A/N – Easter is tomorrow and since most likely for a better part of the day I will be occupied with family meetings today you will receive a chapter. In it Hogwarts students get some lessons and discover that their culture isn't the only one and in some places there is a different one, one that doesn't take kindly certain behaviors.
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Beta - eri1551
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Harry put on his helmet and secured it on his head before looking at Atalanta, the coldness of the mithril touching his face was more than enough to keep him focused and concentrated on the coming events. He slowly walked to the middle of the arena, his wings moving in synchronization with the rest of his body and looked at her.
She wore a golden chainmail with silver beautifully sculpted armor over it, it consisted of a breastplate, vambraces, gauntlets, greaves and a helmet. As he looked at her in this armor he had trouble believing that she was the one that he used to know, she had changed and looked a lot more dangerous than he remembered her. What got most of his attention were the two eagle-heads sculpted on the breastplate.
"Impressed?" she asked, he could feel some amusement in her voice.
"Yes," he honestly said. "Previously, you didn't have this armor and used a leather one."
"Sif decided with my father that I need a new one." Atalanta shrugged as she walked forward to him, her hand tightly gripping the handle of her sword. "And I think that it looks good."
Her moves were in some way mesmerizing to him and gathered all of his attention.
"Yes," Harry said and almost didn't have an opportunity to move his sword onto the path of a strike that otherwise would have severed his head from the rest of his body. He parried the strike and looked at her. "That wasn't the most fair strike."
"Life is not fair."
He only nodded and jumped away from her, trying to get the upper hand in the duel with the sheer length of his sword. She knows the game I'm trying to play and will most likely try to get close and personal, he thought and smiled when he saw her jump at him.
His shield flickered in the light and slammed into the side of Atalanta's head, sending her tumbling away from him. It was not the most powerful strike, but even it would be more than capable of dazing her a bit. She rolled away from him and with a groan stood up from the ground. A small trickle of blood was flowing down the side of her head.
She wiped it with her hand and as she looked at it her eyes darkened. "You are dead," she finally said.
Harry only smiled and charged at her, his sword's blade crackling with the energy of the storm. When it slammed into her shield there was a loud clap of thunder that shook the whole arena. With the corner of his eye he could see the sky darken above the arena as the forces of nature answered his call. Clouds were swarming madly, bolts of energy jumping from one to another and huge droplets of water started to fall onto the glass roof of the arena.
"Nice storm," she said, smiling sweetly.
"Thanks," he said and barely had a chance to dodge as her foot almost slammed into his crotch. "That was nasty, but thank you." He grabbed Atalanta by her extended leg and threw into the wall.
"As if you were better," she said as she used telekinesis to decelerate herself in the air and before she had a chance to slam into the wall she was flying towards him.
"What next?" Harry asked "Beams of energy from your eyes?"
Harry jumped into the air and slammed into her the moment she flew directly below him, she yelped in surprise as they crashed against the sand of the arena. Her body took the brunt of the energy and he could see her aristocratic features twist from pain for the slightest moment as he landed on her. He pulled out a knife from a scabbard on his belt and placed it against her neck.
"Do you surrender?" Harry asked, lightly pressing blade against her neck.
"Yes," she said.
He smiled and stood up, looking around he saw that they were not alone and that there were wizards watching them. "Can you tell me that it is an illusion?"
"It's not an illusion," she said with a smirk. "They appeared here some time ago and if you were watching the stands you would have seen them."
"Troublesome," Harry muttered as he helped her get up. "I didn't break any of your bones, did I?"
"No."
"Good," he said with a smile as they walked to the changing rooms and the armory to get out of their armor and into more comfortable clothes.
o-0-o
"This was impressive," Cedric said, looking at the pair of people that walked off the arena.
Bjarni smirked and turned to look at the Hogwarts students. "They are one of the best of their generation. His Royal Highness Harald Thorson and Her Royal Highness Atalanta Heracleia. They are trained by Lady Sif and the effects of her training are, I think, more than visible." He paused for a moment and then smirked. "Now it is time for your first two classes to start, as well as one that I am teaching at the Academy, martial arts. You train here in a different attire than heavy robes, in shorts for boys and shorts and sports bras for girls, so you have ten minutes to change."
"What?!"
"That's outrageous!"
"Why?"
He let them shout for a few more moments before he finally reacted to those words. "Silence!" He barked and every wizard looked at him. "Are you a bunch of children that don't even belong in any place where magic is taught? Or are you something more that I can treat you as reasonable people?"
There was a moment of silence as they shuffled uncomfortably and looked between each other, he knew that his words were harsh, but they deserved it and he needed them to respect him. "You will listen to me and obey my orders the same way you would obey orders from your normal Professors. Is it clear?"
"Yes!"
"Better," he said. "You are here so you will adhere to our rules and tge dress code required here, not your own. One of those things is the way we train in martial arts, is it clear?"
"Yes!" It was a bit more reluctant than the last one, but he didn't care too much about it. He would work on them some more and after a few days it would be much different.
Even if all of them agree with my words, there are some that might start to plot the moment I'm not looking at them. Which will be troublesome, even the most conflicted families of nobility can bury their disagreements when their children are in the same group, he thought and looked over them.
"What are you waiting for? Nothing gets done by itself, at least not for you," he snarled and smiled when they disappeared out of his view. Running as fast as their legs could carry them. "This is going to be so much fun, so much fun."
o-0-o
Illyana put on her school issued sports bra and shorts and wrapped her hands in bandages to protect them from the worst damage. She scooped her clothes, put them in a locker, locked it and looked around, she could see that everybody was almost done with changing into their training clothes. At first she looked weirdly at the customs of Asgard, but now she came see them as something peculiar that needed to be accepted. She also quickly understood why they thought that a small amount of clothes was a good idea.
"You did it good," Idunn said looking at the bandages wrapped around Illyana's hands. "Most people that didn't train in martial arts have problems with it."
"I'm not most people, I know how to take care of myself," Illyana said with a smile. "Also at the Institute we were taught the basics of martial arts and wrestling so that we knew how to defend ourselves."
"I noticed that during our first spar," Idunn said with a smile. "I expected you to be unable to keep up with me, yet you didn't have too much of a problem doing so. I'm much stronger than you are, but pure strength is not everything when it comes to duels."
"Thanks," Illyana said.
They walked onto the arena where they saw Bjarni waiting for them, the old Master-At-Arms seemed to be smirking. "Good, you are ahead of time. I was gifted with teaching the Hogwarts students that came here from Midgard and someone needs to show them the most basic moves. Since you are supposed to know all of them, you will do it and I will mostly watch."
"That's new," Idunn said.
Illyana nodded, she could hear most people smiling and talking between themselves, it seemed like a nice opportunity to have some fun
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Harry sighed in relief as he removed the armor that covered his body, even if it fit as well as his does, it had still caused some minor aches. He threw plates onto one pile, where they were, soon, joined by the chainmail he wore underneath. Free of them he looked at his clothes below and saw them covered in sweat, dirt and blood. He stripped out of those clothes and walked across the hall to the bathhouse that was part of the Academy.
Even if every single room had its own bathroom, the walk from the arenas to them, usually required at least twenty minutes and then around ten minutes to take a shower or a bath. Whilst here, they had everything at hand and didn't have the need to walk across the whole Academy. Well for him there was no need to make a portal and jump to his own rooms in the Citadel.
It was a big complex of various facilities connected with each other and with the changing rooms on the other side of the hall. They comprised of dozens of pools, some of them large, some of them small and they were filled with water of different temperatures. There was also a sauna, a large swimming pool and a gym adjacent to the complex.
As he entered it he could see some people inside, but he didn't care too much about them as by now he was somewhat familiar to the concept of nudity when training and doing a few other things. He looked around the room, searching for any of the smaller pools that were empty and walked to one.
At first he was a bit reluctant and afraid of this concept, but now he sighed in relief as he slipped into the warm water that almost immediately removed all of his aches and sores. As well as all the grime and dirt mixed with blood that covered his body. He didn't care about his wings getting wet as he knew that they would dry on their own in a couple of hours. When submerging himself in the water he could feel all of his tensed muscles relax. All of the tensions and worries also went away with the grime and dirt covering him.
He quickly washed himself of and sighed in relief as he didn't feel the grime covering his body. Stepping out of the pool he could feel streams of waters drip from the ends of his massive wings, he opened them and with a couple of moves all of the water that was in them landed on the ground and the miniscule amounts that were still there would disappear on their own.
Drying himself with a spell he walked across the hall and back into the changing rooms, he pulled out his fresh clothes and started to dress when he felt a large group of wizards barrel into the room. He sighed and looked at them as they were staring at him.
"What?" He asked as he put on his pants and shirt. "Do I have a second head or three hands?"
"No," one of them said. "It's just that we didn't expect to find anybody here."
Harry laughed as he tied his hair and put on the belt with the attached scabbards of his weapons. "These changing rooms are used by everybody, it's not my fault that you live in a backward society where certain things are treated as if they don't exist."
The wizards looked between each other and laughed uncomfortably at those words, he smiled as he walked out of the room and joined Atalanta who seemed as if she was eager to murder someone. "Stupid, narrow-minded bastards," she muttered in the wizards' direction. "Next time I will break a couple of their bones, slowly and painfully."
"Harsh words," Harry said as he looked at her. "What did they do?"
"Commented that I should cover my arms and that I shouldn't be training with weapons," she spat and Harry could see a weird fire in her eyes. "Who are they? Some idiots that haven't seen a woman train in the arts of war?"
"Looks like it." He placed hand on her shoulder and made her look into his eyes. "Don't go on a rampage here, there is a reason why I want to go to Wolf's Hall, it is to stay away from them."
"Yeah," she said. "Let's mention them to Bjarni and be gone from here."
"You are a nasty girl," Harry said as they walked onto the arena and straight towards Bjarni who was pacing along the other edge. The Master-At-Arms easily spotted them and walked towards them.
"How may I help you?" He asked, bowing lightly his head in a show of respect.
"The Hogwarts students don't even know how to keep their tongue on a leash," Atalanta snarled. "And know only insults."
Bjarni growled and looked at them, then his gaze darted towards the entrance into the arena. "I will ensure that they be explained that there are rules to be obeyed. One of them being to show respect for your betters. It seems that the previous lesson didn't get into their minds."
"Thank you."
"No problem, Your Highness," Bjarni said with a bow.
Atalanta smiled and Harry had a feeling that the wizards were not going to enjoy the next couple of hours. His feelings were confirmed when he saw the smirk on Bjarni's face, a smirk that announced trouble for wizards.
o-0-o
Tonks looked around and could feel that a lot of her peers was shuffling uncomfortably, she was more used to her body. Being a metamorphomagus gave her one advantage, you had to came to terms with your body. She walked onto the same arena where they were supposed to gather once again and she could see Master-At-Arms stand in it's middle with a group of his students. Her eyes narrowed when she saw a familiar mop of blonde hair, if she was right it was Illyana Rasputina. But it was not the Illyana she remembered, one Tonks remembered wasn't as confident as this one and didn't have this air of danger around herself.
Bjarni growled and walked forward, his robes billowing in his wake. "What did I tell you about showing respect to your betters?"
"That we should show it."
"Exactly," Bjarni said and looked at them, the cold gaze of his eyes made the blood in Tonks veins freeze. "And what did you do?! You insulted the Princess of the Amazons and ward of His Majesty!"
"But-" one of wizards started.
"No buts, the next time you do it I will personally feed you to the wolves of His Majesty. Now can you explain to me why you decided to do that?"
"She didn't have her arms covered and was carrying weapons."
Bjarni's head whipped in the direction of the one that said those words, a smirk was on his face. "So what? She has the same right to train as any other male has."
"Women are weaker and shouldn't fight."
"If you say so." Bjarni smirked and turned to look at his own students. "Illyana, would you mind showing them how wrong they are?"
"With pleasure," she said walking forwards, and joined Bjarni.
Bjarni's eyes swept over the crowd of wizards. "You, step forward!"
Tonks followed Bjarni's gaze and she saw him point at a large, sixth year student, if she remembered correctly, he was a Slytherin. A rather unpleasant and arrogant one. She saw him waiver and look uncomfortable.
"What is your name, wizard?"
"Sagittarius, Crabbe Sagittarius."
Bjarni nodded and with a smile indicated Illyana. "Is she dangerous in your opinion?"
"No," Sagittarius said as he stood inches away from Illyana, who wasn't even paying him any attention.
"Why is she not dangerous?"
"Because she is a girl."
Tonks wanted to punch or kick his balls, but she fought the urge when she saw that Bjarni was smirking and Illyana's eyes had darkened.
"If you say so," Bjarni said and looked at Illyana. "What would you say about a small demonstration?"
"No magic?" Illyana only asked and cracked her knuckles. "Or with magic?"
"Only to enhance your body." Bjarni's gaze swept over them making Tonks shiver in fear. "If I see anybody using any kind of magic to influence the duel they will be thrown out of the room. Is it clear?"
"Yes, sir!"
"You may begin." Bjarni moved away from Illyana or Sagittarius giving them a lot of space.
Tonks had a feeling that it would be a really brief and painful duel, the question was for whom. However she didn't suspect that it would be that short. Sagittarius charged at Illyana with no grace or technique to his moves and Tonks saw Illyana remove herself out of his path. The next thing that happened looked too impossible to be true.
Illyana sent a vicious kick to Sagittarius side, when it struck it was immediately followed by a loud crack of bones snapping under the strain. It sent him tumbling onto the surface of the arena. He landed in a small cloud of dust and laid there, his hand clutching his side and, if Tonks was seeing right, his broken ribs.
"A broken rib or two," Bjarni said as he walked past Sagittarius. "It will heal sooner or later." He glanced at the Asgardian students. "Leif, get him to the Healers, knock him out if need be." Not paying more attention to Sagittarius, Bjarni focused his whole attention on the Hogwarts group. "Was it a good enough example? Or should I ask someone else to beat one of you into the ground? I assure you that they will do it with pleasure."
They shook their heads in a manner that could only be understood as no and Bjarni nodded.
"Then we will begin," he said and looked at his own students. "Pair up and you will demonstrate for them the most basic stances of our fighting style." He turned to face the Hogwarts students. "If you think that this attire allows you to touch anybody in places where they don't like it, then you are sorely mistaken. I can feel when someone lies and the consequences will be terrible for you."
o-0-o
Tonks winced in pain as she felt a fist slam into her shoulder, it looked that mercy was a word unknown to those that trained them and training felt more like a torture. A slow and painful torture, not training.
"Watch your stance," her sparring partner said. "You just exposed your side and nobody is going to wait for you to fix it."
"You could be more helpful," she said as she blocked a strike that flew towards her head.
"You will learn through practice and practice only." he said and with a quick swipe of his leg sent her onto the sand of the arena. "Focus more and talk less."
She growled at him, but nodded. She could feel her body remember what it learned during that stay at Xavier's and actually start to move in a more synchronized pattern.
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Loki poured himself a goblet of mead and looked towards the arena. "Remind me that inviting humans is an amusing idea," he said, looking at Bragi. "They are so stubborn in their believes that it is funny."
"I will." Bragi nodded. "But they should learn in a couple of days what they need to do and how, pain is a good motivation."
"They will, the question is how many more will end up with broken or cracked bones." He sipped mead and looked at Dumbledore. "It seems that your precious students are not faring so well, certainly they are faring much worse than you had expected them to."
"We never taught close combat techniques at Hogwarts," Dumbledore said, stroking his beard. "But maybe there are some merits in teaching them self-defence techniques as the world is getting darker and darker."
"Finally you are seeing some reason." Loki nodded approvingly and looked towards the arena. "But they are far from reaching the same point of view as you have, don't you think?"
"Unfortunately, yes," Dumbledore said with a wince. "But I hope that they will change their point of view. Hopefully sooner than later."
"Well, hand to hand combat is usually trained for two hours per day," Bragi said. "So you need to be an idiot not to learn its basics. They will also learn runes very well."
"Because everything is written in them," Loki added with a smile. "As well as everybody is using them, so they need to learn them or they will be alienated."
"Some know their basics, but not all do."
"Did I mention that a lot of magical theorems that are the foundation of our magic do not make sense without the eighteen runic spells of my father? Spells learned by him when he was hanging from the branches of Yggdrasil, pierced by his own spear and without any food or drink."
"Wounded I hung on wind-swept gallows,
For nine long nights
Pierced by a spear, pledged to Odin,
Offered, myself to myself
The wisest know not from whence spring
The roots of that ancient rood.
They gave me no bread,
They gave me no mead,
I looked down;
With a loud cry
I took up runes;
From that tree I fell.
Nine lays of power
I learned from the famous Bolthor, Bestla' s father:
He poured me a draught of precious mead,
Mixed with magic Odrerir," Dumbledore said, slowly pronouncing each word.
"Indeed," Bragi nodded with a smile. "Hamaval from the Elder Edda, one of the songs written by human skalds during the time we walked among humans. Some of them twisted the things we had told them, but Elder Edda is a good source if you want to learn about us."
"It seems that there is another thing they need to be taught first," Loki said and shook his head. "I knew that the state at Hogwarts was bad, but not that bad."
"I tried to fix the situation at Hogwarts, but the pure-blood families and the Ministry were blocking any of my attempts," Dumbledore quietly said. "So after the war I gave up on attempts to change it, there was no point as any mention of change was destroyed."
Loki looked at the arena where one of the Hogwarts students was turned into a cannonball and hurled at the wall. Then, his gaze switched to Dumbledore. "I have some reasons not to trust you, but how would you react to an offer. I help with changes at Hogwarts and we can work together against our common foes."
Dumbledore was silent for a moment. "I would need to speak to the other Professors to hear their opinion on the topic, but why not."
"Perfect," Loki smirked and looked towards the arena, allowing his thoughts to run on their own.
o-0-o
Carol Danvers sighed in boredom as she searched the net on her computer, her uncle was supposed to take her flying, but was forced to stay at work and she was forced to deal with her crazy father and brothers. As well as annoying fanboys that followed her with their gaze wherever and whenever they could.
She knew that she was beautiful, but for most of the time she hated nature and fate for giving her golden hair and the cleavage of someone a couple of years older than her humble fourteen suggested. There was this small fact that she was also an athlete and all of that training made her body look even better.
She opened YouTube and her eyes almost immediately narrowed as she saw a video about some attack against mutants. She was friendly with a few mutants and she knew that they weren't bad and were as normal as every other person was. She curiously clicked on the link and her heart almost stopped when she saw the amount of views, somehow it was already in dozens of millions and climbing.
She put it on full screen and watched the movie, it was black and white, but that was the least shocking thing. It showed the interior of the Xavier's Institute For Gifted Youngsters and some armored and armed people storming it, in the middle of the night guessing by the small amount of light. She was from a military family and constantly heard tales about wars from the past, but she also had her brain and was able to see when something was a common assault.
"This happened week ago, a group of armed and armored men stormed a building which is a boarding school, they did it just because of the fact that the children inside are mutants. It was a direct violation of the agreement reached with mutant activists over twenty years ago, the mutants would stop the campaign of terror if persecution against them stopped. A week ago a group of people under the command of Reverend Stryker and General Thaddeus Ross attacked the school and this is the footage from the attack. Will you let an attack on the innocents go unpunished?" Said the narrator, his voice devoid of any emotions.
The lack of sound or music accompanying the footage made it feel and look even more real and scary than if it was with audio. She watched with rapt attention as those men moved through the mansion, dragging sleeping forms of students from their rooms and not caring about their protests.
Her eyes darkened as she remembered why she knew the surname Ross, if she was correct he was one of her uncle's friends. She pulled out her phone and called her uncle.
"What is it, Carol? I'm in a bit of a hurry," he said
"Ross," she said and could hear him sharply inhale. "There is a video about him on YouTube and an attack on Xavier's."
"I know about it, I can't tell you more, but you will see it in the news in a few days."
"Sounds interesting," she said as she ended the call.
She started to look through the net and found exactly nothing more than that one video which she had seen, she frowned, it was strange.
o-0-o
Harry tried not to roll his eyes in amusement when he saw Warren's reaction.
"You have a palace for yourself? A whole palace?" Warren finally asked.
"Yes, it belonged to my great-uncle, but now it's mine and only mine." Harry smiled. "And since the Tournament isn't coming any time soon we might as well have some fun and you should like the place."
"Where is it?" Jean asked. "I don't really think it's in the city."
"No," Harry laughed. "In the wilderness, the more tameable part of it, on top of a cliff and somewhat close to Nordmark, realm of Ullr."
"So it's a summer palace?"
He looked at her and nodded. "You could say so and since it's mine I can invite whoever I want. And I want to invite you, a few other X-Men and some of my friends from here."
"Would anybody interrupt us?" Warren asked.
"You mean annoying courtiers and other students?"
"Yup, those people."
"The answer is no," Harry said and looked out of the window, towards the horizon. "I will speak with Ulf, Atalanta has already said yes, so we could go there tomorrow morning."
Warren smiled in reply.
"I will take that as a yes," Harry said and glanced at Jean. "Can you tell everybody that was at the Angel's Aerie and Rogue about it?"
"Sure." She smiled.
o-0-o
Tonks looked around one of the common areas at the Academy and saw that almost everybody was even more tired than she was. Some of them had bandages wrapped around their arms or legs, the sound of bones snapping was a common one during the training.
"It wasn't the worst self-defence or martial arts class that I survived," she cheerfully said.
"Than what was the hardest one?" Percy Weasley asked. "This was harsh. "
"One at the Institute," she said and looked at Oliver. "Whatever can be said about Bjarni he isn't as tough as Wolverine was."
"Maybe because we know something?" Cedric asked and shook his head. "If it keeps going this way most of us will have broken limbs by the end of it all."
"We'll see," she said and stood up. "I need rest, wake me up if someone needs something from me."
She saw them nod and walked out of the room, leaving them behind. She needed time to clear her mind and relax, the past few hours were troubling.
o-0-o
Wanda stepped out of the portal and looked around, it was supposed to be a place where one of horcruxes was hidden. Her eyes swept over the room and she immediately noticed a raised dais in the middle of the room and on top of it a small pedestal.
"It's too easy,"
Then she saw a lake around the dais, a lake that looked too circular to be true, plus she couldn't see its bottom. Her eyes glowed scarlet and when she once again looked at the lake she held her breath. There were hundreds of corpses at its bottom. Each and every one of them in too good of a shape to be just a normal body.
"Necromancy, the most vile and tainted branch of magic,"
Her voice rang across the cave. She clenched her fists as a rush of bad memories almost overwhelmed her mind, there was a reason why she hated necromancy even more fiercely than Asgard. She shook her head and started to summon magical power. A scarlet halo formed around her, crackling with power and danger for her enemies.
She pointed her hand towards the lake and said a single word. A word filled with power and magic.
"Begone!"
Magic rushed from her and opened a circular portal under the lake, that started to suck in everything in its range. From small pebbles and litres of water to corpses and their parts. Her face was cold as she looked at the vanishing bodies. When the last chunk of flesh disappeared the portal closed and left in its wake an empty lake and the pedestal in the middle of it still standing.
She walked towards it, her boots clicking on the stones. As she looked at the pedestal and at the bowl placed on top of it, she frowned. She could see a bowl filled with murky liquid and a locket at the its bottom.
She placed her hand above the water and tried to send a trickle of magic to part the water, it didn't move and stayed in place. There was something blocking her attempts to part the water and pull the thing out. She sighed and smirked as an idea came to her mind. She wrapped her magic around the pedestal and bowl on top of it and pulled it towards her. The stone protested for a moment, but then gave up and she was able to lift it off the ground.
Snapping her fingers she opened a portal that resembled a swirling vortex of scarlet, pink and violet energy and stepped through it. She was done here and she could open this thing in a safer place, in a ritual room of the Sanctum Sanctorum.
o-0-o
Lucius Malfoy frowned as he looked at the sole sentence written on a piece of parchment so badly stained with blood that it was in the color of rust. It was delivered this morning and it seemed that the news were grave. There was a single sentence written on it.
We have failed, Stryker was captured.
He wanted to scream at those news, his schemes were turned to shreds because of those news, his sole way of influencing the situation in the USA was now gone. Or maybe it was not, he opened the top drawer of his desk, pulled out of it a thin paper envelope and broke the seal that was on it.
He pulled out a single sheet of paper and his eyes quickly scanned its contents, placing it besides the message from his spy he dipped his quill in the inkwell and started to write a letter.
o-0-o
Snape was reading a text about potions when he heard a fist barging at a door of the quarters he was given on Asgard. He marked the place where he finished reading, walked to the door and opened it. When his gaze landed on the person that was responsible for the noise he felt the blood flow away from his face.
She was a tall warrior with a mane of fiery red hair, violet eyes, fair skin and she was clad in an armor, one that was more of an artwork than simple gear. It was beautifully sculpted and gilded, every square inch of it was covered in masterfully sculpted patterns. Even in her shiny armor she looked dangerous, no, she looked lethal, yet beautiful. Behind her stood four warriors from the Royal Guard of Asgard. He recognized them as the same ones that accompanied Loki during the trip to Hogwarts.
"You are summoned before, His Majesty, the King," she said, her voice bare of any emotions.
"May I know why?"
"Because he simply wishes to."
"What if I say no?"
"Then we will drag you to face him. So choose."
He was silent for a moment as he looked at her and the guards standing behind her, he was pretty sure every single one of them would kill him with a flick of their wrist.
"I will come," he said and slipped his wand into the holster hidden underneath his robe.
"Wand!" she said, indicating his holster. "That will stay inside of your quarters."
"It is a sign of who am I."
"And it can also be considered a weapon."
He looked between her and the warriors behind, he nodded and left his wand in the room.
"We can go," she finally said and motioned for him to follow her.
The moment he fell into place behind her he felt two warriors move into positions directly behind him, hands on their weapons, ready to be drawn at a moment's notice. They walked quickly and he almost needed to run to keep up with them. As he looked around he could tell that they weren't in the Academy, but somewhere else.
"Where are we going?"
"To His Majesty's audience chamber," she said, not even looking in his direction.
They walked through a couple more corridors and finally came to a stop in front of massive wooden doors with triskelions carved on their surface and a pair of guards standing guard. They nodded to his guide and opened doors, revealing a large room. Snape almost gulped when he saw that Loki was one of the people inside, his past experiences with this god were bad. The rest of its occupants weren't personally known to him, but he easily recognized them from the myths. Odin, Frigga and Thor.
His guide walked forward and bowed in front of Odin. "Your Majesty, Severus Snape."
It was a moment before Odin acknowledged them. He spoke a few sentences in something that sounded to Snape like Old Norse, too fast for him to understand it, and she once again bowed and walked out of the room, the guards following her.
For a moment there was only uncomfortable silence, a silence that announced the storm that was about to come. Snape felt a bead of sweat flow down his forehead as he stood in front of the royal family of Asgard, beings that had more power than the whole magical population of the UK could dream. It was Thor who finally broke it. "Do you know who I am?"
"Thor, God of Thunder and Lightning."
"Indeed," Thor nodded. "Do you know who I was?"
Snape looked at the form of the Thunder God and had a feeling that he saw this mannerism and something else in a completely different person, one that was long dead. "No."
"I think this will help you remember who I was and still am."
Thor's whole form shimmered for a moment and then in his place was the body of a completely different person, one that should be dead. The body of James Potter. "You were him?"
"Yes," Thor said and smiled. "Father wanted to teach me some humility and common sense, I also found few more things."
"Including Lily." Snape spat.
"Be careful with your words, mortal," Odin cut in, speaking for the first time. "You are still alive only because you are still useful. If you were not, you would face our justice and when it comes to traitors there is just one punishment, execution."
Snape whipped his head towards Odin and growled, but stopped when he felt the power radiate from Odin, wild, primal and almost impossible to comprehend. "He was the one that stole her from me, I begged my lord not to kill her."
"Be silent," Loki said and waved his hand, throwing Snape against the wall. "You lie and badly, since someone thought that it would be wise for Harry to attend Hogwarts you will change your behavior or you will end up dead. No, actually that's too merciful, my daughter is getting bored and mentioned that she needs a new pet. So choose."
Snape gulped as he looked at Loki and later at Thor who was covered by a nimbus of lightning bolts and energy. "I'll change my behavior."
"Maybe you will change it or not, that is to be seen." Loki walked forward and wrapped his fingers around Snape's neck. "Now enough will be you swearing that you will be a fair teacher at Hogwarts."
Snape gulped and looked at the fingers wrapped around his neck, just waiting for the wrong answer to end his life. "I swear that I will be a fairer teacher."
"Good."
Loki stopped holding Snape by his neck, the magical bounds also went away and Snape crashed onto the floor, breathing heavily. He stood up and smoothed out his robe.
"Begone from my presence and hope that I won't be forced to summon you once again," Odin said, snapping his fingers and summoning the same person that was Snape's guide before. "The next time I will be less lenient and you will be treated as a petty criminal."
"I understand, Your Majesty." He hurried after his guide and out of the chamber.
o-0-o
A/N – Few things about Asgard:
Pecking order – it is a society with string division into classes, moving from one into another is relatively easy, but when you are in a lower one, you need to show respect to a person from a higher one. With nobility it is even stricter, unless they are close friends they need to use honorifics when speaking to each other, only exception is when someone of higher station is talking with someone of lower, he can use his name at will.
Nudity – in most of the ancient world(ancient being Rome or Greece) nudity when training was a common thing, I toned it down at the Academy as there are both genders and all of them are in their teenage years... But when with friends or with people of the same gender they don't care about having any clothes.
Obedience – it is a society where almost everybody served in the army, is serving or will be and following orders is one of things expected from them. It is not a blind obedience, they can disagree, tell that they disagree with it and so on, but generally an order needs to be carried out. But there is also a second side to it, good leader or ruler won't make an order that will cause a lot of unhappiness unless forced to, so even with absolutistic tendencies of Odin, he knows where are his limits and how far he can push.
Reviews:
TimothyB – They need a wake up call, a bad one. And they can do exactly nothing against Harry, they can try, but the most they will meet will be blades of weapons pointing in their direction.
Otsutsuki no Yami – Dumbledore is a brilliant wizard and knows what he is doing, but he is also arrogant and is used to being one in charge. So it is a shock for him that there are beings willing to squish him like a bug with a stray thought(Odin can do that).
Cloak is in Harry's hands and he is not going to leave it alone, also cloaks from HP have one small issue, they hide you from only one sense. Motion detectors, thermal vision, wolves and so on will easily find it. True, it is a powerful tool, but not in a place designed to contain prisoners and prevent them from getting away.
Physically speaking, any Asgardian will beat a human in a hand to hand combat, with ranged weapons it would depend on who is able to see their target first and how good is a scope/eye. Magic, depends, not everybody on Asgard has a lot of power, but when they have they, they are dangerous. But for magic you need time to unleash it and while a sorcerer on Asgard will hide behind a wall of warriors whose sole purpose is to protect him and if need be die, wizards are used to duels and those fail badly when you meet a group of warriors trained to work as a unit. You might be brilliant, but the numbers will do the job.
Angel Winx – Loki has an eye on certain inhuman beauty, one that can freeze you with her breath and if angered there is a lot, I mean a lot of snow and ice.
randomplotbunny – Twins are on Asgard, but they aren't those devils we know and love, they are still *cough* innocent *cough* first year students, but Loki might spot their talents.