Summary: [Dr Strange/Hermione Granger] [SSHG] Life has changed significantly for Hermione since an accident with some potion ingredients Neville brought to her. Unfortunately, that resulted in her being left alone at the Muggle hospital with a brain tumour.

A/N: Something something about dragonbats hogging all the mangoes.

Beta Love: DragonandtheRose, Dutchgirl01

Rare Pair: Hermione Granger/Stephen Strange

Warnings: Probably angst

Stranger Things

Three

The straight line cannot proceed through the torturous twists of life.

Giambattista Vico

Hermione awoke with the spikey pup curled up on her chest, having apparently tussled with all the other pups to win the most highly coveted spot on top of Hermione mountain. She slowly soothed her hand over the pup's head and behind his ears, and his ice-blue eyes stared into her as she did so. His ears went back slightly, and his lips pulled back from his puppy fangs, but he didn't snap at her.

As her fingers rubbed his ears, his tail seemed to be in conflict with his bared teeth. His wagging plasma tail thumped against her cheek.

"Hello there, you," Hermione said with a soft whisper, relieved to have finally made headway in getting through to the most mischief-prone, arguably dangerous pup of the bunch. Her slender fingers gently massaged him around the horns and spikes, and his eyes became half-lidded in pleasure at her warm touch despite his previous posturing.

"It's okay if you don't trust anyone just yet," Hermione said kindly. "I understand what it's like to live in the shadow of greatness where expectations made of you have nothing to do with your true worth. I'll tell you a secret. I don't know what makes me so special either. People like to tell me that I have some kind of a grand purpose in life, but I don't think they really know what that purpose is any more than I do."

The pup's ears perked forward.

"Just be yourself," Hermione said. "The rest will sort itself out, just—try not to always bite your way to victory," she said quietly. "You're stronger than most, but you don't have to prove yourself all the time. Your time will come when something inside you feels like it's the most important thing you've ever needed to do. Then all the things you thought were important just—aren't. You let go of yourself and what you thought you were, what everyone thinks you should be, and you become what you truly are—even if you have no idea what that is yet, love."

The pup cocked his head, and he tentatively licked her hand.

One of the other pups tried to wriggle under Hermione's hand for attention, and the spikey pup growled menacingly, sending the other pup packing with a discouraged-sounding whine.

Hermione snort-chuckled. "I really need to get up and do my katas you lot," she told the pups.

She extricated herself from the cloak and Lethifold and snuggly puppy pile before walking into the hidden garden that was nestled inside the Sanctum. Much like her beaded bag, the Sanctum was far larger on the inside than it appeared on the outside, and one of her favourite spots was in the botanic garden, where the sun filtered down from above.

Hermione picked up one of the staves from the weapon rack and channelled her magic through it. It charged and flexed as she made sure it felt right in her hands, and she took several deep cleansing breaths. Kudara rubbed up against her and took a place in front of her. Hermione placed her head against her as the pups tumbled with each other on the edge of the garden.

Hermione stood back from Kudara, the Deviant beast's lips pulled back from venomous teeth. The beast leapt, jaws open wide as her mouth seemed to become impossibly large.

Hermione met her head-on with her staff and magic, smashing her staff between the beast's jaws to deflect the bite. Kudara's plasma flared, and she used it to form long tendrils that solidified and attacked from multiple angles. Hermione brought up shields to deflect some of them, dodged others, and used her staff to counter the others.

They slowly circled each other, clashing when one seemed to gain the advantage but meeting in a storm of magic and physical combat. Venom-coated fangs met both staff and shield, dark plasma flooded over her with sizzling acidity, and she burst free and cracked her staff on the back of Kudara's head.

The beast roared, and pulled back, and her tail split into multiple parts. One shot by Hermione's neck as she spun, another shot between her legs as she pulled them up in a jumping spin, and one hit her on the arm.

Hermione hissed, her staff flying off into the garden, and she went tumbling into one of the trees with a shattering of branches and plants. One tree tilted and uprooted as she fell, and a cloud of petals and leaves showered down.

Kudara leapt, jaws open wide—

And one of the toppled trees slammed into her, knocking her sprawling in mid-leap.

Kudara's body went skidding across the garden, carving a swath in the ground that could have easily fit a few good-sized vehicles. The beast shook herself off, and she launched into the air to collide with Hermione as she made elaborate gestures with her fingers, summoning her magic around her to—

SNAP!

Kudara's mouth snapped around her, her acid-like drool sizzling as it dripped from her mouth. Hermione appeared as magical bindings wrapped around Kudara's closed mouth and tightened, bringing the great beast down with a resounding thump. The illusion of her vanished with a pop.

Kudara's mouth tore free from the bindings, and she burst through them as easily as rice paper. She launched herself at Hermione as the sorceress summoned the staff to her, and the crackle of magic and primordial energy clashed together with a resounding bang.

The bickering (and oblivious) pups that were tussling in the side garden were startled as a piece of ceiling crumbled and rained down upon their heads. They yipped and chased their tails in helpless confusion and thumped into each other. The spikey pup growled, his tail lashing as he stormed away from them even as the mixed cloud comprised of dust and falling leaves from the garden's centre began to clear.

Hermione stood with Kudara, her head pressed against her familiar's with her eyes closed. "Thank you, love," she said as she held out her arm.

Kudara's teeth sank into her arm, venom dripping as it mixed with her blood, but their combined magic flowed together tighter, strengthening their bond. Hermione's body began to ignite with Dark plasma even as Kudara's body radiated with the shine of Hermione's distinctive magical aura.

With a swirl of their combined magic, the garden put itself to rights; it was replanted, watered, and the soil was smoothed out neatly to something that no longer resembled something from an epic post-apocalyptic disaster.

"That—" Severus said in disbelief, "is how she relaxes?"

Stephen chuckled. "The garden always somehow lives to see another day."

Snape scratched his head. "That doesn't look even remotely like a relaxing activity."

"Bonding with a familiar like Kudara is reinforced by blood, magic, contact, and combat together," Strange explained. "The more one fights with the other as a team or against the other, the tighter the bond becomes. I do not have a familiar. I have a number of tools, but Hermione has always been a more sensitive sort. Even my cloak loves her to death, and while it doesn't follow her into battle, it will most definitely serve her tea and tuck her into bed."

Stephen shrugged. "I think the physical combat helps her tame her fight and flight instincts. It was something that used to keep her up at night. Nightmares of being on the run. Helpless. Unable to defend herself."

"She was a child forced into a situation of war," Severus said, shaking his head slowly. "It was absolutely ludicrous that she was forced to hold her friends together to 'save the world' instead of trained adults. The one many respected and looked up to put them in a treacherous position and facing impossible odds in the hopes that prophecy would prevail and right the mistake he made that created the problem to begin with."

"She's told me quite a bit about her tangled history in what you call the Wizarding World," Stephen said. "I regret that I was operating solely on brains at the time, though I feel odd saying that out loud like neurosurgery was somehow less important."

Snape sighed. "As I understand it, you were a late learner by your own admission. And the Wizarding World tries very hard to keep their existence secret, which somewhat baffles me that I am able to talk about it with you and not have a squad of Oblivators coming here to erase your memory and chastise me."

"Madam Amelia Bones, I believe, as well as Minister Kingsley Shacklebolt, if I recall the name correctly," Stephen said, "is aware of your presence here and of the masters of the mystical arts. I believe I am on the pre-approved list, as they say, or rather, that we know of your world and have no reason to wish to expose them any more than we would expose our own. The main difference is—we tend to be a bit more high profile. We draw attention away from witches and wizards in a world that knows of gods, demons, extra-dimensional beings, mutants, and more. We do have concealing spells; however, make no mistake. They do help us move about unseen while battling concealed magical creatures on a rampage in the cities."

"Odd that most of the Wizarding World does not, but then it shouldn't surprise me," Snape mused. "Most of the Wizarding populous can't even figure out how to dress properly in Muggle cities, let alone keep up with the news. I will admit, I had no idea, and I am not usually one to be so oblivious to the world—even as much as I loathe it."

"There is that certain aura of misdirection," Stephen said thoughtfully. "It was never so clear until Hermione practically erased herself from the memory of even her oldest and closest friends. I have a feeling it had something to do with what happened when the mad titan Thanatos used an ancient artefact to cause half the population of the universe to simply vanish."

"I was reading in a tome earlier that there is one Sorcerer Supreme," Snape said. "If that is true, why does the tattoo guy downstairs also get to be called the Sorcerer Supreme?"

"It's—complicated," Stephen said with a wince. "Basically when I vanished, they needed one, and he became the new Sorcerer Supreme, but when I came back, he became the Sorcerer Supreme of Earth."

"And you are the Sorcerer Supreme for—"

"This entire dimension."

Snape's lips puckered slightly as he gave Stephen the look he usually reserved for excuses like "my familiar ate my homework parchment."

"And, yet, Hermione is just a sorceress," Snape said.

"I don't think she ever qualified as just anything, as you well know," Stephen said. "We just haven't figured out what, exactly, that is."

"And how is it you don't know?" Severus asked.

"I'm the Sorcerer Supreme, not omniscient," Stephen replied. "We are all swimming in an endless ocean of cosmic probabilities. The few times I have attempted to discern multiple outcomes was very taxing, and it didn't always help in any case."

"True omniscient beings rarely share their knowledge because it can break timelines, cause incursions—it gets complicated. The most dangerous are the genius-level ones who believe they are omniscient."

"Story of every megalomaniac," Snape said distastefully. "I served two of them during the war that no one outside the Wizarding World knows about."

"Well," Strange mused philosophically, "at least you weren't fighting the likes of Dormammu. He'd make your war look like a child's game of hopscotch written in chalk after a hard rain."

There was a sharp YIP! as one of the smaller "puppies" got nailed on the rump by the grumpy pup, and it tore across the room to dive under Snape's legs where he promptly piddled in fright.

Snape looked down at his soiled dragonhide boots with consternation. He plucked up the bullied pup by the scruff and looked it in the eye with his lips twitching. "Do I need to call you McLaggen?"

The squirmy little interloper whined and licked his nose and chin in hopeful appeasement. There was a warm rush of magic, and Severus staggered as he felt it flow through him from head to toe.

Stephen's expression changed slightly, and Snape was suddenly stretched out on a sofa with a pup lying on his chest. "You should probably stay horizontal for a while," he advised.

Snape's groggy mumbling was his only reply.

"Maybe it is something involving whatever makes a person a wizard," Wong said consideringly as he sipped his tea. He was looking happier after a long soak in the hot springs, and there was a sleepy Deviant pup lounging in his lap.

"No, then all the Deviant beasts would be in what they call the Wizarding World," Stephen disagreed. "While, I do believe there was one particular specimen that preyed upon them, it was not a symbiotic relationship at all."

Wong shrugged as he pointed the wonton he was eating toward the passed-out Snape and the blissfully snoozing Deviant pup.

"I think that particular pup was looking for someone he didn't have to share with his brothers and sisters and his rather intimidating mum," Stephen said. "That he was magical was just a bonus, though it might have sweetened the pot as they say."

"Well, it will make his recovery from the other pup's venom a bit less of a concern," Wong said. "That will be quite a relief to Hermione."

Strange nodded, absently fiddling with his ring finger.

"You're actually going to get married this time?" Wong asked absently, missing little.

"That is the plan," Stephen stated.

"Do you even have a plan?" Wong asked in disbelief, looking incredulous.

"Yes," Strange replied. "I have a plan."

"And that plan is?"

"To ask her what our plan is," Stephen said, his brows furrowing.

Wong conjured up some more tea and drank it. "You're terrible at relationships."

Strange sighed. "I am aware of that."

Wong shook his head. "Don't be so terrible at this one," he advised.

"I am endeavouring to do so," Stephen said.

Wong looked his friend in the eyes. "Have you spoken with Clea?"

"She had not answered my messages," Stephen said. "That doesn't necessarily mean she's ignoring them, however. The Dark Dimension keeps her more than busy."

"Do not let the silence be an excuse, Stephen," Wong said. "No matter how kind and understanding Hermione is, she will not take Clea's possessive nature very well. She might care enough for you to accept that you have had feelings for Clea from before she knew you, and she may even be willing to share time, but we both know that Clea considers herself to be Clea Strange."

Stephen frowned. "I know," he replied after a while. "I will make an effort to seek her out more proactively."

"Now that wasn't so hard, was it?" Wong said, making a pair of chopsticks appear in Stephen's hand with a spring roll clutched between them.

Strange dipped his spring roll into the hoisin sauce and took a bite, saying nothing.

Severus found himself brewing to ease his mind and focus his thoughts. For him, it was never something he had to think about as much as he adjusted to a feeling that his hands and mind agreed on in a state of understanding.

His mind, or rather his soul, seemed lighter, and while he was digesting some really big revelations, the biggest and best one was that Hermione was still a part of his life. She was apparently more than fit, utterly combat-ready, and a complete army unto herself in comparison to most of the Wizarding World, but she was still Hermione.

The hole in his chest was no longer aching for Lily—which had been the only thing that made sense to him at the time. He had no reason to think of Hermione after the fae took his memories, but his soul remembered her, and he was more than a little moody thanks to her absence. He just never knew the real reason.

That—

And he had suffered an irrational knee-jerk need to murder bloody Longbottom (even more than usual).

He'd had felt the desire before, but it hadn't been quite that strong.

Mystery solved.

McLaggen, the unfortunately named pup, was curled up next to his cauldron as he brewed, behaving himself quite well.

Snape had never had a familiar before, and he wasn't sure he was up to the responsibility of another life tied to his very soul (especially as he recalled quite vividly what Bellatrix had done to others' familiars on purpose). He realised, however, that the Deviant beast pup was hardly the typical familiar like a cat or an owl. Hermione had told him that the bond was allowing him to gain immunity to their venom, which definitely had some benefits after having suffered being bitten by Nagini and then one wayward Deviant beast pup personally.

The consequences, however, of being adopted by a Deviant beast remained rather obscure. The responsibility was far more than having a cat (if having a feline of any variety was ever simple). He had to teach the beast an ethical or moral compass by example, and he was a bit shady in that area just in living his life. He also had the distinct impression that he would have to be on the top of his game magically to be able to reprimand such a creature who could when grown, level a building or worse.

Then again, Kudara was ancient, so just how long was "puppyhood" for something like a Deviant beast? Was McLaggen going to remain small and manageable for the span of his life? He wasn't sure as of yet.

Taking his cue from watching Hermione bond with Kudara, he allowed the pup to bite him (specifically his arm) and let their blood, venom, and magic mingle every so often. Strangely, it had the curious side effect of making the old indentation where his Dark Mark had once been appear to vanish entirely.

Bully for that.

Whether by design or some unique strangeness that was a bond with a Deviant pup, however, it started to look more like his old neighbour's black lab mix than a primordial alien beast. As an added bonus, the beast didn't wag any of his stray plasma about while following him around, and he was perfectly willing to walk with him on a dog lead without complaint any more than an ordinary pup that wanted to go around sniffing everything.

Severus had to admit that walking down the streets of New York was quite a different experience, and having the pup around distracted him from the nerves resulting from being in a city he was unfamiliar with. Even with the spell Strange had thoughtfully cast over him to permanently obscure him from the attention and curiosity of random New Yorkers unless he himself chose otherwise, his nerves were alive with paranoia.

Honestly, he wasn't used to sorcery. He knew every feel of what it was to Disillusion himself, but even that wasn't even close to the scope of the spell Strange had cast upon him with a look of consternation and focus.

"That'll keep you out of people's focus until you're ready to be seen," Strange had said with satisfaction as he moved his hands in some complicated gesture and swirled his arms about like he was twirling tendrils of fire.

It wasn't that he didn't trust him—

Okay, well, maybe he didn't trust him. Yet. Well, perhaps it was more about not trusting in this new kind of magic, but the proof kept on coming and, well, proving that those mystical arts were powerful indeed and very, very real.

If anything, Dr Stephen Strange had done nothing to warrant the same profound distrust he held for most men in places of power. From what he understood, the Sorcerer Supreme had the responsibility of protecting their world and even the dimension as a whole from all comers, but he still came "home" to enjoy quiet dinners and movie nights with Hermione.

He'd watched them practice their katas together in perfect synchronisation, the Deviant pups attempting to do the same in their own adorable yet comically failing way. The only one amongst Kudara's litter with sufficient attention span to keep watching her, however, was always the spikiest, grumpiest pup of the lot. The little troublemaker would watch her raptly as if trying to weigh her skill against the universe.

While the other pups seemed to adore Hermione with equal measure, even McLaggen, the grumpy pup seemed to be the wild card in that no one knew what he was going to do from one moment to the next; curl up and take a nap, dive into the koi pool and terrorise the fish, or ransack Wong's immaculate kitchen.

Meanwhile, McLaggen seemed happy to have someone all to himself that none of the other pups had. Snape wasn't sure how true that was considering they all lived together, but as long as the pup wasn't diving into his brewing cauldron or shedding dark plasma over his parchments, he was content enough to tolerate McLaggen's antics.

Even if he was named after the most idiotic example of lacking social graces as witnessed during Horace Slughorn's all-too-frequent Slug Club dinners.

Perhaps, he figured, McLaggen the pup could redeem the dunderheaded oaf's family name.

Maybe.

He watched the pup chewing enthusiastically on a rawhide rugby ball instead of his dragonhide boots.

Well, it was a pretty good start.

Gently, he rubbed the pup's ears, and the squirmy little beast licked his hand or at least attempted to in between growling and tussling with his rawhide toy.

Life's choices were often difficult, Severus mused. At least McLaggen had time in which to be a pup. If only the children of the Wizarding World had had that opportunity—

Severus sighed.

"Finished with today's brewing?" Hermione asked from the doorway.

Severus put down the tools he had been carefully drying by hand and walked over to her, enfolding her in his arms. "I am, now."

"How was your day out on the town?"

"Too noisy," Severus huffed. "And idiots drive on the wrong side of the road."

Hermione snorted and smiled. "It does seem a bit backwards, doesn't it?"

"I could swear I heard Longbottom's voice while I was in the markets," Severus said, rubbing his nose at the memory. "I experienced a sudden desire to set fire to the city."

"I commend you for exercising restraint, and do try to continue doing so. This city has enough problems," Hermione countered.

"He has become a bit of a fine trigger mechanism for me," Severus confessed as he pressed his face into her curls. "How was your day?"

"Training a few of the newer people in the key points around New York," Hermione said. "It feels odd being the one to show people around considering it wasn't that long ago I was just as utterly lost as they were, but I suppose we do all start out pretty lost. The portal to and from Kamar-Taj makes it a bit easier, but nothing is more embarrassing than sending someone new to defend an area and have them looking at me blankly."

"Sounds like a typical dunderhead to me," Snape said with a disdainful sniff.

"Well, a master of the mystical arts does not necessarily a proficient map reader make," Hermione observed wryly.

"How comforting to know the weight of the world lays on the shoulders of map-challenged individuals." Severus' eyebrow quirked upward.

Hermione thumped her head against his chest. "I've really missed you."

"I can't imagine why," Snape muttered.

"You know perfectly well why," Hermione scoffed.

"Perhaps, I find it rather surreal," Severus admitted, his hand cupping her cheek. "Only a while ago, I was a decidedly angry individual who was pining for a childhood friend and was even angrier at myself for doing it."

Hermione touched his jaw and placed a kiss on his mouth. "Your childhood friend was a real bitch."

Severus arched a brow. "Such language, Master Granger."

"Truth," Hermione said with a smile.

Snape let out a soft breath as he exhaled. "She was never as good a person as I remembered her—wanted her to be. Much like the dream Mr Potter has long had of his family, I, too, wanted to believe that Lily was perfection personified. Her cold rejection brought me back to reality, but not in the way she could have ever foreseen. I made some truly horrible decisions. It would be all too easy to blame her for it all, but I know that isn't the entire truth. I desperately wanted to prove myself a better wizard."

"You are a better wizard, Severus," Hermione said looking him in the eyes.

His expression softened. "When I am with you, I can actually believe it is possible."

"It's true," Hermione said, "and the fact that you are here and with me now, trying to learn about all of these strange and probably seemingly crazy things—that you're willing to try and understand that Stephen is important to me too—you're a far greater man than you give yourself credit for."

Severus pressed his mouth to her forehead. "You have no idea just how inspiring you are, love."

"I've started to realise that holding on to grudges requires entirely too much effort, and it just makes me crankier than usual."

Hermione smiled. "Whatever shall you do without your grudges?"

"I will hold on to some of them," Severus said with slightly puckered lips. "Longbottom will never be off my permanent shite list."

"We all have something we carry through life," Hermione said with a chuckle. "Mine will be the mistake that I actually kissed Ronald even once."

Snape's scowl deepened. "So much for better judgement."

Hermione splayed her hands. "Well, he does have his own issues, as I understand," she said. "The kind of problems that an Auror's salary cannot quite cover."

"That leaves so many options," Snape quipped.

Hermione sighed, her head rolling forward and around to loosen her muscles. "He never took Fred's death well, but his recovery caused him to get addicted to gambling. First, it was on Quidditch, then that progressed to him betting on pretty much anything and everything. Always chasing the next win. That was quite some time ago, and—well, I cannot contact the Weasleys as I once did before I became a sorceress. That would result in way too many questions, and the family believes I left and returned to the Muggle world—which is true enough in many ways."

"A Muggle world with more magic in it than they could possibly fathom," Snape noted.

"I've found that just when you think you know a lot about something, another thing will occur that forces you to reevaluate yet again," Hermione said. "I've often had to adjust some of my opinions on both gods and what actually constitutes an alien."

Snape's brows furrowed. "Having seen quite a few things that appear to defy everything we were taught as Wizarding children or even as Muggles, I am fairly certain that I can sympathise with that." He let out a sigh. "I'm certain that my idea of an alien would have been what I've seen here, and that includes a certain family of creatures, one of which took a bite out of my ankle."

Hermione flashed him a quick smile. "Well, at least you are immune to that particular danger, now."

Severus shrugged. "I brewed an antivenom for them, regardless. There is no telling who they might accidentally bite, even with Kudara watching them as closely as she does. There is always that one—"

Hermione chuckled. "He's always been a bit of a carve your own path through life kind of pup," she admitted. "He defies his brothers and sisters and even tries to go against his mum, not that it ever works for him in the end."

"I have to admire any mother, really," Severus confessed. "Kudara makes the efforts of even Molly Weasley look primitive, and yet to Molly, Kudara would be nothing more than a dumb beast."

"She did have her prejudices," Hermione agreed. "They were perhaps not as great as those that pitted the pure against the allegedly muddied, but they were often the sort of very stubborn and insidious beliefs that facts and reason could not hope to sway. She was utterly convinced that I was a selfish trollop trying to break Harry's heart for over a year just because Skeeter and the Prophet said so."

"Molly Weasley's a sodding imbecile," Snape growled. "Anyone who believed the absolute rot that came from that pitiful excuse for a newspaper had an axe to grind and merely used the Prophet's bilge in an attempt to justify it."

Hermione lay her head against Severus' chest. "Is it bad that I find your anger on my behalf comforting?"

Snape seemed rather confused about the proper response, and he awkwardly touched her hair, soothing it as one would one of the ornery pups. "No, but I think I'm slightly biased in this case."

Hermione chuckled. "I rather like your bias in this case."

There was a thump and a growl as the grumpy pup decided to take out his aggression on Snape's boot.

"Why is my boot always the one getting the raw end of these scrapes?" Severus complained.

Hermione chuckled and cupped the pup with her hand and drew him to her chest and cuddled him. "There now,love, what's all this fuss about?"

The pup seemed satisfied with the outcome of his attack and settled against her chest with a whuff and closed his eyes.

Severus rolled his eyes. "I've been outplayed by a pint-sized pup."

Hermione leaned over to kiss Severus on the nose. "I loved you first."

Snape's expression softened, but he said nothing, and Hermione smiled at him anyway. She touched his jaw with her fingertips and walked away, a warm smile on her face.

Clea walked into the Sanctum Sanctorum with a sigh. The familiar musk of Earthen antiquity caused her nose to wrinkle in distaste. Stephen had always been fond of it, but she was more used to the odourless sterility of the Dark Dimension that also housed what many knew as "hell."

A fight with her uncle, Dormammu, had led to a few months of having to fight her way back to her home in the Dark Dimension, but unlike her mother, she had fought fiercely to return. Upon returning, however, she had found that the ring that was normally on her ring finger had mysteriously vanished.

At first, she'd thought it had been sadly lost in her battle to return to the Dark Dimension and the subsequent battle with her uncle to remain there (yet again), but she had a sense that there was more to it. She had a sneaking suspicion that Stephen knew that she had found solace in Jericho Drumm during one of their "cooling off" periods, but the Sorcerer Supreme had not said a thing.

The ring however—

Perhaps it had sensed her own infidelity in their informal "marriage."

It wasn't as if she didn't love the man, for she did, but she was of the Dark Dimension, and it made any sort of bond with Stephen almost impossible to cement. The very nature of the Dark Dimension was—volatile at its best.

Clea had always been intrigued by Stephen ever since he had been tasked by the Ancient One to prevent Dormammu from invading Earth. She had tried to dissuade him, and her Uncle had imprisoned her for her betrayal. Whether for good or not, the mindless ones that had been under Dormammu's heel had escaped. Strange and Dormammu had worked together to bring them back, and that had given Strange one boon from her Uncle.

He asked for only one thing other than to leave Earth out of his invasion plans: to release his niece.

Clea had been fascinated by Stephen ever since, and they had developed a very hot on and off again kind of whirlwind passion. The responsibilities, however, remained. When Eternity had finally had enough and banished Dormammu from the Dark Dimension, it had left his "throne" unoccupied. Clea had, rather than let it fall under some other, undoubtedly worse, thumb, chosen to fill the void herself. That choice, however, had tied her to the Dark Dimension even more tightly than before.

Every so often her Uncle would return, they would fight, and either he or she would banish the other, and they would have to fight their way back. Thanks to Eternity, however, Dormammu was doomed to keep losing—eventually—and Clea would have to mop up the debris and put "her" dimension back into order (or chaos depending on how one looked at it).

However, to tie herself intimately to Stephen would tie him to the Dark Dimension, and they would have to fight. There could only be one Sorcerer or Sorceress Supreme of a given domain, two only if their power bases did not overlap. He watched over Earth, and she had the Dark Dimension. She had no doubt if they were tied to the same dimension that their powers would not be able to complement each other in such a way that allowed for a harmonious balance.

But they did have an attraction, and she did, despite her dalliances which he was unaware of, care for Stephen.

Stephen's messages to her, however, had made no sense.

He spoke of having found someone and needing to clear the air between them so they could go on with their lives.

Found someone?

Surely not that bushy-haired girl and aspiring sorceress who had been trying to earn some useless degree in science even while learning the mystic arts?

Impossible!

While being human wasn't exactly a full stop for her (Stephen himself was human, after all) she couldn't exactly see him falling for a bookworm over, well, her!

Not after all they'd shared together—

Part of her knew she was being quite unfair, as she was technically in multiple relationships behind Stephen's back even while he was trying hard to be honest with her. Had their bond been true, the ring would never have shattered.

So, now she was here to try to talk with him.

Late, yes, but they'd never really had a set time to come and see each other.

Clea's hand fell upon her favourite chair, the comfortable lounge chair where she'd often sit and listen to Stephen go on about the "complexities" of science and how they could be merged with the mystical arts, but she had always been more interested simply hearing the sound of his voice rather than what he'd been talking about.

Or his body.

Definitely his body.

She really loved how the white-streaked his temples so distinctively.

Yet, she wasn't being any more honest with herself than she was with Stephen. She wanted him, but she did have certain others that she found quite intriguing. They were both facing an extremely long time looking after their respective domains, after all.

So, why did the prospect of sharing Stephen's affections with another disturb her so much?

Was it because she believed she should be able to keep the affections of those she favoured, all the while preventing them from desiring another?

"If you are here to see the Sorcerer Supreme," a deep voice said from one of the other chairs, "he is currently sorting an issue in Hong Kong."

A tall, pale, dark-eyed man sat in one of the other chairs, a book in his hands as a mongrel pup of some sort snoozed on his lap. His eyes were a fathomless black and utterly unreadable, his eyes unblinking and his expression barely discernible. He had a sharp, angular, rather large nose and high cheekbones that gave off the look of being chiselled.

He wore robes of a sort, but they were not of the typical fare that Clea knew most masters of the mystical arts preferred. They were not designed for total freedom of combat while casting.

"I'll wait," Clea said, attempting not to sound startled by his presence. It wasn't normal for her to be so taken off guard, but she had not sensed him in the room until the moment he spoke.

His low velvet rumble of a voice sent a shiver down her spine, and while his looks were not conventionally handsome in the way she usually preferred, his elegant voice was most definitely something she'd like to savour.

"Suit yourself," the man said with a shrug, seeming wholly uninterested in her, not sparing her any more notice than one would for a plain brown sparrow perched on the branch of a tree in their garden.

The man had her attention. It wasn't normal for her to walk into a place and not instantly catch a man's eye. She was quite accustomed to that sort of scrutiny.

"Don't flatter yourself," the man snapped as he flipped a page in his book. "Not everyone is going to find you instantly alluring and want to take you to bed."

Clea blinked at that. He—he read her mind? Impossible!

"I'm not reading your mind," the man said with a soft snort. "You're a ridiculously easy read."

Fighting back a surge of indignation, she tried to focus herself to the matter at hand—the reason she had come to visit Stephen to begin with.

"Puppies!" a voice cried from down the hall. "Chow time!"

The little beast in the man's lap immediately leapt up and tore off down the hall with all due haste.

The man snorted again. "Familiar, my arse," he muttered.

Clea frowned. It wasn't normal for the Sanctum to have visitors hanging about, at least ones she didn't know specifically as being one of the masters of mystical arts.

And he clearly wasn't interested in introducing himself.

The pregnant silence settled awkwardly in the room as Clea struggled not to say something to protest the man's observation.

The pattering storm of multiple feet signalled the return of the "puppies" and all but one of them clambered to fight into the man's lap with varying levels of success.

One pup skidded to a halt, a ball caught between his jaws. He dropped it, and it jingled merrily as it rang and rolled across the floor. He seemed to glower at the dark-haired man as he looked back down the hall toward the rest of his littermates. He eyed the man's boot with narrow-eyed scrutiny—

"Oh no you don't, little friend," a bushy-haired woman said as she scooped the pup up and snuggled him. "Let's keep those teeth to yourself."

The pup squirmed in protest until the woman pressed her face close to the pup's neck, and he stilled almost immediately as if he wasn't really sure what to do about it. Then, his tail started wagging, and he happily slurped her chin.

"Nngh, puppy breath," the woman muttered as she passed a teacup to the man in the chair. "Tea, Severus?"

"Thank you," the man replied. His hand touched hers, lingering a bit longer than to just take the cup.

"Stephen is currently in Hong Kong, Clea," the bushy-haired woman said calmly.

Clea tried to remember the woman's name. It started with an "H" she was pretty sure. Heather? Harmony?

She could remember a countless number of complex spells that could invert time and space, but the woman's name completely eluded her.

"It's Hermione," the woman said pointedly.

Clea frowned. She did not particularly like to be called out on not remembering someone's name.

Hermione, however, seemed to pay Clea no heed. "I have just made tea if you would like some," she said.

"I can conjure my own drink," Clea said, frowning.

"As you wish," Hermione replied. She played with the spikey pup using a rawhide toy, and the pup was growling menacingly as if it was the biggest threat to its life even as it tore into it with gusto.

Hermione's expression softened as she gazed upon the pup.

Clea frowned again. There was something strange about the little beast, but she couldn't quite put a finger on it. It was small, much like a puppy or one of those little beasts she'd see in the Dark Dimension that denizens would keep as pets, but there was something—

The little beast was seemingly content to sprawl over her shoulder and watch the world go by, but she noticed its ice-blue eyes were watching her with nothing short of suspicion. Its lips pulled back from its teeth, growling.

Hermione's hand soothed its spikey back, and its tail began to thump slightly, its mouth relaxing into less of a threatening gesture.

There was certainly a lot of menace building in the animal, whatever it was. If it had been fully grown, perhaps it would have been more intimidating, but on the muzzle of a puppy, it failed to bring Clea much concern.

Hermione attempted to extricate the pup and set him down with the other pups, but the other pups eyed the other's spikey demeanour and growls and huddled closer on the lap of the seemingly disinterested man.

What was his name?

Oh. Severus.

She didn't recognise that name, either.

"You seem to have acquired a fan club," Hermione said warmly, her voice relaxed and somewhat amused.

"More like a number of miniscule refugees," Severus said, flipping a page in his book as he propped it on one of the pup's heads.

The pup panted happily in his role as a living book stand.

"I need a camera right now," Hermione cooed as she pet the pups in his lap.

"The hell you do, witch," Severus snapped.

Hermione made a pouting face. "But it's so adorable."

The man glared at the bushy-haired woman with an obvious threat.

Hermione splayed her hands in surrender. "Alright, alright. No evidence of just how adorable you are."

Clea doubted significantly if the man was adorable in any way that she judged the male aesthetic, but Hermione seemed quite determined to think otherwise.

Hermione touched Severus' cheek with a smile, and Cleo noticed the glint of—

Impossible!

A subtle rainbow-like band shimmered around her ring finger. It was a heartstone ring, crafted from the compressed gems of an ice planet's gravity—

Few had access to such incredibly rare things. Well, an ability to acquire them safely anyway. Even with magic powerful enough to survive the gravity, one had to find it hidden amongst all the other "gems" created by a planet's volatile environment. Magic certainly helped with such things, but not always. Turbulent worlds had a habit of cloaking the energy of magic or else twisting it in horrifying ways. A simple spell could easily backfire.

It was no wonder that they were so very rare.

And yet, she now wore such a ring on her finger—

And Clea could sense the concentrated magic held within it. Stephen's magic dwelled there, staying with her as one would wear a robe that still carried his unique scent.

This was the woman Stephen had said he was going bond himself to—

And yet, here the woman was, caressing this other man while Stephen's back was turned!

A part of Clea nagged at the back of her mind that she hadn't exactly told Stephen about her multiple lovers, either, and if this man was living in the Sanctum, then Stephen most likely knew all about him.

But surely that was impossible?

Stephen was not the kind of man to share.

That's why she had so enjoyed winning his affections after Christine had married another—

Hypocrite! Clea's thoughts screamed at her, but she steadfastly ignored it.

Sorcerers and Sorceresses Supreme tended to live for an exceptionally long time. She had every right to fill out her life as she saw fit so it would not get terribly tedious and boring. She wanted to have a devoted harem of attractive and powerful men who all desired only her.

There was a tiny niggling in the back of her mind that said her uncle Dormammu was much the same only to a different extreme, but she shoved that thought away quickly. She was not her uncle. She did not demand worship and torture those who didn't.

But seeing the ring on Hermione's finger did trigger a sudden flood of unwanted feelings. She looked so plain and ordinary, especially when compared to one such as herself.

It wasn't like the rings she herself had exchanged with Stephen—

Their magic had not been bound together.

It had been about self-preservation, perhaps. It had been to protect their roles as the chosen protectors of their respective dimensions. It hadn't mattered to her that there was no official paperwork—what would such a paper have proven in the Dark Dimension?

Absolutely nothing.

But Stephen had given her a very particular ring—

The kind that—

Impossible. It must be some other sort of similar element.

Clea's eyelid twitched slightly. She did not much like being the last to know. In the Dark Dimension, everyone hid everything from everyone else. She couldn't even trust her own father, and her uncle had banished her crazed mother to another dimension. Families were even more complicated than complete strangers.

Your life is complicated, the tiny voice in the back of her mind nagged insistently.

"Grumpy seems to have mellowed to you," Severus observed.

Clea listened to him with an appreciative ear. His voice was low and smooth like velvet. It pleased her even if his physical appearance didn't do anything for her.

Hermione chuckled. "I think he's just trying to be himself, but he needs to feel safe to do so."

"A puppy with such a complex so early in life?" Severus questioned with a frown.

Hermione shrugged. "It's just a feeling. I know I used to compare myself to everyone around me, striving to stand out on my own and prove that I was worth breathing the same air as everyone else."

"I'm not sure puppies are quite that complicated, but then again, I seem to have acquired the most laid back one of the bunch," Severus commented. "At least after McLaggen was finished having emotional breakdowns over my dragonhide boots."

Hermione grinned. "It suits you."

"Being peed on is hardly suitable."

"The pup and you, not the peeing, you positively infuriating man," Hermione huffed.

The corners of his mouth quirked upward only slightly, and Clea noticed a softness about his gaze as he regarded Hermione.

Jealousy gnawed at her gut, and she scowled. Why did she even care?

"Stephen said we could go out to dinner at this new place he found that serves excellent steaks when he returns," Hermione said.

"I truly look forward to it," Severus said as he closed his book with a snap. The pups startled for a moment and then promptly went back to sleep in his lap. "I have some brewing orders to complete before I can focus on other things, but I should be done in time for an evening meal tonight, should he return today."

"Have they no one else?" Hermione asked.

"None who are competent and have hands," Severus replied drolly. "Besides, any potion Manfred brews would somehow both taste and smell of limes and mangoes, no matter what it was."

Hermione chuckled. "Of course."

Severus rolled his eyes. "You are entirely too tolerant of that old dragonbat's shenanigans."

"He was my master," Hermione argued. "It was my sworn duty to tolerate his 'shenanigans' as it were."

"He was entirely too happy to indulge you," the pale man muttered.

Hermione huffed. "He has the very best stories."

Severus shook his head. "Biased."

Hermione smiled. "I've worked with Stephen on making a concealed den for Kudara so she has a place to escape whenever she needs to."

"And saddle us with the little miscreants instead?" Snape huffed.

"For a time," Hermione answered primly.

"Glorious," Severus said, but his hand lay gently on one of the slumbering pups, and he smiled slightly.

Clea found herself discomfited by the sheer casualness of the exchange as if they'd known each other for years as if she was the intruder. But she had been in the Sanctum with Stephen long before "Hermione" and "Severus" had shown up.

A low, menacing growl filled the room, and Clea looked up to see an extremely large beast staring her down as it padded down the hallway into the room. Dark plasma dripped from its body and venom coated its teeth. Its multiple eyes seemed to see in all directions, glowing with various colours, each one more malevolent than the next. Spikes, horns, and scales shifted and grew as if deciding which it wanted to be first and foremost, but the snarl on the creature's muzzle sent a clear enough message to Clea's brain.

Something had escaped the Nexus!

Something incredibly dangerous had gotten past the wards!

If Stephen wasn't here, and Wong was occupied elsewhere, then it fell to her to protect the Sanctum from any sudden breaches in the Nexus.

Immediately, Clea called her magic to her, forming a containment sphere and a banishing spell that would ensure the creature would have a very long fight to get back to Earth if it ever did at all.

The beast snarled loudly and sprang!

"Kudara, NO!" Hermione cried, leaping up from her perch on the arm of the lounge chair. She summoned her own magic to her to throw up a shield—

Unfortunately, Clea was much faster.

She was long accustomed to fighting back the unruly denizens of the Dark Dimension. She was its Sorceress Supreme. Whatever pathetic excuse for a shield this newer sorceress was going to throw between her and the beast would not serve to banish the beast as it needed to be.

She flung Hermione to the side like a ragdoll with her magic and cast her spell over the beast in one smooth motion.

The blast stunned the beast in mid-leap, causing it to let out a roar of protective fury.

Clea released her banishment spell with her other hand. "To the freezing hells with you, foul beast!" she yelled.

"NO! She's my FAMILIAR!" Hermione screamed, throwing herself between the beast and Clea.

She threw up a shield, but Clea's banishment void expanded and devoured the first thing it collided with: the other sorceress. Hermione let out an agonised shriek as her body was folded into the banishment void and disappeared along with part of the Persian carpeted floor, the nearby desk, and half a bookcase.

Books went clattering to the floor, some halved completely by the spell. Shattered wood and other debris crumpled into the empty hole in the floor. The huge beast sniffed the hole in the floor, and looked up at her—

Seething, unmistakable hatred burned in every single eye the huge beast had.

"Stupefy! Langlock! Incarcerous! Petrificus Totalus!" the man from the chair yelled, his arm outstretched with an ebony wand clutched in his hand.

Clea, caught entirely off guard, collapsed onto the floor, her last thought before falling unconscious being "What the fu—"

"Can you sense her at all?" Wong asked as Stephen anxiously paced the floor, his magic swirling around him like a hurricane as calculations and various scrying spells followed him. Books lay open and strewn across the room.

Kudara lay at the place she had last seen Hermione, curled around the great hole in the floor as if waiting for it to return along with her mistress. Dark plasma and venom dripped into the hole in the floor. Her pups scrambled frantically all around her, sniffing, nudging and whining, seemingly missing "something" they couldn't quite express.

"No," Stephen said in a low growl. "Wherever Hermione is, it is far beyond the realm of our dimension, and I am unsure if she has been transported to another area of the multiverse."

"Can we not ask her?" Wong asked, his nose wrinkling. The Sorcerer Supreme of Earth scowled significantly at Clea's bound body. "What exactly happened to her?"

"Severus happened to her," Stephen said distractedly. "Wizarding magic."

Wong's eyebrow lifted. "The magic Hermione knew before she came to us?"

Stephen nodded.

"Apparently, it is not completely ineffectual in comparison to our own," Wong said thoughtfully. "She showed me a few of the spells she once used, but she said they were not as complex as what we manipulated."

"No less effective, apparently," Stephen observed, "when used appropriately. As I understand it, intent and emotion can power a spell beyond its casting's base power."

Severus seemed to be staring Clea down as if to weigh her soul for the afterlife, and his dark eyes swallowed up the ambient light like a black hole.

"Think yourself so special, don't you?" Severus said to the captive sorceress. "Entitled. Perhaps, you believe you scraped up from nothing and deserve everything. Perhaps, you were born with a silver spoon up your arse and think the world is yours for the taking. Maybe you find your family distasteful, and you think yourself better than them—as if power alone could prove this correct."

Snape's lips pressed into a flat line. "I know people much like you. So desperate to separate themselves from their dirty little family, they live their life shovelling dirt on the family tree as if they alone can grow to become their own tree. They pick on those they consider weaker, confident that their magic is somehow better—that they are better. But they are not any better. They are utterly disgraceful because they have made themselves worse in all their frantic attempts to escape the fate they were born with. To escape their eventual death. To escape their own mediocrity. To escape the horror of being common. And to escape the humiliation of being overlooked."

Snape's expression darkened. "I once made a long chain of terrible mistakes while attempting to avoid the anger of my inescapable birth, and I believed I'd die without having ever found something to live for when everyone else wanted me to die for their own causes."

"You just took the one creature on this Earth who gave a damn about me before anyone else," Severus said darkly. "Who saw value in me outside of my usefulness to them. Just when I had finally found her again. And you—just floating in here as though you own the place. Banking on some shared history to obtain that which you desire? It doesn't take a mind reader to see that."

"Whatever it is you're running from, it won't work," Snape said, his face twisted in disgust as if tasting something utterly rancid. "No matter what comely face you put on, how much adoration is showered upon you—it will not help you to elude the inescapable fact that someone must look upon your true face for any of it to matter at all. No manner of good deeds will help you in this. No number of 'incursions' you fix or blunders you put back together will fill that insecurity gnawing away at your soul."

"Severus."

The pale man's jaw set, and he stood. "Yes?"

"As badly as my ex-wife needs a good talking to," Stephen said, "could you please help Kudara find her missing pup?"

Severus frowned. "Which one?"

"The grumpy one," Stephen answered. "Well, the grumpiest one. I realise we seem to have alternating specimens. I did a head count, and she's missing a pup. She's so intensely focused on waiting for Hermione to come back that she seems to be ignoring the missing one and barely watching the others. I fear if I cannot discern where Hermione is soon, Kudara's anchor within Hermione will degrade, and she may rampage as befits a being of her unique nature."

Snape's expression deepened, causing his cheekbones to stand out against his face more sharply. His eyes flicked to the dimly glowing band on Stephen's finger. "But she is—alive—as you said before?" he confirmed quietly.

Stephen nodded slowly. "That is the only thing I can be sure of at this point. That Kudara hasn't started taking out most of New York City is probably also a good indicator. Their bond is very strong."

Severus' expression seemed to soften slightly. "I will check on them," he promised. He turned and began to leave.

"Severus."

The wizard turned. "Yes?"

"Could you please release my ex-wife from the spells you cast upon her?"

Severus' lip twitched. "As you wish," he said, waving his hand as the restraints disappeared. He walked away, his black woollen robes billowing out behind him.

Stephen watched through narrowed eyes as Clea's body landed hard on the floor, face first.

"When I invited you here, Clea," Stephen said coolly as he sat down in a chair, his magic guiding Clea into another chair across from him and placing an ice pack on her face, "I asked you to come to speak with me, not to banish one of our fellow masters of the mystical arts to some random dimension and piss off her familiar, who is only barely managing to remain sane in the fact that she is not dead. I know how that feels."

Clea stared blankly at him, her right eye slightly swollen.

"Let me make this perfectly plain," Stephen said, his voice grim. "I sent you a message to inform you that I knew we were no longer exclusive. I am not so oblivious not to know what it means when the rings we exchanged turned to dust. I found someone who cares enough for me to understand what I had with you was special. She was willing to allow me to keep what we had, if I so chose—but I don't think I even know you anymore."

Stephen tugged at his collar to loosen the tightness around his neck. "Did I ever?"

His expression darkened. "Now, I want you to think very carefully about your answer to my next question because I will only ask it once. There is a Deviant beast out there that is both willing and eager to determine just how chewy you are, and while I'm certain you would eventually win the battle being a Sorceress Supreme, I'm not quite sure if you would go entirely undamaged. And there is also a wizard out there who knows an entirely different kind of magic who will do his very best to ensure that you never set foot in this Sanctum again, and I'm ready to teach him even better ones. Now. Where is Hermione? Where did you banish her?"

Stephen held out Hermione's sling ring with a stern expression, his jaw tense with his anger. "You banished her to some unknown dimension without her sling ring, and I want to know where you sent her."

"I don't know," Clea said nervously.

Stephen's expression darkened. "So that is the game you are choosing to play." He stood up, his Cloak of Levitation settling about his shoulders. "I will be removing you from the wards of this Sanctum. If you want to come to Earth, you are going to have to knock just like everyone else on the Nexus doors."

Stephen's face scrunched in disgust, and he waved his hands, making a few complicated gestures.

"I really don't know!" Clea cried, wincing in pain.

Stephen whirled, his jaw set. "The Sorceress Supreme of the Dark Dimension doesn't know where she banished someone," he scoffed.

"The beast was exceedingly powerful. Its innate magic is like fire mixed with venom. I could tell it was designed to absorb and destroy. I wanted to send it to the coldest place possible. I figured, if I couldn't kill it, I could at least shut it down. I truly thought it had escaped the Nexus! I swear!"

Stephen's jaw set.

"And you have no place at all that would come to mind first whenever you think of absolute zero?" Stephen asked, his look very grim.

"Many, but none that I was thinking of specifically," Clea confessed.

Stephen's jaw clenched tightly. He stormed out of the room, but his cloak stayed behind.

The cloak loomed over Clea for one long moment before suddenly slapping her upside the face with one "end" of itself and floating off after Strange.

Clea slumped in the chair as her feeling of pride in being superior slowly trickled away.

Walter wrapped around Hermione's body and attempted to keep her warm, but the landscape was brutally cold, and Hermione was unconscious. The Lethifold, however, was really suffering from the cold as well. The normal climate his species hunted were the tropics, and while he wasn't dying in the cold, exactly, it wasn't making him very happy.

Movement came from underneath Walter's folds of warmth, however, and a blatant stowaway wriggled out. The spikey, horned pup looked out from Walter's blackness and seemed to take in the icy landscape with no little consternation.

As one paw touched the frozen ground, the paw turned cobalt blue, moving up the legs until the body followed. The pup's blue eyes shifted and changed to a smouldering crimson. He grew ever larger and larger until he towered high above the Lethifold-wrapped sorceress, and he began to dig into the ice and snow, his claws scraping huge swaths into the frozen ground.

He carved out chunks of ice and nudged them into place, his tail moving to pack snow into the jointed spaces. He moved his body around Hermione's, leaning on the walls to shape them into position, and used his mouth to place the ice into a roof. Moulding a dipped entryway to keep the coldest air moving outward and the warmer air up, his tail formed elevated platforms inside the shelter.

His body radiated heat, and the inside of the shelter seemed to melt just enough to freeze again, forming a smooth, glass-like surface that hardened into a wall against the outside elements.

Shrinking down in size, he burrowed a tunnel to the outside, and the spikes on his tail speared the wall in a few places to ventilate the structure. He grew again once in the frigid outside cold, shaking himself as snow fell from his body.

As he moved outside, he dug around in the softer snow and piled it over the structure's foundation walls, smoothing it over with his tail and packing it, using the spike on his tail to keep the ventilation holes open.

Eyeing his handiwork, the beast shrank back down again, burrowing back through the entryway he had excavated and returned to Hermione's side.

Nosing her, he snuffled, his crimson eyes glowing as he realised she was not moving. He dragged her over to one of the elevated areas and curled around her. His mouth opened to release a jet of blue fire, and it burned in the centre of the shelter without need for fuel, radiating a penetrating magical heat that warmed the air but did not melt the shelter.

The beast's smouldering eyes glowed red in the soft light from the magical fire as his tail curled around Hermione's still body and brought her close to its much warmer side.

Hermione opened her eyes to find she could not move. She shifted her eyes from side to side to take in what she could see and was instantly confused.

She remembered stepping in to save Kudara—

She remembered being in agonising pain, but everything else was very fuzzy.

"There is a strange spell upon you," a voice said. "I have tried to remove it, but it is of a nature I have never seen before. You were banished to this place of cold and ice—a place that was meant to neutralise your familiar."

"I'm going to prop you up and wrap you in furs to help you stay warm," the voice said.

Hermione felt herself being moved. Her eyes focused on a blue-skinned face and deep crimson eyes. She was pressed against their body as something thick and warmer was wrapped around her. It felt substantial yet smooth on the inside. The outside was a thickened fur that had unfamiliar organic shapes darkened and mixed with lighter hairs.

She felt herself being leaned back.

"I have some porridge for you," her companion said. "It will probably taste strange to you, but all I can promise is I have tried to make sure it will not kill you. You will need it to conserve energy. Warmth is something in exceedingly short supply here."

Hermione felt the warm, thick gruel being put to her lips, and she was thankful that it was only warm and not piping hot. Wherever she was was chilled, but she could see the fire in the centre of the shelter even though it flickered white and blue rather than the orange she was accustomed to.

She took it into her mouth but was barely able to suction it, grateful the man tipped it so it would slide into her mouth more easily. Her eyes blinked as she swallowed it. It tasted rich, but as the man had warned it tasted "different" to her palette. Thankfully, it did not taste bad, and she could almost feel it warming her as it went down her throat.

She tried to speak, but nothing happened. She had a feeling she was lucky she could even swallow at all.

The man looked oddly familiar despite his alien appearance.

She would remember someone with such deep cobalt skin and crimson eyes, most assuredly.

Right?

Yet—

Something was strangely familiar as well as foreign to her.

The man scooped snow into his hand, and the snow formed into an ice glass filled with water. "I apologise this will be cold."

He drew it to her lips. "Please drink."

His hand on the back of her head seemed impossibly warm in comparison to the bitterly cold climate, and she swallowed the offering obediently. The water was almost frozen, but it was pleasantly crisp with the tang of nutrient minerals.

Strangely, even as it felt cold to her mouth, it seemed to heat up on the way down, and she felt warmer for it.

The man observed her with a wary but somewhat soft expression on his face.

"Rest," he said sombrely. "There are so many things I have tried in order to release you from this paralysis, but I will have to try some things more drastic."

Hermione flinched inwardly at the talk of drastic magic. All her previous experience with drastic or monumental magic was the thing of nightmares. Stephen had spoken of the horrors that came from simply being around the Darkhold, and she wanted no one to risk such things on her account.

"Fear not," the man said grimly. "No virgin sacrifices or babes to the altar. It will simply be—difficult."

He placed a hand on her forehead and then neck as if to check temperature. "You're warmer now. Please don't try to fight the spell on you. It will weaken you unnecessarily, and energy is in short enough supply in such a harsh climate as this."

Hermione had little choice but to obey, as she could feel the spell working to subvert her strength and drag her to into uselessness. The magic was foreign to her—it wasn't quite like the "normal" magic she pulled on when calling on the Principalities, nor was it like what she used as a witch.

She had a feeling it was native to the Dark Dimension—a kind of magic inherent to its inhabitants but foreign to her. It might be something she could learn, but it would never be a part of her intrinsic matrix of magic. Clea was, other than being a powerful sorceress, native to the Dark Dimension, and she would always resonate with that kind of unfamiliar if not alien magic.

As her eyes flicked to take in her surroundings, she saw the figure that was tending her kneeling beside what might have been an altar of some sort carved from ice. It glistened like glowing glass. There was some sort of thick skin on it and an ethereal blue fire.

"Great Frost Mother," the man said. "I am not a hunter. I am not one of your faithful, but this being has been transported to this place against her will without her knowledge and without any preparation. This world tests your faithful, but she was not born of Jotunheim. She was meant for another world. Another place. Please let me return her to whence she came, lest others come searching and disturb what has already been disturbed too much. I should know, I was one of the ones who did. Great Frost Mother, hear my plea. It is not for myself that I am asking. I can find my own way back, eventually."

Hermione heard rumbling.

She heard—whale song?

The ground was shaking.

The shelter was shaking.

"No," the man said, panic clear in his voice. "No, no!"

He was bundling her up with what was laying around, but he couldn't get her out of the entrance to the shelter.

The ice was cracking. The walls were splitting. The brutal cold came rushing in from outside, and Hermione felt it freeze the liquid of her eyes on contact, glazing over her vision like a cataract.

If it wasn't truly absolute zero, she imagined it was a very near thing—just slightly slower.

Slow enough to feel yourself dying instead of getting it over with quickly.

The ice under her buckled, and it heaved the entire shelter up into the air. The man went flying into the cold and dark with a yelp and scream, and she could feel herself being tumbled.

The loud sound of a great whale filled her brain, vibrating her grey matter. It was all around her, inside her, everywhere—

Nnnnnnnngghhhh—!

Crack!

CRACK!

CRRRRAAACK!

NNNNGGGGGGHH!'

The thrum of a great and ubiquitous whale echoed as ice shattered and flew in shards all around her.

Multiple rows of shiny teeth glowed in the dark.

Death was coming.

Death was here.

The Dark of Oblivion swallowed her utterly, dragging her deep below into the frigid ocean.

The lone figure of a blue-skinned man fell to his knees on the broken ice, crumpled and defeated, his soft sobs wracking his body as the bitter wind and heavy snow whipped up into a total whiteout.

Hermione opened her eyes to find out that she wasn't dead after all.

She was drifting in the water, but it didn't feel cold anymore.

And she was drinking—something warm and rich was being shot into her mouth and she couldn't seem to get enough. She sucked it down with a desperate hunger that seemed to encompass her soul.

The whale's song rumbled through her, and Hermione tried to say something, but it came out as a jumble of strange squeaks, clicks, and croons.

The whale repeated the song.

She tried again. Slightly better. How did sound work? How was she even making such sounds?

Hunger.

She instinctively nudged the other massive body, and the whale turned, and Hermione got another jet of super-rich milk. Manna from the gods to her—

The song again.

She tried to repeat it.

Much better.

The whale sang a longer song, and she tried to sing along.

Her voice was a little small in comparison, but she did her very best.

The whale seemed to approve, nudging her along.

Touch. The glide of skin against skin. The warmth was like life itself.

The gentle nudge of a mother.

Encouragement.

She had never felt so loved. Perhaps, her parents as a human had been just as loving, but she never remembered such a tangible feeling. While she had no doubt her parents had loved her—to remember it, to feel it in your very soul—it was as poignant as it was gentle.

Perhaps, it was because of her love from her parents that she could recognise such purity of it, now.

She had no doubt this was her mother.

This was life. Her life.

The murky depths were like she imagined outer space to be, only she could seemingly hold her breath and breathe with an endurance she had never known before, and she wasn't freezing to death. They glided in the dark water, singing, and each note seemed to make the picture in her mind clearer. Where she was going. What was around her? The sheer mass of the huge whale beside her.

The drifted in the current as she swam through the songs. Sing, learn, repeat. Sing, learn, repeat.

When sleep tugged at her, she slept.

When it was time to breathe, they would rise from the depths and take a breath from the surface, and it seemed as though she were exhaling her past and breathing in the life of the universe.

When she woke, she took a drink and started the lessons anew.

They would meet other whales, and sometimes she would play with the other calves, and they would exchange songs.

Sing. Learn. Repeat.

There were so many songs. So many sounds.

She'd end the day drifting as she nestled up against the huge whale that was everything to her.

Life.

Learning.

Mother.

She sang like it was the only thing that mattered, and maybe—just maybe it was.

There were other songs in the seas, and she learned them all. Her whale mother guided her to all the hidden places. The singing places. The quiet places. The places where the finest fish and the fattest of seals hid themselves away. The extreme depths where the squid and the tasty oily fish she had no name for lived in obscurity.

Her mum would tear into the largest of carcasses, snipping off some bite-sized bits off for her. Hermione would take them in gratefully, supplementing the rich milk diet with protein.

Time passed. And passed even more.

But Hermione did notice it as much and she might have before.

Her mum's soft whisper songs kept her close, and she never strayed from her mum's side—at least, not far.

She never realised just how big her mum really was until she started to more closely examine the other whales she ran into. They, too, taught her songs, but their songs were smaller, just as they were.

Sometimes they would breach, and her eyes and other senses would see the world above with almost horrified fascination. She'd become used to the darkened deep of the sea—seeing with her song and not her eyes. Sometimes she would hear the movement of footsteps on the ice above. Some of the movements were scratchy—annoying.

They were not respectful at all.

Her mother would lead her tight against herself, and she would propel herself forward toward the sound. She'd throw herself into that annoying, grating sound until the ice broke, and she'd swallow what had offended her.

Tearing it to shreds as she dragged it deep into the dark, dark waters.

Ice.

Flesh.

Bone.

Didn't matter.

But sometimes—

A different sound would travel across the ice.

Soft.

Respectful.

She heard strange sounds, unlike whale songs, but almost as if it wanted to be.

She would try to replicate them, but they were strange.

Her mum would sing deeply in response, and then rise from the water slowly, not the fast, angry attack that the others had seemingly deserved.

And there would be a small bit of meat drifting on an iceberg. Fresh, but hardly a proper meal.

Her mother would guide Hermione's beak up and nudge her body up to encourage her to take it.

She snapped at it, making it disappear as she breached to engulf it.

And the strange morsel offering—filled her like a warm belly full of milk from her mum.

It had been so tiny, but full of—

Faith.

Is that what faith tasted like?

Her mum sang again, and she dutifully repeated it, following her into the deep dark ocean.

There would be other offerings, and now she knew to respect the soft and respectful footsteps, the almost songs.

Prayers.

The songs of the deep lulled her to sleep in the great ocean, and Hermione dreamed of the cosmic dance where the great seawolf whales swam in space just as they swam in the ocean.

She grew as all young whales did, but her mum always seemed larger than life—a beacon in the ocean. How many moons passed by in song and learning?

Hermione had no idea. There were only the songs, the lessons, and the gift of life from her mum. It was all that mattered. It was all she needed.

And then one day—after countless cycles of the moon and sun—

The songs made sense.

Epic stories spanning countless millennia. Lineages dating back to time immemorial. Names. Directions. Landmarks. Songs told her where things were. Where to go. How to find everything. Songs told her the stories of the first hunters. Songs grieved for the first whales long gone. Songs celebrated when She-Who-Watches taught whales to sing—to remember—to carry the prayers of the hunters to Her. Songs taught the Hunters how to carve their spears, to say the prayers to She-Who-Watches, the Great Frost Mother, and She-Who-Listens. There were many names for Her, but the songs were always meant for Her.

In taking the Hunter's offerings, they sang, singing the prayers of the Hunter to She-Who-Watches in an ancient Covenant between the goddess and those she watched over. And as for those that had no respect—those that heedlessly trampled the ice like barbarians, who said no prayers, who respected nothing on the ice and floes—

The great whales devoured them, dragging their screaming souls into the fathomless deep, far away from the warmth of the goddess.

The ice was dangerous.

The ice was a test of the hunter.

For the fattest seals only hid amongst the ice floes, never touching the solid, dangerous ground.

And while the whale could chase all that swam below and even snatch that which foolishly thought itself safe on top—

The blue-skinned hunters that peppered the surface faced a different test in order to be seen by their goddess, and not all did.

Much like the vaguely remembered things of that hazy different life, just because the divine was right there in front of them didn't mean that everyone saw it for what it was.

They were given all the gifts they need/ed to survive, but not all were aware of or even grateful for them.

But some—

Some of those lucky enough to remember that the goddess was always watching, always listening, She-Who-Watches heard their prayers because the whales dutifully sang their prayers back to her.

She felt the goddess' love for her protectorate both great and small, and her disappointment that they would forget her so easily. It did, however, make those that remembered or learned to see the face of their goddess in their daily lives all the more to be treasured.

But she felt it.

Hermione felt a song bursting through her, and she sang her own song, sending the musical drones and croons through the sea. Her love for the goddess. Her love from the goddess. It was so plentiful. It was everywhere. It welled forth from her very soul into the deep and dark, and the seas seemed to shimmer and sway with colour and light.

A hundred thousand voices joined her. Whales from every layer of the ocean, high and low, shallow and deep, turbulent or calm—all merged their songs with hers. And a hundred, thousand lifetimes of countless other whales merged with hers, joining her heartbeat with theirs as the thrum of life and death and the fierce joy of being filled her soul with song.

She lived the lives of whales, of the great frost sabre, the frost beast, the seal, and the giants. She realised that it was because the whales had all been these things once.

And they remembered.

And she remembered.

Because countless years and lives had been lived, and she had not even realised it, but the suckling of an infant whale on the teat of its mum, learning the sounds long before actual language. Learning the prayers long before they had meaning. Learning Jotunheim from its memory in song—it all came together.

For even as the great seawolf whale took life, it also preserved that life within its song memory, never forgotten, never lost, singing of each creature's deeds to the Great Frost Mother, She-Who-Watches and ultimately She-Who-Listens.

Nnnnnghhh, her mum sang, and Hermione—remembered everything.

No, Hermione, realised, to her—to her and all the whales—the goddess was also She-Who-Sings.

"You are ready to set your feet upon the ground once more, my daughter," the whale sang. "All that I can teach you is yours. Will you take up this cup and drink of me one last time, and carry my message to Jotunheim?"

Hermione felt her soul ready to burst as she realised who had been teaching her.

Who had fed her, sang to her, comforted her, taught her—

Who had guided her. Who had taught her the languages of all that swam, walked, flew, or crawled upon Jotunheim.

"Goddess," she sang, her heart filled with such love that she could have cried, surely it would have filled the ocean once again and then again.

"Hermione," the goddess sang. "Jotunheim has no sorceress. Only a pretender upon the throne of a great city of giants who shuns the memories of the world's creation, deafening his ears to the songs of the whales. Will you drink of me, Hermione, and become my true daughter, protecting Jotunheim from the selfish whims and folly of those who are and those who have yet to be. Bring my songs to my people again. Bring their prayers back to me."

Hermione needed no words for her answer.

She suckled upon the goddess as she had so many times before, allowing the potently rich milk to fill her body and her soul.

"Yes, my goddess," she sang as all she had learned imprinted upon her soul for all time as the Covenant between the goddess and her new daughter cemented across the cosmos, through the past, through the future, and the deepest Dark of the between. Hermione Granger became but a chord of the greater, impossibly infinite song.

This is why she was denied death.

This was why she was preserved by Death.

This was her true purpose.

The goddess of Jotunheim chosen her to be her messenger, but unlike the whales of the ocean who carried the prayers and soul-songs to their goddess, she would carry the goddess' messages to Jotunheim.

Her head pulsed like it contained a heart, and she realised that Noggin's implantation had not been a fluke, either. Now, with the tether to She-Who-Sings, a piece of the divine spark shared to her daughter, the inert fragments of singularities that had been incubating in her skull awoke, because only now—only with her purpose so written, so accepted, was such a thing possible to be used without corruption and in the end without being destroyed by it.

And hereafter, it could never be parted from her for she could never be parted from her goddess henceforth. This power was active because she was a part of her goddess, and only then could such a thing blend so smoothly into a living being.

She was ready.

Her soul filled with song, and she burst it forth, singing into the greatest depths of the vast ocean that carried Jotunheim, her tail moving powerfully in the water as it propelled her steadily upward. She could sense the heat of those that moved above her, those that hunkered in the harshness of the elements, waiting it out. Seals frantically scattered in the waters before her, knowing that to linger was to court their death, for the whale was not only the chosen messenger of the goddess but also the greatest of predators that swam the seas.

Nnnngggggghhhhhh, she sang, her song like a roar that trembled the surface. Cracks already formed in the thick ice above, not immune to the manipulation of the great sea beasts that ruled the water and ice as no other could.

Like so many times before, as her mum had taught her, she breached up through the ice, smashing the thick frozen surface with her great mass as she barrelled upward, her beak pointed to the cosmos as water flowed across her melon, her dorsal fluke cutting through ice and water, sending a spray of moonlit particles across the flows. Her caudal fin snapped forward and up then down, flinging a great chunk of ice into space, or so it seemed. Her song was like a roar, echoing across the sky as it had in the water as the thrum of the goddess' glorious heartsong spread all across Jotunheim.

Air sprayed with water from her blowhole as she seemed to hover in the air, suspended in flight as though born of space. Her flukes dripped water as though it would never end as her mouth opened, her shining rows of teeth glistening in the light even as it shimmered across her shiny skin.

Magic pulsed like a greater heartbeat from her core.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Outward in a great nova as the skies filled with radiant streaks of colour, arcing across the skies in a geomagnetic storm.

She landed on the unbroken surface with an enormous sliding crash, her mass far greater on land than on sea.

A startled Jotun scrambled away from her, their cry of surprise matched only by the need for self-preservation in the face of the great seawolf whale.

Symbol of life.

Bringer of death.

Messenger of the She-Who-Watches.

For that was what she was—and more.

Hermione's rush of exhilaration, however, started to fade into concentration as she attempted to remember the feel of walking on the ground—to recall a form of so many she had learned of, sang of, lived through the songs of the Great Frost Mother to her calf—to remember what she had once been and always would be and not mourn the loss of the sea's embrace.

Bare feet touched the ice as the whale shape fell away, the skin of the great whale slithering around her as clothes formed over her body. The soft seal fur covered her loosely as the Lethifold hung about her shoulders—a bleached icy white-blue to match the floes that were the base of Jotunheim. Glowing markings flickered in the storm across her body—the language of the goddess etched permanently upon her flesh as it mirrored her soul. Her eyes blazed amber and crimson in the storm, trails of light forming as her head moved.

Nnnnnnnnngh, the song of the whale reverberated in the air, yet her mouth did not move. Whistle and clicks and song reverberated through her, her voice no longer limited by old constraints. Words were a lesser thing to intent and meaning, but their joining together reflected the song where true magic dwelled.

She moved her arms as if conducting an orchestra, and water from the ocean moved to land, forming a skeletal base for a shelter. Her head swayed as if listening to music only she could hear, and water formed into ice, creating solid walls to insulate against the howling, frigid wind. She dipped her head, and flames formed inside the shelter, topping crystal braziers that cast and amplified the light to dance across the inside of the shelter like the electromagnetic storms.

The shelter transformed into so much more than just a place to hide from the cold as different rooms formed.

It grew into a sanctum.

Her own Sanctum Sanctorum.

Each room reflected a story passed down from the whales or those sung to her by her Great Frost Mother. Each figure and statuary crafted of ice and bone had a meaning.

But the centermost room was hollow and empty, save for the great mural of the seawolf whale pod swimming in the depths on each wall.

Her hand extended outward, ice-like talons formed on her delicate fingertips, and she traced symbols in the cold air, the magic hanging there as glowing runes. The runes glowed brighter as they connected, forming the roots, trunk, and limbs of a great, shimmering tree, and a portal formed in the room of the whales, their vigil over the portal seemingly alive as they moved across the surface of the wall.

Kudara leapt out of the portal and shook herself, her litter of eager pups piling out in a tumble of twitching noses and excitedly wagging tails.

Hermione wrapped her arms around the great beast and pressed her head to Kudara's, a thrum of welcome and homecoming passing between them. Even as they touched, Kudara and the pups changed, their forms adapting to the cold and ice, transforming into the greatest of the frost beasts in appearance—save for the multiple lines of glowing eyes.

Hermione smiled as the beast gave her a thorough lick-over, pinning her down and making sure every inch of her was slurped. She playfully shoved the Deviant Beast's head away only to have her nuzzle and lick all over again.

Noggin popped out of the portal, first a few legs and then the rest of him. He seemed to check himself over to make sure everything had arrived before scurrying over to the portal to inspect it and then silk-stranding his way to the mural wall and inspecting that too. He disappeared into the sanctum without a word, clearly "busy" both in his head and otherwise.

Hermione made a face and shook her head. Deathhead spiders were, if anything, utterly unflappable. The cold didn't seem to affect him in the slightest, but she had a feeling the goddess was allowing those close to her the gift to stay at her side and not immediately freeze to death.

As Kudara finally allowed her up again, she touched the mural where the mother whale and her calf swam together and smiled. The old Hermione Granger seemed like a character in one of the many stories she had sung with the She-Who-Watches. Her true self had been rewritten, yet again, and she could no more imagine herself not the calf at the Great Frost Mother's side. She would always be that even when her feet had to touch the ice and ground.

This sanctum would be a place of power and knowledge, but it would also be a haven for those who sought to become closer to the Great Frost Mother. To learn how to sing their prayers to the whales and thus to Her. Here, she could train sorcerers and sorceresses in the ways of Jotunheim. Here they would learn how to be in service of protecting the harsh but beautiful land that she had created to both shelter and test her people.

Hermione's eyes glowed amber as crimson seemed to ring her irises like an eclipse's halo. She guided her magic to expand the rooms to accommodate Kudara's "upgraded" form and size, folding the space on the inside of the sanctum to be much larger on the inside than it appeared on the outside. She swayed back and forth to the Song of her Mother, sharing the song with her familiars, and Kudara let out an unearthly bay into the heavens. Her pups attempted to imitate with varied success, and Hermione had to smile at her own memories of learning how to sing at the side of her Mother.

Hermione set her head against her familiar's and let the love she felt flow between them. Kudara's Dark plasma explored her curiously, as if it wasn't sure who Hermione was before it merged with her once more. A sound like a soft sigh came from Kudara as their Covenant was reaffirmed once again, her faith rewarded with reunification.

Grrow-whine?

A certain errant pup stood at the entrance to the portal room, his tail tucked and head down in submission.

Kudara's lips pulled back from her teeth, and she snatched up the grumpy pup in her mouth and carried it off to give him a thorough interrogation and grooming.

The pup hung limply as if he understood that things had gotten seriously out of hand.

Hermione's expression softened. "Oh, Loki. I suppose we have all the time in the world to get to know each other properly. Well, when Kudara is done with you."

Loki's eyes widened in awe as the "small" woman drove her spear deep into the ice, cutting through it with surgical precision. The etched runes on the spear shaft glowed brightly in the haze. Her skin, a rich cobalt, made the magic that flowed over her runic markings shine.

The force of her spear caused the ice to crack into pieces as Kudara and the pups helped to heave the fatted seal up onto the ice. One clumsy pup fell into the icy water, yelping as he paddled frantically on the edge of the ice. Kudara heaved the mass of the seal to safety as her Dark plasma lifted her unfortunate pup out of the water and deposited his very wet and cold self directly into Loki's lap.

Loki looked down at his "brother" and frowned, and the pup tail wagged at him, shedding Dark plasma all over his lap.

Hermione's hand changed into something sporting a set of icy talons, and she slit the seal carcass neatly from head to tail, removing the head as well as key organs. She set the pieces on the edge of the water and used her spear to slice the ice away to allow her offerings to float off into the sea.

She knelt as she both hummed and sang, and Loki felt the tangible thrum of her love for her goddess that felt like the warm embrace of Frigga when he was a child and the protective slurps of Kudara only so much more. The power of her faith was a visual cord that connected her, and he saw her runes flash in beat to the song.

Nnnnnnghh.

The ice rumbled below him with resonance to the seawolf whale's call below him.

He fought the instinctive need to get to rocky ground and not be on the ice—

The result of his last prayers to the Great Frost Mother had deeply traumatised him. To watch the one he was trying to save be swallowed whole by the whale had made him believe that the universe itself was punishing him.

For caring.

Yet—

The Great Frost Mother had not dragged Hermione off to her death so much as a rebirth, and somehow in the span of what he had thought was mere days, she had lived a lifetime upon lifetimes.

She'd always been talented. Intelligent. Less apt to tolerate his—shite.

He'd admired her audacity.

She had never cared that he was a god when his manners had been admittedly—horrid.

And it was because of her that he had been—reborn as a deviant beast pup instead of being condemned to Oblivion when Thanatos had gathered all the Infinity Stones.

At first, he had been all deviant beast. There had been no awareness otherwise. Then, a rather strange thing started to happen. He would become aware of himself while his brothers and sisters tumbled obliviously. He would go to sleep and dream of mischief as his old self, and even there he would dream of her foiling him.

Banishing him to Tony Stark's bathroom in a fit of magical frustration.

She had been so feisty.

So pure in her intent as if unaware of the significance of having banished a god to some faraway place by her will alone.

But he hadn't truly understood it either—at the time they had just been dreams.

Then his mum had bonded with Hermione in the market and everything changed.

There was more Loki aware in the pup, and it put him in conflict with himself. The deviant beast was loyal and adamant in their devotion, and he was all about mischief and even treachery. But when all his brothers and sisters followed their mum's loyalty to Hermione, he couldn't help but feel like maybe, just maybe, he could take a chance and—

And—

Trust her.

So when that foul Clea wench had banished Hermione to the most inhospitable place in all the Realms, he had tried to save her. He had tried to break the spells on her, but whatever Clea had done pulled on something from the Dimension she alone knew intimately. It was beyond him to fix.

So he had turned to the one thing he knew nothing about.

Faith.

The gods of Asgard did not depend on faith, though they represented certain aspects of the realms. There were stories of the Great Frost Mother—his mum Frigga had told him many stories as a child—that said she had created Jotunheim as a place to shelter her people but also to test their might. For a life without meaning was no life at all for the giants. Even with such respectful stories, there had always been the shadow of war between Asgard and Jotunheim.

Asgard even came off Hermione's lips differently, now.

She said it in Old Norse. Ásgardr. The enclosure of the Æsir. Separate from the Vanir, the second pantheon the Norse revered. It was as if she honoured the old stories and the old beliefs despite how "modern" Asgard was. That she was even aware of the old myths was boggling. Most people didn't even care.

They were "just myths."

That is what allowed him to slip in and conquer such weak minds during his first go at subjugating Earth.

But her mind—

It had never been weak.

Now, it was a fortress and a maze—a vast library of so much more than one world.

He watched and listened. The delicate yet strangely powerful song of her prayers to the goddess ringing inside him in a way power could never fill, no matter the throne, no matter the place, no matter how many people may have feared him.

Nnnnnnngh, the whale below called, and a tiny seemingly small voice rang out with it.

A calf.

The ice shook but did not crack, and the huge seawolf whale rose from the dark water, air and water spattering from her blowhole even as the smaller shape rose with her.

The larger female circled, waiting.

Then, tentatively, the smaller whale breached—not quite the vast splendour of the adult—taking the offering in its mouth as it fell back into the water. A spray and wave of water rushed back toward the shore as the little calf devoured the offering.

And it sang.

Soft, weak at first, then stronger.

Its mother added her voice, and Loki felt the beat of some great heart as the sky lit up with electromagnetic light.

The little whale seemed to gain strength, and Loki could see the runes glow and dance upon its skin—once invisible but now like beacons over a dark body.

Just that one meal of faith, such a small morsel in the face of a creature so large even as a baby, had given great magic to the whale and strength to its song.

Hermione had sliced the seal into neat portions, taking the time to handfeed Kudara in a manner that seemed so terribly intimate. She lay her hand out, the offering of food nestled there, and allowed the great beast to take it gently in her mouth, hand and all. The meat disappeared, and she released Hermione's hand, and they repeated it until the beast was fed.

Loki suddenly understood why the betrayal of his son, Fenris, had been so traumatising. Fenris had asked for one token of faith—to let them place their hand in his mouth while binding him—and they had instead sacrificed their hand over allowing him to go free.

And Hermione—

She placed her hand into the mouth of a deviant beast, the ultimate of predators, with trust.

"Were you ever going to reveal yourself to me?" Hermione asked. There was no anger there. No accusation. It was just a question.

The pups were squabbling over the food Kudara was distributing to them, but thankfully, the fatted seal was extremely dense in nutrition. The one seal would probably feed them all for a month or more. Already, the place where Hermione had taken the seal had frozen over, no hint of the hunt remained.

"I thought about it often, but frequently failed at delivery." The confession reminded him that, much like in mythical Norse gods, he was far from perfect.

Hermione chuckled. "There are many things I have utterly failed at," she said agreeably. "I have been lucky that, in the things that truly matter, I had those who cared enough to help me back on my feet so I could try again."

She frowned slightly. "I suppose, in a lot of ways, I am lucky to have survived to try again. My childhood was, unfortunately, a war."

Loki's head jerked. "A war?"

"Hn," she said. "A man who believed himself superior to all others recruited a bunch of bigots playing on their fears of being outdone by the impure. He was on a quest for immortality, but he didn't care about anyone but himself. One might even say, he didn't even care about himself enough to consider the consequences to his soul. I can guess, however, that he wasn't a believer in the soul despite the fact that the magic he used shattered his soul into pieces in order to preserve his life."

Loki stared out into the ocean. "As one who has, quite literally, tried to subjugate humanity, I can both say it's harder than it seems on paper and—" he said, sighing. "I can also say that it brings none of the pleasure I thought it would."

"And have you found what you were lacking?" Hermione asked, picking up one of the happy pups and cuddling it. She placed the pup down and loaded the meat onto a cart to take it back to the storage larder.

Loki helped her strap the bundles down and walked beside her as Kudara trotted off, cart dragging behind her. "I think I have found what will not," he said.

Hermione hummed. "That can be a greater part of the battle," she said.

Loki let out his breath slowly. "Yes."

"Time is so different here," Hermione said as brushed her hair. "All time seems to flow around me, and I must choose which part to dip my toe."

"Jotunheim has always been apart from Midgard," Loki said. "Even Asgard—well when it was still a realm—seemed so terribly distant from Midgard."

"Only a thousand years for you," Hermione said. "And generations upon generations pass on Earth."

"I think that is why All-Father was known to see so clearly into mortal affairs. How could you not when what Midgard saw as the present was already over and done? He saw the future because it had already happened."

"I try to imagine what Stephen and Severus are up to," Hermione said. "And they have both searched a hundred years and not even begun to search." She let out a breath slowly. "At least—they became friends."

"You have set up the portal, can it not work?" Loki said.

"It worked for Kudara and Noggin because they are tied to me on a soul level. The portal must charge before it can be used otherwise. Otherwise, its connections to the various fabrics of the dimensions get crossed, and someone ends up in an entirely different place. If I were to hasten the process using my magic, it would light a beacon to Jotunheim which its people are not ready for."

"A beacon?" Loki asked. "How so?"

Hermione smiled, but her eyes were sad. "For those paying attention, my magical signature has changed. They would see my arrival here as either a power play or here for something significant that I am hiding. Even if I try to send a message to Stephen through sorcery, it would—as the Muggles say—light up the board.

She smiled again, but this time it was genuine. "Mother promises that this is a natural evolution for Jotunheim. I belong here, now." She chuckled. "But like the big bang, the message takes time to travel through."

"How would this differ from them knowing later than knowing now?" Loki asked.

"How did you learn your magic?" Hermione asked.

Loki blinked. "My—mother taught me. She said I had the talent."

"Isn't it wonderful to be taught by your mum? There is something powerful in that bond of magic and child and parent. In the magical world—the one I grew up in partially—there are great magical families spanning back countless years. But the magic was not taught by families. It was taught by teachers once the child came of age when they could learn control. But it was not the same as learning from someone who loves you and brings you life—not just in the womb but—shares her life with you. It is like that. Jotunheim is sharing its life with me as my Mother did—in this—new form. And when it is done teaching me what it wishes me to know, then the gate will activate like a flower in the sun."

Loki tilted his head. "I take magic for granted, I think. For the longest time, I thought it made me superior to those who learned other types of magic. It came so naturally to me. My mother taught me so subtly. Not like Thor and his weapons, crashing into anything that could break."

His eyebrows knit together as he grimaced. "Then, I met the Sorcerer Supreme, who just sucked me into a wormhole and had me falling for thirty minutes until he could speak with my brother about his 'intentions'. Then there was you—who somehow preserved my life from Thanatos. And while you claim not to know why—a part of me wonders still. No one but my conflicted brother would have fought for me, but you actually saved me. Not him. Not the Avengers. Not—anyone I knew."

"I do not claim to understand the workings of the multiverses," Hermione said, "but I have come to terms with some things that happen for no reason than that they did. Later, we can claim it happened for a reason, but was that truly a reason or was it—simply a coincidence? I know that I did not mean to yank you from the grip of Death, but—"

Hermione closed her eyes. "I am glad you survived."

Loki was startled and seemed to take some time to come to grips with what she said. He touched her cheek, the warm brush of fingers against her skin. "I—wish to get to know you better."

Hermione said nothing, but she smiled at him, her eyes meeting his.

Kudara yoinked Loki up by the scruff, and he involuntarily turned back into his pup form, dangling helplessly as his mum dragged him off for bathtime.

Hermione's face wrinkled around her eyes as she let out a genuine laugh.

Mischief managed, indeed.

End of Chapter Three

A/N: I lost my beta due to storms in Africa er—no, that's not right—just storms. Tornados, thunderstorms, etc. All mistakes are mine with condolences, er—apologies.

Hn.

(sleep deprived groggy noises)