Notes: In which there is only so long the students of Hogwarts can keep meekly obeying safety rules. I mean, really.

This is another short chapter, because the point at which it ends seems like a natural stopping place, and also because I have to think some more about exactly what happens next.

Warnings: None needed, I think. Except I'm kind of winging it with regards to the layout of the castle and grounds, and would appreciate it if you would all kindly go along with me!

Chapter Twenty-Two

"So have you actually talked to Professor Sprout yet?" Mitchell asked quietly, as the first-year Hufflepuffs walked down the corridor on their way toward Herbology on Monday morning. Loki was silent, and Mitchell prodded him: "Loki."

Actually, what he said sounded more like, "Looo-ki," but never mind. And he already knew the answer to his question, but never mind that, either.

"I... I thought we all had enough to worry about at the weekend," Loki muttered.

"But you are going to talk to her, right?" Annie said sternly. Loki wriggled, glancing ahead at Professor Sinistra, the astronomy teacher, who was accompanying the group to the great entry doors.

"Well, I thought- " he mumbled, then glanced around at his friends and wilted. "Yes. Yes, I'm going to talk to her. It's just- " He looked pleadingly at the others. "It's just that everyone seems to have forgotten about, about what Thor said about me. Maybe he's stopped. Maybe he's not saying it anymore."

"Or maybe everyone's just distracted right now, and the minute things die down they'll all remember," George suggested quietly.

Loki didn't answer, because of course he knew George was probably right.

Before they could say anything else, they were at the door leading out to the courtyard, and Professor Sinistra waved them to a halt.

"All right, Mr. Stark, they're all yours," the professor announced. The Head Boy stepped forward, eyeing the first-years with a mischievous expression.

"You lot shouldn't just assume I'm really me," he pointed out. "We ought to have come up with a password or something."

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Mr. Stark," Professor Sinistra protested, which momentarily made Loki wonder whether she really was who she said she was.

"What did I tell you?" Mitchell hissed to his friends, which didn't help, either.

A thought crossed Loki's mind, and he spoke up before he lost his nerve: "Which of the Beatles did you tell us Professor McGonagall used to fancy?" he asked Stark.

Stark looked at him in surprise, and then his eyes crinkled up in amusement as he remembered the incident. "I said Paul McCartney, but I was wrong- she claims she preferred John Lennon. Good enough?"

Losing his nerve, Loki nodded hastily. Professor Sinistra, who still seemed to think the whole thing was a waste of time (and that, to be honest, didn't make Loki feel especially safe in her care) rolled her eyes and walked back into the castle. Stark made a follow-me gesture and led the way down the path that led around to the back of the castle, where the greenhouses were.

As they trudged along, Loki wrestled with his thoughts. None of them were very pleasant. He hadn't heard a word from Thor after his misadventure. Maybe, he told himself stubbornly, maybe that just meant nobody had told Thor what had happened to Loki. Maybe he just didn't know yet.

Which didn't make any sense, and Loki knew it. It was true the teachers hadn't told the whole school all the ugly details- in the assembly that renewed the precautions, Professor McGonagall just explained there was recent evidence that the escapees might be in the area. She had said nothing then about an attack on a student.

Still, the Hufflepuffs knew, and so did all the prefects, as well as whoever happened to be within hearing when the prefects were told to come look for the missing first-year- Loki knew they must have been taken aside, but he had no doubt some of these conversations had been overheard. The castle was huge, but the population inside it was quite small, and very closely connected, and news hummed through it like word about fresh flowers through a beehive.

Everybody knew what had happened to Loki. Volstagg, for goodness sake, had sent a short note, which was delivered by one of the prefects. It was just a quick scrawl to say he was sorry to hear about the fright Loki'd had, and that he hoped Loki was all right. It had probably taken him only a few seconds to write but still, he'd done it.

And still Thor said nothing, did nothing, came nowhere near Loki.

Thor didn't care.

Professor Sprout had told them their houses at Hogwarts would become like their families. It was obvious that Gryffindor was all the family Thor needed. Loki didn't understand that- as much as he loved Hufflepuff and the people in it, he wanted to have his real family, too. He still sent himself to sleep some nights telling himself stories about the Christmas holidays. Of his mother taking him to St. Mungo's to meet her colleagues, and his father talking in that friendly way about how he loved the tu-whoo call of the tawny owl. Of his mother holding his hand and promising she would listen to him, and his father asking him questions about his schoolwork, as if he was really interested. (In the stories this was never frightening.) Loki held onto the warmth of those memories, of knowing at least he'd been wrong about his parents, that they really did love and want him, and maybe they always had.

Of course, he reflected, their parents had both been in Gryffindor, so they would still be part of Thor's family no matter what. Loki wondered, briefly, what Thor would have done if their mother had been in Hufflepuff like so many other people who grew up to be healers. He abandoned the thought as pointless: Thor had always been lucky, and he was lucky again because the outsider was only Loki, the family member Thor didn't want anyway.

As they approached the greenhouses, Loki was wondering what Thor would have done if Loki had been Sorted into Gryffindor. If he'd been forced to decide whether his house family ties trumped his wish to be rid of his tiresome little brother. Probably, Loki decided, Thor would have thought of some way to get around the problem.

He was jerked out of these cheerful thoughts when Stark made a noise of irritation.

"What the dickens is he- ?" the Head Boy muttered. Loki glanced in the direction Stark was looking.

There was a clump of shrubbery up ahead, just beyond the greenhouses, one of several that created a natural separation between the leafy section of grounds occupied by the greenhouses, and the more open space where flying practice took place. Loki stared at the shrubbery, unable at first to see what Stark was looking at.

And then his heart plummeted, his stomach lurching, as he saw something move.

"What's that?" George whispered fearfully, edging closer to his friends.

"You mean who's that," Annie whispered back. As she spoke, Loki realized she was right: the black shape he could vaguely see in the shrubbery wasn't a thing, it was a person. A boy, wearing a black robe.

A short, skinny, ratty-looking boy, his whole body tense as he spied on something in the flying area.

It was Barney Barton.

Loki knew the fourth-years had a free period now (he knew his brother's schedule nearly as well as his own, and this time slot was empty for the whole of Thor's year.) Ordinarily there would have been no actual rule to stop Barney lurking in the shrubbery, but of course with the safety precautions in place he certainly wasn't supposed to lurk without a teacher or a prefect to supervise him.

Stark glanced down at the Hufflepuffs. "I have to deal with this," he said softly. "Come along, and be really quiet, okay?"

Loki hoped nobody chanced to be looking out any of the windows that gave onto the grounds right now, because he suspected the sight of the Head Boy creeping along, shadowed by a patter of first-years, was one that would never be lived down. But they were all quiet, the snow underfoot muffling their footsteps, and Barney's attention was entirely focused on what- or whoever he was spying on.

The last time Loki had seen Stark speak to Barney Barton, it was the day of the fight with Thor, when Barney had called Peggy Carter a mudblood. Stark had been really angry that day, had looked at Barney with disgust and anger.

Now, though, he spoke quietly and without heat as he came up behind the other boy:

"What on earth are you doing?"

Barney squeaked and whirled around, looking up at Stark in terror before his eyes widened in recognition. A moment later, his face fell back into its usual sullen mask.

Before he could answer, though, the whole group looked over his shoulder to see what- or rather, who- he was watching.

The Gryffindor first-years had double Potions with Slytherin this morning, while the Hufflepuffs had Defense Against the Dark Arts with Ravenclaw. Afterward there was a fifteen-minute break, which was spent in their respective classrooms waiting for their escorts to their next classes. Gryffindor of course had Herbology this period, with Hufflepuff, and someone was supposed to bring the Gryffindors to Greenhouse One as Stark had brought Hufflepuff.

Apparently, Clint Barton had given their escort the slip, sneaking off to join Thor, whose time was his own but who was probably supposed to be in his common room right now. It was pretty obvious they intended to do some extra flying practice, since they were both carrying broomsticks. The two of them stood at the far side of the clearing, out of the sight-line of most of the castle windows, while Thor talked to Clint. They were still holding their brooms, so Loki assumed Thor was giving Clint pointers on his technique before they mounted up and took off.

Some prefect or teacher was going to get in terrible trouble over this.

Loki kind of sympathized with the two, actually: if it hadn't been for the terrible fright he'd gotten just a few days ago, he'd have been chafing against the new restrictions, himself. And of course, in Thor and Clint's case, there was the added irritation of knowing these restrictions were all the fault of their, their mutual enemy, Loki. Why should they suffer, just because Loki had gotten himself locked in a classroom in the dark?

Understanding the impulse didn't make Loki any less angry at the idea, and when he glanced up at Stark, the Head Boy's face was set in fury, too. He muttered a word he probably wasn't supposed to use in front of first-years, then looked around at them.

"Stay here, all of you, and stick together. This will just take a minute." He looked sharply at Barney. "You too, Barton. I mean it."

Barney's lower lip stuck out rebelliously as he set his jaw, but he said nothing and he didn't try to run away. Stark actually patted him on the shoulder, and Barney seemed to soften a little. Meanwhile, Stark directed his attention back to the two wayward Gryffindors. Loki also looked toward his brother, and the boy Thor obviously wished was his brother, as they prepared to mount their brooms. Stark took a step forward, opening his mouth to call out to them.

And three tall figures suddenly emerged from the stand of shrubbery nearest the woods.

Loki found his hands flying to his mouth, suppressing a cry of terror. Stark took a startled, stumbling step forward, just as one of the three, a woman with long muddy-brown hair, flicked her wand from one boy to the other, and called out,

"Imperio!"

Thor and Clint jerked, and then turned toward her, their expressions blank. Stark raised his wand, but he obviously realized they too far away for him to cast a counter-curse. As the horrified Hufflepuffs and Slytherins watched, the woman gestured. Both Gryffindor boys dropped their broomsticks and followed her toward the Forbidden Forest.

The other two intruders were men, one of them tall and thin with black hair and pale skin, the other with gingery hair. They ran forward to pick up Thor's Lightning Bolt and the school broom Clint had been carrying. The black-haired man reached down to pick up something from the ground- probably a wand dropped by Thor or Clint.

From the edge of the Forest, the woman called sharply, and Loki's breath caught in his chest as he heard her.

And then all five of them disappeared into the Forest.

Stark, his face white with horror, looked around at the others. "Get to Greenhouse One and tell Professor Sprout what just happened. Barton, you go with them. Stick together, all of you, and run."

And then Stark, wand in hand, started across the clearing toward where the others had gone into the Forest.

Barney immediately said something under his breath and took off after Stark. Dennis grabbed at his cloak.

"Barton, no. Stark said- "

Without even looking at him, Barney slapped Dennis's hand away. "That's my little brother they just took. You lot go and bring help, as quick as you can. I'm going after Clint."

Loki made a decision. The next moment he was slithering through the bushes after Barney. He could hear someone following him- more than one someone- but he didn't look back.

Whatever Thor wanted to believe, he and Loki were still brothers, at least as far as Loki was concerned, and Loki wasn't leaving him to be kidnapped and... and hurt by Death Eaters.

And there was something else, too.

When the tall, thin black-haired man stopped to pick up the fallen broomsticks and whatever the other thing was, Loki had heard what the woman called to him:

"Hurry up, Felix!"

Felix. Felix Campbell-Hardwicke.

Wand clutched in his hand, Loki ran after Barney and Stark into the Forbidden Forest, where Loki's brother had just been taken by Loki's birth parents.