# **Hydra Facility - Eastern Barracks**
**November 1943, when hope arrived wearing stars and stripes**
The cells opened with magical efficiency. Harry's wand traced patterns in the air, and locks clicked open in rapid succession like a mechanical symphony. The sound echoed through the barracks—*click, click, click*—each one a small liberation, each one a door between death and life swinging wide.
The prisoners emerged slowly. Cautiously. Men who'd learned not to trust good news because good news in war was usually a prelude to something worse.
Steve counted them as they stumbled into the corridor. Gaunt faces. Hollow eyes. Uniforms torn and stained. But alive. Still alive. That was what mattered.
"Medic," one man called weakly. "Thompson needs a medic. Took a beating three days ago. Think his ribs are broken."
"We'll get him help," Steve promised. "Can he walk?"
"With support, maybe."
"Then get him up. We're moving in five minutes."
A massive man emerged from one of the cells—six-foot-four of stubborn survival wrapped in a tattered uniform. His face was weathered, his mustache impressive, and his eyes held the kind of humor that refused to die even when everything else tried to kill it.
He took one look at Steve and burst out laughing.
"I'll be damned," he said, his voice carrying across the barracks. "It actually IS Captain America. Thought the boys were delirious. Seeing things. But here you are. Looking exactly like the posters, except—" He gestured at the combat-worn uniform, the shield, the very real blood on Steve's knuckles. "Except you look like you actually know how to use that thing."
"What's your name, soldier?" Steve asked.
"Corporal Timothy Dugan. Friends call me Dum Dum on account of I once got hit in the head so hard I forgot my own name for three days. Remembered everything else, just not the name. Doctors said it was impossible. I said doctors were boring." He extended a hand the size of a dinner plate. "107th Infantry. Or what's left of it."
Steve shook it. The grip was firm despite weeks of captivity. "Good to meet you, Corporal. We're getting you out."
"About damn time." Dugan turned, bellowed at the emerging prisoners. "Listen up! Captain America says we're leaving, so we're LEAVING. I want able-bodied men helping the wounded. I want everyone who can walk moving toward that door. I want us organized, armed, and ready to fight our way out of this Nazi hellhole. MOVE!"
The prisoners moved. Military discipline reasserting itself. Structure returning to men who'd lost it.
More soldiers emerged. A Black soldier with intelligent eyes and a quiet competence moved to Dugan's side. "Gabriel Jones," he introduced himself. "Corporal. 107th. Communications specialist before they decided I'd make a better prisoner."
"James Morita," another soldier appeared. Japanese-American, Steve noted. Compact. Alert. "Combat engineer. Been mapping this facility since they brought us in. Might be useful."
"Very useful," Steve confirmed. "Work with Agent Carter—she's coordinating the extraction."
A British voice rang out, cultured and amused despite everything. "James Montgomery Falsworth. Junior infantry officer, British Army, seconded to American forces because someone thought cultural exchange was more important than keeping me away from Nazi prison camps. Spectacular miscalculation on their part."
"And I am Jacques Dernier," a French accent. Wiry man. Sharp eyes. "French Resistance before I had the poor fortune to be captured. I know how to make things explode. Very enthusiastically."
These men, Steve realized, were natural leaders. The kind soldiers gravitated toward in crisis. The kind who'd kept morale alive in this hellhole.
"Right," Steve addressed the five of them. "I need you helping organize the others. Agent Carter—" he gestured to Peggy, who was directing wizards to establish a defensive perimeter, "—is running extraction operations. Listen to her. Follow her orders. Get these men armed and ready to move."
"Armed with what?" Dugan asked reasonably. "They took our weapons."
"Harry!" Steve called.
Agent Magus appeared, mask still in place, wand raised. "Captain?"
"Armory. Where would they keep confiscated weapons?"
"Don't need to find it." Harry's wand swept toward the corridor. "*Homenum Revelio*."
Nothing visible happened, but Harry's head tilted like he was listening to something only he could hear.
"Three guards. Twenty feet that way. Behind a reinforced door. Sitting on approximately..." His wand moved in a small circle. "Forty Allied rifles, twenty sidearms, and enough ammunition to arm a small revolution."
"Can you open it?"
"Captain Rogers, I can open anything." Harry strode toward the indicated direction. His wand traced a complex pattern. "*Bombarda Maxima*."
The explosion was controlled. Precise. Surgical. The reinforced door didn't just open—it *ceased to exist*, becoming shrapnel and smoke and a very clear statement about what happened to barriers when wizards got impatient.
The three guards inside had approximately two seconds to process this before Harry's next spell hit them.
"*Stupefy! Stupefy! Stupefy*!" Three red bolts. Three unconscious guards.
"Armory secured," Harry announced cheerfully. "Help yourselves, gentlemen. Courtesy of the Third Reich's generous weapons distribution program."
The prisoners needed no further encouragement. They flooded into the armory with the desperate efficiency of men who'd been helpless too long. Rifles were claimed. Pistols distributed. Ammunition passed hand-to-hand.
Steve watched them transform. From prisoners to soldiers. From victims to men who could fight back.
Peggy moved through them like a conductor orchestrating chaos into order. "You three—establish firing positions at the corridor junction. You five—help the wounded toward the northern exit. Everyone else—form up in squads of ten. We're moving in three minutes."
A grizzled sergeant looked at her skeptically. "Ma'am, with all respect, shouldn't we be taking orders from—"
"From the woman who coordinated this entire rescue operation?" Peggy interrupted, her voice pleasant as poisoned honey. "The woman who knows every exit route, every guard patrol, every strategic chokepoint in this facility? The woman who's been conducting military operations while you've been sitting in cells feeling sorry for yourselves? Is that who you think you shouldn't take orders from, Sergeant?"
The sergeant's mouth worked silently.
Dugan stepped forward. His voice carried. "Let me make this simple for anyone having confusion. Agent Carter is in command of this extraction. Her orders are law. Anyone who has a problem with taking orders from a woman can take it up with me. After we're out of the Nazi prison. After we're safe. After I've had time to discuss the error of their thinking with my fists. Are we clear?"
Murmured assents rippled through the prisoners.
Jones added quietly, "Also, she's been giving orders for two minutes and we've already got more organized than we've been in three weeks. Maybe trust the professional?"
"Thank you, Corporal Jones," Peggy said warmly. "Now, Sergeant, I need you coordinating the western defensive position. Take six men. Hold that corridor until we're ready to evacuate."
"Yes, ma'am." The sergeant moved. Orders were orders, apparently, regardless of who gave them.
Steve felt pride bloom in his chest. Peggy was magnificent. Competent. Unshakeable.
He turned to Dugan. "Corporal. The 107th. How many are here?"
"Maybe a hundred-fifty from our regiment. Rest are from other units—captured at different engagements. They've been processing us. Separating out anyone they think might be useful for experiments." Dugan's expression darkened. "Been taking men to the medical wing. Not all of them come back."
Cold settled in Steve's stomach. "Who have they taken? Recently?"
"Couple guys yesterday. Morrison—died during whatever they did to him. Brought his body back as a warning. And Barnes. Took him maybe thirty, forty minutes ago."
The world stopped.
"Barnes," Steve repeated. His voice came from somewhere distant. "Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes?"
"Yeah. You know him?"
"He's my best friend." Steve grabbed Dugan's shoulder. "Where? Where did they take him?"
"Medical wing. Eastern section, third floor. There's an operating theater—" Dugan's expression shifted to sympathy. "Cap, they took him for surgery. Said something about enhancement protocols. If they started already—"
Steve was moving before Dugan finished speaking. Running. Shield raised. Everything else forgotten except the single burning certainty that Bucky was *here*, was *close*, was in danger.
"Captain, wait—" Peggy called.
"Harry!" Steve shouted. "With me. Now."
Harry didn't argue. Didn't hesitate. Simply ran, his longer legs eating distance, his wand already raised and glowing with gathering magic.
Behind them, Peggy's voice: "Flint! Meadowes! Accompany them. Everyone else, continue evacuation procedures. We move in two minutes with or without them."
Steve barely heard. He was running. Faster than he'd ever run. The serum singing in his blood. Corridors blurred past. Left. Right. Stairs—he took them three at a time.
"Captain," Harry panted beside him. "Slow down. We don't know what we're running into—"
"Medical wing. Eastern section. Third floor. That's what Dugan said."
"Yes, but—"
"*Bucky*. They have Bucky."
Understanding flashed across Harry's visible features. He'd heard that tone before. The tone of someone running toward the most important thing in their world.
"Right," Harry said. "Then we run fast and hit hard. Standard rescue protocol."
They hit the third floor at full speed. A guard appeared in the corridor. Raised his weapon.
Harry didn't slow. "*Depulso*!"
The guard flew backward like he'd been hit by an invisible truck. Slammed into the wall. Slid down unconscious.
"There!" Steve pointed. A door marked with red crosses and German text. Light spilled from underneath. Voices inside. Mechanical sounds. The whir of equipment.
Steve didn't knock.
He kicked the door open.
The operating theater was clinical. White tile. Harsh lights. Equipment that belonged in laboratories, not hospitals. And in the center, strapped to a table—
"Bucky."
James Buchanan Barnes looked up. His eyes were glassy. Drugged. Confused. But alive. *Alive*.
Four doctors in white coats spun toward the door. Two armed guards reached for weapons.
Steve didn't give them time.
He threw the shield.
It struck the first guard's weapon, sent it flying. Ricocheted. Hit the second guard's chest plate. Bounced off a surgical tray—instruments scattering—and returned to Steve's hand.
Harry was already moving. His wand traced violent patterns.
"*Stupefy! Incarcerous! Petrificus Totalus!*"
Red light. Ropes materializing from nothing. A doctor froze mid-motion, body locked rigid.
The guards tried to fight back. One managed to raise his Tesseract weapon.
Steve closed the distance. Three steps. The shield came up. The energy bolt struck vibranium and stopped.
Steve's fist didn't stop.
It connected with the guard's jaw. Enhanced strength. Super-soldier rage. The guard dropped like a puppet with cut strings.
The second guard fumbled for a sidearm.
Harry's wand flicked almost casually. "*Expelliarmus*."
The gun tore itself from the guard's hand, flew across the room, embedded itself in the far wall.
"*Stupefy*."
The guard collapsed.
Silence fell. Four doctors incapacitated or petrified. Two guards unconscious. Medical equipment sparking from shield ricochets.
And on the table, Bucky Barnes stared at Steve with drugged confusion.
"Steve?" His voice was slurred. Uncertain. "That you?"
"It's me, Buck." Steve moved to the table, started working on the restraints. His hands shook. "I've got you. You're safe now."
"But you're... you're big." Bucky's eyes tried to focus. Failed. "Really big. When did you get big?"
"It's a long story. I'll tell you later. Right now we need to—"
"Captain." Harry's voice was sharp. "Look at this."
Steve turned.
Harry stood in front of a wall-mounted map. Large. Detailed. Covering most of the eastern wall.
Europe spread across it in precise cartographic detail. And marked on it—pins, flags, annotations in German—were locations. Dozens of them.
Hydra facilities.
Research installations.
Weapons development sites.
Supply depots.
All of it. The entire network.
"Merlin's beard," Harry breathed. "This is their complete operational map. Every major Hydra facility in Europe." His finger traced locations. "Austria. Poland. Czechoslovakia. France. Germany itself."
Steve moved closer. His eyes tracked across the map, memorizing. The serum did something to his memory—made it sharper, clearer, more precise. Like taking a photograph with his mind.
Norway. Denmark. The Low Countries. Northern Italy.
Every location burned into his memory. Perfect recall. Eidetic retention.
But one location made Harry freeze.
A castle. Marked in red. Located in the Austrian Alps, northeast of where they stood. Annotations in both German and what looked like runic symbols.
"Nurmengard," Harry said quietly. His voice carried weight. Horror. Recognition.
"What's Nurmengard?" Steve asked, still memorizing locations.
"Gellert Grindelwald's base of operations. His fortress. His prison. Where he keeps his enemies—wizards who oppose him, Muggles who've learned too much, anyone he considers a threat to his vision of magical supremacy." Harry's hand was shaking slightly. "The OSS has been searching for it for three years. The ICW has spent two decades trying to locate it. Every intelligence operation, every scrying spell, every bloody thing we've tried—nothing. It's hidden under layers of enchantments that make it impossible to find."
"But we found it," Steve said. "It's right there."
"Because Schmidt gave it to them. Because Hydra and Grindelwald are sharing intelligence. This changes everything, Captain. If we can confirm this location, if we can get this information to Dumbledore and the ICW—" Harry stopped. Pulled out a small camera from his robes. Started photographing the map with quick, efficient motions.
Steve continued memorizing. Every detail. Every location. The super-soldier serum had given him perfect recall. Every facility, every annotation, every piece of intelligence on that map was burning into his memory like words carved in stone.
"Steve?" Bucky's voice from the table. Clearer now. The drugs wearing off or adrenaline burning through them. "What the hell is happening? Last thing I remember, I was captured at Azzano. Now you're here looking like you ate your own muscles for breakfast, there's a guy in a mask taking photographs, and—" His eyes widened. "Is that magic? Is he doing *magic*?"
"It's complicated," Steve said, returning to the restraints. The last buckle came free. "Can you stand?"
"I think so. They drugged me but didn't cut yet. Kept talking about enhancement protocols, said they needed me conscious for the initial phase—" Bucky swung his legs off the table. Swayed. Steadied himself. "Steve. Seriously. What the hell happened to you?"
"I volunteered for a program. They injected me with a serum. Made me like this." Steve held up his arm, showing muscles that hadn't existed four months ago. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. It happened fast, and then you shipped out, and—"
"You're Captain America." Bucky's expression was complicated. Hurt. Pride. Confusion. "The guy in the comics. The bonds tour. That's *you*?"
"Yeah."
"Huh." Bucky processed this. "And the magic guy?"
"Agent Magus. British operative. He can do—" Steve gestured vaguely. "—things."
"*Magic things*," Harry supplied, not looking up from photographing. "Wonderful magic things that defy physics and make sense if you stop expecting the universe to be reasonable."
"Right." Bucky looked at Steve. "I've been in a war zone for six months. Seen terrible things. Thought I'd seen everything. And now I find out magic is real and my best friend is a super-soldier comic book character. This day is very strange, Steve."
"I know, Buck. I know. We'll talk about it later. Right now—"
An explosion rocked the facility. Distant but powerful. The floor shuddered. Lights flickered.
"That's the research wing," Harry said with satisfaction. "Charlus just made something explode properly. Which means we're out of time. Facility's going to start evacuating. We need to move. Now."
"Can you walk?" Steve asked Bucky.
"I can run if I have to." Bucky grabbed a scalpel from the surgical tray. Not much of a weapon, but better than nothing. "Let's get the hell out of here."
They moved toward the door. Steve in front, shield raised. Harry beside him, wand ready. Bucky behind, still unsteady but mobile.
The corridor outside had transformed. Chaos. Alarms screaming. Hydra soldiers running toward the explosion. Running away from the prisoners. Running in every direction except the right one.
"This way," Harry directed. "Northern route. Peggy will have the prisoners moving already. We need to catch up before—"
A voice cut through the chaos. Amplified. Mechanical. Wrong.
"*Attention. This facility is under attack. All personnel to defensive positions. Seal the eastern barracks. Eliminate the prisoners. All research personnel evacuate to secondary location. This facility will be destroyed in fifteen minutes.*"
"Fifteen minutes," Steve repeated. "We have fifteen minutes to get two hundred men out of a facility designed to contain them."
"Then we'd better run fast," Harry said.
They ran.
Behind them, the medical wing burned with whatever chaos Charlus's team had unleashed.
Ahead, Peggy was coordinating an evacuation of two hundred prisoners with ten wizards and five combat-effective soldiers.
And somewhere above, the Black Dragon Legion was tearing through Hydra's defenses like a storm made of magic and righteous fury.
The mission was succeeding.
It was also falling apart.
Which, Steve was learning, was fairly typical of military operations that involved more than three people and any sort of plan.
But Bucky was alive.
The prisoners were escaping.
And in Steve's memory, burned with super-soldier precision, was every Hydra facility in Europe and the location of Grindelwald's fortress.
Tonight they'd rescue two hundred men.
Tomorrow they'd use that intelligence to win the war.
Both wars.
Conventional and magical.
Because that's what heroes did.
They saved people today and planned to save more people tomorrow.
One impossible mission at a time.
---
The facility was eating itself.
That's what it sounded like to Steve as he ran through corridors that were systematically destroying themselves—explosions cascading in sequence, each one precisely calculated to erase evidence, eliminate witnesses, and ensure that whatever secrets Hydra kept here would die with the building.
Fifteen minutes, the announcement had said.
Steve checked his mental clock. They'd used eight.
Seven minutes to find Peggy, link up with the prisoners, and evacuate before the entire mountain came down on their heads.
"This way!" Harry shouted over the alarms. His wand was glowing—not casting spells, just *glowing*, like a compass pointing toward something only he could sense. "Peggy's got the prisoners moving through the northern corridor. If we cut through the administration wing, we can intercept them before—"
The wall ahead exploded.
Not from the facility's self-destruct. This was different. *Directed*. The stone didn't just break—it *disintegrated*, becoming dust and smoke and the particular kind of violence that came from magic used with precision and malice.
Three figures stepped through the breach.
The first was a Hydra officer. Not Schmidt—Steve had seen enough photos to recognize the Red Skull. This man was smaller, rounder, wearing glasses that caught the emergency lights and turned his eyes into blank circles of reflection.
Dr. Arnim Zola. Chief scientist. The man who'd been conducting experiments on prisoners.
The second figure wore black robes that seemed to drink light. Male. Late thirties. Aristocratic features that looked disturbingly like Arcturus Black's—same sharp cheekbones, same grey eyes, but twisted. Colder. The kind of face that had looked at suffering and found it interesting rather than horrifying.
And the third—
The third was a woman who radiated power the way fires radiated heat. Tall. Elegant. Dark hair. Eyes that burned with something Steve instinctively recognized as dangerous. She wore robes of deep purple, and her wand was already raised, already glowing with gathering magic that made the air taste like copper and ozone.
"Agent Magus," she said. Her accent was French, her voice cultured, her tone the particular kind of pleasant that predators used before they ate you. "How *delightful*. Gellert has been so curious about you. The young Hit-Wizard who refuses to die. The boy who keeps disrupting our operations. The nuisance who thinks he can fight a war he doesn't understand."
Harry's entire body went rigid. Steve felt it—the way the air pressure changed, the way Harry's magic responded to threat with gathering violence.
"Vinda Rosier," Harry said quietly. "Grindelwald's right hand. Second most dangerous dark witch in Europe. Personally responsible for seventeen civilian massacres, forty-three prisoner executions, and the destruction of the Prague safe house that killed twelve of my people."
"Guilty as charged." Rosier's smile was sharp. "Though I think you're undercounting. I'm quite sure Prague was at least fifteen. The twins counted as two, didn't they?"
Harry's wand came up fast. "*Confringo*!"
The curse screamed across the corridor—orange light that promised immolation.
Rosier's wand moved lazily. "*Protego*."
The curse hit her shield and *stopped*. Simply stopped. The energy dissipated harmlessly.
"Now, now," Rosier chided. "Is that any way to greet old enemies? We're practically colleagues, you and I. Both serving causes larger than ourselves. Both willing to do terrible things in service of ideals. The only difference is I've accepted what I am. You're still pretending to be a hero."
The second figure—the man who looked like Arcturus—stepped forward. His wand was carved from dark wood, and Steve could *feel* it even without magical training. Feel the weight of it. The wrongness.
"Pollux Black," Harry's voice had gone flat. Dead. "Arcturus's older brother. Blood traitor. You joined Grindelwald's forces five years ago. Helped him massacre the Florence safe house. Taught his Acolytes the darkest spells your family's grimoire contained. The ICW wants you for crimes against the International Statute of Secrecy and roughly forty counts of first-degree murder."
"The ICW can want many things." Pollux's voice was cultured. Bored. The tone of someone discussing weather rather than genocide. "What they get is another matter entirely. Hello, Harry. Still playing soldier? Still pretending your Hit-Wizard badge makes you special? Arcturus speaks of you sometimes. Says you're brilliant but naive. Powerful but morally constrained. I look forward to testing those constraints."
"Steve," Bucky whispered urgently. "Those are bad guys, right? The robes and the glowing sticks and the talk about massacres—those are definitely bad guys?"
"Very bad guys," Steve confirmed.
"Thought so. Just checking. Because this day keeps getting weirder and I wanted to make sure I was tracking properly."
Zola had been studying Steve with the focused intensity of a scientist examining an interesting specimen. Now he spoke, his accent thick German, his voice carrying the particular enthusiasm of someone discussing fascinating data.
"Captain Rogers. The American super-soldier. Project Rebirth's only success. How *marvelous* to finally meet you in person. Your file has been most illuminating. Erskine's formula, enhanced with Vita-Ray bombardment, producing stable enhancement without degradation—quite elegant. Though our improvements are *far* superior. The combination of Erskine's base formula with magical enhancement and Tesseract energy stabilization—we're creating something that will make your abilities look positively *primitive*."
"You experimented on prisoners," Steve said. His voice was cold. Controlled. But inside, fury burned. "Killed them. Used them like laboratory animals."
"Killed *some*," Zola corrected pedantically. "The mortality rate has been—acceptable. Perhaps sixty percent? Seventy? One expects casualties in breakthrough research. The survivors are quite enhanced. Not to your level, not yet, but we're learning. Iterating. Each failure teaches us something valuable."
"Each failure was a *person*," Steve growled.
"Each failure was a *subject*." Zola's expression never changed. "There's a difference, Captain. Though I understand you Americans have trouble with such distinctions. You're so sentimental about individual human lives. It makes your research terribly *slow*."
Harry's wand had never lowered. Steve could see him calculating—three enemies, two of them clearly powerful dark wizards, one of them Hydra's chief scientist. Narrow corridor. Limited maneuvering room. And they had maybe six minutes before the facility completed its self-destruct.
"Captain," Harry said quietly. "When I cast, you run. Take Barnes. Get to Peggy. I'll hold them."
"You can't fight three of them alone," Steve objected.
"Watch me."
But before Harry could cast, before Steve could argue, a voice cut through the tension like a blade through silk.
"I'm afraid none of you will be going anywhere."
The voice was mechanical. Amplified. *Wrong*—carrying harmonics that human vocal cords couldn't produce.
Johann Schmidt walked through the smoke.
No—*entered* through the smoke. Like a stage entrance. Dramatic. Calculated. Every movement precise.
He wore a Hydra officer's uniform. Black. Crisp. The skull-and-tentacles insignia prominent. But it was his *face* that Steve noticed first.
Handsome. Almost perfectly so. Strong jaw. Clear eyes. The kind of face that belonged on propaganda posters for the master race.
Too perfect. Too *smooth*. Like a mask.
Because it *was* a mask, Steve realized. Not metaphorically. Literally. A prosthetic face worn over whatever lay beneath.
"Captain Rogers." Schmidt's voice hummed with electronic resonance. "At last we meet. I have been *so* curious about you. Erskine's final achievement. His *perfect* soldier. The only successful recipient of his formula." He tilted his head. "Tell me—do you ever wonder why you survived when others did not? What made you special?"
Steve's grip tightened on his shield. "Erskine said the serum amplifies what's inside. Good becomes great. Bad becomes worse."
"*Precisely*." Schmidt's smile was visible even through the mask. "Which means you were good before the serum. Pure. Noble. All those tedious virtues that make you *weak*. Whereas I—" He gestured at himself. "I was already superior before my enhancement. Already enlightened. Already willing to do what was necessary."
"You were already a monster," Steve said flatly.
"I was already *evolved*." Schmidt began to pace. Slow. Deliberate. "Erskine was a coward. He couldn't see what his formula truly represented—not merely enhancement of the body, but transcendence of human limitation. The potential to create a new species. Superior. Stronger. Unburdened by the moral weaknesses that make humanity so..." He paused. Searched for the word. "*Pathetic*."
"Is there a point to this?" Bucky asked. "Because we're in a building that's exploding, and I'd rather not die listening to a Nazi philosophy lecture."
Schmidt turned his attention to Bucky. "Sergeant Barnes. Also enhanced, I see. Though not with Erskine's formula. Our version. Cruder. Less stable. You'll likely experience significant side effects—memory degradation, psychological instability, violent tendencies. But you'll be *stronger*. *Faster*. Useful, for however long you survive."
Bucky's face went white. "What did you do to me?"
"Improved you. You should be grateful." Schmidt returned his focus to Steve. "But you, Captain—you're special. You're proof that Erskine's formula works. Which means you're valuable. Alive or dead. Your body contains the key to replicating his success. Your blood, your tissue, your genetic material—all of it *useful*."
He reached up slowly. Deliberately. Fingers finding the edge of his mask.
"But before we proceed, I want you to understand something, Captain Rogers. I want you to see what you could become. What you *will* become, if you ever stop clinging to your obsolete morality. What waits at the end of your transformation."
He pulled the mask off.
Steve had prepared himself for horror. Disfigurement. Something terrible that would explain the mask.
He wasn't prepared for what he saw.
Red. Not bloody red. Not burned red. *Red*—like something painted, like something artificial, like flesh that had been transformed into something that wasn't flesh anymore.
A skull. Not a human face anymore. A *skull*. Skin stretched tight over bone structure that had warped, changed, become something nightmarish. Eyes that burned with intelligence and madness in equal measure. No nose—just nasal cavities. No hair. Just red, smooth, terrible skin that gleamed like polished leather.
The Red Skull.
The name made *sense* now.
"You see?" Schmidt's voice carried no shame. Only pride. "This is what Erskine's serum revealed. My *true* face. The face of someone who's evolved beyond humanity's petty concerns. Beyond mortality. Beyond *weakness*."
"You look like someone skinned you and forgot to stop," Bucky said faintly.
"Steve," Bucky continued, his voice higher than normal. "Steve. Please tell me you don't have one of those under your face. Please tell me the serum doesn't do *that*."
"It doesn't," Steve managed. He couldn't stop staring. The face was hypnotic in its horror. "Erskine said—he said the serum amplifies what's inside. Good becomes great—"
"And bad becomes *worse*," Schmidt finished. "Exactly. Which means this—" He gestured at his face. "This is what I *am*. Stripped of pretense. Revealed. *Glorious*."
Harry had been silent through this entire exchange. Now he spoke, his voice carefully controlled but carrying an edge Steve hadn't heard before.
"The serum didn't transform you, Schmidt. It revealed you. You were already a monster. The serum just made sure everyone could see it."
Schmidt's skull-face twisted into something that might have been a smile. "And you, Agent Magus. The famous wizard who fights against progress. Tell me—does it bother you? Knowing that magic and science are merging? That Grindelwald and I have accomplished what your precious International Confederation fears most?"
"It bothers me that you're using it to kill people," Harry said flatly. "The merging of magic and science? Fine. Inevitable, probably. But using it for *this*—" He gestured at the facility, the prisoners, the experiments. "For genocide and conquest? That bothers me significantly."
"Then you lack vision," Rosier interjected. She'd been quiet, watching, but now she stepped forward. "Grindelwald sees what the ICW refuses to acknowledge. Magical and non-magical humanity are on a collision course. Eventually, the Statute of Secrecy will fail. Muggles will discover us. And when they do, they'll fear us. Try to control us. Try to *eliminate* us."
"So you're murdering them first," Harry said. "Very rational. Totally justified. Definitely not the thinking of paranoid supremacists who've convinced themselves that might makes right."
"It's not supremacy," Pollux Black said coldly. "It's survival. The strong survive. The weak perish. That's nature. That's evolution. Grindelwald simply acknowledges reality."
"Your brother would be ashamed of you," Harry said.
"My brother is a fool who clings to outdated notions of equality and restraint." Pollux's wand rose. "He'll learn. Eventually. When the world burns and only the strong remain, he'll understand why I chose this path."
"I doubt that very much," a new voice said.
Arcturus Black stepped out of the smoke behind Pollux, his wand already raised and glowing.
"Hello, brother," Arcturus said coldly. "I've been searching for you. We have matters to discuss. Family matters. The kind that involve me making you regret every choice you've made since joining Grindelwald's butchers."
---
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