Loki's awareness returned to him slowly. The first thing he felt was a slight pressure on his chest; he opened his eyes and looked down to see Hermione's head on his ribs, facing him. Her warmth was very comfortable, and he didn't feel like moving anyway, so he lay still for a while, breathing as gently as possible.

Soon enough, Hermione began to stir. She opened her eyes blearily and shot upright as soon as she realized where she was.

"I'm so sorry!" she gasped out. "I-I must have fallen asleep! Sorry if I was hurting you!"

"Don't worry. I'm just fine."

"Oh, good. How are you feeling otherwise?"

Loki took stock of his body. "I feel… better than I did yesterday. My headache's gone."

"Good. Do you remember anything? How you got here?"

"Yes, that would be interesting to hear," came a new voice from the hallway door. A woman came through, an older woman with steel-grey hair tied back into a severe bun.

"I'm afraid I don't," Loki said. "I can tell you only my name. I am Loki."

The older woman cocked an eyebrow. "I should say so. You've certainly caused us a great deal of trouble."

"I don't understand."

"Since you've arrived, you've caused our students quite a scare. You've also got the media up in arms." She glanced at Hermione. "Somehow, Rita Skeeter heard the news about this man appearing on Hogwarts grounds. She's currently questioning my abilities as Headmistress."

"She's been doing that since you first started," Hermione pointed out.

"Some of the parents are also beginning to do so, unfortunately. They're afraid the wards have failed, and that this man is a Dark Wizard come to attack their children."

"I'm sorry," Loki interrupted, "but I don't understand how my presence could scare your children's parents enough to question the Headmistress of the place I arrived at."

The woman gave him a long look. "I suppose, if you truly have amnesia, you wouldn't understand. Our society was at war for some time several years ago, and we haven't completely recovered from it."

"I see. So my appearance could mean…?"

"It could have meant that the wards that protect this school have been compromised, but having just checked the wards myself – and I sent an owl to the Prophet telling them just that – and they're in perfect working order."

Loki was beginning to feel slightly overwhelmed – what did owls have to do with anything? And what was the Prophet? – so he simply nodded.

"Now, the next order of business is to figure out what to do with you."

"I beg your mercy in deciding; I don't remember anything, not even where I came from nor how I got here."

"Nothing?" The older woman studied him closely.

"No. As I said, the only thing that I know is my name, and the last thing I remember is a white flash, and then appearing here."

"I see. Would you be willing to be tested with Veritaserum?" At Loki's blank look, she elaborated. "Truth potion. It would force you to tell the truth about what you remember."

A great part of Loki balked at the idea, but frankly, if he didn't want to be outside the gates by morning, it was likely that he would have to go along with it. He nodded resignedly. "I will take the test."

"Thank you. Ms. Granger?"

Hermione nodded and stood. "I'll go get it. Should be back in a few minutes."

The older woman noted Loki watching her out the door. "Professor Granger is our Potions mistress. She keeps the stock of Veritaserum in her office."

Loki nodded. "She seems a kind woman."

The older woman looked over her glasses at him. "She is. She's very clever, too, so don't start thinking you could pull one over on her."

"Wouldn't have dreamt of it," Loki murmured, surprising himself by meaning it truthfully.

Why was that so surprising?

The pair waited in silence for Hermione to return. It was only a few minutes before she came back through the door, holding a small bottle about half full of clear liquid.

"Here," she said, conjuring a glass from nowhere with her wand, and filling it with water. "You should have a drink first."

Loki drank of the pure water in the glass, finding himself surprisingly thirsty. He hadn't noticed. When he was done, he handed the glass back to Hermione, who refilled it and dropped a few drops of Veritaserum into it.

This time, Loki hesitated before drinking. Hermione looked at him with sympathy. "Everything will just feel a little cloudy for a while. You'll want to tell the truth to anything asked, but you've been telling the truth the whole time. Nothing to worry about."

"It's nice to have someone here who has so much faith in me," he murmured, before he drained the glass.

True to Hermione's word, everything seemed to slip away a bit. He heard the older woman's voice asking him, "Where did you come from?"

"I don't remember," he said quietly. "I can't recall anything before the white flash I mentioned."

"I see." She pursed her lips. "So you don't recall how you appeared on our grounds, either?"

"I wish I did."

"I see." The older woman stood. "Well, I suppose that is all the questions I can ask you. Now what do we do with you…"

"I can take charge of him, Professor," Hermione said. "I've been working on some potions for St. Mungo's; I'm sure they won't mind giving me a bit extra to research memory potions at the same time."

"Are you sure, Hermione?"

She bit her lip, but nodded. "Maybe he can even help. I can show him some of the simpler potions, and he can help make those." She looked at Loki. "Does this sound okay to you?"

"It sounds rather perfect."

"Very well then. Hopefully, you should be able to manage with him. He's a troublemaker, I can tell." Behind her glasses, the older woman's eyes narrowed slightly in jest.

Hermione laughed. "Well, I've dealt with enough of those over the years."

"True enough," the older woman agreed, and took her leave.

Hermione looked back at Loki. "We'll give you about half an hour to recover from the Veritaserum, and so Madam Pomfrey can make sure you're well, and then I'll take you down to my office and show you the ropes. Alright?"

"Fine by me. What was the Headmistress' name?"

"Minerva Mcgonagall. Professor, to most people." She chuckled a little. "Myself included. I've called her Professor for so long that even nine years after graduating, I still find it hard to call her Minerva."

Loki nodded. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Hermione graced him with a smile that felt to him as though it rather lit up the room. Leaving him to consider that, she stood and left the room.

True to her words, half an hour later, Loki followed Hermione down several flights of stairs to an office just off a courtyard. There was a window that looked out onto the courtyard, letting in sunlight and views of any troublemaking students.

On that thought... "Why did Minerva react that way when I told her my name?"

"Oh, you mean telling you that you're a troublemaker? Well, your name's Loki, which is the name of the Norse god of mischief and lies. He's well known for his tendency to cause mayhem wherever he goes, and, well... You don't know what the Prophet is, do you?"

At Loki's shaken head, she continued. "It's the Wizarding newspaper. It's well known for its scandals and sensationalism. News of your appearance at Hogwarts fell into the hands of one of their worst reporters, and she's whipped the public into a frenzy. Which of course means trouble for Minerva."

"It would," he agreed.

"In any case, you're here, you're not a danger, and the wards are still up, which means there's nothing we can do about it. So: potions."

"Potions."

Hermione grinned. "Potions. It's a very delicate branch of magic that not everyone has an easy time with, but I feel like you'll get it pretty well. First things first; I'm going to show you all the tools and how best to use them..."

After a three-hour crash course on Potion-making, Hermione set Loki to work making simple boil cures and other such things for the school's Hospital Wing, which was normally one of Hermione's duties when she wasn't busy with classes or research. She watched him chop up some ingredients, gave him a few pointers, and left him to it with the open textbook beside him.

Loki fell into his work very easily. Something about Potion brewing was rather soothing, he decided as he carefully weighed and dropped ingredients into the simmering cauldron. Perhaps it was just that it was simple work that left the mind open to thinking other thoughts.

Hermione, meanwhile, wasn't idle. As he chopped and measured, she riffled through the books on her shelf, taking out several and flipping through them, occasionally stopping to watch Loki or point something out to him. When he was finished with the boil cures, she stopped him and started speaking.

"I looked back through my Potions Mastery notes, and a Healer's textbook on brain damage, and what I found wasn't promising. The brain is a very subtle and delicate organ, and even simple magic can have awful effects on it. Even assuming that your amnesia was due to the blow in the head, there doesn't seem to be much we can do short of testing out a lot of different potions to see which one works. And if the memory loss is magical in origin... well, it won't be that simple."

"So what do we do then, oh brilliant lady?"

Hermione blushed slightly, but pushed on. "Well, there are a few recipes for potions that tend to have helpful effects on memory recall, so we can try those first. They take a long time to brew, though. One takes three weeks and has to be started six days before a full moon."

"Then we should start immediately."

Hermione bit her lip. "Well, there are... If St. Mungo's finds out about your memory loss, they'll not want me working on trying to help you. They'll want to take you in and figure you out themselves."

"St. Mungo's is a hospital, I assume?" Hermione nodded. "Well, I'd much rather not be put in hospital, so what are we to do?"

Hermione considered for a moment. "I could claim that you're an old friend of mine... I can tell them you're not from this country, and say you weren't taught magic in a school, so you don't know very much, and what you should know I can teach you."

"That could work."

"Of course, we'd have to get you a wand. But I have money for that... and Ollivander – the wand-maker – is an old friend of mine, he'll keep a secret."

"Then it would seem that our first step is to get me a wand, and teach me more about this world."

Hermione grinned. "It would seem so, yes."