Chapter 50: What's for Tea?

As the first weeks went by, the twins managed to craft a medallion for Draco that would help him getting away from his house if he so desired, or to just talk to Harry without risking his reputation. It was a round silver medallion of about 2 inches in diameter with a circle of runes near the edge and a snake done in emeralds – Harry supplied them with those – in the centre. Embedded was a notice-me-not charm as well as an illusion that would let him look like an inconspicuous Hufflepuff. On top of that came for good measurement a small compulsion charm to not wonder about whoever wore that medallion when activated. Loki had helped them anchoring the entire thing with the runes and weaved a few more protection runes into it while he was at it.

The other noteworthy thing was Ronald Weasley's detentions. It seemed that it wasn't like Michael thought Severus, who had the boy up and about on Sundays early in the morning but Sprout. Every morning before breakfast she would check up on the tree and make sure that it healed properly. Severus, on the other hand, was more the 'late in the evening' type when he brewed the necessary potions.

In the first week Ron complained heavily about that and even tried to get out of detention, but that didn't go over well when Michael called him to his office and told him in no uncertain terms, that, should he do it only one more time, he would be expelled. Afterwards, he, even if grumbling about it, came to every detention on schedule.

What really put a damper in his cockiness, on the other hand, was when one Saturday afternoon, in consultation with Michael and Amelia Bones – though the later only knew that something would happen, not what –, took Ron and Harry to London, Buckingham Palace to be precise.

They were currently sitting on a park bench with a good view on the building, Harry taking out the tablet he had taken with him in preparation while Ron wondered what they were doing here.

"What are we doing here?" Ron asked curiously, not that he would complain that they came here, he was actually quite happy to get out of the castle for a bit, and he had never been to this part of London.

"Wait and see, this is to show you just how dangerous it is to perform magic in front of Muggles," Harry explained while he typed away. "How fast news gets shared between them."

"You see Mr Weasley, when you flew that car over London it took only mere minutes for the news about it to spread around the entire planet," Severus added.

"That is impossible," Ron declared, but they could hear that there was doubt in his voice.

"And that is exactly what today's excursion is for," Harry said while clapping his hands before he went to work.

It wasn't something spectacular but nonetheless effective. Within seconds, the front of the Buckingham Palace sported a new banner that read:

IT IS TEATIME AND I WASN'T INVITED? SCANDALOUS! – LOKI'S APPRENTICE
Ps.: I like my Earl Grey with a splash of lemon

The result was instantaneous. People were suddenly crowding the building, pointing, photographing, and even filming the banner and the reaction of the guards, who tried to find out what was going on.

"See?" Harry asked. "And that wasn't even something spectacular."

He again typed away on his tablet, opening and reloading several sites he had opened beforehand while searching on others. Not even a minute later he had open what he was looking for.

"Here, not even two minutes after my little trick and you can find the first entries on the internet, the most used method of communication between Muggles," he explained while showing Ron what he found on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

"Seriously?" Ron exclaimed, looking at the screen in astonishment.

By now only a few hundred had seen the posts, but after a quick reload of the sites, the number jumped from a few hundred to several thousand.

"Yep," Harry replied popping the p. "The people you see there gaping at the banner take photos or film it. Then they share it with friends and family, who in turn share it with their friends and families and so on and so on. Within minutes thousands of people have seen it, who also share it. Summing it up, within an hour – if it was something that interests the masses, and magic definitely is – millions know about it as it was the case with you flying the car. Oh, look at that I even made the news!"

Harry had also scanned the sites of the newspapers and news channels and oh surprise BBC had interrupted their regular program to send the breaking news. It seemed that they had been at the Buckingham Palace for a report on the royal family but now were using the opportunity for a live report.

"I'm currently standing here in front of the Buckingham Palace where something surprising has happened mere minutes ago. It seems that the infamous Apprentice of Loki struck again, this time here in England," the reporter was telling into the camera before it changed to a picture of the banner. "He hung up this banner with means unknown up to date. It is also still unknown who exactly this Apprentice is and what his motives are…."

However, what made Harry cringe was the dress the reporter was wearing, bright yellow. Therefore, Harry looked around until he spotted the news team standing a bit to the side. With a broad grin, he waved his hands through the air. Suddenly and in front of the still broadcasting camera, the colour of her dress changed to a bright red with golden seams. Besides that, she also wore a sign around her neck that read:

Bright yellow is so not your colour – Loki's Apprentice
Ps.: My motives are pranking people, creating a
bit of chaos, and generally having fun!
(I'm Loki's apprentice for a reason)

That got him even more of a reaction because the comment section beneath the live feed literally went head over heels over that stunt, one couldn't even read them with how fast new ones were posted, pushing the old ones down.

"This is crazy," Ron muttered while watching the comments scrolling over the screen.

"You had to do that, hadn't you?" Severus growled.

"Don't tell me that you liked her dress," Harry retorted while changing the dress to emerald green with silver trimming. "Better?"

"That's beside the point," he deadpanned before he sighed. "It is your head Madame Bones will have."

"Doubtable since I didn't reveal the magical community itself. Right now, people begin to believe that the gods of old are not just a concept but very real. Did you know that the number of people following Loki more than tripled since I began advertising him?" Harry explained when a thoughtful expression entered his face.

"What have you concocted now?" Severus inquired.

"Something that should keep Bones off of me," Harry replied before he stood up, handed his tablet to Severus and before the man could do or say anything, he walked over to where the news team was still broadcasting.

"…and no one managed to get a picture of said Apprentice, so it is still a mystery who exactly is behind those banners," the reporter told her viewers. "And the changing of my dress."

"Hey guys!" he greeted the film team.

The reporter looked at him strangely and a bit peeved, that he dared to interrupt her since she was broadcasted live, though she didn't say anything lest she got into problems.

"Who are you?" she asked him politely, but he could see that she wasn't happy.

"Name's Harry Potter and after you complained that no one ever got a picture of me I thought, why not introducing myself," Harry replied with a broad grin. "Hello, I'm Loki's Apprentice!"

The reporter couldn't help herself, she snorted upon that revelation.

"We are really to believe, that an eleven-year-old boy is the apprentice of Loki?" she asked him in disbelieve.

Harry's only visible reaction to that was that his grin broadened. When he saw what was going on, the cameraman chuckled lowly. It was only thanks to the reflection in the camera lens that the woman realised what just happened, her hair had turned a vile shade of green.

"As I said, I'm Loki's Apprentice, and for the protocol, I'm technically thirteen," he answered, ignoring all the cameras that went off around him.

The woman cleared her throat before she went on. "Obviously, my apologies for questioning your claim," she said to him. "So, you're working together with Loki? He really exists?"

"Of course, he exists," Harry exclaimed indignantly. "As far as I know each and every god you might ever have heard of exists though the only one who is truly still active – except a few in Asia – is Loki. However, until lately he was more active in America than Europe."

"A few people were wondering…how is Loki as a god?"

"For me, Loki is far more than just a god I follow, he is my friend. He saved me from an abusive family, gave me a real one, friends and so much more. I mean, don't be mistaken, he isn't a saint but as long as you abide by his rules and don't piss him off…," Harry explained with a shrug.

"What might piss him off? Just so that our viewers know what to avoid," the woman asked.

"First and foremost, he hates child abusers. In his opinion, there is no good reason to beat a child and should you have ever laid a hand on a child…pray he doesn't find out. Furthermore, bullying someone is also on his list of what you should never do. Hitting on someone only because he is weaker, has a different world-view, or whatever other stupid reason you might come up with…a big no-no. Other than that? Have fun! Play harmless pranks, do whatever makes you happy…life is too serious as it is," he told her. "As long as it doesn't hurt anyone, it is a free game and if you bring some arrogant idiot down a peg or two with it…all the better."

"Is that the reason for why the banner on the White House has yet to come down? How did you even do that?"

"Really? I'm the apprentice to the Norse Trickster God, and you're asking me that?" Harry asked incredulously. "Anyway, it is getting late. I have to get back to school. It was nice to talk to you, but I have to leave now. Have a nice day and to all the viewers out there…have fun!"

Without another word and before the reporter could reply anything Harry vanished into thin air only to reappear next to Severus and Ron who were looking at him incredulously.

"Why is it that I get admonished for flying a car through London while you can perform magic in front of so many Muggles without anyone saying anything?" Ron finally asked once he came out of his stupor.

"That is easily answered Ron," Harry said while flopping down between Severus and the other boy. "I just told the entire world that not only the gods the people once believed in are in fact real but also that I'm an apprentice to one. When I now perform magic in front of a Muggle, no one will bat an eye about it and write it down to that fact. The magical world, on the other hand, is safe from being revealed through it. You, on the other hand, don't have such a safety net to fall back onto. When you perform magic in front of Muggles, they will instantly be suspicious about you and investigate, consequently finding out about the magical world."

"I hope that this little excursion showed you how foolish it was to fly with the car to Hogwarts, Mr Weasley," Snape spoke up. "Not that I'm overly happy with you either, Harry."

Ron watched the quite large crowd, which had formed first thanks to Harry's banner and then later even became larger when surrounding people had realised that the interview Harry gave was indeed live and therefore came to see the real him. However, now that the spectacle was over, the crowd was slowly dissipating. This afternoon had been quite the eyeopener. Until today he had thought the Muggles as backwards and had smiled at his father's fascination with them but now? He could see why his father was so fascinated with them. Merlin, they could get information all around the world within minutes, while the wizarding world still relied on owls!

"I'm sorry," he finally said in a solemn voice.

"Next time think about the consequences before you act," Severus told him upon which he nodded. "Good, now come, we have to get back to Hogwarts."

With that, Severus set up some wards that would allow them to safely apparate away without drawing the attention of the still lingering Muggles. Once that was done, he grabbed both boys at their shoulder and apparated them back to Hogwarts. Ron quickly thanked them for the trip before he turned around and walked towards the castle lost in thought about what he learned today. Harry, on the other hand, stayed with Severus, waiting for the boy to be out of hearing range.

"Are you sure, that you're a Gryffindor?" Severus asked sardonically.

That made Harry laugh. "The hat contemplated putting me into Slytherin, but I think the threat of Loki hexing him stopped him from doing so."

Severus shook his head. Together they walked down the way towards Hogwarts.

The results of his little interview – the one Amelia Bones and Michael nearly got a heart-attack over until Harry explained them his reasoning and that it was to keep the Muggles from investigating why exactly he could perform magic – was manifold. For a start, hundreds of self-proclaimed experts came crawling out of the woodworks and discussed in talk-shows the upward trend in paganism. Even the pope gave a statement over how that went against one of the Ten Commandments.

Another thing was that after people realised, that yes, Loki cared about his followers, he had a rise in people praying to him for help.

Especially children who lived in an abusive household began praying to him. In the end, there were so many that Loki had no other choice than to open up an orphanage for those who had no family to go to, making sure that they had everything they needed, mainly help to process what they had been put under.

That in exchange, made Crowley an extremely happy man because Loki employed him to deal with all the legal work. Crowley found a diabolical pleasure in suing the former guardians of the children to hell and back.

Overall, Loki couldn't decide whether to curse Harry for all the extra work or thank him that he gave the children the confidence and a way to get out of their personal hell.

Another quite surprising side effect had come about a month later in the form of a sleek eagle delivering a letter to Harry. Harry, curious to whom the bird belonged, untied the message and began to read it.

"Fancy that, an invitation for tea from the Queen for Saturday afternoon," he muttered in awe.

"Wait what?" Hermione exclaimed before snatching the letter from Harry, completely ignoring her now baby blue hair she got in retaliation. "The Queen invited you for tea?"

"Yes, she did, want to accompany me?" Harry asked in a sweet tone.

"You cannot just bring someone with you," Hermione disputed.

"The last line," Harry told her with a broad grin.

Hermione scrambled to read the bottom of the letter, which she hadn't gotten to, too shocked over the idea that the Queen invited Harry for tea.

"Your friends are also welcome," she read out loud, her eyes going wide. "You mean I can come with you and meet the Queen?"

Hermione seemed to be salivating over the fact, that she would be able to attend an afternoon tea with the queen, much to Harry's amusement.

"I hope that I don't have to go with you," Loki moaned, he hated this formal stuff.

"Actually, the Queen invited you specifically too," Harry retorted with a smirk.

Loki groaned and let his head sink on the table. It was Luna who patted him on the back consolingly.

"Drinking a tea with the Queen sounds like fun," she said in a dreamy tone. "Wearing nice dresses..."

"Hey, that sounds like a brilliant idea. How about I ask the headmaster for allowance to leave Saturday morning so that we can go shopping beforehand," Harry mused. "I don't doubt that a certain Professor would mind it overly much to accompany us."

However, this seemed to have put a damper on Hermione's mood.

"I don't have enough money," she moaned, her eyes misting over. "And nothing I own is good enough."

Harry, who saw that Hermione was close to tears took her hand. "Hermione, what kind of gentleman would I be if I didn't treat my two lovely ladies something nice from time to time."

It seemed that Hermione didn't know what to do or say to that except launching herself at him and hugging him close.

"Why do I have the feeling, that I should accompany you only to make sure that the Buckingham Palace still stands after you leave?" Neville moaned, but none of the friends doubted that it wasn't a hardship for him.

"Sam?" Harry asked.

"Sorry, but all this pomp is nothing for me but have fun," Sam waved him off.

Harry looked at the twins expectantly, but they both shook their head.

"Sorry but all the stiffness is nothing for us, too."

"We wouldn't be able to behave ourselves."

"And Neville's fears really might become real with us there."

The twins both grinned devilishly, and they all broke out in laughter. Soon they parted ways to go to their respective classes. However, what none of them saw were the hateful and envious glares a certain female redhead was throwing in their direction.

Saturday morning then found Harry, Loki, Neville, Hermione, Luna, and surprisingly – or maybe not so surprising – Draco, whom Harry had also asked, in a side alley to Diagon Alley where the most exclusive shop for clothes was located. They were in the company of Professor Winchester as well as the Potters and Narcissa, who agreed to help them with the shopping after Harry and Draco respectively informed them. Michael had gladly given them his consent, knowing fully well that they would be safe with his brother.

So now they entered said shop, Hermione and Luna looking around in awe of the finest materials on display while Draco seemed a bit bored, already used to this as a regular customer. Instantly an assistant walked over to them.

"Hello and welcome to Hemsworth's Finest Clothing how may I be of assistance?" the woman, who seemed to be in her mid-thirties, asked them politely.

"These young ladies and gentlemen need some clothes befitting a meeting with the Queen of England for tea," James explained with a proud smile.

The eyes of the assistant went wide on that proclamation, but she quickly got her bearings back under control and began bustling around.

"For the ladies, a nice long dress made of Acromantula-Silk should do the trick," she muttered while walking over to a stack of differently coloured silk. "Champagne-coloured for the lady with the brown hair and a light blue for the young lady with blond hair."

In the meantime, a measuring tape flittered around Hermione, taking her measures before switching over to Luna.

"Hey, I'm off for a bit, but I think I'll be back in about half an hour," James suddenly spoke up.

After everyone nodded, he left the shop. The assistant led the two girls into the back of the shop where she could fit them in private while waving another assistant to take care of the boys. Lily and Narcissa, who were talking animatedly about the difference between wizarding clothes and muggle ones, in the meantime, took it upon themselves to see what could be done about the girl's hair.

"So, let's see boys," the second assistant said, having been clued in what was needed by her colleague.

"I know what I want," Harry told her. "Emerald green long-sleeved button-down shirt with a black leather vest, black leather trousers, and a black short-sleeved open robe that goes to the knees. On top of that black dragon leather boots. The Potter coat of arms stitched in gold on both the vest and the robe."

"Quite specific, aren't you?" The assistant asked amusedly. "Very well, for your three friends, I also know the right thing."

In the end, Neville was dressed in a classic white button-down shirt with black trousers and black shoes. Over that came a burgundy red tie, a black closed robe with burgundy red trimming. The Longbottom coat of arms stitched on both the tie and the robe.

Draco also wore a white shirt but with a black vest over it and a long emerald green open robe with silver trimming and an emerald green tie, the Black coat of arms on his chest.

Loki, on the other hand, fought tooth and nail, but in the end, he had to bow down to Harry's retort that if he doesn't get fitted, he would have to watch out for laxatives in his sweets in the foreseeable future. A few minutes later then he wore a beige Muggle-style suit over a white button-down shirt with a white tie, he absolutely refused to wear robes.

It was right that moment that the girls emerged from the room where they had been fitted, and it took the boys' breath away. Hermione wore a champagne coloured floor-length dress. Her hair wasn't as bushy anymore and braided to the left side with small violet flowers woven into it.

Luna, on the other hand, wore a light blue dress that stopped short of her ankles and looked like water flowed down her body, shimmering differently with every movement. Her hair was pinned up in a state of ordered chaos whit a sizeable blue flower adorning her head on the right side.

"Ladies, you look lovely," Harry complimented them once he came out of his stupor.

"I can only agree with that assessment, but something is missing," came James' reply from the door of the shop. "And I have just the right thing."

With that, he walked over to Luna first and stepped behind her before pulling a large box from his pocket. He opened the box and pulled out a necklace made out of aquamarines and placed it around the girl's neck, it perfectly complemented her outfit.

James repeated the same with Hermione only that she received a single diamond hanging from a silver chain with complementing earrings.

"Perfect," Lily cooed over them.

"One last thing, Harry, this is something I should have given you some time ago but with everything that happened it slipped my mind," James began, pulling out a small square box. "This is the Potter heir ring, and it is yours."

With awe, Harr carefully picked the ring up and slid it on his right ring finger where it resized to perfectly fit him.

"Thank you!" Harry said to his father before he turned to the others. "Before we go, I'd like to take a photo of you all."

"I have a better idea, come on, get together," Lily interrupted plucking Harry's smartphone from his fingers.

Harry grinned at his mother while he walked over to where the others already got together. Lily quickly took a photo before handing Harry his smartphone back. James in the meantime paid for the clothes, and a few moments later they all left the shop, it was time to get to Buckingham Palace after all.

A/N: 'til next chapter!