Chapter 7

Harry awoke to the sound of an owl of all things and frowned. It having been just over two years since he had first ventured into the wizarding world, he was used to such oddities when he was visiting there, but in the middle of muggle London? Well, there were weird things in London, but they didn't usually include owls…. After a few moments he recalled that owls were used to send messages in the wizarding world, being the backwards society they were.

'Any ideas?' he asked Loki.

The god was silent for a moment, doubtlessly scouring his near-perfect memory for anything that might reveal what the owl wanted. He evidently drew up a blank. 'No wizards know your address, and there no wards that might alert them to your location.' He paused. 'Perhaps the muggles have decided to revert to avian messengers once again? It is such a stupid idea that it wouldn't surprise me….'

Harry snorted. He was fairly sure that he was the only human, magic or muggle, that Loki would actually ever like. The god thought of mortals with disdain at best and utter hatred at worst. Until a year or so ago he had been more tolerant of them – that was until Harry had actually read a Norse Mythology book. To say the least, he had been...displeased by their depiction of him, even if he admitted to a large majority of it being true.

Personally Harry thought that he was probably just envious of the worship his adopted brother Thor had gotten even though he had also went around killing people – not that he would ever mention that to Loki, of course.

Wandering over to his window, Harry opened it and began to reach for the letter in owls hands.

'Don't!' Loki suddenly said. 'I can detect a tracing charm on it, and there might be other things.'

Drawing his hand back rapidly, Harry drew his hands back rapidly as he stared at the letter. Upon it was a symbol he recognized from books: the Hogwarts crest. 'They don't usually have tracing

charms on, do they?'

'I'm not-' Loki was interrupted as a series of sharp cracks broke through the morning's quiet.

"I'm going to take that as a no," Harry muttered aloud as he dashed back towards his bed. From the distinctive sound of apparation, he predicted that multiple wizards had just appeared a few floors below him and were heading up now. He didn't doubt that they had been the ones to place a tracing charm on the Hogwarts letter, and from Harry's messiah-like status within the wizarding world, there was a good chance that Dumbledore was here.

While Harry didn't doubt that with the element of surprise he could absolutely destroy the vast majority of wizards in combat, Albus Dumbledore was certainly part of the minority, and with multiple others with him, Harry would have no chance. Somehow he felt as though they might not take no as an answer for his entrance to Hogwarts. He wasn't willing to stay and find out.

They had most likely appeared on the ground floor and Harry was on the fifth. While wizards didn't understand things such as elevators, they would be up to him soon. He picked up his wand and waved it through the air, summoning his various belongings from around the room and into a slightly-expanded backpack. He hurriedly changed from his pyjamas to jeans and a shirt, strapping his wand holster to his forearm as his enhanced hearing picked up the thumping of feet and sound of voices.

He moved back over to the window and climbed out upon the ledge outside. As someone knocked upon his room door, he took one final glance backwards before shutting the window and pointing his wand at himself. He muttered a few spells before leaping from the ledge.

Wind rushed through his ears for a few moments and then he collided with the surface of the River Thames seventy feet below.

As the dirty water surrounded him, he was suddenly extremely glad that he had thought to use water-proofing and bubblehead charms. There was also Loki to thank for the fact he was not feeling any pain, the god having dulled the sensation.

Just to be safe, Harry swam across the filthy river to the opposite bank, never breaking the surface. Upon the other side he dragged himself to the shore, undoing the charms before producing his wand and carefully wrapping himself in the illusion of a rather short, black-haired man wearing a shabby brown suit. It was his favourite form for staying inconspicuous. No one would give him a second look, muggles and wizards alike.

With a final glance backwards, Harry walked up the stairs of the stony beach and disappeared into the steets London.

His apartment's location being compromised wasn't too big an issue. It had all been paid for using illusions, mind control, and small amounts of real money when Harry was too tired to produce anything else. As far as he was aware, he had been able to bring all of his belongings but for bathroom products. All in all it wasn't too big of a loss, but that didn't mean it wasn't bloody annoying.

He had been settled there for a greater part of a year and had been planning on setting up wards quite soon. Wards that would have stopped him being found if only he had thought to put them up a few days earlier. He had already had anti-tracking charms on him but Hogwarts seemed to have somehow bypassed them.

Loki was unsure of the capabilities of Dumbledore and the school itself. Since Harry had nothing to learn at Hogwarts anyway, it would be best if he went far out of its reach. With Loki speaking in AllSpeak, a language that translated into the native tongue of whoever he was talking to, they could essentially go anywhere since he would only need a few weeks to teach a whole language to Harry by essentially copying the information straight into his brain.

It was quite a strenuous process and discovering that a mortal mind couldn't be taught to speak in complete AllSpeak had been quite painful for both of them, prompting them to only learn a single language. Loki had chosen that the best for Harry to learn had been Russian as a result of how large Russia was, but also because no one would expect Harry Potter to be in Russia.

So after catching a taxi to Gatwick Airport and using a few illusions, Harry was on a flight to Moscow.

As he had in Gatwick, he wrapped a slight illusion around himself for the sake of the CCTV cameras, changing his hair to dirty blond and his eyes to light brown whilst greatly changing his facial features and obscuring his scar. He would be near unrecognizable.

As he got to the Customs and Immigration counter, he subtly lifted his wand and pushed a mental compulsion of mortal magic upon the man in front of him, not knowing what illusionary documents would be required to let him in. The muggle's eyes glazed over as they waved him through.

Harry moved forward and the hairs on the back of his neck were suddenly standing on end.

Loki cursed. 'A magic detection ward. Someone knows we're here.'

Harry looked to the right and mimicked Loki's curse as he saw two men in black trenchcoats strolling towards him, wands in hand. He turned left and saw three coming from that direction as well. From the looks of things, Russian wizards cooperated with the muggle government significantly better than the British did.

Turning forward once again, Harry began to sprint. A voice behind him yelled, "Stop!" in Russian and Harry's limited AllSpeak automatically translated it. Well, at least that was working. He didn't stop, and a red light zipped by his left and hit a person in front of him. Harry span, whipped his hand forward and icing the ground in front of his pursuers.

They skidded to a halt and then all began to cast spells, bolts of light that Harry thought were probably non-lethal from the fact they were firing into the crowd around him again. Nonetheless, he began to dodge around them with superhuman speed, reflexes and agility as he readily backed away.

One spell almost hit him, but it was deflected as Harry summoned a shield of ice into existence. Rounding a corner and bursting through a door into a corridor, he concentrated for a moment, coating it in ice.

When the Russians blasted it down a few seconds later, the ice only extending their time of entry for a few moments, they charged through to only find an empty corridor but for a terrified-looking businessman cowering in the corner and a smashed window leading to the concrete a few dozen feet below.

The apparent leader swore. "Obliviate him!" he ordered to one of the group, pointing at the man in the corner as they took off at a sprint to capture their intruder before he escaped. The man who had been instructed to oblivate the muggle strode over to him, pointing his wand at the rather short man in the shabby brown suit. "Oblivi-" was all he managed to say before the man shot up and punched him in the stomach and then grabbed him by his collar and smashed his head into the wall.

The Russian's unconscious body fell to the floor, and the brown-suited man flickered out of existence, Harry resuming his blond-haired form. As soon as he had realized that being in a crowd severely limited the options of the Russians, he had decided that he would be able to forgo using his wand in combat against them in favour of keeping it concealed in his other hand, weaving an illusion.

Going into a firefight in an area as crowded as this would have undoubtedly been foolish on his part too. As soon as he accidentally killed a muggle they would probably begin to use lethal methods as well, and Harry wasn't prepared to risk fighting five highly-trained wizards at once.

He re-holstered his wand at his left wrist and touched it with his right hand, channelling his power through it as he prepared to wrap an illusion around himself once again.

Suddenly the door burst open and a man holding a pistol burst through. After one look at Harry standing over and unconscious body, he began to yell. "Get on the ground! Put your-"

He was stopped from getting any further as Harry swept his hands sideways and a winter wind whipped into the corridor, slamming into the man's side. The gun roared twice as Harry surged forward, its wielder blinded as wind buffeted his eyes. He did, however, manage to shoot Harry and the boy hit the floor with a scream. The man let out a similar noise as an icicle pierced straight through his arm and impaled him to the wall.

'Am I going to die?' Harry asked morbidly. For a moment he had felt a burning hot pain, but then everything had went numb.

'Are you stupid?' Loki demanded. 'You got hit in the shoulder...'

Harry was slightly confused. 'Oh, I thought it would be more painful, because they always say that it goes numb and stuff when you're dying-'

Loki sighed. 'Who says that, movies? Are you trusting films to provide you with facts?! I am the one negating the pain so that you can escape without breaking down into tears. Now get up. I will begin to heal the wound.'

Harry complied and climbed to his feet with a glance at his now bloodstained clothes, absently noting that the illusion of blondness had dispersed a while ago. Putting it back on, he walked over to the shattered window and made sure the path was clear before dropping to the concrete around seven meters below and rolling to his feet.

No one noticed him as he sprinted towards the airport's perimeter at world record speeds. No one but the security cameras.

A/N: Whilst Harry will probably eventually go to Hogwarts (though most likely not in the way you're thinking), he will not go yet.

A little bit of a hint at the end there, but whoever could have access to security footage all over the world? ;) Tell me what you thought, all feedback is welcome!

In case anyone is wondering, AllSpeak is a real thing - in the comics at least. It could also be the MCU explanation for why Asgardians speak English, and why Loki speaks it modernly whilst Thor speaks in Old English, seeing as Loki is more magically powerful and it may link into magic.