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Seeing the dust-covered but triumphant smile on Hermione's face, the room full of elite secret agents was rendered completely and utterly speechless. This girl… this consultant… was a walking paradox of terrifying power and baffling, childish chaos.
"It's a simple space-expansion charm," Hermione said, dusting off her robes with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Standard stuff. Don't make such a fuss."
A fuss? Coulson thought, his mind still trying to process the mountain of junk that had just been birthed from a tiny schoolbag. She calls this a fuss? The world they knew, with its neat, predictable laws of physics, was being systematically dismantled before their very eyes.
Hermione raised her hand, and two of the leather-bound books from the pile floated through the air, drifting gently into the hands of her new "students." Faced with this casual, effortless display of magic, the agents quickly and silently opened their textbooks.
With things finally on the right track, Fury felt a sliver of his professional composure return. As long as we can create a team that understands these new threats, he thought, all of this insanity will be worth it.
After a few minutes of intense, silent reading, the bald agent, Jasper Sitwell, raised his head. "Professor," he began, his voice a low, respectful whisper, "I've finished the first section. If I may, I have a few questions."
Hermione looked up from the apple she was now munching on, a little surprised. The others were still reading, their brows furrowed in concentration. She had expected the quiet, observant one, Barton, to be the first. But it was the sycophant. He's a weasel, she thought, a brief, dark memory of his future fate flashing in her mind—thrown into traffic by the Winter Soldier. But he's a smart, fast-reading weasel. For a moment, a strange, pragmatic thought crossed her mind. Maybe I should protect him. A good sycophant is hard to find.
"Go ahead, Agent Yi," she said, magnanimously.
Sitwell beamed, a proud look on his face. "Professor, the text mentions three primary classifications of magic-users: Wizards, Mystic Mages, and Dimensional Mages. Could you elaborate on the distinctions?"
"An excellent, relevant question," Hermione said, pointing her half-eaten apple at him like a scepter. "Five points… to HYDRA House!" she added under her breath. Aloud, she said, "Five points for Agent Yi."
She stood and began to pace before them, her entire demeanor shifting from that of a slightly chaotic child to a confident, knowledgeable lecturer.
"Wizards, like myself," she began, "are born with it. Our power is innate, a part of our very biology. We use incantations and wands as a medium to focus our internal magic and reshape reality according to our will. One cannot become a wizard; you either are one, or you are not. We generally live apart from your world, hidden in plain sight."
Next, she spoke of the second type. "Mystic Mages, on the other hand, do not have an internal power source. They are gifted individuals who, through immense discipline and training, learn to draw upon the energy of the world around them, shaping it with the power of their minds." A small, glowing, golden mandala of light appeared, spinning in her open palm. "In theory, an ordinary person could become a Mystic Mage, but it requires a rare talent. Their central nexus is a place called Kamar-Taj, and they are led by their Sorcerer Supreme, the Ancient One, a being of truly formidable power." She let that name hang in the air, another crucial piece for Fury's new, terrifying puzzle.
"Finally," she said, her tone becoming more serious, "there are Dimensional Mages. They are a rare and often unstable subset of Mystic Mages who, instead of drawing power from our own reality, form pacts or channels to draw upon the immense, often chaotic, energies of other dimensions. Their power can be vast, but it often comes at a terrible price." She thought of Wanda Maximoff.
The agents listened, their minds reeling. In the space of a few minutes, their understanding of the world had been completely rewritten.
"And you said you're a wizard?" Rumlow asked, his voice cautious.
"The most common type, yes," Hermione nodded. "Though we have the least interaction with your reality."
"Are all wizards… as powerful as you?"
Hermione stopped pacing and leaned in, a conspiratorial grin on her face. "I'm going to let you all in on a little secret," she whispered, "but you can't tell anyone. I'm actually one of the most powerful wizards in the world. Shhh."
The agents stared at her, their faces a mixture of disbelief and sheer terror. They thought she was just a bragging child. But what if she wasn't? Fury, listening from the side, had a chilling feeling that she was telling the absolute, unvarnished truth.
"Meow."
A soft, unassuming sound cut through the tense atmosphere. A fluffy, orange cat, a bell jingling softly on its collar, strolled into the training room as if it owned the place. It had a small, metal tag on its collar that read: Goose.
For a moment, the tension broke. The hardened, elite agents just watched as the cat weaved its way through their legs, its tail held high. A cat, after all, was just a cat.
But Hermione's reaction was anything but calm. The moment she saw the orange creature, her friendly, professorial demeanor vanished, replaced by an expression of pure, primal alarm.
"GET BACK!" she shrieked, her voice cracking like a whip.
She waved her wand, and a powerful gust of wind erupted from it, physically shoving the agents away from the cat. The next second, she slammed her hand on the floor.
"Ignis Laqueatus!"
A ring of roaring, white-hot fire erupted from the concrete, forming a perfect, inescapable cage around the small, orange cat. The heat was so intense it made the air in the vast room shimmer.
The agents, who had been scrambling back from the wind, were now diving for cover, their faces a mask of shock and confusion. They didn't understand. Why this sudden, violent reaction? It was just a cat!
Only Fury, his face pale, understood. He knew what Goose was. But he had no idea how she knew.
"Professor," he said, his voice strained as he approached the wall of fire. "Goose means no harm. Please, take back the flames."
Hermione glared at him, her eyes burning as brightly as the fire she commanded. "This… thing… is a Flerken," she hissed, the name sounding like a curse. "A Devourer of Worlds. I know it means no harm, Director. It's a cat. It doesn't mean anything. But its instinct to swallow things that threaten it is not a matter of good or evil. It's a matter of physics."
She gestured at the stunned agents. "I don't care about myself; I can get out if it swallows me. But if one of your men gets accidentally stored in its pocket dimension stomach, don't expect me to go in after them."
After a long, tense moment, she finally relented, and the cage of fire vanished. The agents breathed a collective sigh of relief, their eyes now fixed on the small, purring orange cat with a new and profound level of terror.
Sitwell, ever the scholar, took a hesitant step forward. He looked from Fury, to Hermione, to the cat, and asked the question that was on everyone's mind.
"A… a Flerken?"