Title: Magic and Myth
Song: Myspace Girl by The Afters
Rating: T for language and future chapters
Genre: Humor, Angst, Romance
Fandom: Thor and Harry Potter
Couple: Loki/Hermione
Inspiration: 'By My Side' by Blinded-Kit
Warnings: Pre-Thor, teenager!Loki, trickery, cars, stupid drivers, green magic, bookstores, vampire fangirls, running between library stacks, family talk, Crookshanks, Loki's son/pet Fenrir, and Loki's Son of the Mask depiction
"That mans a snitch and unpredictable
He's got no conscience, he got none
(none, none, none)"
—"Criminal" by Britney Spears
Loki was on a roll today, Hermione realized.
Right out of the gate this morning, through the sun filled streets he was tampering with car alarms and street signs as if it were for sport. Hermione could only watch with mild horror and fascination as Loki, with a snap of his fingers, undressed mannequins in shop windows and turned green lights red.
"Well, you're in a mood today." She commented dryly, arms crossed over her chest, raising a critical brow at the dark-haired sorcerer beside her. He walked with his usual dignified swagger that gave off the regal message of 'you've better run as fast as you can'—Hermione, however, wasn't easy scared off after having seen him stumble and flail around her kitchen after her father waxed the floors.
"Am I?" Loki inquired with a smug smile tugging at his lips. "I haven't noticed."
His icy emerald gaze swept the busy streets for another specimen for his next prank, but Hermione caught his arm and jarred him to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk.
"Stop it, Loki." She hissed lowly, careful about the people around her who'd had their eyes on the snickering tall boy and her. "They're not here for your entertainment."
Loki's lower lip jutted out slightly in a feigning attempt to look innocent. "Aw, but I just love to see their reactions when something in their perfectly constructed society goes amiss. Look at them? So scared." Loki pouted and Hermione rolled her eyes and moaned irritably.
Glancing across the cross-walk she let go of Loki's arm.
"Whatever. Just . . . don't make it so obvious." Stepping down from the sidewalk in the hot asphalt, Hermione began her journey across, mind swirling with Loki-filled thoughts that were abruptly dejected when a loud car honk pulled her out of her thoughts.
A car was heading full throttle for her.
She was standing in the center of the cross-walk, she could either jump back or continue going. But for some stupid reason—like every other girl in a movie—she just stood there like a deer in headlights, eyes round, mouth gaping and not moving.
She felt a spark around her, pulling hard at her arms as if they were hands. But they weren't.
If she'd of blinked she would have missed it: a rivulet of green magic emanated from her upper arms and yanked her back into a hard chest, and she reeled to catch her breath.
The vehicle jarred to a stop in the center of the intersection, only to get smashed into by another car.
"Huh," Hermione looked shakily up at Loki who was watching the wreckage with an enthralled expression as he studied the accordion scrunched vehicles. "Now I'm not quite sure, but I don't think I had anything to do with that."
Adrenaline wore off and Hermione began to shake, but managed a half-hearted: "shut up" but leant heavily against Loki's frame as he amble her over to the other side of the street. Ignoring the many other staring patrons who were asking themselves how she'd managed to get back onto the sidewalk so fast.
Loki talked about himself rarely—she supposed it was because he didn't really know her all that well—and when he did Hermione later had to reread her Norse mythology books to remember each name he mentioned so she could follow along without much difficulty.
Currently, she and Loki were skimming the section of mythology trying to find an appropriate book for her to follow along to, dog-ear, and bookmark all her own. Loki kept sending wary glances around the corner of the wooden bookshelves over to a pack of teenage girls in the young adults section giggling and sighing over their vampiric literature—all of which had stared at Loki like he was a god whence he entered the bookstore.
No pun intended.
"Those little imps keep staring at me." Loki grumbled.
Hermione smirked, looking up from the book in her hands. "What's the matter? Is the O' Mighty Loki not use to pubescent female attentions?"
His expression was caught between a pale-faced sweat drop and irritation. "Did you not read any of those books? I do not habitually dabble in the wooing of maidens." He growled and glanced back at the girls again—sending them into a shrill of giggles—and then made a face.
"And it shows." Hermione murmured, turning a quick corner around the bookshelf to escape Loki's, albeit delayed, reaction.
He gave chase and she choked on silent laughter.
"You really do love books, don't you, Lady Hermione?" Loki inquired some time later. After finally chasing her down and capturing her, he'd mercifully decided to let her go and the two sat on the ground, between the shelves adjacent to each other, to talk and read.
Hermione simply nodded, skimming the margins of her book, then glancing up to meet his icy emerald gaze. He smiled—the same wicked smile as before—but Hermione couldn't help but note how although sitting on the ground, he didn't allow his self-important posture to waver.
Forever the prince.
He looked up to the hundreds of books simply above his head. "My brother would never appreciate this."
"Really? Neither would my friends." She joked, but she knew it was true. She was one of the very few who'd ever gone to the library for studying or reading alone—except the Ravenclaw kids but they hardly counted. She was singlehandedly determined to absorb all the knowledge her school had to offer. After spending so long in the world where magic didn't exist and all scientific phenomenon had been spluttered, she was happy to broaden her horizon of study.
His gaze lowered on her. "Do you not have siblings?"
"No, in case you haven't noticed, I'm an only child."
"Lucky you." He smirked.
"Sounds like you don't think much of your brother." Hermione mumbled and immediately regretted it when a dark look flashed in the depths of his evergreen eyes. Suddenly he didn't look like a mischievous cheeky teenage boy; he looked every bit as much as an imposing warrior he claimed to be, pinning her to the bookshelf with his gaze.
"I do," he said, more like huffed, almost speaking under his breath. "I think very much of Thor, but unlike certain parties I am not blind to his faults, and the great many there are."
She watched him stand and walk a little ways out from between the shelves—careful not to be seen by the girls—and entered the Viking literature section, whilst Hermione thumbed through the index to find this 'Thor' character.
When Crookshanks finally started to come out of his shell more about Loki always being at the house, the cat had made it blindingly clear that there was no one in this world he liked other than Hermione.
On more than one occasion, Hermione witnessed Loki and the animal going toe-to-toe in a hissing/sizing up match over her father's chair in the den. Whilst Loki swatted for the cat to move, her Persian-Kneazle mix clawed at him with his perfectly filed talons, hissing and puffing up like a furry bomb ready to explode.
Hermione arrived just in time to stop the fight—shoving a bowl of popcorn into Loki's gut and cuddling her fur ball into her arms—and promptly taking the seat Loki had been fighting for, forcing him to sit on the couch. "I don't understand why you keep that little monster around. He isn't very amiable." Loki wondered aloud.
"Really? I'm always thinking the same about you." Hermione snapped back, fluffing the fur of her red-orange companion affectionately.
Crookshanks made odd noises, and revolted most people with his puggish face, but he was a loyal cat with lots of love—for her—and just the best pet she could ask for.
Loki made a retort she didn't care about and then asked: "Don't you have a pet?"
Loki paused. "I do, a Hel puppy named Fenrir."
Hermione stared at him. "A Hel puppy? You mean a Hellhound?"
Of course, she rolled her eyes inwardly. Slytherin brats always have the best pets.
As if hearing her, Crookshanks glared up at his mistress threateningly and Hermione continued to scratch behind his ears and rub his back, making him purr happily again.
"Something like that. He's like a son to me."
Hermione stared at him a long moment until the movie started.
Hermione bit her lips together, watching for Loki's impending reaction when—
On the TV screen a darkly dressed, wild-haired Alan Cumming appeared with modern-ish clothes and color tinted sunglasses.
—Loki's jaw tightened and his brows knitted.
"How dare those Warner Brothers do that to me?!" He near shrieked at the television version of himself in Son if the Mask. "I will have them begging for their lives on a pike!"
Hermione nearly keeled over laughing.
THANK YOU FOR ALL THE REVIEWS~!
I'm sorry this is a little late, and not much happens, but Loki meets the parent's next chapter and Hermione gets a letter from Ron and Harry for the Quidditch match. Which Loki will be making more than one appearance at?
Fenrir is Loki's pet in the comics but in mythology he's his son, obviously Hermione read that. XD
I was watching The Mask the other day—a month ago—and I got the idea, I'm surprised I remember.
-Song- Loki is a bit of a criminal, not really here, now, but soon. And 'Never Let You Go' is a classic.
Tell me what you want to see here,
Auf Wiedersehen then (taking German)
~QueenVamp