Chapter 37

Harry sat bolt upright in bed, gasping for breath. Something had just happened—something massive. A massive pulse of magic had just exploded, and it wasn't human magic. No, but it was familiar, not exactly the same as before, but incredibly similar. He knew what it had to be.

'Was that what I thought it was?' he asked.

Loki's illusionary form shimmered into existence at the end of the bed, grinning almost maliciously. "Of course."

Harry matched his grin and rolled from bed. A flick of his wrist brought his wand spinning across the room and into his hand. A few waves of said wand brought his clothes to him, too, and he yanked them on. He forwent the underclothes he had used to wear—he no longer had any need for them; no bullets would harm him.

Almost two years had passed since he had dumped Voldemort on Jotunheim and that had given him all the time he had needed to develop into a full Asgardian, albeit a weaker than average one.

Fully dressed, he moved over to the wall-to-floor window of his penthouse, picking up a broomstick on the way. Despite its slightly battered state, it was the most expensive money could buy—more expensive, in fact. A few months ago, Harry had stolen it, a prototype, from a German factory. As it turned out, Germany's engineering proficiency carried over to the wizarding world.

Like the British wizarding world, however, any proficiency concerning security did not. And, thus, Harry had stolen it because he could.

Harry brought down the wards for a moment, vanished the bulletproof glass, and, straddling the broomstick, floated out into the New Mexico sunshine. He replaced the glass, let the wards snap back into place, and hovered upwards, until he stood upon the roof. While his apartment was on the top floor, being a penthouse and all, he felt as though this was more efficient than blasting a hole in his roof. He had grown wiser.

Standing on the roof, he let the wind whip at his skin, and peered over the building's edge, gazing into the horizon as though there was a chance that Thor or his hammer had happened to land nearby, even though he knew it would land in the desert. Unfortunately, that along with the fact it would land in New Mexico within the decade—now, obviously—that was all he knew. Loki hadn't been paying all that much attention when he'd been here before, in the future.

That left him with only three-hundred-thousand square kilometres to search. Easy. Well, it kind of was when you had magic. It would only take a few hours, during which Harry would be forced to sit upon the roof and do nothing; he wasn't very good at this kind of magic—he liked destroying things and using illusions.

Harry clamped his eyes shut and sat upon the roof's edge, cross-legged. He drifted to the back of his mind and let Loki move to the front to do the majority of the work; since it didn't require anything physical, it hopefully wouldn't strain Loki too much. All it required was for Harry's senses to be enhanced. It was only taking so long because Loki hadn't needed to track such magic in years; Harry had never done it.

And so he let himself sleep—or let his mind sleep, at least. His body and actual brain were very much active.

A few hours later, he snapped back into consciousness.

'It is done,' said Loki. 'I have managed to divine the exact locations of both Thor and his hammer, and will be able to continue to track them. The hammer was easy—it took minutes. Thor was considerably harder to find; he no longer has his powers, and magic only clings to him faintly.'

"Of course," Harry muttered into the wind as he stood up. He stretched wide with a yawn, and leant down to pick up his broomstick. "Well, I suppose Operation 'Get-Hammered' is a go."

Climbing astride the broomstick, he took off into the day, locations burning themselves into his mind.

To say his broom was fast would be an under exaggeration. Admittedly, it wasn't exactly breaking the sound barrier. But still, Harry would've expected most wizarding technology to fall to pieces at such speeds, German or not.

He avoided Thor's location, and instead moved towards the hammer. He wasn't reckless, however, unlike normal; he had to be cautious if he didn't want to completely and utterly destroy the timeline. Whilst he had contemplated doing it, just because "it would be funny," he had ultimately decided that, no, he did not want to delete himself from existence. The universe would suffer far too much—or perhaps not enough—in his absence.

He touched down in the desert atop a hill a few miles from the hammer's crash site. Even from there he could see the white tents that had been put in place, as well as the black SUVs and sedans, and black-clad, rifle-toting agents. They were from SHIELD, he knew, the organisation he had tangled with when he was younger.

He cast a few spells on himself. One would make him blend like a chameleon—his own Asgardian invisibility was too difficult to maintain for a great amount of time. Another would make it so the muggles would just glance over him, unless he managed to draw too much attention to himself.

Finally, he turned his clothes into a black business suit, conjured himself a pair of sunglasses, and cast an illusion that would age him slightly, so he appeared to be in his mid-twenties. They were a backup plan; he didn't plan on being seen at all.

He buried his broomstick under a foot of sand and made towards the crash site, going over his plan.

He had an idea as to what he might do to Mjolnir as to prevent Thor from getting it, but he knew he couldn't do it now. No, that would mess up the timeline: Loki knew that Thor would manage to get back to Asgard with the hammer, so that he could destroy the Bifrost with it, thusly condemning Loki to his current—or future, if one looked at it like that—state.

Still, he could ensure that he got the hammer a bit later, when he no longer knew what was going to happen and therefore could do whatever he wanted…probably.

Harry reached the chain link fence that had been hastily erected around the crash site. With a flick of his wand, he separated a few of the bindings, making a hole big enough for him to move to the other side.

He crouched through the gap and fixed it once on the other side. Once he had reinforced his spells, he moved through, cautious and slow. He wished he could've waited until night, but he knew that wasn't an option: Thor would be there, and it would be raining—his footsteps would show up in the mud.

And so he persevered, moving through an entrance into the maze of white tents and slinking forward.

Two male voices sounded ahead of him, and he froze at the corner, praying to himself that his spell would hold. It did. The two men moved on past without as much as a glance in his direction.

Harry let out a breath he had been holding and continued onwards, keeping his footsteps as quiet as possible. With how slow he was moving, it took him a few minutes to get through the maze of tents, even though he could sense exactly where the hammer was.

Upon reaching it, he smiled. 'Think I'm worthy?'

'Yes,' said Loki, 'of course you are. Much like Odin, you are a self-obsessed psychopath who cares for no one but himself.'

'Yes, but it's Thor's hammer, not Odin's, even if created it.'

Loki snorted. 'Odin probably stole it from the Vanir or somebody. And you're like Thor as well: arrogant, rash and idiotic.'

'Wait, so you're jealous of me and Thor?'

'That's not quite what I was—'

'The Loki doth protest too much, methinks.'

'Oh no,' Loki deadpanned. 'You have seen straight through me. Because of my childhood trauma, I am not as arrogant, rash and idiotic as I would've liked to be. Also, I am not blond, which I wish I could be.'

Harry grinned. 'Don't worry, Loki. You are an idiot. That was a tautology, you see. You already said you wanted to be idiotic.'

'Alas, you have seen through me once more. You are truly a genius.'

'Surprising, isn't it? You know, seeing as though you were the one who raised me.'

'Will this torrent of insults never end? I have already been burnt to cinder, by your spoon-sharp wit.'

Harry frowned. 'Spoons aren't that dull. I could probably stab someone to death with one—like that time I stabbed someone with a baseball bat to see if it counted as a stake and killed vampires.'

'A side-effect of super-strength,' Loki said. The room was now clear of people. 'Now, speaking of super-strength, let's get back to hammer.'

Harry nodded and made his way forward; it might not be long until someone came in. He put up a few muggle-repelling charms just be sure that no one did. Still, with how good SHIELD's reputation was, someone here would be enough of a genius to figure out they were being mind-controlled; he would have to work fast.

Luckily, this plan had been in the works for a while—stealing Thor's hammer was possibly the best prank that one could ever play; it would also make it easier to defeat him should it ever be needed. The plan had been quite a bit of work, involving Harry learning from Dumbledore how to make Portkeys, refining his ability to create portals and almost blowing himself up on multiple occasions.

Resisting the urge to touch the hammer—who knew what affect its magic might have on Harry's chameleon spell?—he removed a small magnetic strip, laden with spells, from his pocket and stuck it to the bottom of the hammer, near the handle. It was almost invisible; you could only see it if you knew what you were looking for. That might not be enough, though, so Harry melted the edges until it was completely flush with the metal.

With a wave of his wand, Harry short-circuited all of the room's cameras. And then he placed his finger on the now-melted metal strip and reinforced the spells which had been damaged by the hammer's magic and his own. A few seconds later, it was done, and he was collapsing backwards, invisibility dispelled.

Boots pounded in the corridor outside, rushing to see what had caused the cameras to go out.

Harry smiled and apparated away. A moment later, he reappeared on the hill in which he had buried his broom. He took a second to fight back rising vomit, before digging up his broom and climbing astride it. Now, all he had to do was wait until the next day.


Twenty-six hours and forty-three minutes later, Harry sat in a ritual circle on an island a few thousand kilometres south of Japan. Runes were carved into the dirt all around him, and he sat cross-legged, eyes closed, and jaw clenched in concentration.

He and Loki worked in tandem, weaving intricate threads as they steeled their will and used it to force their magic upon an item so far away that the distance was incalculable. Perhaps it was trillions of kilometres, or perhaps it was infinity.

They cared not; they had done it before, after all. Why would Asgard be very different to Jotunheim? Well, they worried that perhaps a magical item too strong would stop them. But, still, they did not halt their efforts.

And a moment later, it all paid off. In a brilliant flash of light, a hybrid of a Portkey and realm-crossing portal activated, and magic surged around them, exploding runes and flinging dirt everywhere. A metre in front of Harry sat his prize: Mjolnir. Luckily, it had not brought Thor with it.

He smiled and walked over, wrapping his hand around its handle and heaving with all his might. Nothing happened.

"Bloody picky hammer; I'd have you know I'd be a perfectly good king. I'm better than Odin in every way. For example, I'm fifty-percent less blind."

The hammer didn't respond.

With a shrug, Harry waved his wand at it, muttering, "Nihilus Cadus Fieldo."

Ever so slowly, the hammer rose into the air, the charred dirt around it following suit. Dragging the zero-gravity field behind him, Harry stepped onto his waiting boat and took off west, towards the Mariana Trench.