Harry's spellwork was exceptional. Hermione Granger was outstanding in almost every subject, and both of them were strong candidates for the Ministry of Magic down the line. Malfoy placed first in Potions every single time, even without inheriting the Malfoy family name, there was always a position waiting at St. Mungo's as an attending healer.

So what about Ron Weasley? Mediocre across the board. What was there to look forward to?

Yang Luoluo and Peter exchanged a careful glance. Peter quickly ran through the original storyline in his head, frantically searching every corner of his brain for something useful to say.

"You — um... I've got it!" Peter's mind locked on to something, and a second later Peter clapped both hands together. "You're incredible at wizard chess! Back then, if it weren't for you, Harry never would've gotten through those challenges and taken the Resurrection Stone from Lord Voldemort so easily!"

That was true enough. In their first year, Harry had been a kid raised by a Muggle family with no knowledge of the Wizarding World whatsoever. Hermione Granger was a Muggle-born just finding her footing. Of the three of them, only Ron Weasley had a thorough, bone-deep understanding of wizard chess.

Without Ron Weasley, it was fair to say Harry never would have made it through the professors' gauntlet to defeat Lord Voldemort.

"So what?" Ron Weasley's head stayed down. "It's just a game."

Peter shot a desperate look at Yang Luoluo.

Yang Luoluo felt a headache coming on. How was she supposed to come up with something on the spot?

Wizard chess... wizard chess... chess?

Got it.

"Okay, hear me out — you clearly don't know enough about us Muggles." Yang Luoluo put on her best mysterious expression and signaled F.R.I.D.A.Y. to pull up the projection. "Being good at wizard chess is actually a really big deal."

Ron Weasley looked over, curious despite himself.

"See, in the Muggle world, we have things just like wizard chess — Go, xiangqi, chess, all of it. Every one of those games has its own professional tournaments."

F.R.I.D.A.Y. obliged without missing a beat, filling the space in front of Ron Weasley with photographs and competition footage from around the world.

"Maybe... maybe you could start a wizard chess tournament in the Wizarding World. With your skill, you could absolutely take the championship."

Ron Weasley stared at the images, eyes slowly going wide. "R-Really?"

Something small took root in the space behind Ron Weasley's ribs.

"Of course!" Peter jumped in, keeping the momentum going. "The Wizarding World has Quidditch tournaments — why couldn't there be wizard chess tournaments? Maybe you're the one who makes it happen. Maybe you're the one who puts it on the map."

Ron Weasley looked like actually starting to believe it. Eyes lit up, both hands balled tight, as though physically holding the excitement in.

"Yeah. Yeah, I, I really am good at wizard chess. Maybe... maybe it could actually work. Maybe I could win."

"Definitely!" Both of them nodded like bobbleheads.

"Thank you. I'm going back right now to think it all through!"

The gloom that had been sitting on Ron Weasley's shoulders all evening vanished completely. Barely containing the urge to leap two meters off the ground, Ron Weasley gave them a quick wave and bolted back to the room.

Peter nodded slowly. "Impressive. I can't believe that actually worked." Peter turned and gave Yang Luoluo a thumbs-up.

"Naturally." Yang Luoluo lifted an eyebrow. "I'm already picturing Ron Weasley at the tournament."

"Ron Weasley's going to win."

...

After days of tireless work from the Weasley twins, almost everyone at the compound was walking around with a sheet of parchment in their pocket.

Armed with all the feedback that had come in, George and Fred had kept refining the design, and in the process, a string of inspiration strikes had produced a collection of strange and wonderful little gadgets nobody had asked for but everyone was quietly impressed by.

"Come test out our new product! [Hopeful]"

The parchment in Yang Luoluo's pocket flared warm for a moment. She pulled it out to find George's message waiting on the surface.

"What do those twins want with you now?"

Out on the balcony, Loki leaned languidly against the railing, eyes dropping toward Yang Luoluo as she typed a reply. His expression made his feelings clear.

It had been happening all week. Every time the twins finished a new modification, they rounded up a few volunteers to test it. This was far from the first time they had pulled Yang Luoluo away right in the middle of some rare time alone with Loki, she made the invite list for nearly every single session.

If the twins had been within earshot of his displeasure, they would have protested loudly. It was Tony Stark who had told them to keep the two from being alone together, and apparently there would be no mercy until Loki turned that tiny skirt-form battle armor back to normal. After a lot of deliberation, this had been the best plan they could come up with.

"Sounds like they've made something new and want me to come test it." Yang Luoluo answered absently, then looked up, and caught Loki's furrowed brow and thoroughly displeased scowl. She couldn't help laughing.

"Come on. Don't be mad."

Loki didn't move. He crossed his arms, turned his head to one side, and radiated, from every angle, a single coherent message: I am not pleased.

There was nothing for it. Yang Luoluo let out a small sigh, rose slightly onto her tiptoes, and wrapped her arms around him. A clean, cool scent wrapped around her in return.

The soft strands of her hair caught in the breeze and drifted up against Loki's chin, like a small, fluffy paw giving him a gentle scratch.

He didn't pull away. The irritation drained out of him all at once. One hand settled over her shoulder, the other curved at her waist, drawing her in until she was steady against him. A long moment passed before a low, muffled voice came from somewhere above her head.

"...Don't just drop everything every time they call. Tell those two redheads to find someone else."

The Weasley twins' personalities were genuinely to Loki's taste, but right now, in this moment, he found them hard to look at.

Sure enough. Just jealous.

Yang Luoluo listened to the steady thrum of his heartbeat and fought back the urge to smile. She gave in with easy grace.

"Okay. I'll be back soon."

"Don't forget you promised me dinner." Loki was relentless, instead of loosening his hold, he tightened it.

Yang Luoluo, worried about keeping them waiting too long, pushed gently against his arms and tried to slip free, talking as she did.

"I know, I know. I won't forget. The second I'm done testing, we go eat. Promise."

"And Tony Stark's armor, the one that turned into a little skirt. That was you, wasn't it? Change it back."

Loki clicked his tongue. He let her go, arms falling away with grudging compliance. He watched her turn to leave.

Then his eyes shifted, and something mischievous rose to the surface.

He reached out and caught her hand. The instant she turned back around, he deployed the full force of his thousand-year-old arsenal: brows lightly creased, lips pressed into a firm, unhappy line, expression settling into a portrait of I am deeply wronged and I refuse to say so.

Tested on Frigga and Thor for a millennium. Never failed once.

"...Don't I get some compensation?"

His voice dropped. One hand lifted and tapped, meaningfully, against the side of his cheek. He watched Yang Luoluo with undisguised anticipation.

Yang Luoluo understood immediately.

The next second, her face went scarlet. She fixed him with a glare, spun on her heel without a moment's hesitation, and ran, tossing one parting line back over her shoulder that sounded fierce and landed hollow:

"Don't even think about it!"

Their relationship had taken a flying leap forward after that conversation a while back. Holding hands, arms around shoulders, the occasional hug, all of that had become ordinary.

But a kiss? Loki could keep dreaming.

Standing where he had been left, Loki let the carefully constructed wounded expression drop from his face. He pursed his lips.

What a shame. A genuine failure, this time.

...

The flush still hadn't fully faded by the time Yang Luoluo reached the twins' door. She stopped outside, pressed a hand to her chest, and pulled in several slow, deliberate breaths, waiting until the rapid beat of her heart steadied before she finally turned the handle.

"Oh, you're here, Luoluo! We were just about to come find you."

Wanda Maximoff looked up from inside with eyes curved into a smile. Peter, Harry, and the others were all gathered around, waving the moment they saw her.

Yang Luoluo arranged her expression into something collected and made her way over to sit with them. "Ahem. Got held up on the way. Sorry I'm late."

Wanda Maximoff noticed the red still lingering at the tips of Yang Luoluo's ears and understood completely, but was tactful enough not to say so.

"No worries. As long as everything's sorted."

With everyone present, George and Fred pulled out several small rectangular objects that looked uncannily like mobile phones, handed them around, and launched into a detailed rundown of the appearance and features.

The Muggles in the room all arrived at the same conclusion at roughly the same time: Isn't this just a phone?

The twins refused to accept this. "This is the Wizarding World's version of a mobile phone," they argued, with some indignation. "We made a lot of modifications!"

Everyone spread their hands.

Sure. Go ahead then. Show us what you've got.

➤ Next: The Final Stage

Chapter 104 - The Final Stage

The twins swept a hand through the air and launched into their pitch, words tumbling out fast.

"For example, we've built in the Sneakoscope function — if someone nearby means you harm, the temperature spikes instantly. A bit hotter than when a message comes in, but I don't think it'll actually burn you."

"You can also switch up the look whenever you want. Personally, I'm partial to the red-and-gold with the golden snitch printed on it, very on-brand for us Gryffindors."

"And there's the Marauder's Map! Though right now it only shows Hogwarts and the Avengers Compound..."

At that, George trailed off, looking a little deflated, and muttered, "If only the Wizarding World could connect to your internet. Then we'd be able to pull up a map of anywhere."

Fred picked up the thread. "The Hogwarts map was provided by Sirius Black and the others. The Compound map is one George and I worked out ourselves."

"We can't exactly go scout every location in person, can we. A network would fix everything."

The people around them exchanged glances as the brothers sighed. No one had anything useful to offer.

Yang Luoluo was a science student, sure, but she was also, at the end of the day, a college student whose major had nothing to do with networking, and whatever she'd learned before had been handed back to her teachers the moment she turned in her university entrance exam.

Wanda and Pietro had spent their early years inside a Hydra facility. Hydra had no shortage of illiterates; sending two children to school had never been anyone's priority.

Peter had a brain Tony Stark had personally praised, but how to get the Wizarding World online? Genuinely no idea.

As for the wizards, there was even less to say. Their entire understanding of the internet went no further than the word itself.

The twins, having clearly run through all of this themselves, let out even louder sighs.

Peter scratched the back of his head and tried anyway.

"Why not... go ask Mr. Stark? He's the smartest person I've ever met! Someone who invented the Iron Man armor — something the world has never seen before and probably never will again — your problems would be nothing to him. Completely trivial!"

Once the topic turned to his idol, Peter could go on indefinitely. If George hadn't cut it short, there was no telling how long the praise would have lasted.

"You think we haven't already been to Mr. Stark?" George's face was all gloom. "We went to Dr. Banner too."

Fred took over. "They just said their research had reached its final stage, that it'd be finished soon, and they'd help us sort it out once everything was over."

And then J.A.R.V.I.S. had very gently shown the two of them out of the lab.

The wizards were still puzzling over what "once everything was over" meant. Yang Luoluo and the others, meanwhile, quietly let go of the relaxed mood they'd been carrying, exchanged a few glances, and felt their expressions go serious.

The final stage?

Was it finally coming?

"...What's wrong? Did something happen?" Harry had caught the shift in everyone's faces a beat late and spoke up.

Hermione had taken it a step further. After carefully turning over the conversation that had just happened, a frown formed.

"Is it... that thing we agreed on before?"

"I'm afraid so." Wanda let out a breath.

The only thing Tony Stark and Bruce Banner had been researching all this time was the time-travel machine. If they were saying it had reached its final stage, that day probably wasn't far off.

Harry, Hermione, and Ron Weasley's expressions shifted at the same moment. Draco Malfoy and the Weasley twins had no idea what riddle was being spoken in front of them, and were watching with open bewilderment.

"What riddle are you all talking in?"

Being the only one left out made Draco Malfoy deeply irritated. A glare went straight at Harry.

Harry had spent enough years on the receiving end of those glares that they barely registered anymore. Without much reaction, the explanation began.

"We made a pact with the Avengers. They'd help us win the war and resurrect the wizards who died in it."

"And what we had to do in return was, help them win the war that might be coming."

The Avengers weren't entirely certain another Thanos from a parallel universe would actually show up this time. That didn't stop them from preparing for every possibility.

Harry gave a rough account of it all. Personal knowledge of that enemy was limited, only some footage J.A.R.V.I.S. had put out, but it was enough to make the hair stand on end.

That was an extraordinarily terrifying enemy.

"..." When the account was done, Draco Malfoy's face had gone completely blank. A few seconds passed. Then a sudden, urgent lean forward.

"My father, and Albus Dumbledore and Professor Snape — do they know about this!"

The father... would go along with something this absurd?

Harry nodded, then shook the head. "Albus Dumbledore and the others know. My father said they've been rallying the Wizarding World during this period. As for Mr. Malfoy, probably knows by now, I'd guess?"

Draco Malfoy's fists clenched tight, fingernails pressing deep into both palms. Without another word, a quiet rise and exit followed. Harry and the others figured it was to get a letter off to Lucius Malfoy.

"Merlin... I can't believe it..." The twins finally surfaced from their shock. There was no fear on their faces. The two grabbed each other in a burst of excitement.

"This is so cool! Does that mean we get to go to outer space!"

"..." Everyone who had braced for fear stared back with identical expressions of exhaustion. Wanda's mouth twitched. "No. If nothing goes wrong, the battlefield should still be on Earth."

The twins went flat.

...

Just as they'd expected, a few days later Tony Stark called in all the Avengers currently on Earth. Those who weren't on Earth had received word too, and after rushing to get there over the past several days, they'd all arrived at the Compound.

Several months on, the Avengers were gathered under the same roof again. The Compound, which usually felt a little too spacious, now felt crowded and loud.

Beyond those who'd already been staying at the Compound, Stephen Strange and Wong had come, along with Yelena Belova, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Carol Danvers, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Wakandan King T'Challa and Princess Shuri, and standing beside them was a powerfully built young Black man with a wild, untamed edge.

T'Challa made a point of walking over and bowing to Yang Luoluo. Shuri followed alongside, quietly rolling eyes at the young Black man while mirroring the bow.

"Thank you again for resurrecting my cousin." T'Challa gently drew the young man forward. "N'Jadaka, you should come and say your thanks."

N'Jadaka had caused a great deal of harm, but there were reasons behind it, and more to the point, there had been a genuine change of heart before the end. T'Challa, in a moment he couldn't quite resist, had gone to Yang Luoluo and asked her to bring the cousin back.

When it came to wearing rose-tinted glasses for a troublesome sibling, T'Challa and Thor were cut from the same cloth.

Shuri stood off to the side watching and muttered under breath, something along the lines of "I genuinely don't understand why my brother wants to resurrect the person who tried to take his throne" and "so done with this so-called cousin."

Yang Luoluo, having just received a bow from both the Wakandan king and princess at once, was thoroughly caught off guard. Before a single "you're welcome" could come out, N'Jadaka swept a glance over, let out a dismissive "tch," and left it at that.

What is that supposed to mean!

Truth be told, nobody had been especially enthusiastic about resurrecting N'Jadaka in the first place. But T'Challa's expression had been so genuinely earnest, and there had been an offer to supply the Avengers with Vibranium at an exceptionally low price.

That condition was simply too hard to refuse. The deal was made, and this leopard was brought back to life.

And now, of all things, mockery.

Yang Luoluo stared after N'Jadaka as T'Challa, brow furrowed, steered the cousin away.

After a thorough and painstaking lecture from T'Challa, N'Jadaka finally walked back over, wearing an expression of barely contained impatience, struggled for a long moment, and squeezed out a single "thanks."

Yang Luoluo looked back with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. With a dense crowd of Avengers at her back, there was nothing to be afraid of.

"You're welcome. Just remember to listen to your older brother from now on, okay?"

"You!" N'Jadaka bristled immediately. Eyes sharpened in an instant, the whole posture that of a leopard coiling to spring.

Then a chill hit the back of the neck as a wall of unfriendly stares converged from all directions.

N'Jadaka:...

"I think Luoluo is right." T'Challa gave Yang Luoluo a nod, then turned back and resumed the patient, earnest counseling of the troublesome cousin. "I'm your older cousin, of course it's my responsibility to guide you. Take Thor's younger sibling, for instance, actually, let's not go there. The point is, you should learn from Shuri..."

Watching the look of pure suffering spread across N'Jadaka's face, Shuri was thoroughly delighted.

"Tsk tsk tsk."

Not far away, Clint Barton watched the Wakandan royal family's display of "loving sibling harmony" and shook the head slowly.

"I'd wager T'Challa and Thor have a lot to talk about."

"Like both having a sibling who never stops causing trouble."

➤ Next: Pre-War Council — Words Unspoken