This story is the result of prompts from lo234 and Ms Kitty Black my lovely Beta, who both requested something with a Harry/Natasha pairing. Now this is a couple I had never considered, but when I came to write it, they worked really well together. So if they aren't a couple you've thought of either - give it a go, you might be surprised.

Rated M for smut, and because Harry turned out to have a filthy mouth when necessary (seriously - I was shocked... he seemed such a nice young man). If you would rather imagine than read - fair do's, warnings will be given at the beginning of each chapter when necessary.

GENERAL WARNING. THIS IS PREDOMINANTLY ROMANCE / ADVENTURE BUT THERE ARE SOME VERY DARK THEMES IN LATER CHAPTERS. CAUTION IS ADVISED.

Enjoy - and let me know what you think.

Merrick x

Monastery of Saint Cynderyn, Llanelwy, North Wales

The nights darken as this year of Our Lord 596 year draws to its close, and I know in my heart that I shall not live to see the birth of another. My life as a Choir Monk of this House is now over, and I spend my final days in the Infirmary among my brothers. Brother Athanasius, the Infirmarer has granted me the luxury of a small writing desk, and on that desk I write this, my final testament.

I have seen much in my long life, and in that time have been warrior, sinner, scholar, servant to those who walk with Kings and now, finally, Brother of this House, from whence I will set out upon my last journey when my time comes. I pray that God will look gently upon my sins, and receive me into his arms.

But I must confess that this dearest hope is also my greatest fear.

For if I am received into the arms of Our Lord, through the gates of Purgatory, how will I then see my old master again, for one such as he will never be received at the Gates of Saint Peter. Perhaps Our Lord will refuse my sinner's soul, and I will find my shade wandering freely with my old master and that brave company, sharing adventures as we had been wont to do, before he chose to follow his greatest friend and King into the shadowlands to await this land's greatest need.

If it is not my destiny to see him again, then I pray (and I hope the Good God will forgive such blasphemy) that my master knows that I did not fail him. That the great treasure that he entrusted to me, the source of all of his mighty power, was bestowed on the isle which was so sacred to his people, to lie in safety, watched over by the guardian spirits of the slain, for I tremble for the fate of this world, should such terrible power fall into the hands of the evil doer...

ooo0ooo

Somewhere in Eastern Europe, September 2010

Since the days of the great library of Alexandria, there had never been a collection such as this. Acres and acres of underground vaults, dimly lit, aside from the pools of light that hung over each work station, document table and computer. Every document of historical significance the world over had copies on these shelves, and the advent of digital archives had only served to expand the collection further, as systems all over the world were discretely hacked and copied by the finest specialists in their field.

Bent over one of the large wooden work tables surrounded by piles of manuscripts, transcriptions and hand written texts, Cedna Yablonsky permitted herself a small crow of triumph as she pored over a particularly tightly written scrap of parchment; attracting the attention of her immediate supervisor Kurt Zepper.

"You have found something Yablonsky?" Cedna bristled at his tone, stretching the kinks from her back. The Comptroller for Artifact Research and Project Initiation was a small plump man, approaching middle age, and full of his own self-importance. While Cedna held her post by right of her PHDs in Early Medieval Latin and Early Northern European Languages, and an impressive academic reputation; Zepper held his solely by his extensive capabilities as a yes-man and arse-kisser extraordinaire to those in power.

Drawing herself up to her full height, Cedna glared down at Zepper's five feet six… "That's Doctor Yablonsky thank you very much Comptroller. And yes… I have something…"

For what seemed like a very long time, Zepper studied the pages of notes on Yablonsky's work station. Then he turned abruptly, scurrying rat-like across the room, reaching for the secure telephone on his desk.

"Operator… yes. This is Zepper of Station R. I need to speak with Baron Wolfgang von Strucker…

Is it urgent? Of course it is urgent. Would I bother the Baron with trivialities…?

Yes… thank you. Hail Hydra"

ooo0ooo

The North of England (a few days later)

Auror Malfias Meeks took a bite of his ham roll and looked around at the remains of the cellar with dissatisfaction. "Why do we get all the weird stuff Sir? Seriously. Who would try to breed dragons in a terrace house in Macclesfield? It doesn't make any sense. Beside, isn't this a job for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures?"

Harry Potter, head of the Phoenix Squad, the Ministry of Magic's shiny new top secret team of "Wizards without Portfolio" glared at the speaker, sighed heavily, and struggled to re-focus for the third time. "It would be Meeks, except for the fact that this numpty has tried to set up a parallel dimension in the cellar to allow the buggers to grow to full size without demolishing or burning down the house." Harry broke off to gesture crossly at the semi-ruined house, which was still smoking in a few places. " OK so it clearly didn't work, but all that means is that in addition to wrangling dragons and their demented owner, not to mention a whole load of booby traps, cock-eyed wards, magical alarms and hysterical muggles, we also have to dismantle this parallel dimension – preferably without ripping a bloody great hole in the fabric of time and space itself, potentially ending the world as we know it.

So if you would kindly shut up, put that bloody roll away, and let me concentrate that would be really helpful."

Auror Meeks waited until his boss's back was turned to roll his eyeballs expressively and swipe one more bite of his lunch. It was going to be a very long day...

ooo0ooo

New York

Just as Harry was wrestling with the mess in Macclesfield, Commander Nick Fury was striding into his office in SHIELD Headquarters, New York, take away coffee from one of the six local shops he frequented, in hand. With a nod and a grunt to his long suffering PA, Fury pushed the door open to his office, and froze, seeing the black suited figure by the window.

"Coulson. Good to see you. How're you doing? I thought you were at that fancy new Comms base of yours in the ass end of nowhere. What brings you back to the big city?" He glanced at his watch, which showed it to be a few minute before 0700. "Especially at this time of the morning."

Agent Phil Coulson gripped his boss's hand warmly. "We intercepted something from our friends in Hydra Sir. I didn't think it could wait. You know their obsession with finding powerful artefacts, since Schmidt found the Tesseract?" Fury nodded, inviting Coulson to sit down. "Well we think they may be after something else Sir…"

Fury took a mouthful of coffee and leaned back in his chair. "Start at the beginning Coulson…"

Almost an hour later Fury's PA looked up as Coulson and Fury left the office together. Coulson was already on his cellphone, "This is Coulson. Yes. Something's come up, I need you on a plane to London this morning. Get to Ministro Pistarini by 11.45 your time and we'll have a plane waiting for you. Yes I'm aware it's 10 am now…. Yes Natasha, I know exactly what the morning traffic's like in Buenos Aires…. Yes. It's important. Look, we're still waiting to tie some loose ends together. Call me when you're en route and I'll brief you. OK. I'll talk to you later..."

Hearing the tail end of Coulson's call, Fury smiled grimly, turning to his PA, handing her a card. "I need you to call this number at the Woolworth Building. You need to get me this man and this man only… Put him straight through on my secure line, you understand?"

She nodded, peering uncertainly at the card. "Samuel G Qua…?"

"Quahog…Samuel G Quahog"

She looked up at him, wide eyed. "Is this for real Sir?"

"Need to know Skye. Need to know"

"Yes Sir"

One the card, in flowing formal script, very different to the austere san serif font favoured by SHIELD, it read:

From the Office of Samuel G Quahog

President of the Magical Congress of the United States of America

ooo0ooo

Auror Meeks was right, it had been a VERY long day.

By the time the dragons had been corralled and removed – Harry breathed a prayer of thanks to Charlie Weasley and his team who had arrived just in time to prevent Harry, Meeks and two other team members from being incinerated – it was close to midnight. As it was four of Harry's team would be spending the night in Saint Mungo's being treated for burns, and a further two were there waiting to have strange growths removed – a result of two of the house owner's rather erratic line in booby traps and wards. Draco Malfoy, his second in command had had his burns treated and been dispatched home by Harry to rest and recover.

The amount of paperwork this was going to generate made Harry's head ache just thinking about it.

But the incomplete attempt to play with time and space had been satisfactorily closed down without any long term side effects; muggle witnesses had had their memories modifies, and a story had been fed to the press about rusty gas canisters stored in the cellar leaking and causing an explosion.

Not a bad day, all in all,, thought Harry wearily. Now what he really wanted was a cup of tea.

Heading up to the canteen, still brushing plaster and cinders out of his hair, he was interrupted by an internal memo flapping busily around his ears.

"Not now..." he growled irritably. "Go wait on my desk."

But the annoying piece of paper didn't give up. Grabbing it with the intention of stuffing it in his pocket and hopefully forgetting about it, Harry looked at the address and froze.

"From the Office of the Minister for Magic.

Urgent and Confidential - For your eyes only."

Harry glared at the innocent memo as if it were personally responsible for the ills of the world.

"Now? Seriously? Do you have any idea what time it is?"

The memo just fluttered officiously at him.

"OK OK" Opening the envelope he scanned the contents quickly, and looking at his watch, swore under his breath and headed for the nearest lift.

"Office of the Minister for Magic... and hurry up!"

ooo0ooo

In the absence of the Minister's usual army of PAs, secretaries and administrators Harry knocked on the imposing oak door of the Inner Sanctum. Without any response, the door opened silently.

"Aah Harry. Come in. Sit down..." Kingsley Shacklebolt took in his disheveled appearance and smiled broadly. "I'm sorry to call you so late, especially since it looks like you've had a busy day. Can I offer you a cup of tea – or something stronger."

Kingsley was well known for keeping a bottle of excellent Firewhisky in his bottom drawer, but Harry feared that alcohol at the moment would probably finish him off.

"Tea would be fine, thank you Minister."

Kingsley waved a large hand dismissively. "Kingsley Harry – please. We're off the clock now. Sit, sit. Relax. Here."

The tea he pressed into Harry's hand was mercifully strong and in a mug rather than a fiddly little china cup. Harry wrapped his hands around it, savouring the warmth, and waited to find out what all this was about. Once Kingsley was back at his desk, he steepled his hands and looked owlishly at Harry over the top of his glasses.

"So how're the Phoenix Squad doing Harry? I hear good things."

Well aware that this was just a preamble, Harry played along. "They're doing well Sir. Some are still a bit green, but the old hands more than make up for it. They did a good job today, under difficult circumstances"

Kingsley nodded. "So I heard Harry. And how's young Malfoy shaping up as your right hand man?"

Harry smiled, but his tone was wary, well aware that eyebrows had been raised in certain key areas of the Ministry when he had appointed Draco. "First class Sir. The men were a little wary of him at first, but he fits right in now, they follow him as readily as they follow me. We make a good team."

"Easy Harry. I had no doubts about young Mr Malfoy. If he has your confidence that's all that matters. What I was wondering was whether you would be happy to leave him in charge for a while?"

Harry's face gave little away. "Go on"

Kingsley took a swig of his tea. "Got a very strange message from my opposite number in the USA today Harry. It seems that there's a "significant threat" looming from some criminal organisation – I forget the name – something mythological. Anyway, apparently it requires an international joint muggle / magical investigation."

Harry's eyebrows shot up. "Muggle / magical Sir? Doesn't that contravene the Statute of Secrecy?"

Kingsley laughed. "Oh Harry. The Statute of Secrecy is a spiders web. It catches the small issues but the really big stuff flies straight through it. There's always a way round when phrases like National Security are involved. Now – where's that letter?" He located a role of parchment with an impressive looking seal on it, and peered shortsightedly at it, before looking back up at Harry.

"Harry, would you mind opening my other door and inviting in the confused looking muggle that you find there please."

Harry opened the door which led into Kingsley's "public" office, which was used for visiting dignitaries, members of the press and people for interviews. The only man seated there was spectacular for his utter ordinariness. Harry knew people that had made an art form out of blending into the background but this man left them all standing. Even in a black muggle suit and black tie, he still managed to be unobtrusive when seated in the office of the Minister of Magic..

Harry was impressed. Even when this guy was responsible for his still being at work when he should have been home in bed, he was impressed.

"Come this way... Mr..?"

The man rose, a wary smile on his face, hand extended… "Coulson. Agent Phil Coulson..."

ooo0ooo

Harry ushered Agent Coulson back into Kingsley's office, watching with surprise as Kingsley triggered the security wards on the already secure office. Whatever this was, it was serious to need additional protection at this time of the night.

Once introductions had been made, and seats taken, Agent Coulson extracted a file from his messenger bag and met Kingsley's eyes steadily.

"Thank you for meeting with me Minister, Mr Potter. I represent certain key agencies with global security interests, who are currently in receipt of highly disturbing information, which may pertain to..."

"Agent Coulson. It's late, so let's cut the bullshit..." interjected Kingsley. "You are here representing the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, more generally known as SHIELD, and through them, the World Security Council, a shadowy organisation so secret that even your boss Nick Fury doesn't know who they are. SHIELD themselves are a quasi military intelligence organisation that is so suspect that I wouldn't touch it with a six foot broomstick under normal circumstances.

However, the fact that you are even here means that something very serious is going down. So would you mind cutting the crap and telling us exactly what the problem is and how we can help..."

Harry tipped his head back and closed his eyes, smiling broadly. OK so he had been up for almost twenty hours, he was still filthy, everything ached, and there was a foot high pile of paperwork waiting for him when he got back to his desk, but sometimes he really, really loved Kingsley Shacklebolt.

Coulson leaned his head into one hand, shaking his head slightly. Harry got the distinct impression that he was trying very hard not to laugh, and his opinion of the man rose fractionally. Eventually Coulson looked squarely at Kingsley

"Minister... Have you ever heard of an organisation called Hydra?"

Kingsley shook his head slowly, thinking. "Not before the message I received this earlier. What can you tell us about them?"

Coulson opened the folder on his lap. "OK, a bit of background. Hydra started as the research division for Hitler's Third Reich. In those days the man behind the organisation was a man imaginatively named Johann Schmidt. He was one of Hitler's inner circle, they shared an obsession with the occult and Teutonic Myths. To Schmidt these myths were real, and he was obsessed with the conviction that true sources of tremendous power are still there to be found. One of the results of Schmidt's obsession surfaced in New York a while back with some very unpleasant and potentially global consequences, that we fortunately managed to nip in the bud at the last minute.

Eventually Schmidt, and a brilliant scientist Dr Arnim Zola split from the Nazis to go it alone. In an effort to obtain additional power, Schmidt took a prototype formula which was supposed to turn him into some kind of superman. In fact it turned him into a monster. Calling himself the Red Skull, he was eventually defeated and destroyed by a crack team from the US Army. But although the Red Skull was dead, Zola made a deal and came to the US with Operation Paperclip, and their organisation has continued into the present day. Hydra was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom. For seventy years it grew like a parasite within SHIELD, operating under the radar. We are working to weed them out, but like the Hydra of the legends, if you cut off one head, two more grow back."

Kingsley put down his tea. "This is all very interesting Agent Coulson, but what has SHIELD's security nightmare got to do with us?"

"Because we have just intercepted an incomplete communication via a top secret Hydra double agent. When decoded, it was a name and a number." He handed Kingsley a slip of paper. After a moment Kingsley passed it to Harry. "Caron of Llanelwy 596."

"Do you know what it means?"

Harry frowned. "Llanelwy is in North Wales. There's a small cathedral there, that's about all I know."

Coulson's mild face hardened. "It's important. According to our source, they are tremendously excited about something. Hydra is still obsessed with tracking down mythical and religious artefacts for the powers that they could potentially bring them."

Harry chuckled in disbelief. "You have to be kidding me. Are you sure we haven't slid sideways into an Indiana Jones movie. The Nazis looking for the Ark of the Covenant?" Kingsley looked blank not recognising the muggle analogy.

Coulson glared at him. "Take it from me Mr Potter, there is absolutely nothing funny about Hydra. If they're over here, digging around for something they consider important, we need to work together to find out what the hell it is that they're looking for, and make damn sure that they don't find it. Because if they do then God help us all.

We have to be careful. If they find out that we're onto them, firstly our double agent will be in terrible danger, and secondly, they will throw absolutely everything they have at it. We won't stand a chance."

Kinsley nodded. "OK Agent Coulson, I'll buy that there's a top secret organisation – other than yours of course – running around Britain looking for something. But I still don't understand why you came to the magical community. Why not the muggle secret service for instance?"

"There was another word in the message. We had to do some digging, but eventually we tracked it down. The word was Emrys. That means nothing to me – apparently it's 'need to know' but our experts must have been certain that it would mean something to you…"

Harry looked at Kingsley, eyes widening. "Emrys?"

"Go on Harry"

"Emrys..." Harry met Coulson's eyes squarely. "OK Agent Coulson, we'll look into it. If they are looking for something magical, we might be able to help. We'll keep you posted."

Coulson smiled and shook his head. "Oh no Mr Potter, you may be expert on magic, but we're the ones that know about Hydra. So you will be working with one of our agents. You will be meeting them here.. ." he handed Harry a slip of paper."

Harry scanned the paper, nodding acknowledgement. "Who am I meeting"

"One of our best. Agent Natasha Romanoff..."

Sometime later, Harry escorted Agent Coulson back to the muggle street and deposited him in a taxi. Instead of returning to his desk and paperwork, as he had originally intended, he headed for the night-floo, in the morning he would need to pay an early morning call on his second in command. Draco wasn't going to object to being left in charge for a while, but he was definitely going to be pissed off with getting stuck with the paperwork from the previous day's operation.