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Chapter 15: A Promise Between Spiders and Witches
🕑 Added 2025-09-03 18:27:49 +0000 UTC"Surveillance cameras?" Hermione repeated, her voice laced with a sudden, sharp-edged anger. The air in the cafe, which had been thick with a tense but manageable curiosity, suddenly felt several degrees colder. "You're lying."
Natasha's calm expression didn't flicker, but she felt a new, more dangerous shift in the girl's demeanor.
"My Disillusionment Charm is a Level Two spell," Hermione continued, her voice low and contemptuous. "It bends light and sound. It even fools thermal imaging. And you're telling me it was defeated by some cheap, mass-produced Muggle security camera?" For her, whose magic was the very foundation of her power and her only real advantage in these hostile new worlds, the suggestion of a flaw was a profound, personal insult.
Sensing she had misstepped, Natasha quickly clarified, her voice placating. "No, not during the incident itself. We saw nothing then. We saw you before."
She laid out the methodical, painstaking process of their investigation, appealing to the girl's obvious intelligence. "Based on the shop owner's testimony and the impossible physics of the crime scene, we knew we were dealing with a person with extraordinary abilities. So, we pulled all the surveillance footage from the street for the weeks leading up to the event. We were looking for anything out of the ordinary."
"And you found me," Hermione finished, her anger slowly receding as understanding dawned.
"We found a twelve-year-old girl working eighty hours a week in a shawarma shop," Natasha confirmed. "A child laborer, working in plain sight, and yet no one—not the customers, not the health inspectors, not the police on the beat—ever noticed or reported it. When we questioned the owner, Sal, he knew it was illegal, but he said it just never felt… wrong. It was as if his very perception had been altered."
"The Confusion Charm," Hermione realized aloud. So, it wasn't that her magic had failed; it was that her magic had worked too well, creating a different kind of anomaly.
"Exactly," Natasha said. "Two impossible events, centered on the same location, with you at the heart of both. We ran your face through every database on the planet and came up with nothing. You didn't exist. Not until you reappeared in Hell's Kitchen. We sent a team, but by the time they arrived, you were gone again. Until today."
Hermione let out a slow, theatrical sigh of relief, patting her chest. "Oh, thank goodness. For a moment there, I thought there was something wrong with my magic. Can you imagine the humiliation? If the other houses found out a Muggle could see through my charms, I'd never hear the end of it." She gave Natasha a small, condescending smile. "You're quite capable, for a Muggle."
Natasha's own smile remained fixed, but she felt a surge of professional pride mixed with deep unease. She had been praised by kings and generals, but the backhanded compliment from this terrifying child was somehow more unsettling.
"Alright then," Hermione said, her tone bright and cheerful again, as if the last five minutes of tension had never happened. "Now that all my questions are answered, it's time to erase your memory."
She raised her wand again.
No, wait, not again! Natasha screamed in her mind. We were having such a nice conversation! I thought we were bonding! Why was this child so stubbornly fixated on this one, terrifying course of action? Was she answering questions just to be polite before the execution?
Even for a battle-hardened agent who had faced down gods and monsters, this was exhausting. For a moment, she had an overwhelming urge to just put her head on the table and cry.
Taking a deep, steadying breath, she forced the panic down and deployed her final weapon: a full-court press of psychological manipulation.
"Hermione," she began, her voice taking on a warm, earnest, almost sisterly tone. "I know you're a good kid. I can see it. You didn't just lash out randomly; you took down dangerous, evil people. You were protecting someone. That's what heroes do."
Hermione watched her, her head tilted, an unreadable expression on her face. Ah, she thought, the appeal to heroism. Classic recruitment pitch.
"You have to understand," Natasha continued, leaning forward conspiratorially, "we're on the same side. The organization I work for, S.H.I.E.L.D., we specialize in helping people like you. We fight the bad guys. We protect the world. We are, for all intents and purposes, partners in justice."
'Partners in justice,' Hermione mused, almost choking on a laugh. She's good. Really good. This was a master at work, and it was a genuine test of her own acting skills to maintain her facade of wide-eyed confusion.
"If we're partners, fighting for the same goal," Natasha pressed, her eyes sincere, "then doesn't it seem a bit counterproductive to erase your partner's memory? If you let me remember, I can help you. I can provide resources, support. We can work together to make the world a safer place. Helping us is helping yourself, right?"
Hermione bit her lip, putting on a perfect show of a tempted, conflicted child. "But… the Ministry of Magic has very strict rules. Revealing the existence of the wizarding world to Muggles is the highest crime. If they find out, they'll send Aurors to wipe your memory anyway. And the people they send… they won't be as nice as you. And Dumbledore… he'll be so disappointed in me…"
And the Oscar for Best Performance by a Child Wizard goes to… she thought, internally applauding herself. She was weaving a tapestry of lies so intricate and compelling that even she was starting to admire it.
"Don't you worry about that," Natasha said, sensing victory. She struck while the iron was hot. "S.H.I.E.L.D.'s ability to keep secrets is the best in the world. If they come looking, they will find nothing. Besides, if you don't tell, and I don't tell, who will ever know?"
Hydra, probably, Hermione thought with a flash of dark humor.
"How about this?" Natasha said, adding the final, brilliant touch. "This can be our secret. A secret between you and me. The foundation of our partnership for justice."
"A shared secret…" Hermione whispered, her eyes wide as if the idea were the most profound thing she had ever heard. She looked down, then back up, her face set with a look of brave, childish resolve. "Okay. But we have to make a promise. A promise that we'll never, ever betray each other."
A pinky promise. Natasha could have laughed out loud with relief. She's just a child, she thought, a wave of condescending affection washing over her. A powerful, dangerous, and deeply strange child, but a child nonetheless. She believes in things like promises.
Natasha had her. She had figured her out.
"Okay," Natasha said, her smile now completely genuine. "A pinky promise." She extended her little finger, and Hermione hooked it with her own.
"Promise for a hundred years, no changing," Hermione recited solemnly.
Natasha reached out with her free hand and gently patted Hermione's bushy hair, a surge of maternal, proprietary feeling rising within her. The asset was handled. She even gave her cheek a playful little pinch.
Hermione endured it, her jaw tight. Just for a moment, she told herself. Just for a moment, for the sake of the mission, I will let the Black Widow pinch my cheek.
"I need to go and report this to my Director," Natasha said, reluctantly letting go. "He'll be very happy to hear about our new partnership. I'll be right back, Hermione. You wait for me."
Hermione nodded sweetly. But just as Natasha stood to leave, her voice, now light and cheerful, stopped her in her tracks.
"By the way," she said with a grin. "When we made that promise, I sealed it with a little binding curse. Just a tiny one. Anyone who breaks their promise will die. Horribly. Without a burial."
Natasha froze, her back ramrod straight.
"Just kidding!" Hermione chirped, her eyes curving into happy little crescents. "I believe you, Sister Natasha."
Natasha turned, a brittle smile plastered on her face. "Right." She said nothing else, walked silently out of the cafe, and only allowed herself to breathe once the door had closed behind her. She leaned against the cool glass of the window, her heart hammering against her ribs. Talking to that little girl was more exhausting than a three-day firefight.
She pressed her earpiece. "Director," she whispered, her voice a little shaky. "You heard all that. What's our next move?"
