Chapter Four

On the Subject of Positions

Harry's brow furrowed with the unexpectedness of the witch's announcement. "You're . . . going on a trip?"

Her own brows pinched together as she lifted her mug of butter beer for a quick, quenching sip. Oh, certainly, she could have something with a bit more kick, but she wanted her wits about her entirely for this discussion, and she wasn't certain a little liquid courage might not have her feeling confident enough to think telling Harry the truth would be just a fabulous idea.

Hermione was just about full-up on 'fabulous' ideas for one day. Besides, if she knew Thorfinn Rowle, he'd probably be bringing a healthy stash of fire whiskey for the road.

"Yes." She forced a smile.

"By yourself?"

"Mm-hmm." She hated lying to Harry. It was one thing to lie to a master manipulator from another universe whom she could not trust as far as she could throw a fully-grown mountain troll, though she still was questioning her ability to pull that off long-term. But lying to her best friend? She could barely stomach it. No doubt as soon as she was done here, she was going to have to find the nearest toilet so her beverage could go right back out the way it had come in.

Harry—bless his dear, sweet, trusting heart—misinterpreted the reason for her awkward and tightlipped demeanor. Not that he had enough information to interpret her seemingly abrupt decision any other way, but it still made her feel terribly guilty as he asked, "Is this because of your parents?"

Her expression clouded over, she hadn't even considered that. As an excuse or otherwise. It had been hard learning the new Ministry couldn't break the memory charm she had placed on them. She'd altered it, working with the theory that those specific alterations would make it easier to break, but that simply hadn't worked out as she'd planned. The only way to break the charms would've been precisely what Thorfinn had suffered through. Unwilling to put them through that just for her, unwilling to put the shame of torturing someone—let alone her own parents—on her account on Kingsley Shacklebolt's shoulders, she had made the decision to leave them to their peaceful, safe, Hermione-free existence as a childless couple loving their life in Australia.

It was all for the better given the idiocy upon which she was about to embark, she supposed. Yet, that small dose of reality made it hurt no less to know she was leaving their home behind again. Harry had been with her through that painful decision. Through the nights she couldn't sleep because the house was too quiet without them. Through days when she missed them so much she couldn't seem to stop crying.

He thought she needed a reprieve from the constant reminders that they were gone, and she didn't have it in her to deny that maybe, just maybe, that was part of the reason she'd come to this plan of hers so easily.

"I wish I could say yes, and leave it at that," she said, her voice low, the very sensation of speaking hollow in her throat. She wanted to inject some honesty in here, make some attempt to salvage what she could of her integrity—not that Harry would be the wiser, but she would know. She would look at herself differently if she didn't at least try to get a handle on her sincere feelings.

Setting down his drink, Harry reached out, the gesture delicate as he placed a hand over hers atop the table. "What d'you mean?"

"I mean . . . ." She shook her head and sighed. It hurt a little to look him in the eyes right now, but she needed to. The entire reason for her mad plan was to keep Loki away from everyone she cared about, keep him contained if he learned of her true purpose and lashed out. But she didn't know Loki, and as already had been made abundantly clear on multiple occasions during the span of a single conversation, she didn't trust him.

For all she knew, this might be the last time she ever saw Harry Potter.

Swallowing hard, she ignored the sudden, suspicious ache in her throat. "I simply mean I can't say 'yes, this is because I miss my parents,' since that wouldn't be the truth. Not all of it, at least. I am going away because it's . . . something I just have this sense that I need to do, and I don't have any idea how I actually feel about it."

Harry nodded, offering a warm smile. That face just about broke Hermione's heart. He trusted her so completely? But then, why shouldn't he, she wondered. She'd never lied to him, at least not about anything important, or that wasn't some possibly misguided effort to protect him. She supposed then it was the same as now.

"Can you do me a favor?" She fought down the urge to sniffle tellingly as she spoke.

He breathed a quiet laugh. "Always."

Oh, he just kept killing her. "Can, um, can you let everyone else know?" Frowning, she uttered a small, pained groan at herself. "I don't mean to put anything on you, it's simply that I'm not sure I'll ever be able to leave if have to have this same conversation with everyone."

Harry feigned an expression of wounded shock. "Oh, so me you can just say 'bye' and off you pop, then? That it?"

Once more she groaned. She was perfectly cognizant that he was only teasing, but the sentiment—given that that was precisely what she was doing—stung. "C'mon, Harry. It's not like that and you know it. I just . . . ." She gripped her fingers gently around his on the table. "You know what I mean. We have always been a little different, and that's special and unique, and out of everyone, if I had the chance to say goodbye to just one person?"

His face fell and those familiar green eyes misted behind those finally-fixed-proper wire frames.

Again she had to force a gulp down her throat as she shook her head. "Of course it would be you."

"I understand," he said with a sigh, resuming that warm smile as he squeezed her hand back. "I'll pass it along to the others. I'll make sure they're all appropriately upset with your vanishing."

"Oh, shut up," she said with a reluctant laugh, the bridge of her nose crinkling a little.

She sat back, leaving her hand beneath his. As much as this hurt, it was also a relief. She'd managed to be honest without divulging a thing. All right, so the war had taught her something more than the lessons for which she'd already accounted.

Hermione lifted her glass for a quenching swig. Maybe she could do this. Maybe she could pull off lying to—

Loki!

Harry jumped when the witch spat out her mouthful of butter beer. "What? What is it?!" He darted his gaze to follow hers, but he didn't see anything, just the empty window. "Hermione?" he asked, voice loaded with concern as he returned his attention to her.

She was breathing, slow and deliberate, the exaggerated exhalations a clear attempt to calm herself as she snatched up a napkin to wipe off her chin and what she'd gotten on the table. Her eyes snapped back in the direction of the window for a moment. Only a few heartbeats ago, she'd glanced over and seen that Remus-Lupin-like face in the window, just barely obscured by the hood of a cloak. There and then gone.

She could only imagine he'd peeked inside, interested as to what might be taking her so long, and then Thorfinn had caught him and—somehow respectfully—yanked him away. This entire conversation she'd dreaded the idea of having to explain the man with Remus' face to Harry, or worse, pretending like she hadn't seen him. Or, worse still, that Harry was seeing things.

Oh, she really did not have it in her to spend her possible last moments with her best friend gaslighting him. Loki was lucky he was a god, or he'd be getting a right kick in the bollocks once they were away from here.

Well, she was at the very least going to give him a stern talking-to!

"Nothing. I . . . I just thought I saw something," she replied with an awkward grin.


As she stormed back through the entrance to Knockturn Alley, a hand caught the back of her jumper and tugged her off the street.

The witch whirled on her heel, pushing the hand away with her free arm as she held her wand, ready to strike, with the other.

Thorfinn held up his free hand, clearly having been aware pulling his own wand would only add to her harassed state. His other hand clung to the strap of a battered rucksack slung across his back. At least one of them'd had the chance to prepare for the trip. Loki simply watched the interaction from beside him, features pinched and brows raised.

The blond man's enormous shoulders drooped as he got a good look at her face in the dwindling evening light. "Sunshine? You been crying?"

Schooling her expression, she ignored the very telling manner in which she sniffled as she holstered her wand. "No."

Now it was Thorfinn's turn to raise his eyebrows at her. "Then you might want to have a little chat with your face, because one of you is lying."

Loki snickered.

The witch's entire frame tensed at the sound. A sneer twisting her lips, she pinned the alien deity with a glare.

That hissing laugh died on his lips as he held her wrathful gaze. He cleared his throat, a spectacularly awkward sound. "Um . . . problem?"

She ground her teeth, forgetting her cautions to herself about what he was, about not knowing what powers he possessed, or what he might be capable of. "You!"

"Uh-oh." Thorfinn side-stepped, giving her wide berth as she stormed the short distance to Loki.

"Me?" Loki asked, having the audacity to appear surprised as he found her right before him, her small, delicate hand shaking a finger in his face.

"Yes, you!" Hermione was so incensed, she thought for a terrifying moment she might choke on the words as they thundered out of her throat. "I asked you to do one thing, Loki, just one! Stay out of sight! You couldn't even do that. I had to look up and get the shock of my life to see your big, stupid face in the window! Why? Why could you not have just stayed put here until I was finished?!"

Loki blinked once, twice. He nearly went off on her calling his face stupid—his face had been described many ways by many people over many centuries, but stupid had never been among them—but he thought it painfully obvious that would only add to her ire.

Instead, he tried for a safer tack. Hopefully. "I was simply curious; waiting is not something I'm good at." He paused, pensive a moment. "Funny, that, as I seem to have endless amounts of patience under the right circumstances."

"Curious?" She ignored the rest of his blathering to echo that single word, seeming like she was stopping herself from screaming obscenities the moment it left her lips. Reeling herself back in—or so Thorfinn thought for all of a heartbeat—she dropped her hand and stepped again, putting herself uncomfortably close to Loki's person, her teeth bared and staring daggers up into his face. "Who the fucking hell gave you permission to be curious about my life?"

Thorfinn considered that perhaps now would be a good time to get them moving. It was getting dark, and at this rate, they'd all end up camped out in his hovel of a hideout at Borgin and Burkes for the night.

But she went on before he could get the warning out, her voice dropping to a lethal murmur.

"The wizard I was talking to? He is my best friend and, out of the entire life I have here, he's the only one I get to say goodbye to. Who knows when we'll be back? Who knows what might happen? And yet, the only person who even knows I'm leaving at all is him!" Her throat was killing her, tight and aching and holding tears that wouldn't reach her eyes. "He was even closer to the man who's face you wear than I was. I was terrified he'd see you and think he was going mad. I was scared he'd leave to pub to chase you, and I'd have to be the one to make him think he might be going mad just to cover for you. How dare you put me in that sort of position!"

Pursing his lips, the mischief god appeared—much to Thorfinn's shock—to weigh her words. Loki's gaze flicked over her features. She really was a strong little thing, wasn't she? He wondered if she realized how much her little outburst had just impressed him.

She was fiercely loyal soul. That could come in handy. Well, provided he didn't push her into trying to kill him in his sleep.

"You have my apologies," he said with a minimal bow of his head.

Thorfinn let out a breath, allowing the tension to flood out of him, his shoulders sagging. Again he opened his mouth to direct them to get moving.

Again he was cut off, this time by Loki as Loki leaned down, putting his face closer still to the young woman's as he assured her in a velvety murmur, "I promise, any position I put you in from now on, you'll hold no anger toward me afterward."

Hermione's brain threatened to shut down at the sudden gear shift. The insinuation was blatant, and she could tell from the glint in those almost-green eyes that he'd meant it so.

The sensation of her cheeks warming and her breath coming up short blunted her anger immediately, serving instead to confuse her. She was still enraged at his inability to do one thing she'd asked of him, but . . . . But the instant effect, the way her mind conjured up a dozen images at his whispered pledge that set her pulse racing . . . .

She wondered now if Thorfinn's facetious question from earlier had been spot on.

Was Loki contagious, somehow? Was being in close proximity to him in some way affecting their perceptions and judgments?

She feigned a look of indifference as she shook her head, her eyes never leaving his as she pretended to misunderstand his meaning. "You can't promise me that, Loki. You've no idea what might make me angry." She was leaving any direct talk of 'positions' out of it.

Scowling, Thorfinn looked to the sky. With a headshake of his own, he exhaled an exasperated breath and folded his arms across his chest.

A smirk curved his lips, though for a moment—just the barest split second to let her know he was not dismissing her anger, only diffusing it—Loki allowed a serious expression to flicker across his features, perfectly aware of her attempted subterfuge. "Perhaps I'm eager to learn."

She thought her heart might just stop in her chest at his meaning. At the way he was looking at her.

"Okay!" Thorfinn near-bellowed, clapping his hands together one time.

The pair jumped, turning as one to fix their attention on him. Thorfinn was too bothered by the entire display to even attempt a contrite look for the deity he was trying to keep placated.

Hermione felt an immediate pang of guilt twist in the pit of her stomach. Thorfinn had stood here through that entire . . . whatever it was just now that had transpired between her and Loki. Was it an argument? Was it flirting? She had no idea. Probably both. Felt like both. And she and Thorfinn were . . . wait, what were they? Were they anything at all? Almost-friends? Past acquaintances?

It didn't matter, she realized, because all she really knew was how it hit her heart when he'd admitted he'd not have killed her when given the chance during the War—in hindsight that would prove a strange thing to find happiness in, she was certain—and how she realized now, as she searched his gaze with her own that she'd perhaps never really gotten over that silly little schoolgirl crush.

Not such a big deal when she'd been 12 and he'd been gone. But now that they were older and she knew what things meant and he looked at her the way he did? Flirted and teased and insinuated things, himself?

"I'm . . . ." She cut herself off mid-apology. She didn't actually have anything to apologize for. No matter her feelings, or suspicions of his feelings, she and Thorfinn weren't actually anything. "Sorry we sidetracked," she offered instead, grateful they'd both managed to distract her from more painful thoughts—like leaving behind her entire life but only having the emotional strength to say goodbye to Harry.

Thorfinn bit his lower lip so hard it appeared a moment he might honestly be trying to gnaw it off as he held back a quip that would only lead to a new argument between Hermione and him. "Yes, well, the thing we'd wanted to avoid? Happening now, because we wanted to leave before dark, and—oh, look!" He swept his hands upward toward the sky. "Dark now. C'mon. Let's go get some sleep and then we can start out early."

Loki's eyes rolled at the oversight and Hermione let out a groan of annoyance at herself. Thorfinn didn't wait for any further response before turning and starting toward Borgin and Burkes.

Hermione didn't like how she and Loki fell into step together as they followed in the storming Viking wizard's wake. But then a thought struck.

"No, we . . . we shouldn't go there."

Thorfinn halted. From the movement of his shoulders, she could tell he'd drawn and released an agitated breath.

Turning on his heel to face her, he asked, his tone almost pleading, "Then where, Sunshine?"

"Well . . . ." She looked to Loki and then back at Thorfinn. Another of her brilliant plans, she cursed herself. "Since I still need to pack—wasn't exactly looking forward to rushing through that just so we could be on our way—and I'd like to at least spend tonight in a proper bed as we'll be largely roughing it and magic'ed cots are a pale comparison, I would suggest my house. We could all probably do with some homecooked food and coffee before we go, anyway."

She pretended not to notice how Loki mouthed the word coffee with mild confusion. Because she didn't want to think on what she was getting into by offering caffeine to a being of chaos.

The wizard made an obvious effort to keep his gaze from darting toward the more-troublesome-by-the-minute god in their midst. "You're sure?"

She shrugged. "Better than all three of us stuck in that one-room flat, I should think."

Loki only nodded with a thoughtful frown. Thorfinn closed his eyes in a pained expression. The idea of an actual house for the night, not to mention a warm meal and, yes, coffee, was appealing, but he wasn't sure her stuck with Loki under the same roof with a 'proper bed' was such a better idea after all this.

But this was her plan, and she was perfectly capable of protecting herself. That was, of course, if she even wanted to protect herself from Loki. He ignored a rather annoying twinge in his chest at that.

"Fine," he said, gesturing for her to lead the way.

She tried to ignore both of them as they walked—it wasn't as though this was anything she was looking forward to, either. Especially not after this . . . interaction that had just taken place. And she mostly succeeded.

Until Loki leaned over and whispered in her ear, "It's sweet how he doesn't seem to notice that he's rather possessive of you."

Hermione thought it a miracle she didn't stumble over her own two feet at the observation.