Heroes Assemble!

And The Throne Belongs To ...

"You have hidden an entire island with magic?" Wong asked as he looked out the great windows overlooking not just the other buildings but also the forest beyond that was Paradis Noir.

"You do know that our sling rings will let us bypass your protections at will, don't you?" Doctor Strange added, the corner of his mouth lifted in a wry smile.

"You wouldn't have been invited here in the first place if we didn't trust you," Steve replied.

"Exactly why are we here, Captain?" Vision asked, looking around at the dozen people in the room. "I cannot fathom a reason for this particular grouping to have been assembled."

"We're here because Gandalf asked us here," Tony replied before stopping and holding up a finger. "No. We were ordered here. This better be good Sparrowhawk."

"It is, trust me," Hermione replied. "How about we all take a seat?"

It took very little time for Vision and Wanda, Doctor Strange and Wong, Thor, Carol, Tony, Steve, Pietro, Hermione and Daisy to find seats around the low coffee table in the middle of their square. The only one left standing was Harry himself.

"Harry?" Daisy prompted.

With a sigh and a nod, Harry stepped forward.

"This is why we're here," he said as he placed a glittering orange-gold gem in the precise middle of the table.

Instantly, Thor, Carol, Doctor Strange and Wong reacted, shooting forward to the very edges of their seats.

"Is that ..." Thor asked, his gaze never once leaving the Stone.

"The Soul Stone," Harry replied gravely.

"You knew where it was all along?" Carol asked, disbelief clear in her voice.

"Kinda?" Harry replied, rubbing the back of his neck. "Let's just say that I didn't realise what it was until very recently."

"I can feel it ... It's almost speaking to me," Vision said.

"It's speaking to you?" Wanda asked, clearly concerned.

"What's it saying, Vision?" Steve added.

"It's not so much words as a feeling," Vision frowned. "And I don't think it's so much speaking to me as to the Stone."

He finished with touching the Mind Stone embedded into his forehead which caused a number of the group to nod.

"I feel like I'm missing something," Pietro said. "What are these Stones?"

"They are called Infinity Stones," Carol replied. "The building blocks of the universe."

"That sounds ominous," Pietro commented.

"Even more so when you remember that it was Hydra's experiments with Vis' Stone that helped to shape our own powers," Wanda said, looking directly at her brother.

"That's all very interesting," Tony interjected, "but I think we're missing the point here. Gandalf knew where the missing Stone was this whole time? I'm betting that there's a story there and I, for one, want to hear it."

"I think we'd all like to hear it," Doctor Strange nodded.

Harry and Hermione shared a look before he simply raised an eyebrow. Her sigh was enough to have him smirking, but then, Hermione not being willing to go into lecture mode would have been more surprising.

"The reason Harry didn't – nor I, for that matter – recognise the Stone for what it was," she began, "was simply because that, in our world, it has a different name: The Resurrection Stone. And even then, it had passed from truth into myth and legend long ago before it finally became a simple children's bedtime story. It was only our ... unique experiences in the war that led to us finding the Stone and even then, we didn't realise what it was. Once Harry had found it and used it all those years ago, he discarded it where he thought none would ever find it again."