A/N – a plot bunny I had to get out of my head. If anyone would like to write any further "chapters" to this initial premise please feel free. Just PM me with a link so I can have a read and enjoy it too. The only caveat to the above is that, also unless it's going to be H/Hr, please keep the shippyness to a minimum . It is extremely unlikely I will write anything else for this so I've marked it complete.

S.H.E.I.L.D Liaison

Harry was the best Auror the British Ministry of Magic had, and was widely tipped to be next Head of the department, so when he was asked to join a meeting between the current head of the department, Alex Longmire, and Minister of Magic, Xavier Higgenbothom, he was not surprised or concerned. It seemed like a normal day at the office but, of course, it was anything but normal.

'Mr Potter,' the Minister greeted him as he entered the room, 'please have a seat.'

Harry's couldn't say what his first clue was that something was off about this meeting, it was a combination of things that hit him all at once really. The fact that there were far more people than he was expecting, the fact that one of those people was the American Minister of Magic, the fact that his direct boss, Alex, was avoiding eye contact and the fact that the chairs were arranged so that they were all facing the chair he'd been directed to sit in all combined to make Harry distinctly uneasy.

He didn't cause a fuss though, the past ten years of working as an Auror had taught him a few things about dealing with potentially unfriendly situations. Instead he sat where he'd been directed to and returned the man's greeting with a nod of his head.

'Minister' he surveyed the group, but none of them were meeting his eye except the American Minister of Magic (who looked almost eager) 'what's this all about?'

'Well, first off let me introduce you to the American Minister of Magic, John Moranty.'

'It's a pleasure to meet you Mister Potter,' Minister Moranty said, his eagerness now apparent.

Some of the others present tried to hide smirks behind their hands and Harry couldn't help but narrow his eyes in suspicion even as he shook the man's hand and smiled.

Minister Higgenbothom squirmed in discomfort and Harry knew that whatever the purpose of this meeting was, he wasn't going to like it.

'Perhaps Minister Moranty would do the honour of explaining,' was all he said.

'Oh, of course. Well it really all began in August when our Ministry, based in New York, was destroyed by an Alien invasion.'

'A what?!' Harry exclaimed, appalled to think that Earth had apparently been invaded by Aliens nearly six months ago and they'd heard nothing about it.

'Yes, that was precisely our reaction. We watched on in shock as Muggles wielding technology that looked like spells being cast defended our home city against a swarm of Alien invaders and our own ministry building was destroyed. Now, we were able to rebuild easily enough, of course, but that wasn't the point. As long as muggles were fighting each other we've been pretty content to let them go on about their business – none of their laws really affect us anyway – but an invasion by Aliens is quite another matter.'

'Of course,' Harry replied, a horrible sinking feeling of dread settling into his stomach as his brain skipped ahead ten steps and he reached the inevitable conclusion of where this was all going.

'So once we'd rebuilt we approached the Muggle President about having a Wizarding presence in whatever programs the muggles have got to deal with this type of threat and he's agreed to let us have a liason involved with their strategic homeland...' the man shook his head, ' anyway it has a very long name and I keep forgetting it, but it's a very secret organisation and highly technological so we can't have too many wizards about as it might mess up their computers. We only get to send in one agent.'

The man gave him a significant look then, as if to say and we've selected you aren't you pleased.

'And you want me to be that agent?' Harry asked drily, 'and, I presume from the look on your face that you expect me to be pleased about this, do you?'

The Minister looked taken aback and, for a moment, reminded Harry of Cornelius Fudge as he blustered a response.

'Well yes, actually, we did. It's a great honour to be selected and many of our top agents were vying for the position.'

Harry shrugged, 'so get one of them to do it.'

'We can't!' Mr Moranty exclaimed, 'They want someone with combat experience...'

'and America hasn't had a war in decades.' Harry finished for him, 'so you lie to them Minister Moranty.'

The man now looked a little shamefaced, 'we actually tried that, but they could somehow tell that our Auror's aren't much more than police officers these days.'

Harry couldn't help the look of surprise that flashed across his face at that, and the Minister rushed to reassure him, 'our Auror's were of course fully capable of passing any tests the muggles could dish out but they were all still sent back to us within a week of being assigned. We've never received an exact explanation of why, only that they clearly had never previously seen combat. The Auror's themselves couldn't tell us what had gone wrong either.'

'Right, and you think I'll do better somehow?'

Minister Moranty nodded, 'well you have seen combat, haven't you? Everyone says you're the most skilled Auror in the world and you took down Voldemort.' The man leaned forward now and his tone turned somber, 'let me speak candidly Mr Potter, if earth is ever again invaded by Aliens the wizarding world needs to know about it and we've been told that we have one last chance to find a liason that will be able to fit in with the muggles. We need you to do this, we wouldn't be asking otherwise.'

Alex, Auror Chief, interjected at that point, 'We're hopeful that once you've laid the groundwork for good relations with shield you'll be able to help the American liason integrate more effectively and then you can re-join the Auror team here.'

'How long do you think I'll have to be there for?' was Harry's next question.

'Maybe a month or two, at most.' The American minister suggested, 'though it really depends'

Harry's shoulders dropped and he let out a sigh, 'fine, when do I start?'

Agent Romanoff waited in the same Alley where she'd met all of the previous AMOM liaisons and tried to school her features so that her annoyance did not show. For a supposedly top secret agency AMOM certainly had some pretty clueless agents, either that or they kept assigning rookies to this supposedly top level position. Either way it did them no favours with the brass at SHIELD, none of whom, surprisingly, had ever heard of AMOM before. In fact, from what Natasha could gather (and she was pretty good when it came to gathering information) no-one aside from the President had ever heard of them before, guarding their own secrets was the one thing that this agency did seem to be good at. She was just beginning to become really annoyed when a tired, and distinctly British, voice spoke seemingly directly into her ear.

'I take it that you are agent Romanoff?'

She spun around prepared to strike only to find that the alley was still as deserted as it had been a moment ago.

'I'll take that as a yes,' the voice said, it was behind her now so she spun around again to face the speaker.

He didn't look anything extraordinary to her, he was probably about 5'9" or 6 foot, solidly built but by no means muscle bound, with short shaggy black hair, startling green eyes and a jagged scar on his forehead. Aside from the astonishing green of his eyes and the scar he was absolutely ordinary to look at, very cute, but totally ordinary. At least he didn't look like a bumbling fool like all the others had, there was a sort of quiet presence about him that spoke of confidence, perhaps their threat that this was their last chance had finally prompted AMOM to send them a decent agent, Natasha thought.

'Yes, I am Agent Romanoff, are you from AMOM?'

He looked confused, 'AMOM?' he asked.

Now it was her turn to be confused, 'Yes, A.M.O.M I'm waiting for their agent.'

'Oh,' he laughed, 'A.M.O.M, AMOM – that's cute, and well, yes I suppose I'm their agent. At least in this context I suppose I am.'

His reply did not clear up her confusion in the slightest, 'What?'

He smiled, and she couldn't help but notice what a lovely smile it was, 'it's not important, not as far as my role with shield goes anyway. It's a pleasure to meet you Agent Romanoff.'

'Likewise, Agent...' she replied, waiting for him to supply her with his name.

He looked confused again, 'they didn't tell you my name?' he asked.

'No, we never get told anything much – only that we'll be meeting an agent of AMOM who'll be working as a liason with shield. Though in what capacity any of the previous ones could have been of any assistance whatsoever I am at a loss to understand.'

His eyes narrowed, 'I had heard there'd been some problems, I'm Agent Potter – or you can call me Harry, most everyone does.'

She couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at his informality, very few agents that she worked with she was on a first name basis with.

'I'm Natasha,' she conceded after a moment, 'come on I've got a car waiting'

He followed her into the waiting car and they headed off for shield headquarters.

Director Fury was in a towering temper, the latest AMOM liaison was due to join them today and the only thing he liked less than having someone follow him around was having idiots around and the AMOM liaisons, unfortunately, had all ticked both boxes. Hence none of them had lasted very long before being summarily kicked out of his facility.

When Natasha entered with the latest liaison trailing a step behind her the look on her face indicated that she was not on the verge of killing him, a distinct improvement from the type of temper she'd been in after half an hour in the company of all the previous liaisons. She didn't suffer fools any more gladly than Fury did.

'Director Fury I presume, I'm Agent Potter, it's a pleasure to meet you,' the agent greeted him, offering a hand to shake.

Fury shook his hand and waited for the Agent to say something foolish, it usually only took these AMOM liaisons a few seconds. When nothing was forthcoming Fury mentally shrugged in acknowledgement that Natasha was right, this Agent was an improvement on the others, and got on with the meeting.

'Welcome to Shield Headquarters Agent Potter, this is my office and where most of the action takes place. The president has ordered full disclosure to your organisation so you get to share it with me, your desk is over there. From time to time I may assign you to one of my agents to see what they do on the ground but I will debrief you at the end of each day on everything that's happened here. I must stress however that everything you hear in this room is top secret and while you may share it with AMOM as you deem necessary I would ask you to not disseminate information within shield without my express request.'

Agent Potter did not even flinch, 'Of course, Director'

'On a personal note, The President has stressed to me how important it is that Shield and AMOM work well together, he has strongly advised me that AMOM could be a very real asset in the instance of another attack like the one in New York, so I am inclined to do what I can to assist you. However, I do not suffer fools lightly, so if you annoy me I will kick you out like I did all the others, do you understand?'

Agent Potter's lips twitched as though in amusement, 'perfectly, director.'

'Agent Romanoff, please show Agent Potter to his quarters.'

Both Agents nodded and Romanoff led the way out of his office. Once they were a little way down the corridor she spoke.

'I know he can seem a little intimidating at first but he's really not that bad.'

Harry made a noise of mild amusement, 'I've dealt with far worse, don't worry.'

Natasha only nodded once and then left him to it, she had more important things to do after all than play tour guide to another one of these weird AMOM liaisons.

Harry entered his quarters and whipped his wand around the room once to disable any monitoring devices they had there, a handy trick he'd picked up in Germany a couple of years back, then took his trunk from his pocket, un-shrunk it, and proceeded to populate his new room with a few of his things. That done he took his com mirror from his pocket and hailed the American Minister of Magic.

'Agent Potter, not having problems already I hope?'

'No sir, I just have a couple more questions for you about this assignment.'

'Oh?'

'It's come to my attention, sir, that Shield don't know who we are or why we have a liaison positioned with them. Am I expected to maintain the statute of secrecy?'

The American Minister looked flustered, 'no of course not, how on earth would that help anything if they didn't know what we were bringing to the table?'

'That's what I thought, sir, but since they've already had a few liaisons stationed here and still seemed none the wiser I thought I'd best check in before saying anything to them.'

'Well, let me be clear then, Agent Potter, you have carte blanch in this situation. You have my express authority to tell them, or show them anything which you think necessary or relevant and to assist them in any way you see fit.'

Harry nodded once, 'Thank you, sir, I appreciate the trust you've placed in me.'

'Director Fury, I think you should see this.'

The director looked up at one of his intelligence operatives standing in the doorway to his office, on the main floor outside there were up to two hundred agents at any one time monitoring surveillance from key locations all over the world and Agent Harleson was one of the captains of those agents.

'What is it Captain?' He asked standing up to follow her.

'We were monitoring that new AMOM liaison, as ordered,' they reached one of the security monitors.

'Play the clip again,' Captain Harleson, said to the airman at the consol.

The clip began to play, 'so everything was perfectly normal as Agent Romanoff showed him to his room,' she narrated as the screen showed the two agents walking down one of the corridors.

'It was even fine when he first entered his quarters,' the screen now showed the new agent enter his bare room, 'then it looks like he raises his arm and' the image of the agent on-screen raised his arm and then the screen went to fuzz, 'that happens.' She finished.

She faced the Director then, 'you asked that anything unusual be reported, sir,'

'Did you run a diagnostic?'

'Yes sir, the motor seems to have fuzzed.'

The Director frowned, 'the motor in the camera spontaneously fuzzed the moment he stepped into his room alone and raised his arm.'

'Yes sir,'

'Well, that certainly is unusual'

'What's unusual?' A British accented voice asked from behind Director Fury.

The Director's blood boiled, he did not like to be snuck up on, he did not like having his conversations over-heard and he most especially did not like answering questions. However in this case he was annoyed enough that he answered the questions with one of his own.

'Care to explain this, Agent Potter?' he demanded, 'play the clip again, Airman.'

The clip played again but was only greeted by a bemused expression from the culprit.

'Gosh you found that quickly! Also, in my defence what I did was designed to take out surveillance equipment, I thought that if there was any in my private quarters it would have been put there by your enemies, not by you.'

'You over-estimate how much I trust you, Agent Potter. I may have been ordered to provide full disclosure but that does not imply trust.' Director Fury growled at the still annoyingly cheerful man, who seemed to only smile wider at this response.

'Well they say that trust needs to be earned, so how about I try to earn some of that trust then?'

Directory Fury shot the other man an appraising glance, 'perhaps we should have this conversation in my office.'

'An excellent idea, Director.'

'So, Agent Potter,' the Director began once he was once more seated comfortably behind his desk with the liaison stood in front of it, 'how do you propose earning my trust?'

'Well, it has come to my attention that you know almost nothing about who, or what, A.M.O.M is or how they could be of any help to you, is that correct?'

As much as it galled the director to admit his lack of knowledge on any topic which he'd tried to investigate, he had to admit the truth of the assertion. So far as he'd been able to determine, no-one but the president had ever heard of AMOM.

'That is correct.'

'I would also imagine that, given my colleagues lack of understanding of pretty much anything technical, you may have wondered how we could possibly be of any assistance to you.'

'That is correct' the Director affirmed again.

'Ok, gosh this is a lot harder than I thought it would be... I'm not really sure how to explain.'

The Director leaned forward across his desk and glared at the younger man with his one good eye, 'It's been my experience that the name of an agency is a good place to start, what does A.M.O.M stand for?'

The agent nodded, 'sure, ok, it stands for the American Ministry of Magic.'

The Director raised an eye-brow, 'is this some kind of joke?'

'No sir, I assure you, Magic is very real and very powerful.'

'Ok, let's assume for a moment that I believe you, what can you do with it?'

'That's really too broad a question, pretty much anything is the answer, provided you've got a strong enough or smart enough witch or wizard.'

'Am I to assume then that you are both a strong and smart wizard?'

'More strong than smart but, yes.'

'Alright, give me some evidence then. I want you to take out my best agent in a fight.'

The young agent did not seem at all perturbed, 'It hardly seems fair, but, Ok.'

Fury pressed a button on his desk, 'Send Agent Romanoff back in.'

Agent Potter grinned, 'she's really going to hate me after this.'

'Don't be so sure of yourself, Agent Potter, she is as lethal as she is beautiful.'

'I don't doubt it for a second sir, but she still doesn't stand a chance.'

A few moments later Agent Romanoff entered the room.

'Agent Romanoff,' the Director greeted her, 'I'd like you to attack Agent Potter please.'

He barely paused between greeting her and issuing the order to attack, and she did not pause at all. As soon as the command had passed his lips she had turned on her target and flung herself at him in full attack. Agent Potter seemed to be taken momentarily by surprise at the swiftness of her attack but it still was not enough time for her to even lay a finger on him. He turned her into a soft white rabbit in the same movement as flinging her back away from him, inadvertently causing her to collide with a window. Because she was still transfigured as a rabbit she hit the glass at about shoulder height and slid down it to the floor where the bunny landed in an undignified heap.

'Damnit,' Agent Potter swore as he hurried over to her arm raised.

'Wait!' The Director shouted, eager to get a good look at what he'd done to her before he could un-do it.

He hurried over to where the bunny lay, it (she?) recovered slightly and was now hopping about in what looked like shock and maybe anger. The Director leaned closer to have a better look, there was no doubt about it, she was definitely a soft white rabbit.

Behind him Agent Potter was starting to fret, 'this is even worse than I'd thought, can I turn her back now?'

'You mean this is reversible?' The Director was astonished.

'Oh completely, yeah, that's not what I was worried about. I never intended to hurt her, I just didn't want to humiliate her. But she caught me off guard, I hadn't expected her to attack so quickly. I was still surprised that you hadn't asked me to pull a rabbit out of a hat, hence her current form.'

'Right,' the Director was astonished, 'Ok, so turn her back.'

Agent Potter waived his arm again and suddenly the bunny was no more, there was just a very pissed off Agent Romanoff sitting where it had once been.

'What the hell was that?' she demanded.

'A demonstration of what our young friend here is capable of, it seems he's got quite a few tricks up his sleeve.'

'No kidding,' Agent Romanoff agreed, 'so how does all this hocus pocus work then?'

Agent Potter produced a highly polished stick of wood from a holster on his forearm, 'This is my wand, ' he began.

After show and tell was over Harry sat opposite the Director and the two men regarded each other silently.

'So let me see if I understand you correctly, there is an entire magical society living on this planet and while you won't let us try to harness magic with technology and you can't contribute in any real way to our operations here because none of you have any idea of how anything technological works, but you'd like to be kept in the loop so you can help defend earth from alien invasion if it ever came to that.'

Harry thought about that summary for a moment, 'that about sums it up. Personally, I don't see the need for a full time liaison. All I think we really need is to have a point of contact, you can then get on with your job and just keep us informed periodically of what's going on. If you encounter a situation that you think you could use our help with or that you think will affect us, like an alien invasion, then you can let us know. '

Director Fury liked the sound of that, it meant that he didn't have to share everything with this group but would have some pretty handy back up if things got hairy.

'That sounds like an acceptable arrangement,' Director Fury agreed.

'Don't mistake this for an indication that I trust you, Director,' Harry responded, his tone cold, 'I'm giving you a chance. If you hide things from us we will find out and we will not be pleased. You saw how easily I took down the electronics in my room before, it would require very little additional effort on my part to take down the electronics on this entire base. I may not know much about them but I'm pretty sure that's something you'd want to avoid.'

'You're threatening me now?'

'No, consider this a friendly warning to play nice, because if you don't there will be consequences.'

Harry pulled a small black folded mirror out of his pocket, he'd spoken to Hermione about this mission and the mirror was her idea.

'Director Fury, this is what's known as a communication mirror. If you need to contact me, at any time, you open this up and say "Commander Pheonix" into it. That's my code name and I'll be able to respond to

Less than a week later Harry was back at the American Ministry of Magic, talking with their minister.

'So I've given Director Fury a mirror compact, I'll have the other half, and if anything comes up that he thinks we should be involved in or aware of he'll contact me.'

Minister Moranty shook his head in wonder, 'I have to hand it to you Agent Potter, you've handled the situation far better than any of our own agents did. You're right that to have an agent with them full time is unnecessary, as long as we can be informed of things which may affect us, that's all we really need.'

'I explained that to them Minister, they know it would not be wise to try to hide anything from us. In fact they seemed quite pleased at the idea of having an "ace up the sleeve" from what I could gather.'

'You've done an excellent job, Agent Potter, and the International Confederation of Wizards, who have now been brought up to speed on this issue, want you as their official liaison with Sheild on a permanent basis.'

'I thought the idea was to have the American ministry take over from here.'

Minister Moranty looked rather shamefaced, 'it was, but the ICW felt that this was really an international concern and that, as you had made better inroads with shield in two days than we did in two months, and as the duties you'd be performing would be far from full time, that you were the best person for the job.'

Harry was less than impressed with this news. He'd suspected something like this would happen (actually it was Hermione who suggested it but she was hardly ever wrong so Harry was inclined to agree with her), but that didn't mean he had to be happy about it.

'Of course, the ICW has now "put you on the payroll" so to speak, so you'll be remunerated appropriately. Considering you'll be co-ordinating the ICW response in the event of another alien invasion it seems only fair that you be paid for your time and expertise.'

Harry had not expected this, and it did go some way towards making him slightly less annoyed with the situation. He hoped that his expertise, as the minister called it, would never be needed and said as much.

'Oh yes of course,' The Minister agreed, 'though in my experience once something happens once it is bound to happen again.'

Harry sighed in agreement, and felt slightly better when the Minister added, 'but in the meantime you are of course welcome to return to your normal duties.