Blink of the Gods

by corvusdraconis

[HG/Loki] AU: There's far more to Hermione Granger than anyone ever expected. Most of all, herself. EWE, NC, M for Safety [COMPLETE]

3. Chapter 3

A/N: I blame…Halvor. Definitely his fault.

Beta Love: The Dragon and the Rose, Dutchgirl01, Flyby Commander Shepard

---

Blink of the Gods

Chapter 3

Every parting gives a foretaste of death,

every reunion a hint of the resurrection.

-Arthur Schopenhauer

---

As Thor stepped out of the Bifröst, he believed he had been transported to the wrong Realm.

"Heimdall, this is not funny! I asked to be taken to my brother!"

Bitter cold cut him to right to the bone, but Thor worried far more for Jane, who he was carrying in his arms. He had some resistance to the cold of Miðgarðr, at least for a while, as it was not the cold of places such as Jötunheimr. That realm was far colder than most, and it required actual warmth-preserving clothing.

Jane's teeth were chattering harshly, and Thor realised his time schedule had been moved up.

"Jane," Thor insisted. "You must hold on."

He pulled off his cape, one of the few warming things he had on his person, and wrapped it around her like a snug cocoon to help preserve her warmth. He slipped the warming stone in between the cloth wraps, activating it to provide some extra heat. Her teeth had stopped chattering, and she seemed calmer, but Thor knew the Aether was only biding its time until it could be free again— free to join with Malekith or some other doomed soul. Malekith would be decidedly worse, as the dark elf had seemingly bonded to it just enough to be able to utilise its power using his own magic.

Thor looked around, completely confused. It wasn't like Heimdall to joke, nor was it like him to do anything without being fully aware of what he was doing, so why—

Was this Jötunheimr?

Seemed oddly cold enough.

"Brother, are you here?" he called into the howling wind and sounds of squawking birds.

There were birds in this cold? He couldn't imagine the birds from the royal gardens doing well in a place like this.

Thor started to walk off in a random direction, but he could barely see his nose let alone anything else.

"Looking for me, brother?" a familiar voice said, venom dripping off of every syllable. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

Loki stood still as a lamp post in the freezing winds. Only his hair seemed to move. His eyes, shifting from blue to green, burned like will-o-the-wisps.

Thor, his expression ecstatic, rushed up. "Brother! It is good to see you! I am in need of your help!" Yet, when he tried to embrace his brother, his arms went through air as the illusion vanished. He tripped, and Jane fell from his arms into the snow.

"Brother, please!" Thor pleaded, "she will die!"

Loki stood on an outcrop, his lips pressed into a thin line as he looked at the bundle in the snow. "And what of my mate, my wife," he hissed. "What of her, who you condemned to the icy seas without so much as a chance to prove herself? The people who were almost killed, they whose only fault were to be born Jötunn and wishing to be married?"

Thor's face twisted in agony. "Please, I am sorry. I swear that I did not know. I truly thought you to be ensorcelled. I thought you out of your mind! But this— she's dying, brother. Please! Help me save her!"

"Do you think me a healer? I am not. Take your infatuation to Ásgarðr and let them fix her weak body." Loki's face was as if set in stone, every edge seemingly frozen in place— frozen in anger.

"Ásgarðr cannot help her!" Thor exclaimed. "They tried! They said only Lady Gudrun could help her now!"

"Whom you heedlessly cast off into the unforgiving sea."

"Brother," Thor pleaded. "Please. I beg you. Visit whatever punishment upon me that you must, but please take me to Lady Gudrun so Lady Jane does not suffer."

"I will not."

"Brother, please!"

"I cannot."

Thor's face twisted in confusion.

"I have not seen her since the day you murdered her," Loki said, his eyes fierce.

"But—" Thor's despair was thick.

"I have lived a half-life for longer than this mortal has even lived-and then I found her, the sole, solitary being of all the Realms whose very life seemed bound to mine, who brought peace to my restless soul, and you—" Loki snarled. "You murdered her like you destroy everything around you! Look ye now upon what you've left broken around you even now!"

Thor looked at Jane, still bundled up in his cape.

A low growl shook the ground, causing both brothers to whirl, startled.

"You are not welcome here, outlanders. Your visitation was not expected or authorised. Leave by whatever portal you came through before the cold swallows you up or the frigid seas drag you under to your death."

A slender figure stood almost in defiance of the bitter cold. Flowing robes, barely a shift in such frozen conditions, blew impressively in the wind. A gold and silver mask that resembled a skull covered their entire face. The face was frozen in a grimace like the oni masks Japanese samurai wore into combat. A giant creature, perhaps feline in nature— black as pitch with silvery body armor and a chanfron and crinet that covered its great head and neck with a snarling facade over a very real snarling muzzle full of very sharp, elongated pearly-white fangs. Glowing blue eyes stared out at them from behind protective eye shields.

The guardian figure stood silent and unmoving.

"I mean not to trespass, good person!" Thor said. "I come seeking a healer for my friend. She is known as Lady Gudrun! Have you ever seen such a person?"

"Many people have I seen, interloper. Do describe the person you seek more carefully."

"I—" Thor halted. "I do not know."

"How very unfortunate for you. Leave here at once." The figure turned slightly to face Loki. "And you. What is your purpose for being here? Do you, too, have a friend in need of a healer whose face you cannot even describe?"

"The one I search for may now wear a different face, but—" Loki's brows furrowed. "She is the other half of me, the one for whom I have longed for as long as I have felt the emptiness deep within my soul."

Thor stormed forward impatiently. "I must insist! Take me to Lady Gudrun at once! Lady Jane is dying!"

The figure looked toward Thor. "Just about everyone dies, stranger, but my patience with you has grown thin. Leave."

The beast beside her lowered its head and sniffed the immobile Jane. Her skin was already turning blue with cold. It growled and nudged its companion.

"Leave your friend here and go," the figure said as it picked up Jane and put her over the beast's back. They turned and walked back into the blinding snow.

"No! I must come with you!" Thor protested, staggering after Jane in a panic.

"The hell you will," Loki said as his magic flung Thor into the side of the hidden mountain. "We have some unfinished business, you and I."

Thor staggered up from where he was thrown, trying desperately to go after Jane only to find himself hopelessly lost in a field of white as the biting cold closed in around him.

---

"Couldn't you have just tossed them into the ocean?" Severus bemoaned as Hermione pulled the mask off and tucked it away, pulling the bundle of Jane off Halvor.

The big cat shook himself, the illusion of the battle armour and darkened fur disappearing, returning him to his usual white-blue fur.

The sounds of a rather epic brawl sounded from outside as it joined the sound of wind and waves— and a few avalanches.

"This woman is in dire need of care," Hermione said, shaking off the snowy garments. "She's human, and the ones above are most decidedly not. There is something alien in her veins— her very soul is infested."

Severus rushed up, wand in hand as he ran it over Jane's body. His eyes widened as he saw the strange veins of red and black particles patchworked across her pale skin. "What in Merlin's—"

"I do not know, Severus," Hermione said, "but I think we need to treat her like a cursed object until we can get a better idea of what is going on with her." Hermione waved her hand and traced a complex series of runes in the air and flung it towards the wall. The wall moved backwards, forming a new room with a personal and more traditional bed in it. She levitated Jane over to the bed, stoked the fire, and covered her with thick blankets.

Severus uncorked a potion, sniffed it, and used his wand to put the flask to Jane's lips, avoiding actually touching her. "This will work well enough for Muggles," he said, "at least to warm her up. The rest, well, doesn't look like anything either of us has dealt with before."

Hermione frowned and nodded. "Halvor said she smells human, but the other two up there do not. They look human, but—"

"Who knows," Severus finished her thought. "The company we keep lately and all… " he trailed off.

Jane's face had started to turn pink instead of blue, and she progressed from stiffness to teeth chattering to curling up tighter under the blankets.

Severus waved his wand over her, heating the blankets with a strong warming charm. "She looked like she needs a little extra," Snape commented, brows furrowing.

Hermione nodded in agreement. "Thank you, Severus."

"Who is she?" he asked, but the unsaid was clear. Why did she care when she usually guarded the gateway with a clinical detachment?

"I don't know, but— she seems to be a victim of this, whatever it is," Hermione said. She pressed her hands together as if to pray, and her hands shone as she willed a spell into existence, and it faded soon after. "I messaged Steven, but he may not receive it until later. Apparently, there is some family off summoning demons in a mall somewhere in Arizona. But I know what this is— isn't in any of the lessons. This is new— or something so old that it's buried deep."

Severus nodded. "There are many such things in whichever world you choose to make your home in, be it Muggle, magical, or beyond. This seems… bigger somehow. It made you bring her here instead of just porting her randomly to a hospital. I know you suspect something."

"I'll put the wards up to alert us if there are any changes," Hermione said.

Severus looked up, still hearing the sounds of the impending cataclysm above ground.

"I'll dampen the sound too," she added, giving Snape a weary smile.

"Much appreciated," the wizard replied. "You'd think they were trying to kill each other up there."

Hermione yawned. "I think they are. If they are still moving around in the morning, I'll have to check on them and force-gate them out to somewhere."

"Any idea where? Or do you just throw a dart?" Severus asked.

Hermione smiled. "That's a great idea."

Snape pinched his nose. "Glorious."

Hermione yawned and leaned on him. "You warm enough?"

"Oh don't worry about me, Hermione. Your fuzzy arachnid friends take great pains to keep me comfortable," he said with amusement.

Hermione smiled as a loud crash came from above and the telltale sound of sliding snow. She shook her head. "Sleep well, Severus."

"And you," the black-robed wizard said, tilting his head before sweeping from the room in a flurry of black cloth.

---

Hermione walked along the glacier, frowning as parts of the prettier areas were ransacked by the two interloping fighters. She closed her eyes, listening to the sounds of the sea birds and fur seals, happy that the skies had cleared and that her natural residents were seemingly unharmed. Whenever she had to tend the gateway, she dressed in actual robes and a mask as it made a better impression than standing there in her morning wear with her coffee in hand.

Then again, maybe that would make a better impression, she thought.

As her feet touched the frozen snow, she marvelled at how good it felt to have contact with the ice, feeling the water so close. The fact she did not freeze, even in lands such as this, never ceased to amaze her. As a child, it didn't seem to miraculous, but as she grew older the relationship with the snow and ice became a well-guarded secret— not that she was ashamed of it. No, she guarded it because it was something of hers. Something she knew others didn't have. It was her secret, her joy, and her refuge from the stress of life. Cold eventually drove even the cold hearty witch or wizard indoors, but Hermione would sit, bundled in whatever clothes made her seem less normal, privately enjoying the peace of the winter season.

Even if the cold brought on a sense of longing for something she had no idea what could fill it. Nothing and none ever did. Crookshanks had filled a part of it, though she had no idea at the time. The quest for knowledge and magic and later sorcery filled some more, but there was always that gaping chasm that yearned for completion.

As she found two crumpled fighters completely flat on their backs in the snow (some of which had gathered on top of them like a coat of icing on a cake) she had to smile. So focused on beating on each other, they couldn't be bothered to use their energy to leave. Still, they were still here, and the question of why one would bring the woman here for—

Lady Gudrun.

Hermione's brows creased. That was the name from her dreams. The name from the visions from Steven's Eye.

Were these idiots from Ásgarðr?

My Lady.

A press of lips against the back of her hand—

The gentle tickle of warm breath against her skin.

Hermione shook herself, banishing the thoughts from her mind. She was alone. Whatever thing her soul longed for was long gone. The image in her mind of the blue-skinned, crimson eyed lover was just a dream, nothing more.

She hardened herself to deal with the trespassers, putting the gold and silver mask over her face to protect her identity and her voice from being recognised. She walked over to the fallen combatants. One looked like he was succumbing to the cold at last. His skin was a rather unhealthy light blue, as were his lips. Of all the places to get into a fight with someone—

The other was laying in the snow like he was asleep, his mess of dark hair covering his face.

She hadn't really looked at them earlier in the snowstorm. Short of scanning them for immediate danger and putting a tracer spell on them in case they tried to move off somewhere on Earth, it hadn't been a priority. The weather usually drove invaders away easily as very few wanted a world that froze them to death.

Hermione traced a circle around the larger and unhealthily blue one with her feet and then over-layed her spells over the ground in a magical circle. She used her hands to make an intricate gesture, tying the gate to whatever "home" he had. She stepped back, pressing her hands together in a prayer position and then whipped one hand out, making complex finger motions. The spell surrounded the man's body as the gate formed around him.

Hermione snapped her fingers, and the gate consumed him, throwing him back to whatever home he belonged to with an added Obliviate to where he had been for the past day. She didn't need him to return again, especially after the number he'd done trashing her home.

As the burly blond man disappeared, Hermione sighed and walked over to the other. He, too, would have to be gated back to whence he came from. Yet, as she knelt down and began to draw the circle around the dark-haired on, the wind blew the hair and snow from his face.

Hermione froze. That face—

But that was impossible.

Loki.

She reached to touch his hair and then stiffened, her lips pressed firmly together. She stood, waving her hand as the man's body was wrapped in ether and carried along with her as she disappeared into the glacier's depths once more.

---

"I would recommend not sitting up quickly," a voice said quietly.

Loki opened his eyes blearily as his mind tried to piece together where he was and how he got there. He stared blearily as a dark figure with pale skin eyed him.

"Where am I?" He paused. "Forgive me, I am Loki. May I ask who you are?"

The figure sighed. "I am Severus. And you are basically in the middle of a frozen nowhere. Earth, if you prefer."

Loki looked around, rubbing his eyes. "I thank you for bringing me somewhere less exposed, as I am quite sure you did not have to."

Severus sniffed. "You needn't thank me. I was not the one who dragged your destructive, snow-covered arse out of the freezing cold."

Loki frowned. "I do not understand, was that not you that told us to leave?"

"Well, had I been out there, I would probably have done the same, but no. It was not I," Severus answered. "I was, however, the one who dressed you as to prevent uncomfortable confrontation."

Loki looked down and realised he was dressed in a loose tunic and soft silk pajama bottoms. "Erm, thank you," he said. His fingers touched the light silk with a little wonder. "I presume I have borrowed your shirt."

Severus arched a brow. "No, the house weavers do that."

"You have people here that do nothing but weave?"

"They are not a people, and they do much more than merely weave."

A clutter of spiders popped in with a tray of food and drink.

"Oh hai!"

"Hallo!"

"Oh, you're up!"

"Excellent."

"Don't neglect your nutrition!"

The spiders scurried off and then poofed in a small popping sound.

Loki's eyes widened. "Spiders?"

"House weavers."

"I see…"

"They aren't native," Severus said.

"We go where our home is!" one of the little spiders said as it finished arranging the breakfast sausages in a neat line.

"Here?" Loki asked, frowning as he found himself talking to a spider.

"Where she is," the spider said, disappearing in a poof of ether.

Loki crinkled his eyebrows.

"You'll find a lot of things here that defy preconceived views of normality," Snape said. He shrugged. "Seeing as you are on the mend, I will leave you to your thoughts. Enjoy your breakfast." He got up to leave.

"Wait—" Loki said.

Snape paused, turning back to look upon Loki. "Yes?"

"How badly was I injured?"

Severus tilted his head. "Your ribs were crushed and your jaw was dislocated, but you seem to be otherwise healing. I am, however, not a healer, but I have seen it enough times when dunderheads beat each other up for whatever reason they can justify doing it."

Loki was going to say something, but the wizard had already swept the room in a blur of black fabric.

---

Loki winced a little as his muscles complained that his battle with his traitorous brother was still a bit too fresh to treat Seeing him standing there, cradling some mortal chit like her life actually mattered after what he had done to his own brother and his brother's fiancee angered him. More than angered him. What gave his brother such gall that he could beg him for help to save his lover after having killed his brother's wife?

Anger.

Betrayal.

Yet even so, he found couldn't deal the blow to his brother that he so desperately wanted to.

He had imagined wringing his errant brother's neck over and over, but when it came right down to it— the actual moment of truth— he just couldn't do it.

He saw her face.

Her face— the horror if he told her that he'd slain his brother for her honour. She would never have wanted that for him.

She was the Goddess of Empathy and Rebirth, and she knew how much he had loved his brother. Deep down, he still did.

As he walked into the next room, it opened into larger, circular room that seemed so achingly familiar. A large fir tree grew in the center, decorated in— the cosmos. There was no other way to describe it. It looked like the view past the walls of Ásgarðr where the Bifröst spanned across space. There were even multi-colored spiders chatting with each other, perched on the boughs of the tree.

A kettle sat on a nearby table, and the inviting scent of the tea caused him a moment of pure pleasure. He realised with some surprise that the walls were carved out of natural rock, as smooth as the marble of Ásgarðr, yet more dark and natural than the shiny and highly polished white and gold of the royal palace.

A shriek came from a nearby room.

"Who are you?! WHERE IS THOR!?"

"Please, you were half frozen to death, and I do not know who you are talking about," a voice answered. "You were dying, and this is a safer place than freezing out on the ice."

"Where is Thor?" a voice screeched.

"I do not know who you speak of. Please describe this Thor."

"He's very tall. Serious muscles. Blond hair. Tall. And um, tall." the voice trailed off, confused. "Where is he? He swore he'd never leave me!"

"I sent him home."

"You sent him HOME? To Ásgarðr? You're lying! He took me away from there. He took me away so I wouldn't— so I couldn't kill anyone else!"

The other voice was silent for a while. "You killed someone?"

Loki concealed himself, eyes going very wide. What in Helheim had happened?

---

"You killed someone?" Hermione said, her voice quiet.

The lady wrung her hands. "It was an accident! I— I just wanted him to stop insulting me!"

"Who?"

"It— it was Thor's father. Ah— All-Father. Odin," she stammered. "There were children. Oh god, there were children. I didn't mean… it just happened. This stuff poured out of me and— I killed them. I killed them."

"Please, tell me your name," Hermione said, her eyes flickering with fire as her fingers traced a complex calming spell in the air out of sight.

Jane's wide, frightened eyes gained a fraction of calm. "J-Jane. My name is Jane. Foster. I. I'm a doctor of. Of, um… " Jane looked confused for a moment. "Astrophysics."

Hermione paused. It wasn't like it was so farfetched to have an utterly different background and also know about Ásgarðr, seeing as she was once a Muggle, then a witch, and now a sorceress, but Jane didn't seem all that comfortable with the lot she had been thrown in with. Then again— what exactly she'd been thrown into was very much still up for discussion. "Do you remember how you got here?"

Jane shook her head. "We jumped into a portal, some sort of, uh, Bifröst he called it. Then it was so cold. I couldn't— I couldn't see. I couldn't breathe. The cold was so—" Jane looked down. "I must have passed out. I remember Thor carrying me. He said we had to find his brother. That his brother would know how to find Lady Brunhield. Gundar. Gunthar? I—" Jane trailed off. "Grundel? Maybe that was it. He said Ásgarðr couldn't help me, but she could— somehow."

Hermione's eyebrows knit together.

"Where is Thor? Please, I need to see him. I can't— I can't do this without him! He knows what's inside me!"

"I'm sorry, Dr Foster, but as I said, he was sent home," Hermione answered. "You are human. He is not, and he was not given permission to gate in to my home."

"Is it because I'm American and you're British?" Jane started to screech, her emotions all over the board.

"Pardon?"

"Is it because we came here without our passports?"

Hermione blinked. "Dr Foster, it has nothing to do with your being American. This merely has to do with why you, a human and mortal astrophysicist, is doing—"

"Astronomer," Jane interrupted.

Hermione raised a brow. "An astronomer is harbouring a very dangerous sort of magic inside you when you show no sign of actual magical training."

"Training?" Jane asked. "There is training for this— this THING?"

Hermione sighed. "I believe there is a form of training for everything," she replied. "It is only a matter of finding the right teacher and being ready for it."

"Look, you don't have to coddle me," Jane said petulantly. "I've been through multiple doctorate degree programs. I know how to learn. I know what learning is."

Hermione sighed. "Dr Foster, I have no doubt you are the top of your field, but what you have now is not quantifiable. If you are a danger to people or beings. If you did kill someone on accident, what makes you think that this Thor could survive it?"

"I would never hurt him!"

"So you would hurt children?"

"NO! NEVER!" Jane cried, "I would never!"

"But you did," Hermione said calmly.

Jane looked even more confused, and the strange black and red particles were oozing out of her body. "Stop twisting my words!" Jane demanded, standing up. She lashed out, the particles moving like whips to her desires.

Hermione had up a shield, but the particles moved right through it and bit into Hermione's skin, leaving a trickle of her blood on her cheek.

Jane's body was alive with black and red crawling particles, but then something changed. The vine-like tendrils of Aether hovered in front of Hermione, lightly brushing her cheek. The wound healed, sealing under the Aether's touch. It curled around her body like a curious cat, exploring, slithering, and seemingly caressing her.

Hermione's eyes closed. "Leave her, and I will consider it. Release her."

The Aether shuddered and fluxed in the air, seeming to breathe in and out and then, in a great explosion, it rushed out of Jane's body in a mass, condensing itself into what looked like a shimmering amulet that closed around her neck. The black and red stone pulsed with something more than just magic.

Jane, however, teetered unsteadily on her feet, and Hermione caught her with magic, guiding her back to the bed once more. She ran her hand just above her body, her eyes glowing, and then she closed her eyes, drawing the duvet over Jane's sleeping form. She banished the barriers around the room and sighed, her fingers touching the stone around her neck. It glowed softly, shimmering.

She turned and exited the room, extinguishing a few of the candles to provide some privacy as she went.

---

Hermione exited the room to find a silken cocoon hanging from the ceiling in the main room. House weaver spiders were swarming over the unfortunate victim, chittering.

"No snooping!"

"Nope!"

"Bad guest behaviour!"

"Bad friend behaviour too!"

"Person in general behaviour?"

"That too!"

"He tried to squish Fiddly!"

"Rude."

"Indeed."

Hermione eyed the upside-down eyes of her mummy-wrapped guest. "I see you are feeling better to be roaming," she said, utterly deadpan.

Her guest made expressive eyebrows, his mouth gagged with silk, rendering verbal response impossible.

"If you promise to behave yourself, then I will arrange for you to be… unwrapped." Hermione raised an amused eyebrow.

"Or you could simply leave the dunderhead up there, seeing as he couldn't keep his curiosity to himself," Severus said as he walked about nursing a fresh mug of tea.

Hermione sighed, shaking her head. "Release him, please," Hermione said to the spiders.

"Okay!" the arachnids chimed, snipping silk.

THUD!

Loki tumbled to the floor.

"Ouch."

"Maybe we should have put a cushion down first?"

"Oops."

"Our bad!"

"Sorry!"

Loki groaned, rubbing his aching head. He looked up to see Hermione already sitting at the table, pouring a cup of tea.

"If you manage not to offend him, Severus may have a pain potion for your head, but I'd recommend not doing anything like trying to spy on him."

Loki flinched. He sat down at the table awkwardly, trying to look less the idiot and more the guest.

He looked at the woman, something stirring in his chest, but his mind told him the things he was looking for wasn't there. His heart however, was in conflict. She was close. Somewhere nearby. But where?

"I am Hermione, and I watch this gateway for intruders who like to sneak in under the cover of night where they often terrorise the local populous," Hermione said, pouring him tea. "This is my home."

Loki looked around more closely. "It is not typical of Miðgarðr, this shelter."

Hermione lifted her head. "Typical in what manner, design or the fact we are under a glacier far below the detection of most surface dwellers?"

Loki blinked. "Yes," he said carefully.

Hermione laughed, and Loki shivered suddenly. It was familiar. Oh so familiar. She lifted one of the spiders up in her hand and gave it a tickle and kiss on the head. The spider wriggled and pressed against her cheek before parachuting off to do— whatever it was strangely subarctic cold-tolerant arachnids did.

"I am Loki Odinson," Loki said after sipping the tea. "I am from Ásgarðr."

Hermione's brows furrowed. "Loki is not a common name, nor that it is affiliated with Ásgarðr. What does a royal prince of Ásgarðr desire of the lowly Miðgarðr?"

Loki startled. "You know of Ásgarðr?"

"Some," Hermione said. "I know that in Norse mythology, Loki is the blood-brother of Odin and has red hair, not black. That to save Freya, he had to turn himself into a mare and lure off a giant's stallion, but ended up having the stallion's foal. It is said, Loki tricked the fair goddess Sigyn into thinking he was her true love, and that she married him, but being loyal, could not divorce him and instead tended him as he was bound to the earth with a great serpent dripping venom upon his body. Sigyn, being dutiful, captured the venom in a bowl, but when she turned to empty it, Loki would quake and writhe, and the Earth would tremble with the power of his torment."

Loki's eyebrows twitched, his lip curling. "I find the… creative license that has been taken regarding my life to be truly appalling, Lady Hermione."

"So, which was creative, giving birth to a horse or being tied to a rock under Miðgarðr by your son's entrails?"

Loki's eyes widened at that. "The latter is definitely not true."

"So the first is at least partially true?" Hermione asked, bemused.

Loki looked away. "The giant in question wished a goddess as payment for his work. No one wanted to perform the task, and I was… quite inebriated on the night in question. My elder brother dared me to lure the stallion away to save Ásgarðr." He cleared his throat a bit uncomfortably. "Well, I did save Ásgarðr."

Hermione eyed him. "I'm sure the stories were— epic,"she commented.

"And greatly exaggerated with every telling," Loki said, shrugging.

Hermione smiled a little, the edges of her mouth flicking slightly upward. "I am quite familiar with such things," she said. "Stories get wilder and wilder, and more embellished, then even your own friends cannot remember the truth anymore."

Hermione sighed and gestured to a book laying on the table. "That is the evil of stories told and penance made too late."

Loki looked at the book, his fingers gingerly touching the cover. "The Boy Who Lied — The True End to the Wizarding World by Harry James Potter?"

Hermione sighed. "Long ago, we grew up together. There was a war. His parents died, and he survived. People thought him a hero— a boy who survived being hit by a killing curse. But stories are rarely all true, and he was close to a family who treated him like a son, built up his ego, and thought him a hero. There was a battle— a great one— but the end had a great, horrible battle that pitted a young wizard against a older and more vicious foe. He fell, and I— not wishing to lose my best friend— threw myself into the spell, fulling expecting to die to give him the chance to live. When the smoke cleared, the people believe him the hero, and my two best friends eagerly embraced the fame and story, casting me aside for their own careers and, for one, an endless supply of silly females to shag."

"That," Hermione said, "is Harry Potter's attempt to make amends for arranging for me rot in prison while he married the witch who could not be satisfied by one man alone. He did not know this at the time, but, shall we say, a chain of calamities have followed him around since his betrayal— and before you ask, I did not visit this upon him, at least not directly."

Hermione rotated her shoulders. "Steven calls it karma, but the Wizarding World calls it a life debt. A sort of check and balance magic does, regardless of what you think— for the saving of a life with magic."

Loki withdrew his hand from the book as though it had scalded him. "How many people did you save with that act of magic?"

Hermione's eyes flashed. "All of Wizarding Britain."

Loki's eyebrows lifted. "You bend an entire nation to your debt, and you let them incarcerate you?"

Hermione smiled. "I was rescued."

Loki cracked his neck. "I see."

"I cannot blame an entire culture for wishing to hold onto their heroes." Hermione said. "They collectively allowed themselves to believe in the lie."

Loki looked up. "You let them believe a lie?" Loki's voice trembled with anger.

Hermione's lip curled. "No, they saw the truth right in front of them and believed what they desired to anyway."

Hermione's voice went cold, her posture straightened. "Just as you did seconds ago." Fire glistened in her eyes as she stood. "Enjoy your tea, Loki Odinson."

She swept from the room with startling speed, with only the blur of her robes whipping behind her.

Loki stared into the space she had just been, his brain desperately trying to figure out why he felt such a keen sense of pain in his chest.

A ginger-coloured cat jumped down from the hearth and trotted out the room after his mistress, but not before giving him a strong evaluating glare. The cat flipped his tail back and forth as it disappeared down the hall.

---

"It's not him," Hermione said, thumping her head back against Halvor's side. "It's not. The person I remember— was a dream. A past. And you can't tell me that however many hundreds to thousands of years it was that he didn't change— that he didn't' find someone else! That I even matter! I'm better off shoving those childish fantasies that someone could possibly be meant for me. Life is not some Disney fairy tale."

Thwack.

Severus sat beside her after smacking upside the head. "Don't be a dunderhead."

Hermione blinked.

"Do you think people, here, there, or anywhere do not change but still love the things they love? Look at you. Look how much you have changed since you were ten. Can you truly tell me you are the same person you were back when you threw yourself in front of that curse? Can you say I haven't?"

"You're still a snarky bastard, Severus."

"Oh, but now I'm a better snarky bastard, my dear," he said.

Hermione huffed, slumping against Halvor.

"As long as there are people, some semblance of sentience, there will be dunderheads— and the human species has more than less," Severus said. "The miracle is that some of us survive the stupid things we do in our youth and become something better, or in my case, worse."

Hermione jabbed Severus with her elbow, but she snuggled into his shoulder, burying her face into robes.

Severus sighed, tolerating her clinginess, but his expression softened. "My best friend changed into something petty and cruel, but my nemesis know-it-all-student, hand-waving chit became my best friend. If you can tell me, honestly, that you have not changed, then by all means, have your little temper tantrum and hold your Occlumency shields up high, but I think, if you tear down that wall you've built around yourself, you'll find the part of yourself you've been searching for in the wrong place."

Hermione muttered into his robes. "When did you get so perceptive?"

"Years of avid practice teaching idiotic children who foolishly believed themselves to be not in need of such things," he replied with a curl of his lip.

Hermione shook her head. "Most children have no experience in how to judge such things."

Snape snorted. "Some more than others. The Weasleys, for example, were all over the board. Some, like Mr Longbottom, seemed doomed from birth."

"Severus!"

He leveled her with a look, his eyebrows raised. "Look me in the eye and tell me that he didn't need considerable help with even the most basic potion and that he would not have failed had you insisted on helping him every time my back was turned."

Hermione flushed.

Snape grunted. "You were insufferable. Some people need to blow themselves up in order to realise they are a serious danger to everyone around them."

"He just needed to find what he was good at, and you have to admit his passion for Herbology was great," Hermione advocated.

"Outside of any potions lab or classroom, yes."

Hermione slumped, mumbling something about coleslaw.

Severus grunted. "I happen to like coleslaw myself. You needn't mumble about it."

Hermione looked at Severus and laughed, defeated. "I love you, you know that, right?"

Severus' face softened. "Everyone has knee-jerk reactions, Hermione. Give that one a chance. Had it been a conversation about the ley line dynamics of interstellar portalling, you'd have simply agreed to disagree and left it at that."

Hermione gave him a look. "You did pay attention during our card game with Steven."

"I may not be interested in saving the world from interstellar threats, Hermione, but I don't close my ears, either," he said with a chuckle.

Hermione smiled at him. "Fine, but after we hunt. Halvor is itching for something to eat, and he prefers to eat it fresh and from my hands."

"You realise how odd that is considering most pets and even familiars vacuum up food without caring that its fresh and from your hands, yes?"

Hermione smiled. "Halvor is a hearth-beast. The bond is strengthened through hunts and sharing them, sleeping with them near, and making them a part of your family."

"I just wish he'd stop shedding on my robes," Snape commented rather sourly. "I've collected enough hair to crochet myself a sizeable afghan."

"Warmest sleep you'll have next to being with the real thing," Hermione said with a smile.

Snape rolled his eyes.

"You know you want first pick of a litter, if we end up with a female that meets his qualifications," Hermione teased.

Snape eyed Hermione somewhat suspiciously. "Planning on expanding the underground lair?"

"That's entirely up to Halvor," Hermione said. "But I'd imagine, when he feels it's time, it won't take long for a female to find everything she wants in Halvor."

"Just what the world needs. More profusely shedding furballs," Snape said wryly, just as Halvor thumped into him with his head and pinned down his legs to rub his cheek up and down Snape's prone form. "Nnngh!"

Hermione smiled.

Victory.

---

"You will tell me, Jötunn, where the Aether is!"

The Jötunn cracked his neck. "Your words are hollow, Malekith," Arvid said. "What insanity would have you believe that I or any of Jötunheimr would have any interest in or inclination to harbour such a thing?"

"I know it is here. I saw the ice, the snow, the glaciers so clearly in my mind. There is no place but Jötunheimr that has such a thing so close that I could taste it," Malekith said. "And I will obliterate your entire village and every other village I find until your pathetic people give me the location of the one hosting the Aether!"

"It is not here," Arvid repeated. "You can ask whoever you so choose, but the answer will remain the same. If you have such a bond with such a thing, you would feel it here, yes? Do you?"

Malekith's desperate eyes fogged for a moment. Then his icy eyes opened and he glowered at the taller Jötunn. "You lie."

He pulled out his blades and pointed them at the Jötunn. "I will carve the truth out of you."

Arvid grasped his spear. "May the Great Frost Mother find you lacking, elf, for your kind destroyed your own home out of a lust for power and live in a godless nation with no room for those better than you."

"You're not better than me, Jötunn," Malekith snapped, his blades clashing against Arvid's spear.

Arvid's face looked upon Malekith's with true pity. "I am not the one who will be your end, elf. There will always be something bigger and more powerful than you."

Malekith sneered. "I will defeat them all as I defeat you."

---

As Hermione stood on the icy outcrop, Halvor licking the remnants of the seal off her fingertips, all hell set loose, or rather, fell from the skies and landed in the frozen sea with an enormous splash.

She exchanged glances with Halvor, and the big cat looked at her with wide eyes and some stiffening of his neck scruff. "What was that?"

Hermione wasn't quite sure what she had seen, but it looked like someone had cut a giant hole out of a frozen ice cap and then ported it in from some other place.

Her fingers worked rapidly, tracing scanning spells as she tried to ascertain if she was going to need help for whatever had come through. She frowned as her spells told her little other than there were two living things that had fallen through the ice, both were severely injured, and there was a vast difference in size between them.

"Useless spell," Hermione muttered, tracing another one with her fingers. If they were anything short of sub-zero loving creatures, the ice and almost-frozen water would not treat them well, and Hermione realised she had to move quickly to save them— she could figure out if they were in need of banishment to another dimension later.

"Halvor," she said, pulling out a silken cord from her belt and enlarging it. She handed him an elongated bar covered in leather. The great feline clamped it between his jaws. She nodded to him, securing the other end to a clip attached to the belt on her waist and dove into the water with a splash.

Halvor waited, his teeth clenched around the bar, having done this so many times before.

He waited.

He waited.

His whiskers wrinkled in a grimace as he sneezed, getting strands of ropey saliva frozen down the bar's ends.

He waited some more.

Suddenly there was a tug, and he backpedaled, using his substantial weight to heave his mistress and whatever else back up to the surface and the shore. His feet slid, and he dug his claws in, wrenching the rope backwards as he inched his way a little at a time.

Hermione broke the surface, her arm wrapped around a humanoid body as she kept his head above water. There was a larger humanoid fastened to the end of the rope, the cord fastened over his chest and under his arms. She signalled Halvor with her hands as both victims of the fall were on the shore, and the frost sabre dropped the bar and bounded over to her.

Hermione used compressions on the smaller one as she gestured to Halvor, projecting in her mind what she wanted the cat to do. The frost sabre caught her image of him pouncing on the frost mink like a coyote in the snow, and Halvor pounced on the larger giant, using his front legs to compress the Jötunn's chest.

Water spewed from each victim's mouth, and they seemed to be breathing steadily, but their eyes did not open. She patted Halvor to get him to stop pouncing the Jötunn's ribs, whispering a soft apology to no one in particular. His face was swollen and distorted, cut in some places, bruised in others. It reminded Hermione of Harry after being hit with a stinging hex to the face.

Not knowing who these victims or interlopers were, she set to work on building a temporary shelter— far away from her Sanctum and the people she was protecting. She summoned the whale bones from her cache, using them to construct the skeleton of the shelter, cut slices of ice and long-packed snow to form the walls.

Her eyes closed as her magic crafted what her mind remembered.

"The whale bones are are gift of the great whales, who give us life with theirs. But their bones— they are strong and flexible and a gift of the Great Frost Mother's foresight. The smaller whales give us tools, but the great frost whale is supreme. Their bones form the shelters that withstand the use and the moving of our camps from one season to the next. Their deaths feed our families for many turns of the season, and their bones are treasured above all others. We carve our family's names as well as prayers to our Great Frost Mother upon them and they are passed down from generation to generation. Now, this, Gudrun, is how to set them so they will always flex with the strain of wind and snow. I will teach you the runes we carve into them once you have mastered how they are placed."

"Elder, what do we do if there are more bones than Jötunn that need them?"

"We cache them in the areas where the spring breakup cannot steal them, marking the place we bury them for those who need them. Sometimes families grow larger or a family needs more bones to make storage. We cannot foresee such things, but we can plan for its possibility."

"Elder," Gudrun said, "I am so small. How can I move the jawbones of the great whale by myself?"

"Do not worry, little Gudrun," the Elder said kindly. "We shall always be around to assist while you are here, but one day, you may need to make a shelter by yourself and you will not falter because all of this will be right here."

He pointed to her head and poked it playfully.

Gudrun beamed "Okay! I'm ready to learn!"

The Jötunn Elder smiled. "Excellent, now let us start with the proper placement of the jawbones."

Hermione sent out tendrils of magic with her eyes closed, feeling for what she needed and guiding it to where her mind remembered. She and Halvor had done this together many, many times. It was the blessing of having a hearth-beast, whose very size helped with placement of the jawbones in the key places before other, smaller bones could go. In her mind's eye, the bones were larger, and she knew that the Earth whales were not even close to the smallest whale of Jötunheimr.

What she didn't realise was that the Aether started to swirl around her, responding to her need, elongating the bones and reforming them to her mental picture— a buried memory under so many other memories. Halvor held each bone in place, and the spiders poofed in to serve as her extra set of hands or rather legs. They wove the bones together in place with their super strong and flexible silk then poofed into another position and repeated.

She sank the supports into the frozen ground and conjured water to freeze them in place. She layered the ice and snow bricks around the skeletal supports to provide the insulation from the cold. She carefully made holes to serve as the chimney for the hearthfire and then added other vents to protect the occupants from smothering. After constructing the entrance and the tunnel that would serve as the heat trap and keep the inside warm and undrafty, she crafted the hearth, lit the fire, and then made the bedding shelves— a smaller one for the human-sized victim and a much larger one for the Jötunn.

The Aether returned around her neck as a pendant as her eyes opened, and she stared in confusion as the obviously larger shelter stood before her. The tail-end of Halvor disappeared into the shelter as he dragged the two victims into the shelter without her even asking him to.

"Thanks, Crooksie," she said, falling into his older, er, newer name by a strange habit. She shook her head. Regardless of name, Halvor was Halvor— wicked intelligent and fully capable of handling anything he wished to.

She walked into the shelter, smiling as the spiders had already woven a thick door cover to keep the bitter cold from reaching the inside. She walked up the small stairs to the sleeping area and gasped as she discovered that the inside was far more than just a makeshift shelter. The sleeping shelves were lined with a soft layer of waterproof sealskin and the wounded strangers had already been bandaged and dressed in comfier, loose-fitting nightclothes. Tea brewed by the hearth and a cauldron burbled with thick stew.

"Wow," she breathed. Hermione boggled, had she not known that the shelter was new, she would have thought it well lived-in.

She tried to go over in her head what she had done, but her mind refused to tell her where she had gone wrong… or right. Resigning herself to acceptance, she sent a Patronus to Severus so he wouldn't worry and a message to inform Steven of her chain of unexpected guests. She figured he'd get to it when he wasn't off saving the universe from bigger and badder things or trying to fix his relationship with Christine Palmer. Both were epic pursuits according to Severus, who had had to listen to an inebriated Steven's woes late one night when he'd discovered Severus' stash of concentrated ice wine and hadn't realised that it was, in fact, highly concentrated.

Concerned that the two might be mortal enemies as well as unfortunate victims of the same calamity, Hermione wove a few protective wards and intricate barrier spells to keep the two from seeing each other while they healed enough to regain consciousness. For now, she had to make sure nothing showed up on Muggle scans, jamming their devices to record nothing but static, the yelping of fur seals, and the shrieking calls of overenthusiastic sea birds. While she had taken care of such things long ago, checking them was just standard practice.

Halvor was giving her a look, beckoning her over with a fluffed tail and placing his head gently on the unconscious Jötunn's chest. The gesture caused her to jolt, as the massive feline was very picky about bestowing his affections. She approached, placing her hands over their face and sending cooling magic through the Jötunn's facial tissue. Steven had taught her a few spells to help with aches and bruises, but not all were talented in the healing arts to do more. Hermione, however, did, but it required actually touch, and touch—

Touch came with complication such feeling the other creature, person, or being's emotions. While she gave her touch freely to her friends and colleagues she'd known after years of working with them, but touching other sentients could turn out a garbled mess.

Yet— perhaps such things would help her find out what had happened to this unfortunate and displaced Jötunn.

She placed her hand against his inflamed skin, her memories recalling what normal, healthy Jötunn skin should feel like. She closed her eyes and slowly lowered the shields she had so carefully constructed as well as her Occlumency barriers, which had protected her from the pains of her own life.

She hesitated.

Halvor nudged her arm, snuffling her. She placed her head to his, drawing his head close as she took in a deep breath.

The great cat's unconditional love suffused her entire being as she braced herself for the drop in her shields and Occlumency.

The moment she did—

---

A frost sabre's eyes locked with hers as his pure adoration filled her with love and joy . His little cub paws pinned her down as his head rubbed up against her, marking her as his, his, his.

---

Halvor attempted to claw and bite his way into their first hunted seal— their first they had ever managed together. His baby teeth were already formidable, but his skill set was not quite there yet. Gudrun, shaky from their first team effort, slashed the seal from jaw to tail, struggling hard to pull the heart from carcass that was considerably bigger than she was.

It was bigger than the both of them.

How the hell were they going to get that home?

First things first.

She sank her arms into the steaming carcass, pulling out the choice pieces of her first kill. Her body trembled with adrenaline, barely able to do the task at hand. She piled the heart, lungs, and viscera in a pile. Her knife was sharp, one of Halvor's first shed fangs, but her attempt to wrench the head off the seal to get it to the offering pile was starting to feel like a war of attrition. Halvor nudged her over and clamped his mouth around the head, using his full weight to sever the head from the spine. The neck gave way, and then the head and Halvor went tumbling backwards with a startled yowl and an undignified thump.

She rushed up to him, soothing him with her hands, and he licked the blood off her face and arms, then they both dragged the head over to the offering pile together. She placed it in the middle of the makeshift altar and used the dagger to chip the ice free from the edge.

"Great Frost Mother," she said. "This is our first kill. Please accept this offering as is your due, for your gaze is ever around us, and nothings lives or dies without your knowing here on Jötunheimr. I am but a lowly hunter who wishes to provide for my hearth-beast and family, who have always been at my side."

Hnnnnnnnngggggghhh!

Gudrun gasped as the great frost whale surfaced, its massive head rising up from the water as it blew air from its blowhole. I stayed, unmoving as if waiting.

Gudrun felt her legs grow weak. The great frost whale was huge. She felt like the frost mouse and Halvor. Even the Jötunn were dwarfed by the great frost whale— it was no hard connection to see why any Jötunn of the frozen wastes didn't see them as exactly what they were: the Great Frost Mother's messengers, witnesses, and testers of her faith.

She chipped the last of the offering off the ice and let it float towards the whale. The small, seemingly paultry offering bonked into its nose.

The whale's jaws opened, exposing lines of huge, impressively sharp teeth. The rush of water carried the tiny raft of ice into its mouth.

Rrreeeeah!

Click. Click. Click.

Buurreah! Uh-e-ah!

Gudrun gasped as a young frost whale bumped and nudged its mother, diving under and around her. She ran back to the seal carcass and cut off "her" share of the kill, making sure Halvor had his share to eat, dragging it back to the edge. The calf had already bumped his nose over the ice shelf, perhaps knowing what she intended.

The calf opened its mouth, showing off his shining baby teeth and pink tongue. She heaved the chunk of seal meat into the calf's expectant mouth as she noticed the calf's dorsal fin was torn and bleeding from some sort of predator. She had no doubt the mother whale had torn the offender to shreds— but the calf had still taken some damage. Nothing bothered a full-grown frost whale— but another frost whale. Even the mighty sharks seemed to know better.

Calves, however, if they could catch one exploring away from their mother and the rest of the pod of protective relatives, were fair (if terribly risky) game.

Gudrun's heart ached for the injured little whale, and she reached out to it, wanting to ease its pain— pain she could feel.

"I want to help you," she whispered.

The little whale raised its head, and the top of his beak touched her hands.

A flood of his pain caused her to crumple, but she could feel energy moving around her hands and moving into the calf's body. The connection, as intense as it was intimate, connected her to the calf, its mother, the rest of the pod that swam deeper under the ice. Then—

She felt it— the connection to She-Who-Watches, the Great Frost Mother, Herself.

She felt the goddess guide her hands and her magic into the calf.

Tissue knit together. Skin sealed, scarred, and then smoothed out, remodelling itself until there was no trace of the wound.

Hrreeeee!

Eeehhahhh!

Zzzzeee! Erraah!

The pod was approaching with excitement, and Gudrun found herself plastered to the little calf's back, hanging onto the dorsal fin for dear life. The larger whales made excited clicks and whistles, nudging the little one as it made happy whistles in return. It surged forward, taking her with him as he weaved and bobbed around his mother and the rest of the pod.

Halvor, distressed, tried to follow, pacing back and forth on the edge of the water.

The mother whale, possibly amused in her own way, used her head to pry the ice away and supplanted the large frost sabre onto her beak and carried him with as the pod went out to sea, taking their abductees with them. Halvor's fur stood on end as he clung to the back of the whale, his claws doing nothing to help against a creature so much larger than anything he'd ever gone against. He clambered over to the blow hole and dorsal fin— the only place he could get purchase, looking around with wide eyes.

Gudrun squealed as the baby whale took her on a ride of her life, bobbing in and out of the waves, in and out of the freezing water, and further than she'd ever been from shore. The larger— oh so much larger— adults whistled, clicked, and sang around them. Other calfs joined in, dipping and playing around the once-injured calf, some seemingly jealous of the new thing their pod-mate had. The nudged and whistled, wanting in on the fun, using their beaks to dislodge the prized passenger and taking her on even faster rides through the water— like a strange game of keep-away.

The original calf whistled in indignation, chasing after his pod-mates.

The adult whales followed lazily, some breaching, some diving and then breaching.

Gudrun boggled at how graceful they were, even as huge as they were. The stories how the Great Frost Mother breached in the ancient seas, forming the land that blessed the people with places to live became so much clearer.

Halvor, seemingly realising he wasn't being carried out to sea only to be drowned, was less stressed, his curious glances around making him look like a kitten again.

"Halvor! Aren't they beautiful!" Gudrun cried. "They're Her children too!" She stood, gaining confidence as she jumped from calf to calf, spinning with her arms outstretched to the sky. "I hear you, Mother!" she said, tears streaming down her face as an intense, almost-painful joy filled her chest. As her arms went upward, the ghost of fiery feathers began to form on her body, yet she did not notice. A golden orange crest grew from her head as plumes swished behind her in a glowing tail. Long, radiant feathers spread out from her back.

The whales sang, and she let out a joyous warble of song, so caught up in the joy of the moment and the feel of the great goddess' touch that there was nothing else but the emotion and the song. She could sense the connection between this pod and the others— the far off songs of the distant families and the excited chatter of the smaller whales moving out of the way of the larger ones.

Yet, as Gudrun passed them all, she felt as though they all knew no one was hunting this day.

Today was for their Goddess— and the Goddess provided peace as well as tests of survival.

For now, all stomachs would cease their hunger.

For now, all minds would be a peace.

For now, all children would walk in safety. All predators would not be hunting.

Gudrun found the cold did not sting as much. When she opened her eyes, she could see the life in the very air around her, tinting the skies with streams of different colours. Tears flowed from her eyes, and where they landed, the calf beneath her gained glistening prismatic markings to match the colour of the night sky auras that blessed the nights with vibrant displays; old scars turning to something of beauty in a dangerous world.

The calf under— the one who had been through so much— sang to her of the history of the whales, filling her heart with the stories of those who swam in the frozen seas. He was joined by his fellows; and they were joined by the adults. And even Halvor roared into the descending night, his voice joining with the power of the song.

By the time they reached the shore again, Gudrun was fast asleep on Halvor's back. The great cat jumped to the solid ice and turned as the pod whistled and sang before returning to the great frozen sea.

Gudrun was barely aware as the elders picked her up from Halvor's back and carried her back to her parent's shelter, whispering amongst themselves of her first hunt and something greater. As they carried her into her parent's shelter, the two wide-eyed Asgardians seemed to realise something significant had happened.

The elders took out a tin of glowing paste, and with typical Jötunn lack of modesty painted a story in runes across her skin— only as the glowing paste touched her skin, it sank in, rising like the markings of a true Jötunn on her body.

"She is one of us, Asgardians," one of the wizened elders said, his crimson eyes glowing brightly. "For as long as she walks the lands of Jötunheimr, there will be no war between our peoples."

"The Great Frost Mother has sent us a sign," the other said. "If one of Ásgarðr can be accepted by the Great Frost Mother and become a hunter, versed in our ways, then there is hope of understanding between our most different peoples."

"She is young—" another said. "But from now on, she will be taught all our ways as befits a Jötunn."

"For that is what she is— regardless of her stature and colour of her skin."

The last elder had a small boy clinging to his leg, looking around to see what was going on.

"Arvid," the elder said. "She is your hearth-sister. You will protect her as your blood."

The smaller Jötunn's eyes widened. "Yes, father."

The elders tucked Gudrun in next to Halvor, and the great cat snuggled into her.

"She is Marked by the Great Frost Mother," the tallest Elder said, stooped to fit in the "smaller" shelter build for the Asgardians, "and she is now a hunter. That makes her one of us. You may tell your king that you mission has succeeded at last."

The two Asgardians nodded, keeping their heads down respectfully.

As the Elders left, they also dropped the bundles of wrapped meat from Gudrun's first hunt by the hearth. As they passed Gudrun, her hand shot out, grasping one elder's finger. "Two bundles for the elders, the largest for the village."

The elder touched her cheek with his finger. "It will be done, child. Sleep. Today, you are a hunter. Tomorrow, you are Jötunn. Sleep in the Great Frost Mother's embrace."

Gudrun's eyes filled with moisture and she nodded and her eyes closed.

---

"She's already a hunter, father, why do I have to teach her the tricks grandfather taught—"

"Arvid, you will not disgrace us by refusing to share knowledge with one of our own."

"But father, she's not—"

Arvid's father seized him by the belt, yanking him up to see him eye to eye. "You will treat her with the respect she is due, my son. She has had her first hunt before many of us would have dared. She had won the trust of a sacred hearth-beast, and she has ridden the great frost whale— something none of us has dared to even attempt since the time of my grandfather's grandfather. So help me, she is more one of us than that clout Fisk, and she asks for little if anything in return."

"But—"

Arvid's father glowered at his son, and it looked as if he was going to say something further when Gudrun dropped a basket off Halvor's back onto the floor. "Elder Jarl, your bundle of sea plants and your share of the ground akra for your drinks."

The girl's face told all. She had heard everything.

She thumped Halvor on the side as they exited the tent. She bowed respectfully as she left, and then leapt onto the feline's back. They were gone in seconds.

Arvid's father narrowed his eyes as his son. "Pray our Mother will teach you kindly and that the one time Gudrun does not choose to be the kind-hearted creature she is will not be the day you are gravely injured. Get out of my sight, boy."

---

"No, nonono! Gosta!" Arvid wailed as his beloved hearth-beast collapsed under its own weight. It had taken the brunt of the bear's attack, but the wild beast's horns had savaged his hearth-beast's cheek where it had body blocked the attack to protect Arvid.

Gosta groaned, blood staining the frozen ground, trying to get up and protect Arvid.

The great bear, normally solitary, was protecting three cubs, and he had not seen her until he had bent down to gather the fizzing spring water his father liked. It had been foolish. He knew it— his father and grandfather had drilled into him to watch for bears with cubs at this time of season.

Arvid knew he had done wrong, but he had been desperate to regain his father's favour after their fight. Still, he didn't want to admit he was wrong, either. The Asgardians had been underfoot since long before he was born, but he heard so many of the old stories. He know they had killed Jötunn— if not them, those like them. And he? Arvid? He had been born out on the frozen wastes like generations before him. Gudrun's parents couldn't even withstand the ice and snow without multiple layers of heavy clothing and their heating rocks. Who cared if their child could walk the ice floes like a Jötunn when she would remain tiny while everyone that mattered would be tall? Even the frost sabre was already taller than her.

Who cared if her frost sabre hunted something and claimed it for her own? That didn't make her a proper hunter. It made her a mooch like Fisk. Who cared if she fell in the water trying to give her offering to the whales and they rescued her? She was no blessed of the Great Frost Mother.

She was just lucky to be alive.

Gosta bellowed in agony, and Arvid realised nothing mattered but his injured hearth-beast. What would he tell his father coming home empty handed and with news of their dead hearth-beast that had been with them since before Arvid had been born?

Arvid shook his beast's side. "Gosta! You have to get up! You have to go home!"

Gosta, however, was fully focused on protecting Arvid. He strained, growled, and lurched, bones shifting, tendons popping, and groans of pain mixed with the determination of the hearth-beast to protect its family by any means necessary.

Arvid tried to stop Gosta, but Gosta pushed him away, flinging him behind him and into the snow. Arvid cried as he tried to unbury himself, but Gosta lunged at the huge bear again, earning himself a clawed swat across the face. Arvid, desperate, threw ice chunks at the attacking bear.

The bear, struck hard upside the head, whirled in fury, eyes focused on him again. She roared, shoving her cubs behind her as she barreled after Arvid. Gosta was no small beast, but he was no frost beast or even a frost sabre. He was one of the small and sturdy loyal canines that roamed the hilly areas far from the sea. 'Small' was relative, but the fact remained that Gosta was not the biggest defender out there. He was more of a pack animal, and the rest of his family was back home—

Back home, eagerly waiting the return of their mate and dad.

Roawwwwwwwrrrrrrrrr!

A huge white blur shot across the snow and slammed into the charging bear. Paws swatted, claws slashed, and fangs sank in as the bear was tumbled across the snow. Halvor snarled viciously, his teeth flashing as his claws slashed, and he pistoned his legs up and then raked them down the angry bear's thick hide, wrestling the she-bear down with a flurry of slashes, swats and kicks.

Gosta, however, did not retreat as Arvid begged. He limped toward battle, determined to throw himself back into the fray— the fatal flaw of all well-bonded hearth-beasts. Their life meant nothing without their family, and they would live and die protecting their most treasured one. It was in that moment, Arvid understood why Gudrun's bond with Halvor was so tight. While there was nothing Halvor wouldn't do for Gudrun; Gudrun would stop at nothing to protect Halvor. His mother's bond with the the other hearth beasts was nigh unbreakable. Only Gosta seemed more apt to protect him than the rest of his family. Gosta had been born around the same time as Arvid, and the bitch had almost instantly nudged Gosta to Arvid as he slept.

And this was how he had repaid him for his loyalty.

"Gosta, no!" Arvid pleaded. His heart breaking as he realised that his actions would bring about the loyal creature's end. Gosta, however, saw only the danger to his best friend, and he continued to head towards danger instead of away.

Arvid yelled, trying to pull himself out of the snow and ice that had pinned him down. Tears streamed down his face. "Gosta! Come away!"

Gosta snapped his jaws around the she-bears' neck. The great bear slammed its weight down over and over, smashing Gosta into the ice. Again. Again, and again.

Yip!

Gosta went tumbling away as Halvor's paw smacked the bear's head soundly, foam flying in all directions.

The bear cubs were running in to help, confused and tormented by their mother's cries. The tried to take bites out of Halvor, and Halvor kicked one off his flank. The she-bear, spurred on by the danger of her cubs even more than before, broke her head free of Halvor's teeth and savaged Halvor's scruff, going for the throat.

Had Halvor been full grown, perhaps things would have ended easily, but now both sides were bleeding and fighting for their lives. Arvid had broken free, albeit limping as he dragged one leg behind him like a dead weight, and crawled to Gosta's side, crying over his still, bloody body.

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Blue and golden-white fire streaked in from seemingly everywhere as an explosion of feathers and flames heralded the arrival of—

Arvid saw the great wings of a giant bird spread out like the carrion birds of the south sunning themselves in the morning rise of the sun. The bird dive bombed and hit the ground, rising from the flames as the whale breached from the water. Flamed feathers dripped in a fiery rain as a female— Gudrun— rose up from the ground.

"Enough. Peace."

Her hand reached out and touched Halvor's head, and the great cat released his hold on the she-bear.

The she-bear immediately snapped on Gudrun's arm, savagely crunching her bones.

But Gudrun's arm was more than mere flesh and bone. It was also fire and feathers.

Suddenly, the mother bear's jaws released, her head bowed low.. The fury in her eyes seemed to fade even as the wrinkles on her muzzle loosened and smoothed. She licked Gudrun's bloody arm as the skin knit together. Gundrun's hand caressed the bear's head, her tiny form dwarfed by the bears hulking mass, round like a barrel where Halvor was not. Her energy flowed into the mother bear, and the bear's wounds healed and disappeared. Halvor touched her other hand, pressing up into it, and nuzzling her. Gudrun's expression softened, her eyes closing, and the bridge of magic seemed to arc between the three of them.

When Gudrun turned, her eyes were like fire, flames leaking from the corners of her eyes. The bear's cubs ran up to their mother, no longer attacking Gosta. Gudrun walked up to Gosta, her expression sad.

Arvid wept, crying on the beast's side, begging the creature to get up again— anything, anything at all but lie there so terribly still and unmoving even in the slightest.

Gudrun knelt beside the loyal canine, her hand soothing the beast's head. Then she stood, walking away.

"Whu-what? Why are you leaving! WHY ARE YOU NOT HELPING HIM!"

Gudrun turned back. "One life for a prayer, Arvid. Do you forget our Mother-Who-Watches? To heal requires energy— to save a life requires our Mother's regard." Gudrun turned leaning heavily on Halvor, and the great cat knelt for her to mount. The bear, cubs in attendance, nudged her up and over Halvor so she could get in position, making a soft lowing noise.

Gudrun, weary but determined, touched both Halvor and the mother bear, seemingly gaining strength from the contact. She then pressed her leg against Halvor's side and they were off into the whiteness of the storm outside the burbling spring's shelter from the frozen wastes.

---

It was an hour or so more when Gudrun returned with Halvor, and, strangely. the mother bear and the cubs as well. Arvid could barely recognise her. She was covered in blood, and her clothes were torn and barely hanging on. While it was no big deal for a Jötunn, Arvid knew the Asgardians did prefer to wear more, not less— then again, Jötunn children tended to wear more due to not having the stamina of adults, and Arvid was no exception. He'd managed to scrape together enough dried material and start a fire. The hot springs was warm enough that it wasn't frigid, but Gosta was struggling to breathe—

He'd spent that hour bitterly cursing Gudrun and all she stood for, having seen her heal the very animal that savaged his best friend before Gosta. Gosta who was dying after trying to save him. Hearth beasts were so much more important than the wild beasts of the frozen wastes!

Then, as he started to remember the terrified cries of the mother bear's cubs as their mother was in pain, he started to question his own behaviour and his thoughts. He had been the one not to back down with the bear reared up to defend her cubs. He had been the one too concerned about his skins of precious water to give way for the bears to drink and retreat.

His fault.

All his fault.

Gudrun had a very large seal dragging behind Halvor and— was the bear actually helping? How?

She had them pull the carcass up to the fire and unhitched them. She paused to catch her breath, arms shaking. She squared her shoulders, digging her fang-dagger into the seals' hide and slit it from jaw to tail. She fished out the heart, lungs, and liver, placing them in a neat pile. She rested for a few minutes and then hacked away to remove the head, putting it next to the pile of offerings before drawing a circle around it. A flare of her magic lit a fire that ringed the offering.

"Great Frost Mother," she said, winded. "We beg for your precious gaze. Brave Gosta has fallen in defence of his beloved Arvid, keeping the Covenant, which you have gifted us from the beginning of time. I pray you, gift us with the touch of your divine warmth to reward this one for his loyal service. Allow me to be the conduit for your judgement— whether it be to be at your side or to remain with us and the ones he has loved so dearly."

The circle flared to life, consuming the offering in a flash of blue fire.

Gudrun placed her hands on Gosta's body, and a golden glow spread from her hands all over Gosta's body. The beast inhaled deeply, legs moving, and his tongue shot out to lick Arvid. Arvid cried out in joy, wrapping his arms around the beast's neck, hugging him tight.

Gudrun cut a large part of the carcass into two unequal pieces. She gave the largest to the she-bear, and the bear dragged it off to allow her cubs to struggle over it. She gave the smaller, but no less large piece to Halvor, smiling as the great cat began to clean it from the bones. She then cut a large serving for Gosta, patting him with soothing noises. She then carved the remaining portions into bundles, wrapping them with the seal's skin to keep it protected, tiredly placing two portions over the fire to cook.

"Food for you to maintain your strength," she said to Arvid, her breaths heavy and eyes almost closed.

She crawled over to Halvor's side and cuddled with him, her body well beyond weary. She crumpled against him, eyes closing immediately as her exhaustion claimed her.

Arvid paid so much attention to watching the bundles by the fire cook, he barely saw anything else. His stomach growled hungrily, and the hunger was maddening. By the time the meat smelled good, he was unable to help himself as he tore into the parcel of meat and devoured it like a hungry frost weasel. As the hunger pangs eased, only just enough that he could see straight again, only then did he realise he'd devoured both bundles of meat in his hunger-driven madness. He looked over to Gudrun and felt the twinge of guilt.

Let the hunter hunt some more, his traitorous mind told him. If she's so special.

But, she saved Gosta! He protested, arguing with himself.

Moving over to the bundles of meat she had already wrapped and set aside for her family and the elders, he dug into one, hastily putting it by the fire so it could cook for her, hoping she wouldn't wake before it was cooked and have her realise his sin. Maybe, he could blame it on the bears—

He suddenly realised the bears had left. When had that happened?

Had they really just taken the food, drank deeply from the fizzing waters, and left? Had everything they had gone through been because the bears had just wanted a drink?

Arvid frowned. His grandfather had told so many stories of great hunts, and he knew them all by heart, much like all the other Jötunn children did, but mere stories didn't make the hunter. Arvid knew the words, the tellings, and even how the biggest, fattest and best seals lay below the ice, out of sight, but he was not a hunter— yet.

She was. young. small in stature, like a Jötunn child— but a hunter nonetheless. While she was not yet experienced in the ways of the hunter, she was certainly well-versed in the ways of She-Who-Watches.

And nothing… nothing in Jötunheimr ever escaped the gaze of She-Who-Watches. She was the Great Frost Mother, after all. All the hunting knowledge of Jötunheimr meant nothing if She didn't have your back— something he had just forgotten in the heat of his panic.

Why had she not gotten up to eat yet?

He eyed Halvor, wondering if the cat would see through him and find something less than worthy—He swallowed hard and reached over to shake Gudrun.

"Gudrun, come, the food is ready," he said. "Gudrun?"

He felt her skin, but became confused, unsure as to what was normal body temperature for Asgardians. She felt— normal for a Jötunn. Was that— normal?

He shook her. "Gudrun!"

Nothing. Halvor didn't seem concerned, but why?

He heard the thumps of spears and feet approaching— the distinctive sounds hunters made when they were not hunting. Much like the curled tail of the non-hunting frost sabre, it signalled where they were to not surprise something larger and more apt to kill first and ask questions later.

"Arvid!"

He heard his father's voice.

"Here!" he yelled back after weighing the options of not being caught getting in trouble at the fizzing springs.

They approached, the thumping of the feet coming slowly but steadily.

Arvid heard their feet crunching in the new snows outside the cave and the deep low of bear.

A bear?

"Thank you bear-mother," a female voice said. "Please, accept this offering in thanks for your guidance."

Arvid paled as he realised the Great Frost Mother's priestess was there.

"Arvid!" his father's voice boomed.

"Here, father," Arvid called. He watched the glow of the whale oil lamp globes that were treasured for their ability to burn brightly even when wet. His grandfather had always had him check that every hunter's pack had the basic supplies: emergency rations, dry wicks, a lamp with whale oil, a compact tinderbox and stricker, a sparking stone, a collapsible emergency shelter and blankets. There were other things such as sharpening stones, a shatterproof tusk-knife, awls, sinew, and various other essential tools that were not so important until you really needed them.

"Just because the Great Frost Mother gifts us resistance to the cold does not mean we cannot be prepared for the unexpected dunk in the frozen seas, a tusk to the knee, or some wound. You cannot carry a healer with you at all times, so carry bandages, know how to make a splint, and be prepared for the randomness. If you survive long enough to have a mate and blessed enough to have a child, then they will be counting on you to both bring home food and not get yourself killed. That is what you need to remember. It is always more than just you."

Arvid flushed. That was exactly what he had done—believe that what he needed to do was more important. But he was not a hunter! He was not supposed to be a responsible adult!

But you want to be treated like one, his traitorous thoughts came.

It's not the same!

Arvid was about to blurt something to his father when the adults gathered around. The priestess placed her hand on Gudrun's forehead and then felt her hands. His father scanned the area, looking at the fire, the bundles of meat, and finally his son.

"Elder Jarl, she is drained from channeling the Goddess' power. So young— she was not ready," the priestess said. "We must get her home where she can recover in safety. While no beast on the wastes would dare harm her, there are other dangers this close to Útgarða-Loki's domain, where the city Jötunn do not respect She-Who-Watches."

Arvid watched his father's brow crease, and then he nodded to the other adults, who quickly gathered Gudrun up in sealskin as others connected a travois to Halvor. His father knelt and checked on Gosta, who was still recovering from his ordeal.

"Arvid," his father said, eyes narrowing. "What happened?"

Arvid looked down, biting his lip as he looked over to where the priestess was making sure Gudrun was bundled well for travel. "I wanted to get fizzy water to apologize for the argument, but the bear was here, and it came up while I was filling the skins. I had so many skins. I wanted to impress you! I couldn't let them go— and the bear had cubs and— I didn't back down. I didn't see the cubs until it was too late. She charged and— I tried to stumble back but— but—" Avid burst into tears. "Gosta attacked. He thought I was in danger. He couldn't stop. He wouldn't stop! I couldn't stop him, father, I couldn't—"

His father wrapped him in a hug. "Boy, you need not try to impress me with gifts when we have words. Simply show me the respect that you think on what I have taught you. Gudrun was training with Priestess Helka when they had a vision of your danger. Before Helka could stop her, Gudrun and Halvor were away. We waited for word when the she-bear came, waiting outside the village but not coming in. The priestess knew it had come to lead us to you."

"Y— you knew?" Arvid said, sniffling.

"Boy, put out the fire and pack your supplies. We need to return home and get Gudrun to her parents, who worry themselves sick over her safety. While they believe She-Who-Watches is real to us, they do not have the faith as we do— as Gudrun does. We must get her home and you to your mother, who also frets over your bones."

Arvid paled, having forgotten his mother for the more immediate wrath of his father. "Is she angry with me?"

"Angrier than a frost sabre dunked in the ocean," his father said, sighing. "But she will be less so when she realises you are not dead or dying and that Gosta is not as well."

Arvid gulped. "She will make me dry fish and pound sea pods for a month."

"Be glad you are alive to do it," his father said. "Be thankful for what you have. Now get packed and lets go."

Arvid watched them carry Gudrun away with Halvor pulling the hunting travois behind him, loaded into a mountain of bundled meat and supplies.

"Yes, father," Arvid said, setting to work.

---

Gudrun did not remember much when she woke to Halvor grooming her head. Her parents, however, rushed over and gave her such a hug that she wondered what had gone on when she was sleeping.

"Wha— what happened?" Gudrun asked, baffled.

"You've been sleeping for over a week," her mother fussed, petting her hair like she was a young child, her face all wrinkled with concern.

Her father put a hand on his wife's shoulder. "I told you," he admonished. "It was like the Odinsleep. She had to recover after using so much energy to save Gosta."

Gudrun blinked, trying to clear her head. "Gosta? Is he okay? Is Arvid all right?"

"He has hardly left here since you came back," her mother said, fussing all over her again. She pointed her chin at a crumpled, curled up Arvid, who was sleeping in one of her parents' favourite chairs. "He's brought us fresh fish every day and several different dishes from his mother. Oh, my dear, we were so worried!"

Gudrun blinked, still very groggy and confused. "I need to sit in the snow." She started to sit up, slightly dizzy.

"Honey, no," her mom protested. "It's freezing out there."

"Mother, the cold really doesn't bother me," she insisted. "I need the cold— to remind me what happened. It remembers when I cannot."

Gudrun's mother looked even more concerned, but her father put a hand on her shoulder. "Let her find the snow, my Lady wife. She was born in the snow."

"She is our daughter!" his wife protested.

He smiled. "She is the snow's daughter as much as ours, my love. We have shared her from the beginning."

Gudrun had already crawled onto Halvor's back, and the cat responded to her signals without a sound being made, slinking out in the cold that chilled to the bone— yet there on the hook was the coat, scarves, and gloves that had been made for her.

They remained on the hook, unused and unmourned, save the few times she went diving and needed to get the edge off. Even then it was more a luxury than a need. Her parents had to bundle up safely to leave the shelter, lest the cold get them so addle-brained that they walked right into danger.

Meanwhile, Gudrun's father pulled a blanket over the sleeping Arvid, allowing him the rare moment of blissful sleep.

---

"Hold the line, Gudrun!"

"I am!"

"Hold it tighter!"

Arvid slid across the ice, his spear making a harsh scrape across the frozen floe ice. He leapt into the air and used his entire weight to pierce the ice with his spear, which made a loud crack as it shattered.

Blood stained the water as the seal under the ice flopped and struggled.

Arvid dove in, using his own body mass to drive the spear into the large seal. A thick cord attached to a ring on the end of Arvid's spear, and the line went taught as a loud sound signalled the last mighty thrust striking home.

Gudrun wrapped the cord around the grounding ring she had plunged into the frozen ice and used her weight to pull, and then she waited for—

A floating bobber came up.

"Halvor, pull!" Gudrun yelled, and the cat was already on the move before she had actually said anything. He wrapped his mouth around the bobber and pulled the second line. With Gudrun keeping the carcass from floating down further, Halvor pulled the seal up, and Arvid came to the surface, pulling himself onto the shelf ice and heaving to help the seal carcass further from the water, lest the hunting sharks claim more than they offered in thanks for the hunt.

"Look out!" Gudrun warned, and Arvid hurried further in as the ice cracked under the weight of the seal, who was still larger than all three of them combined.

The fattest seals lurk below the ice, Arvid had always said. It was wisdom from the the hunters of old. They had not been telling tall tales. Her first seals had always been the surface ones, smaller and easier to catch napping on the top. They had been large, as all the seals were, but the ones below— oh, but what a boon to the entire encampment. The rich meat satisfied in small portions, and one fattened seal could supply food for a months, even when feeding multiple families. Even when giving Halvor and the other beasts their portions, no one ever went hungry.

Hunting, they had learned together, was taken up in shifts— at least for the seals, but it was not uncommon to hunt more to pad the caches for winter and provide for a family, especially if a female was expecting. Gudrun and Arvid had quickly become a well-oiled team, especially with Halvor to help, and they had adapted their hunting to allow the sabre to assist as best as he was able.

As Arvid stumbled further inland, they pulled the seal with them, and finally collapsed together on their backs, grunting and laughing in between heavy breaths. Arvid was already showing greater stature than Gudrun— the genetic stamp of his people rising up to be known, but it had hardly mattered anymore. The days when Arvid thought his hearth-sister lesser a being because of not being born Jötunn had long since ended. If anything, he'd learned his sister was fierce like the frost mink, swift, agile and deadly. Size, he realised, meant nothing. The Jötunn had made the mistake of underestimating the Asgardians long ago, but Gudrun was rewriting the rules even more than her parents in how quickly she adapted to their harsh environment, culture, and customs.

Even if she did have that tenacious Asgardian accent, fluent as she was, she still sounded Asgardian.

The day he woke from his vigil to find Gudrun out on the snows, communing with the snows as many Jötunn did, their lives had been side-by-side. The only one that constantly picked on her was Fisk, and that was only when it was a battle of sheer physical strength, not talent or wits. Even Fisk did not bother her too much due to one very large obstacle: Halvor. To the troublesome giant's eternal shame, he had discovered that feeding Halvor whale blubber (fully intending to distract him so he could get close to Gudrun) gave the great feline extremely horrible flatulence, and he showed his appreciation for the tasty snacks by sitting on him and passing gas ripe enough to melt the ice floes, the like of which could only be witnessed during the spring running.

Fortunately, Halvor was so traumatised by being forced to sleep outside that night instead of next to Gudrun, he never accepted whale blubber from anyone ever again.

Fisk, on the other hand, was forced to sleep far away from the family that night until the horrible odor finally faded. It had lasted a good month, with his family leaving parcels of food outside his hut many, many paces outside the encampment's main cluster.

Arvid nudged Gudrun with his elbow. "Enough to feed the camp for good month, I think," he said with a chuckle.

Gudrun smiled as she sat up. "Buggi will be happy. His mate is eating for two."

Arvid laughed. "Is that why you volunteered us for hunting off our cycle?"

Gudrun grinned. "We hunt anyway. We might as well ease the burden as they adjust." She frowned. "You're hurt," she said, touching his side with her hand.

"It's noth— AH! That hurt!"

"Nothing doesn't hurt like that, hearth-brother," she muttered as her hand glowed gold along with her eyes. The wound healed quickly but left a deep purple scar. "I know you like to show your scars off to the females," she said with a shake of her head. "I left you a nice purple one."

Arvid grunted. "I wouldn't have to show off my scars to other females if you would just accept that we are a good team."

Gudrun huffed. "We are a good team, but we are not meant to be mates."

"You carried my hunting knife," he purred.

"Agggh! Males!" she yelled, shoving him away. "No one told me about that because everyone supposedly knows about that, but I didn't know about that. Why is it that you, my hearth-brother, left that really big lesson out?"

Arvid grinned from ear-to-ear. "Slipped my mind."

"Right," she said, snorting. "Save me from your clandestine male secrets."

Arvid pouted, but he helped her butcher the carcass and carefully preserve the skin. Halvor, as usually, got the largest rib of meat to chew on as they did so, and the Great Frost Mother got a few of the choice parts they alternated each hunt. She-Who-Watches would never keep the same parts away from her faithful nor would she steal the precious skins that were used for so many things, so the hunters rotated what they offered to her as thanks for her hand of guidance. The only exception was the very first hunt and offerings made asking for a boon. Then, they would leave the heart, lungs, and head of the kill— the heart to ask for the Her compassion, the lungs to symbolise life in a breath, and the head to embody reverence for the cycle and how every life was precious.

By the time they had loaded it all on the travois behind Halvor, the cat had licked his rib clean of flesh, and carried it in his mouth. He'd very likely carry it all the way back to the camp until someone asked him to relinquish it, and that rib would become a prized tool. They pushed the offering to She-Who-Watches out to the sea, bowing their heads in prayer and thanks, then started to head back to camp, wondering if it would be the great whale that took the offering or one of the smaller predators.

As the three of them walked back to camp together, the harshness of the wastes seemed less as the bond between them only grew stronger.

---

"Sister!" the Jötunn rose up from the sleeping shelf and squished Hermione to him. He held her as one would something precious and small, so very careful but with no less enthusiasm.

The moment his skin touched hers, Hermione had a jolt of connection so intense it was was jarring. Memories surged and shared as she was filled with an undeniable sense of kinship.

"You live! I told them you were not lost to us!" he touched her cheek with wonder. The words he said were strange to her at first, but they came back to her as if she were remembering a song.

Hermione, a bit overwhelmed by the intense emotion and sharing, caught her breath as the rest of her body adjusted to the strength of the deep kinship she felt for this once-stranger. Now solidified, it refused to be denied, and her Occlumency failed her. She burst into tears, sobbing as she hugged her hearth-brother back.

"When Halvor did not return, I knew he had found your trail," Arvid explained. "For he was too wily for death, and only you could have kept him from returning home for so long."

"Why are you here?" Hermione asked, her hands automatically touching his arm and tracing the markings on his skin. Between mates, she remembered, it was a very different sort of thing, but between family it was a reassuring gesture that reinforced family bonds. She knew it was serious when he didn't joke about it— he never could resist doing so on a good day.

"Malekith of Svartalfheim wishes to use a powerful weapon known as the Aether to bring eternal darkness to all the Realms, my sister," Arvid said. "He wished to bend Jötunheimr to his will to find it, and for some reason unknown to me, he believed the Jötunn knew where it was. King Laufey suspects that Utgarda-Loki may harbour it in his great city beyond the snows, and went to parlay, but he has not returned— Well, no, rather he had not returned before Malekith and I… had a discussion."

"Laufey—" Hermione said, frowning. "I do not remember him."

Arvid's expression softened. "You have been so long away, my sister, parted from us so long the memories have been buried deep within. Have you missed me as I have missed you?"

Hermione, so full of emotion she hadn't been able to face since the end of the Wizarding War and her incarceration wept, her body shaking as years of pent up emotion flooded through her system. "Brother," she whispered, clinging to him, eyes tightly closed. Golden runes began to return to her skin as the surface began to rise into patterned texture.

Arvid tenderly ran his hands up and down her back and arms with his one hand. "Hauk will be happy to meet his aunt at last," he said warmly.

"I—" Hermione sniffled. "I'm an aunt?"

Arvid laughed, thumping her on the back. "Of course you are. Unless you prefer to be his uncle, but I would have to explain that somehow diff-MPPHGH!"

Hermione sealed his lips together with both hands as she glowered at him.

Arvid grinned, despite himself. "Mmmphou mhave a mneice moo," he mumbled between pursed lips.

Hermione's eyes went wide as she dropped her hands.

"Her name is Livunn." Arvid grinned as Hermione burst into tears again, hugging him tightly. "They both have tried to reach our heights of hunting fame at an early age, but alas, neither of them quite have your prowess with beast-speak or my ability to hunt underwater, but they are still young."

Hermione wiped her face and gave Arvid a meaningful look just before Halvor pounced on the Jötunn and slammed him down, sitting down on his pelvis as he rubbed his head all over Arvid's face. Even now, or perhaps especially, the frost sabre was more than massive enough to make everything around him look small by comparison.

Hermione sat on the floor where she had been unceremoniously dumped on her bum, laughing. "Justice."

Halvor, busy with remarking his scent all over Arvid, rolled onto his back and snuffled, causing the Jötunn to groan in mock pain as being rollered by the frost sabre's "best" intentions.

Hermione was almost to her feet when an arm went around her neck and yanked her up, jerking her upright and backwards on a lean as the arm cut off her air.

"Midgardian," a voice hissed. "Your pathetic baby spells cannot contain me."

"Malekith!" Arvid yelled, struggling to get up. Halvor scrambled at the same time, and had the situation been less grave it could have been comical.

Hermione, looking to Arvid and then to Halvor, closed her eyes and her hands dropped from where she had been trying to pry the arm away from her neck. She made gestures with her fingers as a globe formed around them both. She threw her hands down together, and the globe flung itself through a pocket of space and time to dump them on a frozen landscape.

As their bodies hit the ground, Hermione slipped under Malekith's grasp and she tumbled down and over, pulling on the many martial lessons Steven and the other Masters had taught her. Her leg swept Malekith's out from under him in time for her to roll away, stand, and block the blast of dark magic that seemed to erupt from Malekith's very core.

The spell deflected off her shields, but shattered the bubble of Mirror Dimension, dumping them back in the more familiar ice and snow they had left.

Back and forth, they fought, one spell or one physical move to another counter. Beams of magic met invisible force. Ice cracked, bergs split off, and parts of the glacier crashed into the sea. While she did not carry any weapons, she conjured them as she needed to block Malekith's flashing swords and daggers, which he used often— channeling his dark magic into each slash and thrust.

He threw a ball at her, and she blocked it with a large chunk of ice, tumbling out of the way with a painful cry, but the area she was in was sucked into a vortex and disappeared. Hermione winced painfully, clutching her side where one of the elf's weapons had sliced across her ribs. She panted with exertion, and she knew she was running on pure adrenaline. Her opponent was in a fervor, seemingly blinded to one purpose.

They were at it again, swords and daggers versus magic and agility, Hermione staying just ahead, but only just barely. She thanked her Masters for all the martial training, even as she knew Malekith was better. He was older, stronger, and more focused in the art of war, and while she was studying him; he was studying her.

It was a war of attrition, and she knew was going to lose in the end. Somehow Malekith knew both weapons, war, and magic, and the combination was deadly effective. Part of Hermione was curious as to what could have created such a fierce combination when all the stories of elves in her childhood were peaceful, nature-loving beings. Tolkien elves aside, her father had always read about they lived in forests and tended the trees and animals. Perhaps that was why she had always found the "slavery" of house-elves to be so painfully abhorrent. Nothing, it seemed, was truly like the old stories.

Malekith was none of these things.

Suddenly, Halvor came bounding in, and he launched himself at Malekith from the side, his fangs scraping down the side of the elf's left side of his face, leaving a gouge yet missing the fatal bite. Malekith's sword slashed up as his dagger moved from another direction.

"No!" Hermione yelled as the dagger sliced across Halvor's chest, leaving an angry wound.

Halvor roared in pain and tumbled to the ground.

Hermione screamed on hearing Halvor's cry of pain, remembering in that moment the look of his beautiful eyes as he looked at her as a young cub— the eyes that trusted her and loved her from that very first day his mother allowed him and all his brothers and sisters to inspect her. The feel of his warmth next to her as she slept, the screaming fiasco as "Crookshanks" clawed up Ronald Weasley's Quidditch uniform and then shed all over his school robes right after the house-elves returned them— all of it came back at once.

All of it was Halvor.

Just as she was Gudrun.

Her eyes glowed, consumed by fire. Feathers of flame sprouted over every part of her body as she let out a fierce scream, shaped her fingers together in an intricate formation as she touched her index and thumbs together in a locking diagram and blasted Malekith straight to the chest. The elf blew backwards, tumbling arse over teakettle before slamming hard into an ice-covered rock.

Hermione panted, utterly exhausted, stumble-staggering over to where Malekith was, barely coherent enough to send out a message to Steven, and even less so to send a full-bodied Patronus to Severus. When she got to where Malekith had fallen, the frost-weavers had wrapped him up from head to toe in a cocoon of spider silk. They moved quickly, binding him over and over, and then disappeared in a puff of ether.

One spider, checking the silken bonds carefully, tugged on the lines of silk ever so fastidiously, making sure they were tight—

Just as Malekith's hand, a hidden arm blade having slashed through the wrap, shot out and crushed the spider's plump body with his gnarled hand and squeezed.

The spider made a sad, piteous wheeze, too surprised to retaliate or even port himself away. His legs wriggled, slowing, his fangs trapped just far enough away that biting wasn't an option.

Sorry, it said, it's voice so quiet. Tried.

"You will give me the Aether," Malekith said, squeezing tighter. "Now."

Hermione, having forgotten about the strange thing called the Aether, jerked her head back to Malekith.

Great Frost Mother, hear my prayer.

She grit her teeth, her lips pursed and eyes blazing.

Help me protect my loved ones, as the she-frost sabre to her cubs or the beast to its pups.

Fire and feathers spread more thickly around her body.

Give me the strength to protect all my cherished ones.

Her lips curled into a snarl as she remembered what it felt like to be betrayed by her supposed best friends.

Guide my steps on the frozen land that I may not be cast into the sea.

A spear formed in her hand, dark and shimmering, red and black with a flaming spearhead glowing with a different, magical fire.

For I am a lowly hunter, empty without Your grace.

The Aether shattered around her neck, the necklace breaking into particles of red and black as the dark matter swirled around her like a cyclone.

"Yes! Yes! Come to me," Malekith beckoned, screaming with his naked desire and need.

"You wish for the Aether?" Hermione said, her eyes a disturbing combination of black, red, and gold. "You shall have it."

If I am to die, let me save my loved ones.

Hermione launched herself into the air, visions of Halvor wounded, the people she loved, the mate she could only remember, the spider valiantly trying to help her and Arvid's expression when he woke from his healing slumber to find her alive—

He has a family that relies on him to come home, she thought.

As she came down, spear poised—

SHINKKKKKK!

A blue hand shoved a dagger deep into Malekith's back and wrenched it viciously upward toward the heart. Loki's crimson eyes blazed with absolute rage as he looked up towards her— their eyes met, bright gold to crimson.

SHHHCRRRRUK!

The spear slammed into Malekith's chest from the other side to hard it went through his ribs and into the ice so hard that the frozen ground cracked.

WHOOOOOOOOOM!

Magical plasma and Aether blasted outward, unmaking and remaking in the same breath as a blaze of bright light flared only to be followed by a most ominous black.

"We accept," two voices said as a glowing nova of red and black raced out from ground zero as the world's loneliest island was suddenly covered in darkness.

---

Hermione was a little breathless as Loki's mouth left hers, his crimson eyes glowing a little more crimson. Their bodies, once melded together so many times she had lost count, finally parted for a final or at least longer time. As she looked around, the terrain seemed oddly smaller than before, and—

Halvor slurped her face, causing her to splutter. No, Halvor seemed the same size. Wait, what was that next to them?

Hermione eyed the bloodstain on the ground where her spear had impaled Malekith. Loki's dagger lay in the frozen puddle as well, but Malekith's body was gone. The frozen landscape, however, was alive with—

Very large, and very delicious-looking crabs— shells as white as—

Hermione stared again.

Every crab, (and since when did enormous sub-zero crabs exist on Earth?), was a pale white like Malekith's skin, with icy blue eyes, and black, intricate markings on the exoskeleton. They looked strangely like, well… a crabby Malekith.

Hermione looked up. "Um…"

Loki growled, latching onto her neck, causing a hundred jolts of absolute ecstasy to shoot straight down her spine. "I could really go for a nice crab curry about now," he murmured into her skin.

"Oh-kaaa-aay!" Hermione babbled helplessly as his teeth found her sensitive skin. Her eyebrows furrowed together as she realised both she and Loki were covered liberally in a glistening white paste that had been carefully traced over their shared markings.

Arvid, who was sitting nearby, chewing on a leg could have been a giant crab, chuckled. "Since I'm technically an elder back home now, I took the liberty of witnessing your union and blessing the consummation of your marriage— some twenty-odd years late." He grinned from ear-to-ear. "Congratulations!"

Then he looked around at the scurrying crabs. "We've got to take some of these home with us. They are totally delicious!"

Arvid looked smug. "Also your spider friend is off recovering with Severus, who gave him a—" He frowned slightly, trying to remember. He made a gesture of drinking and then made a shape of a flask with his hands.

"Pepperup Potion?"

"Ah, yes. That. Human language is pretty strange," he said with a nod. "We had a few days of pantomiming and pointing, grunting, and trying to figure each other out while you two were busy having a most excellent reunion. Your other small friend came in through a glowing portal, cast a spell on your other friend, and smacked him over the head with this large tome, and we were able speak the same language. He left though— said something about interdimensional crisis in XR-53— oh I forget the rest."

Loki had the decency to blush slightly purple.

"But, look at the bright side, hearth-sister!" Arvid said. "You're both finally the right size, and we have crabs! They seem to multiply to the same number they started out with. I don't claim to understand how that works, but the meat tastes sweet and rich as is, no seasoning necessary at all."

Hermione, having realised she was quite naked, still wrapped snugly in Loki's arms, and her hearth brother and hearth-beast regarding them with amusement flushed deeply. Her eyes widened.

"Wait, what do you mean we're finally the right size?!"

Arvid bellowed laughter. "If either of you could stand up straight, we could have a demonstration," he hinted with a distinct smirk.

He stood extending a hand to her, smiling as her hand clasped in his and her eyes went wide as saucers. He pulled her up, and for the first time she looked up at him and the distance didn't seem to great. She wrapped her arms around him as if to squeeze the very life out of him, giving a wondrous, happy sob.

"Brother!" she cried, her hands tracing his markings with her fingers. The soft glow of their markings grew more radiant as their bond solidified with their contact.

Arvid smiled warmly and pressed his forehead to hers. "At last, my sister, She-Who-Watches has truly blessed your union and your devotion to Her."

Arvid smiled at Loki. "And you, brother-in-law. Whatever took you so long?"

Loki gave a shrug. "I was slightly delayed," he said dryly, "by an dull-witted ox having a blonde moment."

"Aren't most Asgardians blond of some shade or another?" Arvid inquired, grinning mischievously.

"There is a definite lesson in that," Loki commented, his ruby eyes shifting sideways.

"You weren't," Arvid teased.

Loki's expression was smug. "I'm sure I am hardly the perfect example of Asgardian comeliness."

Hermione shifted her eyes over. "I find you quite comely."

Loki whipped around with a growl and engulfed her in a possessive embrace.

A familiar huff and sigh came from nearby. "Must you torture me with the sounds of your snogging and growling as well as the rejuvenation of your displaced polar arachnids?"

Hermione squeaked, peeking over Loki's arm like a child hiding behind a bed. Despite her substantially increased stature, some reactions were ingrained far too deeply.

A familiar fuzzy spider cheered from atop Severus' hair. "All better now!"

Hermione looked on both parties fondly. "Severus?"

"Hnn?"

"What would you think about moving to someplace no one on Earth would ever look for you?"

Severus grunted, then cocked a raven brow. "Aren't we already someplace few would ever think to visit?"

Hermione's grin seeped into a wicked ear to ear smile. "We could do much better, yes husband?"

Hermione's eyes and Loki's flashed black and red for a moment, like sand flowing across their eye sockets and then disappearing.

Loki's eyes shifted between blue and green as he straightened his shoulders, lifting his head just so. "As there are other things that I ache to take care of now that I have found you again."

Hermione lifted a brow. "Oh? What kinds of things?"

Loki's eyes darkened. "Things long overdue."

---

Harry came home to an empty house, throwing the keyring down on the table as he sloughed off his coat and threw it onto the old and dilapidated armchair. Once, all of his things had been shiny and new, and he had reveled in it, having never had anything of his own back when he lived with the Dursleys.

After the Wizarding War, his fame had been legendary, but all of it had been a most stupendous lie based on Ron's fierce desire to see his mate elevated into stardom while he got to ride his mate's coattails and reap all the benefits. And Ron hadn't been alone it it, even though he'd certainly been a main factor. Ginny, too, wanted fame and fortune. She'd always been hovering over him, wanting to be the witch all the other witches envied, the lucky wife of the Boy-Who-Lived.

Harry poured himself a drink of cheap Muggle whisky, not even willing to spend a few galleons on a bottle of Ogden's. He slapped a couple pieces of cheese on some bread and sat down in front of the hearth to eat. It was the only place that remained warm all year round, and the winters in Britain seemed to be worse than even Scotland's fiercest ever since—

Harry drank down the scotch and wrinkled up his face, slamming the empty glass back down on the table. It was his own damn fault things were as lousy as they were. While he made a lot on his tell-all book, he'd donated every last bit of the profits to underfed charities, Muggle and magical alike. He still had money, even after he'd paid back every endorsement he'd ever gotten, but he found he couldn't enjoy the fortunes. The remaining Black fortune reminded him painfully of his late godfather, and the Potter fortune reminded him of his late parents, whom he felt he didn't know any better than his ex-best mate. He wasn't sure who he knew anymore when all the people around him either hated him for ruining their heroic image of him or hated him purely for the sake of hating him. Rita Skeeter had added her own special flair to that with gleeful abandon.

The Weasleys hated him, pretty much, just for the bad press his book brought to their family, and he found he couldn't really blame them for that. They'd gone from nobody blood traitors to sometime heroes, and Harry had thrown them back down again.

Harry pointing out that it hadn't been HIM who had taken explicit nude pictures of his own sister and sold it to the Prophet for profit hadn't exactly helped smooth things over between them at all. The truth was he hadn't done enough when it mattered, and he'd let his best friend rot in Azkaban because he'd not wanted to get his other best friend in trouble. He figured no one would ever have believed Hermione capable of being a Dark witch…

How very wrong he'd been.

To make matters worse, all of Wizarding Britain seemed to want to blame someone for the rash of horrible weather that had descended upon the region, namely a vicious winter cold spell that made Scotland's previous record lows seem like a balmy tropical paradise. And since no one after the war wanted to confess to any more wrongdoing, lest they end up labeled a Death Eater or some other such rot, well, only a few had stood up for Hermione.

And they— had been scorned, shunned, and blacklisted from so many places. None of them had a kind word to say to him since Hermione's incarceration. And who could blame them, really? His last attempt at an apology had been a novel— hoping that perhaps, just maybe, the right people would read his confession and realise he had finally admitted the truth.

"Nice place," a voice said. "Very homey."

Harry looked up to see a man with long, wavy raven hair staring at him from the opposite chair, yet, the last time he looked, he hadn't had another chair.

The man was sitting in a loveseat, his arm wrapped securely around a very beautiful woman. Both were as close to human as sculptures of the gods were to the actual divine. Their auras were distinctly preternatural. Powerful. Their eyes glowed as if filled with the northern lights, shifting and changing like desert sands before his very eyes.

"Who the bloody hell are you?!" Harry cried, lunging for his wand on the other table.

The male tutted. "Now is that any way to treat a guest?"

"I don't even know you!" Harry yelled, having grabbed his wand and pointed at the man—

Only no one was there.

"Nonsense, you've known me for as long as tricks have been played—" the voice purred into his ear.

Harry swirled around.

There was nothing. The room was empty.

"Why don't you sit down, Harry," Hermione's voice said, so clear that it couldn't possibly be anyone else.

"Hermione?!" Harry whirled again to find himself sitting in the chair he thought he'd gotten up from to see Hermione dressed in what seemed like silk and fur, adorned only with what seemed like simple, if large, pearls. Her summer almost-brown skin had become almost like gold as azure rings and markings covered her bare flesh— and much of her skin was exposed, leaving very little to the imagination. In her lap was Crookshanks, who flashed his fangs in a huge yawn that swallowed his entire face as his teeth seemed, strangely, too large for his mouth.

Harry stared, unsure what to say or do.

"I saw your book," she said. "I even read it."

"I tried to," the other voice remarked as the raven-haired man sat down beside her. He was wearing a strange kind of body armor that fused metal and leather in a way that Harry had never before seen. "Alas, all I got out of it was blah, blah, blah, betrayal."

Hermione put a hand on the man's, her slender fingers curling around his, and the dark-haired man silenced himself, eyes piercing, yet he did not move any further.

"For some reason, my lady wife believes you are of some sort of value," the man said, tilting his head to regard him sideways.

Harry just stared at the woman that seemed like Hermione yet was so much more than what he'd ever imagined.

"Harry, my eyes are up here," Hermione said sharply, her eyes narrowing at her blatantly staring ex-best friend.

"I would greatly prefer, Potter, if you kept your ogling to yourself and not upon my lady wife." The dark-haired man's face creased with a different sort of severity. He looked at Harry as though he were insignificant, less than scum beneath is boots.

Harry shook himself straight, stammering. "Wh— uh?" He shook his head and seemed to recover himself. His fog seemed to clear and his eyes widened. "Hermione! You got my letters!"

"All four hundred and eighty-six of them," Hermione said. "Tell me truthfully, Harry. At what point were you actually sorry? When you missed my trial to marry Ginny, or when Ron sold pictures of his sister with the Quidditch team to the paper?"

Harry winced. Guilt, Harry knew well, and he had a lot of shame to spare for his treatment of one friend over another. He'd been guilty of it since he'd met Ron and young Hermione with her buck teeth and frizzy hair had barged into their train compartment asking if they'd seen Trevor and then proceeded to fix his glasses and embarrass Ron with "real magic."

Always, it had been Ron before Hermione. Ron had been his first friend. Ron had given him his first sense of family. The Weasleys had practically adopted him, and Hermione— all she had given him was letter after letter he'd never actually written back to, even though he'd cherished every one.

"I was blind and an idiot!" Harry blurted. "By the time I realised they'd actually put you in Azkaban, I kept thinking that it would never stick. I kept thinking you'd be out the moment they looked into it deeper. They could never make another mistake like they did with Sirius." Harry's face twisted. "Suddenly it had been years. Then you'd escaped, and I thought, well at least she's free and smart. If anyone could escape and—"

"Live the life of an escaped criminal on the run, hunted by every idiot with a wand, hit wizard, and desperately poor person who just wanted a better life?" Hermione's face had darkened, making the strange blue runes that shimmered across her face shine over her golden skin.

The strange man put a hand around hers, his thumb tracing the runes on the back of her hand. Hermione's expression immediately softened, and she took in a deep, cleansing breath.

"Your betrayal weighs me down and takes energy to maintain the disgust and the anger I have nurtured for more time than is healthy," she said. "Ironically, it was Severus who cautioned me that harbouring such things in my heart for such a long time would do to me, and it was he who recommended I take care of the problem before it consumed me."

"Take," Harry started. "Take care of me?" The aura of power around Hermione had grown since the days he'd known her, and he was fully aware of what she'd been capable so many years previous.

Back when she was free and held no grudges—

"I worked hard after my book to get you freed from Azkaban, Hermione. To get the truth—" Harry protested. "When they released you and gave you that pardon and the funds to make up for the last— I thought you'd—"

Hermione tilted her head. "Wait, you got me released? With a pardon and funds?" She laughed, the sound of her laughter seeming like a desperate, half-sane cackle. Her expression transformed into something smug, her lips pursed into a thin line as her eyes flickered black and red for a moment so fast he doubted if he saw it at all. "Tell me, Harry. Where are the Weasleys now?"

"Last I heard, they moved to Egypt. They wanted to get out of Britain."

"I'm sure the press is at least better there," Hermione said, that strange smile on her face.

"Actually, I think—" Harry shifted in his seat. "Skeeter works the press there after having been outed for fanning the reason you were incarcerated, sullying your name. The money you received—part of it came from draining her retirement as compensation. Not sure why she's in Egypt though— seems like an odd coincidence. She latched onto them, of course. I hear they are going to try and move again, but they don't really tell me. I only get a few tidbits here and there from the twins, who seem to hate me less than the rest of their family."

"The one thing Rita Skeeter loves even more than tearing down other public figures is destroying the lives of those she finds most deserving of her special brand of venomous interest." Hermione curled her lip, looking very much like the dour Potions Master of old, yet she ran her fingers down her chin like she had a beard— a gesture Harry was unaccustomed to seeing on Hermione.

Then again, he thought to himself, he didn't really know her very well back in the day.

Liar, his mind sneered at him. She was just the same as you knew her back then until your betrayal transformed her into something much more unforgiving.

She would have done anything to save you. She did throw herself in front of a killing curse. For you.

Hermione stood suddenly, and Harry swallowed hard. "What did you want from me, Hermione?"

"Want?" Hermione's shoulders quaked with amusement. "Nothing. But I will give you a chance to prove to yourself just how much you'd rather be somewhere— anywhere— else." She gave him a tight smile. "Succeed, and you may find that living away from this life you have created for yourself as far less than you thought. Fail, and, well—"

Hermione looked around. "Live here with your woes and solitary existence. A magical world that has lost all its magic."

"Why would you give me another chance, Hermione?" Harry asked quietly, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Do not mistake me for a fool, Harry Potter," Hermione warned him coolly. "I will not be so quick to open up my arms to you again, and the place in which you must prove yourself may prove to be far more than you can handle. But then again, maybe not. Perhaps you have always wished to pit yourself against narrow odds from the very beginning; not to be a hero, but someone who just wants to be like any other bloke, one whose value is measured in meaningful deeds rather than heavily-embroidered stories."

Harry, rather unnerved by the dark-haired man beside Hermione, swallowed hard and nodded in assent. "What would you have me do?"

Hermione lifted her chin. "Pack up all of your things like you're never coming back and tie up your affairs." She tossed him something, and Harry caught it with his wand hand, wincing as it seemed strangely cold, like holding a chunk of dry ice. "That is your Portkey… of sorts. Simply stand in the center of the things you wish to take with you and recite the passkey."

Harry reached up to place the token on the mantle, but hesitated, even though his hand far colder than he cared to admit. "What is the— passkey?"

Hermione said nothing for a long while, her hand sought the dark-haired man's. He pressed his face into the curve of her neck, whispering something against her skin.

"Harry Bloody Potter," she said, flicking her hand out with a gesture so the token was set in a golden medallion with a sturdy chain that wrapped itself around his neck. "Do not lose it. It is a one way trip."

She turned as if to leave. "Oh, and Harry?"

"Yes?"

"Make sure to put on the warmest clothes you own before you trigger it."

Harry's face crinkled with lines as his brows furrowed. "Okay, but—"

The room was empty.

"Bloody hell," Harry whispered. "What just happened?"

---

Ron let himself in to Harry's garden and patted around the rocks near the door to find the place where Harry always kept a spare house key. He plucked it out with a snide smile, brushing the dirt off it. The ruddy bloke had always been a creature of habit.

Harry hadn't been at Grimmauld, not that he expected him to be. They'd all moved their shite out once they could afford new digs, and Ron had been the first to find a newer, better place at an upscale magical community just outside London. Harry had wanted a smaller, cozier place, even with Ginny and possible children, which made no sense to Ron at all. Maybe if he'd paid more attention to what Ginny wanted, she wouldn't have spread her legs for an entire Quidditch team. Then again, that stunt had won him a hefty addition to his Gringotts vault, so it had worked out just fine.

Sadly, his unexpected incarceration as "Hermione Granger" had gotten him kicked out of his posh private manse due to missed payment, and now everyone saw him as the stupid bint, so he couldn't even get laid by a witch unless they were lesbians, and Ron had no interest in a girl who only liked other girls. It was bloody unnatural, that was.

When he'd gotten word that Harry had been working to try and release him, Ron had thought his best mate knew the truth and just wanted to get him out of Azkaban. He'd tried to meet up with his mother, but he found out his entire family had moved to Egypt to escape the bad press and public notoriety caused by none other than his best mate's bestseller tell-all book. So, now the Weasleys were back at the bottom again, or at least no longer partying every day like he wanted and getting free box seats to Quidditch games. Worse, now that he looked like Hermione Granger— which he still didn't see, even when he looked in the mirror— people wanted opinions on things he didn't care much about.

House-elves. What Hermione Granger really thought about the war. Pish.

THe last interview he had tried to paint himself as the hero he really was and set things straight, but the reporter had accused him of being an imposter trying to feed off of Hermione's fame and infamy. He'd ended up getting kicked out of the nice restaurant after having to wash dishes a few hours for free, just because the bloody reporter had bailed on him without paying for the meal.

He couldn't access his vault at Gringotts because he still looked like a witch to everyone else— the wrong witch. He couldn't even access Granger's accounts because he didn't have her wand— he'd seen to that personally by destroying her wand the moment she'd been incarcerated.

Served the little bint right for making a fool of him so many times.

But Harry— oh, now he deserved to get a proper telling off. How dare he make his family look bad. How dare he betray HIM?!

Ron tripped over a signpost in the dark and landed hard on his face. He got up, swore under his breath, and then brushed himself off, and squinted at it in the evening's dimness.

Sold?

The hell?!

There was no way Harry would ever leave this place. The sign surely must've blown in from someone else's yard. He stomped around to the side door that Harry had said he always forgot about, and put the key in. The door didn't creak at all as it opened up, and that pleased Ron immensely. He'd just pop into the kitchen, help himself to some food and lie in wait for his quarry.

Only the pantry was bare except for a half a loaf of French bread, a hunk of cheese, a few bottles of brown sauce, a jar each of mustard and Jamaican banana chutney, a few tins of sardines in chilli sauce, and a large jar of blackcurrant jam.

Wait, he thought.

He rustled around in the back of one cabinet and punched out the side board. Excellent. Harry's stash of Muggle whisky was still there. Prying the cork out with his teeth, he spit it out and took a deep swig right from the bottle, smiling as the fiery liquid burned its way down his throat. The bloke would have to return home sometime. He just had to bide his time.

A creak of the front door alerted him, and he quickly took a few more swigs of whisky to prepare himself for the coming confrontation. Then he plastered his body up against one dark wall, listening intently.

Harry clinked around, making rustling sounds. "Well, might as well take the condiments," he said, glass and containers clanking as they went into a hamper. "I'm not going anywhere without the brown sauce. I'm sure Hermione will understand, right? Oh, let's just keep right on talking to yourself, Harry. That makes you even more special in the head."

There were more rustling and clanking, lugging, and heaving noises.

"Ooookay then," Harry said. "Winter wardrobe and long johns, check. Scarf. Hat. Balaclava. A few pairs of gloves. Heavy-duty parka. Wool sock collection worthy of Dobby. Dragonhide snow boots. Snowshoes and poles. Extra warm pyjamas, hrm—"

More rustling and dragging.

"De-fogging charmed umbrella? Who the hell uses an umbrella in freezing weather? Idiot."

More rustling.

"Sleeping bag. Ground cover. You got this, Harry. We camped in a ruddy te— well, might need one of those too."

Thunk.

"Torch? Are you a wizard or are you not, Harry? Damn, what's wrong with you? Wand? Check. Spare wand? Okay, good. Firestarters in case my teeth are chattering? Check. First aid kit? Probably a good idea."

Tink, thump.

"Blankets, spare blankets, favourite duvet, wait— pillow. Can't forget that. Dopp kit? Check. Wait."

Rustle. Rustle. Rustle.

"Okay, good. Towels? Yeah, those too. Tent? Check. Spare tent? Weather-proof rations? Cooking supplies? Waterproof bags? Tarp? Journal? Notebooks? Ink? Quills— mess kit, hrm, aren't those in the tents? Oh well, doesn't hurt to have extras."

Thunk.

More rustling.

"Potions, bandages, ointment. Broom supply kit. Oh, the spare cot— okay, I think that's it. Wait, soap!"

Fast footsteps lead away and then back.

"Okay, now I think we're done, mate. Ah, could I forget bowls, plates and utensils to eat with?"

Ron peeked around the door and saw Harry standing next to a very large trunk with many, many shrunken things in it. The distinctive shape of a top-of-the-line racing broom disappeared as he shut the lid. Harry wiped his brow, but he was wearing a full winter parka, scarf, balaclava, and mittens. There were only two small holes where his eyes showed, and even that disappeared as he drew down tinted snow shades over his eyes.

The hell?

"All right, then. Here goes… Harry Bloody Potter."

The air suddenly seemed to vibrate as a glowing circle formed around him and the trunk, adjusting its shape to encircle what was needed.

"Bloody hell, you're not leaving here until I give you a piece of my mind, Harry Bloody Potter!" Ron lunged towards Harry, his body crossing the glowing line—

SHHHHHFFFFFFFFFFFOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!

A blinding light filled the house, and when it cleared, Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley had disappeared.

---

A/N: Serves you right, jerk-face! (ahem) I mean… dang, who saw that coming? Term starts again on Monday, so writing updates will be few and far between. I might squeeze in one last hurrah tomorrow, but please don't count on it. Wish me luck, and see you more regularly with the very welcome return of summer.