitation at all. "Whatever it takes. I'm bringing Coulson back. He's my friend. And he's the finest agent S.H.I.E.L.D. has."
Hermione said nothing more. Just a slight nod. "Then let's begin."
Fury took a slow breath and turned to the medical team. "Administer GH.325."
The needle pierced Coulson's skin. Pale blue liquid pushed in, slow and steady.
Everyone held their breath.
A few seconds passed.
Coulson's finger twitched.
Just once. Just slightly.
His eyes stayed shut. No other sign of life.
Fury's brow creased hard. He looked at the medical staff. "What's going on? Isn't GH.325 supposed to bring the dead back?"
The team scrambled, running checks, eyes full of confusion. This had never happened before. Every prior experiment had gone smoothly.
After a moment, one of them looked up. "Agent Coulson's physical indicators are all normal. It's just..."
"Just what?" Fury pressed.
"His consciousness won't wake up."
Hermione nodded quietly to herself. Right. Of course it won't.
This wasn't a matter of consciousness being slow to surface. There was simply no soul in that body.
Coulson's soul had been torn to shreds the moment Loki drove the scepter through him on the Helicarrier , shredded by her Dark Harvest, which hadn't stopped at the Chitauri.
Without the most essential part of a person , the soul , no amount of Kree bodily fluid was going to bring him back.
"His soul is the problem." She finally spoke, watching Fury's barely-contained panic.
"His soul?" Fury blinked. The concept sat awkwardly with him.
"Simply put," Hermione said, "he was killed by the Mind Scepter. The power from the Infinity Stone shredded his soul. It can't return to his body on its own."
Ah.
That explained why Fury had invited the witch in the first place , to catch anything he couldn't sense happening beneath the surface, the way things had gone sideways with the Tesseract. He wasn't about to let another unknown variable blindside him.
And based on everything he'd dealt with, keeping Coulson's revival from the other Avengers was one thing. Keeping it from her was another matter entirely.
So he hadn't. And it was a good thing he hadn't, because something that should have been straightforward had just hit a wall , and it was an Infinity Stone, again.
He was very glad he'd called Hermione.
Then Fury's expression darkened.
"What do we do?" The urgency was plain in his voice.
Soul trouble. He didn't need to understand the details to know that sounded catastrophic.
"There is a method," Hermione said, her tone flat. "But..."
"But what?" Fury latched onto it like a lifeline.
"I can try to call his soul fragments back from the void and piece them together with magic. But setting aside whether it'll even work — even if it does, what comes back may not be Coulson."
She paused.
"Tampering with souls is an absolute taboo, even in the wizarding world. I can't predict what the consequences will be. Not even me."
"Even knowing that — do you still want to save him?"
Fury considered it for exactly one moment. Then he nodded.
Fine. You chose this yourself. Disclaimer delivered. Whatever happens next is on you.
Hermione didn't say another word. She simply turned her focus inward.
The magic book flipped open on its own, pages settling on a single card. On it was a painting of Captain America.
[Horcrux: Card (Phil Coulson)]
Back on the Helicarrier, the instant Loki's scepter came down, Hermione had felt it , something wrong, something pulling.
The Dark Harvest hadn't only swept up the Chitauri. It had taken Coulson too.
She'd moved fast. Before his soul fragments could dissolve completely into raw soul energy, she'd intercepted them. She'd taken one of the remnant pieces and made a Horcrux out of it.
Partly to help an acquaintance. Partly for an experiment.
If the experiment succeeded, it would be the first step toward revealing the wizarding world to the eyes of ordinary people.
Hermione closed her eyes. Magic surged through her, steady and deliberate, reaching for the fragments she'd stored. With the Horcrux anchoring them, they hadn't dissipated , they wouldn't, as long as she didn't absorb them herself.
She worked carefully, guiding each fragment, letting her magic flow between them like adhesive, binding piece to piece. Then she pushed soul energy into the seams, enough to keep the stitched-together whole from falling apart.
Fury didn't make a sound. He barely breathed.
After a long while, Hermione opened her eyes. She raised her wand and leveled it at Coulson's forehead.
"Awaken."
Coulson's eyes snapped open.
"AHHH!!"
He screamed. His body convulsed violently, every muscle seizing, like ten thousand ants were gnawing through his soul from the inside.
Fury lurched forward. "What's happening?!"
"Nothing to be done about it. That's what happens when a soul gets torn apart." Hermione's voice was calm. "Give it a moment. Once it anchors to the body and stabilizes, it'll pass."
The doctors were scrambling, voices overlapping, someone already suggesting they use memory modification to spare Coulson the pain. If they left him like this, even after he fully woke, he'd be broken.
Hermione shook her head. "No need for that."
➤ Next: The "Ministry of Magic" Makes an Appearance
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