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Nick Fury watched the small girl casually release the CEO of Stark Industries from a state of total paralysis, his mind struggling to catch up with the sheer, reality-bending absurdity of the last five minutes. He stepped forward, his voice a low, placating rumble. "Miss Potts," he began, "we apologize for the… unorthodox methods. But as you can see, we are dealing with a unique situation. If you want to find Mr. Stark, I strongly suggest you cooperate."
He didn't need to say another word. The terror of the Body-Bind Curse had been a more effective persuader than any argument he could have made. Pepper, stumbling as sensation flooded back into her limbs, didn't even glance at him. Her eyes, wide with a mixture of fear and a new, desperate, irrational hope, were locked on Hermione. She scrambled forward, dropping to her knees in front of the small girl and grabbing her by the arms.
"You…" she breathed, her voice trembling. "That thing you just did… it was real. You can really do it, can't you? You can find Tony?"
The transformation was absolute. The powerful, in-control businesswoman was gone, replaced by a desperate woman clinging to her very last thread of hope.
Hermione looked down at the distraught woman, her expression softening into one of gentle reassurance. "I can," she said softly. "Now, pretty sister, I need you to just stand right there and be very still for me. And try to think about him."
Pepper nodded frantically, scrambling back to her feet and standing as still as a statue, her hands clasped tightly in front of her.
The atmosphere in the office shifted. The air grew thick with a tense, anticipatory silence. Hermione closed her eyes. She raised her wand, not at the crystal ball, but at the ceiling, and began to move it in a slow, intricate, circular pattern. A soft, incomprehensible chant began to spill from her lips, the words ancient and musical, a language that none of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents recognized.
"Anima astra, speculum futura, oculus mentis, revela…"
It was, of course, complete and utter nonsense, a string of pseudo-Latin words she was making up on the spot. But the effect was immediate and profound. A soft, ethereal light began to emanate from the tip of her wand, swirling around the room. The ceiling of Fury's high-tech office dissolved, replaced by a breathtaking, swirling starscape of distant nebulae and glittering constellations. The sense of ritual, of ancient and powerful forces being summoned, was so palpable it made the hairs on everyone's arms stand on end. They watched, transfixed, afraid to even breathe for fear of breaking the spell.
After a long, dramatic minute, the light faded and the ceiling returned to normal. Hermione opened her eyes, a look of serene exhaustion on her face.
"It is done," she announced.
Pepper, Fury, Natasha, and Coulson all looked from her to the crystal ball. It remained perfectly clear, as empty as it was before.
"But… there's nothing there," Pepper said, her voice laced with a new wave of disappointment. Was this all just an elaborate light show?
Hermione looked at them as if they were the slowest children in the class. "Well, of course not," she said. "I'm the one who performed the divination. The vision of the future is in my head. How could it possibly be in there?"
The three master spies and the brilliant CEO were rendered speechless by the simple, unassailable logic.
"Then… what's the ball for?" Coulson finally managed to ask.
Hermione's serious, mystical aura suddenly vanished, replaced by a look of slight embarrassment. She put her two index fingers together and scuffed the toe of her shoe on the floor. "Well," she mumbled, "how else are you supposed to see what's in my mind? I have to project it onto something. The crystal ball can handle the magical transfer."
Natasha, ever the analyst, was the first to connect the dots. "So, the transparency, the lack of impurities… that was a requirement for the projection to be clear?"
"…No," Hermione admitted, her voice getting smaller. "Actually, a television screen would have worked just fine. But I thought the crystal ball looked cooler." She paused, then added, "And it had to be flawless because… well, because it looks prettier that way."
The four adults just stared at her.
Sensing she might be about to lose her new prize, Hermione quickly hugged the crystal ball to her chest. "I don't care!" she declared. "I did the magic, so it's mine now!"
I just got scammed out of a quarter-million dollars' worth of quartz for a glorified paperweight, Fury thought, a vein throbbing in his temple. He, the man who controlled black budgets that could make small countries weep, had just been conned by a twelve-year-old. He took a deep, calming breath. She's a child, he reminded himself. A terrifying, manipulative, reality-bending child.
"Ahem," Hermione said, deciding to quit while she was ahead. "Let me just… get the vision out."
She placed the crystal ball back on the desk, then raised her wand to her temple. She closed her eyes in concentration and then slowly, gently, pulled the wand away. A series of shimmering, silvery-white threads, glowing with a soft internal light, were drawn from her head, connected to the tip of her wand. The ethereal strands drifted through the air like dandelion fluff and touched the surface of the crystal ball, sinking into it like smoke into water.
The next second, the crystal ball flared with a brilliant white light, illuminating the shocked faces of everyone in the room. An image flickered into view. It was Pepper, walking through an office, then in a board meeting, then at a press conference. The images were silent and fragmented, like half-remembered dreams.
Then, the scene shifted. Pepper was standing on an airport tarmac, her face etched with anxiety, wringing her hands as she stared at a plane that had just landed. The ramp lowered. A figure appeared, flanked by a burly-looking man in a suit. His arm was in a sling, his face was bruised and gaunt, but he was walking. And he was smirking.
It was Tony Stark.
"Tony!" Pepper cried out, a choked sob escaping her lips. Tears of pure, overwhelming relief began to stream down her face.
The image faded, and the crystal ball went dark. Pepper looked at Hermione, her eyes shining. "Does that mean…?"
Hermione nodded, her expression now serious and kind. "Don't worry," she said, her voice soft. "He's going to be alright. He might be in trouble now, but he will get out of it. He will be rescued." She opened her arms in a gesture of grand proclamation. "Because this is the future!"
For a moment, no one spoke. The relief in the room was a palpable thing. Then, as the initial joy began to fade, it was replaced by a new, more profound, and far more terrifying emotion: awe. The other magic they had witnessed was incredible, but this… this was on another level. The ability to predict the future. It wasn't just a powerful ability; it was the ultimate ability. With this power, what intelligence would S.H.I.E.L.D. not possess? What threat could they not preempt?
Fury stared at Hermione, his mind ablaze with a new, paradigm-shattering idea. It's a pity only wizards have this ability… unless… A sudden, intense heat flashed in his one good eye. What if S.H.I.E.L.D. could have wizards of its own?
Of course, it was all a magnificent lie. There was no prophecy. Hermione had simply used a rudimentary form of Legilimency—a spell called Aspectus Memoria—to extract specific scenes from the Iron Man movie from her past-life's memory and project them. It was a simple, if flashy, application of a complex art. But to these Muggles, it was indistinguishable from an act of God. And since their future was the plot of the movie, her "prophecy" was, in a way, completely accurate.
Pepper, her initial euphoria giving way to a new wave of anxiety, turned to Fury. "We know he'll be okay, but what do we do now? How do we save him?"
"You do exactly what you were doing before you walked into this room," Hermione said suddenly, her voice dropping, taking on a tone of grave, ancient authority that seemed utterly alien coming from a child. "You pretend today never happened. You must not, under any circumstances, allow this glimpse of the future to alter your actions."
She looked each of them in the eye, her expression deadly serious. "The future is a river. You have seen one possible current. But throwing a stone into the water creates ripples, and ripples can change everything. Never let a prophecy affect reality."
She leaned forward, her voice a conspiratorial whisper.
"You must understand. The future… is not set in stone."
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