Notes: In which Loki once again does the Hogwarts version of Googling someone. A reminder that the Restricted section of the Hogwarts library is, at least in the books, simply roped off. Students can't sign out or read these books without a signed note from a teacher, but there is no physical barrier preventing them from entering the section (which certainly makes, for instance, hijinks with an invisibility cloak much simpler!) It seems to me there should be some kind of spell to prevent unauthorized users from even getting into the section, but based on book and movie canon, there isn't. I suppose Madame Pince must have thought alarms or ejections would disturb the peace of the reading room. I've expanded the use of these closed stacks for the purpose of this story.

The organizational principle we see in the Restricted section, at least in the first movie, makes no sense at all for non-fiction, but we'll go along with it here, with appropriate excuses made.

Also, nature versus nurture is an ongoing debate.

Warnings: None needed.

Chapter Thirteen

In the two weeks between the first and second Quidditch matches of the season, it really was all the teachers could do to get any first-year to think about anything except flying. Pippa wasn't the only Muggle-born to be completely carried away by her first glimpse of Quidditch, and even a lot of the wizard-born kids were equally thrilled. Loki, for one, had never been to a real live match before and had found the game a lot more exciting than he had anticipated.

Even veterans like Mitchell and George, who had been to professional matches, had found themselves enthralled by the Slytherin team, most of whom were practically their own age. Seventh-years like Stark and Rhodes, and even fifth-years as big as Volstagg, just didn't look like kids to them. The Slytherin chasers and beaters made the idea of playing on a real team seem possible in a way it hadn't before, at least not until a long way into the future.

Loki was keener on Quidditch now than he had been previously, but he wasn't completely carried away. He was therefore perfectly content to sit on the sidelines of the common room dissections of the latest issue of Which Broomstick. Annie had enjoyed the game as well, but her interest in the subject of broom selection was limited to remarking that Mr. Longbottom's sedate Bluebell seemed a very nice model, and the kind of broomstick she would probably like for herself one day.

This had led to her being buried under a positive avalanche of data about acceleration rates and turning radiuses, and other details which proved beyond doubt the vast superiority of many other models. Annie smiled and nodded and allowed the information to flow over her, unheeded. Loki was grateful that at least one of his housemates had managed not to lose her mind- everyone else sounded as if the Quidditch World Cup was going to be played in the Hufflepuff common room within the next week.

Still, the new obsession with Quidditch was all to the good, really, except that George and Mitchell were caught up in it. Even at that, it might be for the best. There were things Loki wanted to investigate in the library, and maybe he would be less conspicuous if he was by himself.

Well, if he and Annie were by themselves. When Loki tried to slip off by himself, on the Saturday between matches, she followed him, complaining that it wasn't a bit fair of him to leave her alone with their Quidditch-crazy housemates.

"Even if it's only extra homework, it's got to be better than acceleration radiuses," she grumbled.

"Well," Loki admitted, "it's not exactly homework." Annie gave him a puzzled look, and Loki wrestled with himself for a moment. He couldn't tell her everything, of course- just the thought of her expression of horror as she backed away from him made his whole chest hurt. But the idea of having someone- Annie- with him while he did this was so tempting that he finally explained, "I want to see whether there's another book like that Who Was Who one, only about Dark wizards."

Annie frowned, confused rather than disapproving, but a little anxious, too. "Why do you want to do that?"

Loki chewed on his lower lip. He couldn't- just couldn't- tell her the truth. It wasn't fair to tell her a thing like that and then ask her to keep being his friend. But there was another reason he could offer, and it was sort of true, too.

"I've been thinking about Clint and Barney," he said, and that really wasn't a lie, because he had dreamed about the brothers more than once since reading about their parents. He couldn't remember all the details, except that in one of the dreams he'd found himself standing on the pavement, watching Clint and Barney go into his house with his parents- who were, in the dream, their parents now, and not his anymore- and in the other he was rearranging his belongings to make room in the wardrobe and chest of drawers for Clint's things as well.

He liked the second dream a lot better than the first one.

Annie was looking concerned, and Loki explained hastily, "Dad talks sometimes. About, about the war, and the wizards he fought- " That really was a lie: Dad almost never mentioned the war in front of Thor and Loki. He certainly never talked about specifics, as if not talking about it would make his sons not think about it. Loki had no idea about Thor, but he certainly did, particularly lately.

He went on, "I was just wondering… whether one of those wizards might have been… might have been the one who- "

Annie looked relieved. "Oh. I was afraid you were…" She trailed off uneasily.

"I was what?" Loki asked anxiously.

Annie blushed. "I thought you might be… looking for Bruce's parents."

Loki blinked, gobsmacked. "Why would I do that?"

"Well, I mean… when we were looking in the Who Was Who book- " She trailed off again. Loki stared at her, uncomprehending, until Annie spit it out: "When you turned to the B section of the book, to find the Bartons…"

With an awful jolt, Loki suddenly realized what Annie meant. He had started at the beginning of the B section, looking for Barton. He'd found it, obviously.

But he hadn't seen Banner.

"You don't mean you think- ?" he began.

Annie flapped her hands anxiously. "No, no. I mean… I don't think I did. I just thought... probably they weren't fighting at all. A lot of people got killed in the war just for, just for being in the wrong place. Maybe they didn't write about those people in the books. It was just when you said you were looking for Dark wizards, I thought for a second you were, you were wondering why his parents weren't in the other book."

"I wouldn't do that to Bruce. And anyway, he's nice," Loki protested.

"But his auntie's probably nice," Annie pointed out. Loki stared at her. "Well, I mean, it wouldn't matter, would it, if his parents were bad if they died before he could remember them. Not as long as he grew up being looked after by someone who was good. And she must be good, if she took in kids with no parents. And Bruce gets loads of owls from her, and he always seems happy when he reads her letters, so she must be nice to him. So that means he's learning to be nice from her, doesn't it?"

"I... I guess," Loki muttered. My parents are nice, too, he wanted to tell her, but he didn't quite have the nerve. Instead, he just said, "I never thought of that. And you're probably right, about why they weren't in the other book. Anyway, I was just... I don't know why I want to know about Clint and Barney, but... "

"It's okay," Annie said. "I'll help you. We just won't say anything about it to Clint, okay?"

"Okay," Loki agreed, perfectly truthfully. In the first place, you didn't tell people you were spying on them, even for a good reason, and this probably wasn't a good enough reason. In the second place, it wasn't as if he ever had a chance to speak to either of the Bartons, anyway.

And in the third place, of course, he wasn't really looking up who killed Mr. and Mrs. Barton at all.

Loki and Annie made a very thorough search of the modern history section, where they had found Who Was Who in the first place. Neither of them was very surprised when they found nothing useful: if there had been a book like the one Loki wanted now in the section, they probably would have seen it already.

"I wonder if there's anything in the Restricted section?" Loki whispered, looking thoughtfully over at the section of book cases that was roped off from general use. The cases were turned so their backs were facing the rest of the library, and signs that read Restricted were fixed to them.

Annie flinched. "We're not allowed to use those books," she reminded him, which of course Loki knew perfectly well.

Students tended to think of the Restricted section as the place where all the books about Dark, or exceptionally powerful, magic were kept. That was true, but the section also contained books so old and rare and fragile that Madame Pince, the librarian, didn't want to risk them being roughly handled.

You had to have a signed note from a teacher to even enter that section, let alone use any of the books. Students who got such notes were almost always fifth year or higher, working on special independent study projects. Annie's sister, Becky, had permission from Professor Slughorn to use Moste Potente Potions in the library, and Professor Sprout had given Rhodes and Stark a note so they could use the rare Herbology texts for something they were working on in her NEWT-level class. Even at that, the students had to get a new note, and show it, every single time they needed to use those books.

The Dark magic works weren't all necessarily old or fragile, but Hogwarts took a very firm line about Dark magic: you were taught about it in order to learn how to defend yourself, or someone else, from it, and that was all. First-years, especially, weren't encouraged to be curious about the actual magic itself. Professor Fury would answer their questions, but he always acted like he assumed sensible people would have much better things to do with their time.

Professor Fury kind of reminded Loki of his dad that way, sniffing at stupid "pureblood" wizards for thinking they were better than anybody else, and making sure his sons understood how foolish those attitudes were. Loki guessed Hogwarts wanted to make sure students really got the message that the Dark Arts weren't anything to be proud of, before they were allowed to look at books that might have been written from the other point of view. Certainly Professor Fury had lived up to his words on the first day of class, doing nothing at all to make them seem cool.

Loki had no interest at all in the magic, of course. He just wanted to find out about the people who practiced it- and not even all the people. But he couldn't exactly go to a teacher and say, "Excuse me, my parents were evil Death Eaters, and I want to find out more about them, so can you please give me permission?" Even if the teacher would do it, all the other kids would find out, and Loki certainly didn't want that. So that meant he would have to (sneak) find another way to get at the books.

"There's almost nobody here except us," Loki pointed out. The library was almost always quiet from Friday night until Saturday after dinner- it wasn't even open before lunchtime on Saturday. Even the fifth-years, who were getting ready to sit their OWLs in the spring, still gave themselves a little time off at the weekend. "If you went to Madame Pince and asked her some questions, you could keep her busy on the other side of the library while I look at the books I need." Annie chewed on her lower lip, undecided, and Loki pleaded, "Please, Annie, it's important."

"Okay," she said finally. "The books about animals are all over there, near Madame Pince's desk. I'll ask her about owls. Probably I can remember some of the questions Dennis asks you. But you won't have very much time," she warned. "Whatever you're going to do, you had better do it quick."

"Okay," Loki agreed. "Thank you."

He stayed where he was, on the floor hidden behind the history shelves, as Annie got up and walked over to the librarian's desk. When he could hear the murmur of two voices talking together, he slipped over to Restricted section, ducked under the rope, and hid on the other side of the book cases.

He looked quickly up and down the shelves, his heart sinking as he realized these books were arranged by title, not by subject like the rest of the library. Probably that was because you were supposed to already know what book you wanted when you came in here: nobody just went into the Restricted section to look around. Having the books in order by title made it easier to find a book you knew about, made it harder to snoop among the rest of them, and meant Madame Pince didn't have to put library markings on the really old, fragile books. But it certainly made Loki's job a lot harder.

He began with the shelves in front of him, scanning the titles as quickly as he could. He was very careful not to touch anything: you could never tell whether a book might have a spell on it to prevent its being used by someone who wasn't supposed to.

He went through two full book cases, heart thumping, before he spotted a title that looked promising: From the Dark Side: Selected Biographies. It was on a shelf out of his reach, so he had to find a step-stool- luckily, there was one not far away- and climb up to reach it.

He had just put his hand on the book when, right next to him, a surprised and angry voice demanded, "Loki! What are you doing?"

Loki started violently, nearly falling off the step-stool.

Then he turned, stomach churning, to meet the disappointed and angry eyes of Annie's big sister, Becky.

~oOo~

Madame Pince had plenty to say to both Loki and Annie- who had of course confessed her own part in the plot the moment Loki was caught- as they sat in straight chairs in her office. Loki, for one, wished she would never stop scolding them. As long as she was doing that, she couldn't turn them over to Professor Sprout, who would be so disappointed in him. After she had promised him he could turn out good after all, she would be disgusted to find out he was looking up evil witches and wizards, as if he wanted to be like them.

Becky didn't stay for the scolding, Madame Pince sent her away at once, and Loki assumed she was gone to fetch Professor Sprout. He didn't look up when the office door opened, he was too ashamed to look at his head of house. Madame Pince, however, did.

"All right. I'll leave you two in the appropriate hands," she sniffed, and got up from her desk. "And you're welcome to them."

"Thank you for calling me, Madame Pince," said a voice that didn't belong to Professor Sprout. Loki and Annie looked up in panic at the figure that walked around to the other side of the desk to sit down.

"Suppose you tell me what's going on here," said Professor Fury.

Loki's throat closed in terror. This was worse than Professor Sprout, even. How could he possibly make this look like anything except a stupid first-year thinking Dark sorcerers were cool? Professor Fury would... well, Loki would be lucky if he didn't lose Hufflepuff every house point they had, and get detention until his seventh year besides.

Annie was deathly pale, and Loki winced as he thought about how much trouble he'd just gotten her into, too. He had to try to at least fix things for her.

"Please, Professor," he squeaked. "Annie was just trying to help me."

Professor Fury raised his eyebrows. "Mr. Odinson, Miss Sawyer, I find it very hard to believe you've been in Defense Against the Dark Arts class all these weeks without learning that is not an excuse for wrongdoing." Annie burst into tears, and Loki came pretty close, himself. Professor Fury sighed, then reached into his black robe and came out with a handkerchief, which he passed to Annie. "Calm down. You're not getting sent to Azkaban for this little stunt." Annie cried harder at that, jerking away from Loki when he tried to pat her on the shoulder. Professor Fury waited for a moment, then asked, "What exactly were you doing in the Restricted section, Mr. Odinson?"

Loki sniffled, gulped, and then whispered, "We read something a few days ago. About... about what happened to some of our classmates' parents, in the war." He stuck to the lie he had told Annie in the first place- he couldn't admit he'd lied to her, too, not right now. "I just wanted to know... if anyone my dad ever mentioned was the one who did it."

Said out loud to a teacher, the story seemed even thinner than it had when he told it to Annie. Professor Fury frowned.

"And why, exactly, were you so interested in your classmates' misfortunes?"

Not only thin, but... spiteful. Like maybe he enjoyed knowing bad things about other kids.

Loki wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. "It wasn't that. I just... " Part of the truth popped out without Loki meaning to say it: "I have bad dreams, sometimes. About the people Dad talked about. And my... my classmates... they're in the dreams now. I thought, if I could just find out... if the wizards I dream about weren't the ones who... then I wouldn't- I, I make up stories sometimes, I don't even notice I'm doing it, but then, then when I don't know- "

Professor Fury didn't move, but Loki felt a hand patting his shoulder. Even as miserable as he was, he could still feel grateful that Annie had apparently forgiven him that far.

"I guess we're not always as careful as we should be, about who can hear us when we talk," the professor said with a sigh. "All right. I'm taking ten points from Hufflepuff for this, but I don't think it needs to go any farther. Miss Sawyer, you can go back to your common room." Annie's head jerked up, and Professor Fury almost smiled. "I'm not going to eat him. He'll be right behind you."

Annie wiped her eyes and nose one more time and gave back the handkerchief. She didn't look at Loki as she hurried out of the office. When she was gone, Professor Fury turned to Loki.

"What are the names?" he asked.

"Pardon?" Loki whispered.

"Who do you dream about? We might as well get this straightened out now, if we can, one way or the other."

"I'm sorry," Loki muttered.

Professor Fury shrugged. "I'm just glad to know there's a reasonable explanation. You've already scared us once, you know." Loki looked up, eyes wide. "Professor Slughorn wasn't very happy when you seemed interested in noxious potions, and you such a nice kid. He was pretty relieved when he found out you were just angry at your brother. And now, conveniently, there's a reasonable explanation for this little escapade, too." Professor Fury sounded as if... as if he thought-

Loki's mouth was dry. "I really... I really don't want... Honestly, Professor- " For a heartbeat, Loki wanted to tell him the truth, all of it. But then he realized he couldn't: if Professor Fury was suspicious of him now, imagine how he would be if he learned that Loki's parents were really...

He couldn't possibly tell Professor Fury that.

Professor Fury ignored his protest. "Names, Mr. Odinson."

Loki wracked his brain for names from the article about his dad in the Who Was Who book- it wouldn't do to let Professor Fury know he was only interested in one name. "R-Ravenwood. Um... Arbuthnot. And, um, Campbell-Something. Campbell-Hardwicke."

Professor Fury nodded. "And who are your classmates?"

"Bruce Banner and Clint Barton," Loki whispered, glad Annie wasn't here to witness his disloyalty.

"Hum. Well, you're in luck: none of those people had anything to do with Banner or Barton."

"N-no?" Loki quavered.

"No. Ravenwood- Richard Ravenwood was a traitor in the Ministry of Magic, doing nasty little things with nasty little bits of paper, tracking down Muggle-borns and setting the more active Death Eaters on them. Your dad caught him out before the Ministry fell, and he was sent to Azkaban. He broke out when the Dementors turned, and died just before the end of the war.

"Arbuthnot- Stuart Arbuthnot. He passed information to Voldemort from within the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, until your dad traced the leak. He escaped from the Aurors to join up with the Death Eaters, and was never seen again. Our information is that Voldemort executed him because he was of no further use."

Professor Fury sighed, and Loki tried not to look desperately interested at the next names. "Felix and Catriona Campbell-Hardwicke. I was never sure which of them was worse, or if they were both equally crazy and vicious. They developed some very... inventive... curses for Voldemort, testing them on house elves, and then put them to use on Muggles and Muggle-borns. They worked at the Ministry after the Fall, interrogating Muggle-borns, before branching out to simply hunting them down and killing them, along with any innocent Muggles who happened to get in their way. They were tried and sent to Azkaban, and I don't imagine they'll ever be let out. I do know they had nothing to do with the Bartons." Pause. "Or the Banners.

"Have I answer your questions?"

"Yes, sir," Loki whispered. It was a lot worse than he had feared, but he could hardly say that to Professor Fury.

"Okay," said the professor. "And that's the end of you messing around with Dark sorcery, or Dark sorcerers, right? I have your promise?"

Loki looked up, desperate. "Professor Fury, I didn't... I don't want to be a Dark sorcerer. I just, I just wanted to know- "

"All right," Fury said calmly, using his wand to spell his handkerchief clean and handing it to Loki. "All right. A lot of people feel better after they know. I just hope I haven't given you material for even worse nightmares. But I'm serious: I want you to promise you won't keep poking around like this, because, believe it or not, it can be dangerous. You make too close a study of evil, without also consciously studying good to balance it out, and you can find yourself developing some very unfortunate ideas." Loki went small in his chair, and the professor said, more kindly, "I really don't think you're planning to turn evil, Odinson. And you're certainly not the first kid I've met since the war ended who worried and brooded about the Dark side. Just... be careful what you get on yourself, because eventually it can leave a stain. All right?" Loki nodded. "All right. I don't think I have to tell your parents about this incident. Get back to your common room, and don't make me regret letting you off easy."

"Yes, Professor," Loki whispered, and fled.

He was pelting down the corridor outside the library, heading for the Hufflepuff basement, when Annie stepped out from behind a suit of armor. Loki let out a squeak of alarm and skidded to a halt.

"You were supposed to go straight back to the common room," he said stupidly.

"I didn't want to come back without you. And I wanted to say something, before we get back there."

"What?" Loki asked, his heart sinking.

Annie took a deep breath. "I'm not blaming you for the trouble we got into, because I agreed to it so it was my fault, too. But I'm not going to do anything like this for you ever again, all right? If you have bad dreams again, you should talk to Professor Sprout. I'm not going to go sneaking around getting into trouble and losing house points and, and feeling bad about what I'm doing. And, and I'm not going to spy on classmates anymore, either!" Annie's eyes filled with tears, and Loki's mouth went dry again.

"Annie, I... I didn't tell you the whole truth," he blurted. "I wasn't... I didn't really want to spy on Clint. It's... it's complicated, and I can't tell you exactly why I needed to do it, but... I... there was something about my, my family that I needed to find out. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have lied, or let you come with me. I promise not to do it again."

Annie stared at him for a moment, chewing on her lower lip. Loki held his breath. Finally, she said,

"Okay. As long as you don't lie to me anymore." Loki flinched at the thought of the lies he had already told her, but he nodded. Annie nodded, too. "All right. Let's go back to the common room." She turned and began walking quickly down the corridor, Loki hurrying along in her wake.

He was afraid to ask, but after a while he couldn't help himself:

"Annie? Annie, wait a minute. Please." Annie stopped, and Loki caught up with her. "Are we... are we still friends?" he asked painfully.

Annie's stern expression held for a moment as she studied his face, Loki holding his breath. Then, just as he thought he couldn't stand it anymore, she softened.

"Of course we are," she said, and Loki exhaled.

"I promise not to get you in trouble again," he began.

"And I promise to try harder to stop you, if you come up with another idea like that one," Annie said, her mouth twisting a little. Then she reached out and caught him by the hand. "Now come on, before Professor Fury catches us again."

The two of them hurried back to the common room together.