Stranger Things Chapter 4 What Whale Where, a Harry Potter + Doctor Strange Crossover fanfic

Summary: [Dr Strange/Hermione Granger] [SSHG] [Loki/Hermione Granger] 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.

Beta Love: Where is Dragon and the Rose? Hopefully not blown away by a tornado. :(, Dutchgirl01

I live! - Dragon

A/N: So far the tornados have blown over but not wiped me off the map. Thanks be to the Great Frost Mother. Phew.

Stranger Things

Chapter Four

We must be ready to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

EM Forster

Severus Snape was convinced he was cursed in some way.

Like in some obnoxiously large I-must-have-pissed-in-some-Elder-God's-Corn-Flakes kind of way. Surely, that was why every time he was starting to feel hope of some kind, something inevitably happened that wiped his legs out from under him and cast him back into a maelstrom of emotional turmoil.

Before, it had been Lily. She'd been the sole bright spot in his pisser of a past. Then, it had been Hermione, and he had bloody well sabotaged himself by going to the fae to prevent her death. But, she had come back into his life, and while she had made other connections, she was willing to accept him back into her life despite how he'd treated her (unknowingly) thinking of her trying to make him a pet project of some kind.

Then, just as things were feeling comfortable again, that sodding Clea imbecile had come in and banished Hermione to some faraway and unknown place that even the Sorcerer Supreme himself was having a hard time pinpointing her current location amidst a vast tapestry of places in the Multiverse.

The only thing that had kept Severus from having a temper tantrum and making Wong's immaculate library look like a disaster area was the fact that Kudara and her pups (sans a missing one) were oddly calm about it all. Stephen, too, said she was alive or else the ring on his finger would have vapourised.

He was, admittedly, doing his best to search for her, but there was apparently some serious Multiverse interference, and he was finding every Hermione out there but the right one.

Severus admittedly had his doubts about how accurate Stephen's people-finding skills were when at one point, he'd said he found her, but when the visual came up in the magical hologram, it was of an alien whale and her calf.

Idiot.

Hermione was a lot of things, but she wasn't a bloody whale.

Stephen had seemed utterly disheartened by it, perhaps thinking his magic was leading him into a disaster or that his emotional attachment was compromising his ability to function as a sorcerer. Who could truly say for sure?

McLaggen seemed super clingy to him, and he had to admit that the pup's presence in his life was a rather calming influence.

He felt utterly emasculated—again.

It was like life kept kicking him right in the nads every time he'd dared to have the audacity to hope.

Then, Kudara and every pup but McLaggen suddenly disappeared, and Stephen was grimly preparing himself for reports of a rampaging deviant beast and her pups laying waste to New York City, but it never happened.

McLaggen seemed surprisingly unaffected by the disappearance, but he stubbornly followed Snape everywhere, even to the loo, and he wondered if the pup had some sort of brain damage like his namesake.

The search for Hermione had ended up with Severus expanding his education into sorcery, and he started to train—at first to just focus his mind and try to stop wallowing in regret and doubts. Later, it became a habit. The katas were, oddly, quite soothing, and the physical exercise was effective at relieving stress.

McLaggen would sit by, watching, often taking his teeth out on staves and other nearby weapons, and the teachers would give the pup the side-eye. The pup would wag his tail, sending Dark plasma flying in all directions, and Severus was glad that Reparo was highly effective at undoing deviant beast shenanigans. It proved so effective that Severus ended up being assigned repair duty in some of the places Kamar-Taj had suffered thanks to the likes of the Scarlet Witch and they'd never had the time on top of everything else to fix it properly.

After learning about the Scarlet Witch, he realised that the balance between talent and psychopathy was not limited to the Wizarding World—and if anything, there was more trouble outside of the Wizarding World than ever there was in it. The Dark Lord would have found himself dethroned in a matter of seconds—had any of such beings thought enough of him to even challenge him.

It was rather—humbling.

But it also made him think they'd been extremely lucky to be in such an insular society. For once, the statute of secrecy had saved them from being noticed. It had protected the magical world, even as it had also prevented outside help with Tom Riddle.

The line of balance was frustrating to contemplate. As much as he would have liked to see Tom's arse handed to him by a true sorcerer or even a powerful mutant (the story of the Hulk having smashed Loki into a paste while calling him a puny god never got old) did have a certain amusement factor. But, he knew the Wizarding World was not ready to discover the wren't the best. They were just—average. Even normal.

If Albus' history was any hint of where things could have gone, and the statute was abolished, the Wizarding World would have gone into convulsions. Assuredly those like Lucius Malfoy would have felt even more emasculated in the face of such discoveries.

Then again, Severus would have given a lot of galleons to see Hermione Granger, sorceress, wipe the floor with Lucius' face—or, he thought with a chuckle, introduce the pups to Lucius' well-kept peacock garden.

Reparo might repair the damage, but to see the look on his face would have been beyond priceless.

Before he knew it, he'd settled into his new life as a sorcerer, and, at least according to Wong, he'd been a little less annoying than Stephen. High compliments from the Sorcerer Supreme of Earth. That gave him a laugh.

Stephen, of course, had just waved his hand and given Wong a stunning new hairstyle that changed into his normal one every time he looked in a mirror. It took the man a few weeks of people snickering before he realised that something wasn't right.

Well, less right than usual.

A sorcerer was all about things being "not right" in almost every single aspect of their life.

In that way, he gained a bit more respect for Stephen's careful balancing, saving their Dimension from so many threats and still trying to scry for Hermione the moment he returned. The man obviously cared for her every bit as much as one in his position possibly could, and—he had more respect for the realisation that in their line of work, having someone understand that they couldn't always be there but still accept them with welcome when they could was—priceless.

Hermione was someone very special, and—

If anyone had enough love to share between partners equally, it would be her. He just hoped that when they found her that she would forgive his lack of faith in, well, everyone.

And if, no when, they found her again—he would strive to be the kind of person who could understand that her love for him did not diminish simply because she had others she loved as well.

While he had attempted to fathom this while with her, true acceptance had to simmer in her absence. He believed, now that his mind had expanded to see the sheer extent of what was out there and had to be defended against, that quiet moments with those one loved, however or whoever it was, was worth an entire decade's focus in the shoes of, say—Arthur Weasley.

Not that there wasn't something to admire in that sort of devotion, but he also imagined that Arthur rarely had any time to himself or had people around him that understood the concept of personal space.

Hermione had always understood, even when she wanted more, that he'd needed his personal space. It was that same thoughtful acceptance that had given her the belief that he had fallen out of love for her when he'd focused all his time on her cure instead of simply being with her.

Communication was everything, and learning to become a sorcerer had driven that point home even when a lifetime previous had not. When a spell calling on the Principalities required very specific communication of intent and wording, it made the few words of Latin in a Wizarding spell seem like chalk on a sidewalk drawing by comparison.

Though, he mused, a lifetime as a spy hadn't exactly made him pants at communication—he'd just learned that keeping your mouth shut was most often better than not.

Severus sighed. Different stages in life, different stages in communication. He just hoped he was ready to speak to Hermione and not start babbling, clam up, and then make all his epiphanies shrivel and die an untimely death. Afterwhich, he'd have to flog himself mentally and forcefully extricate his head from his arse.

He could hope, right?

Severus grimaced. His track record with hope was admittedly pretty dismal.

Loki did his very best terrified seal impression as Hermione breached out of the ocean, her mouth snapping up the fat seal she was chasing in her mouth with a resonant SNAP! She landed on the ice with a thump and a slide, her pectoral fins serving as steering to keep her mass from spinning out of control. She blew a great gust of air out of her blow hole as she let the carcass of the dead seal land directly at his feet.

The morning sun rose just enough to beam him in the eyes.

"Overachiever," he said with a scowl at the whale.

Nnnnnngh, she sang.

Kudara used her plasma tails to tumble a squawking Loki into the water before grabbing the seal carcass by the tail and dragging it to more solid ground for butchering.

"Thanks, Mum," Loki muttered under his breath as he crawled back out of the frigid water.

It didn't take long for the first hunters on the ice to realise something significant had changed after their first time seeing a giant seawolf whale purposely beach herself on the ice only to deposit a fat seal in front of Loki.

Jotun, as curious as cats, made their way to the sanctum. They passed by the various statuary made of ice—lifesized frost sabres and frost beasts and the frost giant female who wore the skin of the greatest of whales, the Great Frost Mother Herself.

Loki noted that Hermione said nothing, simply continuing to butcher the carcass as she always did, separate the offerings as was expected, sang her prayers to She-Who-Sings, and then watched as a mother whale nudged their calf up to take the offering. The calf's first songs transformed into the dance of light in the skies, and the giants seemed to have a profound epiphany, much as he had upon seeing the same.

The Great Frost Mother was not just a story. The prayers were not just words. The offerings were not just a waste of food. The rituals they performed were not without reason.

The largest of the hunters, his skin so dark that the blue was the colour of the midnight sky, knelt in the snow. "Priestess," his voice rumbled. "Will you teach us the ways of our Mother?"

Hermione, as before, said nothing, but she gestured them into the sanctum—into the warmth of the goddess. There, they stayed for weeks or months, learning the true meaning behind the ways they had only mimicked but rarely felt.

Loki was so amazed by the respect they showed in comparison to the memories he'd harboured for the frost giants that he didn't even notice that when they embraced their priestess before leaving back to their families that Hermione was their size.

And so, too, was he.

The best clay and stones for ovens, Loki found out, were on the ocean floor, and nothing heated and made the living space smell as good as what came out of them. In Asgard, he rarely paid much heed to cooking. The palace staff had done that, and they had done it with abundance.

There were other stones in much "safer" places if you considered the lairs of frost beasts and frost sabres safer, but none of them were of the quality of those from the deep. The clay there, having formed over countless years and layers, was the richest of all, thick, and full of minerals. The stone was eerily smooth and perfect and shaped as if cut with precision.

Yet, there was no way to access it without braving the ocean, and that meant braving the whales. The whales, from personal experience, would take out crafts with precision almost as if their presence or sound was offensive. Thor and himself had tried to find different ways into Jotunheim, and they had barely managed to escape alive when it came to the ocean. And Mjölnir seemed to recognise that the whales were off-limit targets for it would never hit a whale. Much to Thor's frustration when said whales attacked their various vehicles.

He'd slowly gotten used to Hermione slipping into the water as one would a bath, casting aside one shape for another with the fluidity he could admire. She'd dive deep, often disappearing for an hour or more, arriving at the surface with a mouth full of rocks and clay as she beached herself upon the ice and opened her mouth for the giants to gather by hand directly out of her mouth!

Then, as they attempted to organise the clay and stone to be used, she would dive in again into the depths only travelled by whales.

After a day's worth of hauling, they would spend the next week or more crafting the clay and stone ovens, and with Kudara's help and a little help from sorcery to make them lighter for the trip, the ovens were transported back to permanent camps carved out of the ice over bedrock where the hunter's families waited eagerly for their mates to return from the hunt.

And Hermione would travel with them, spreading the stories and songs of the Great Frost Mother along with the gift of the communal ovens. She would learn the traditional recipes shared by such camps, and she would gift them the rope Noggin had made to tie the ovens to Kudara's back. A priceless gift of rope stronger than the strongest giant, smooth as spider silk, light as a feather, and immune to the teeth of wayward beasts.

Not every giant was a fan of Hermione, though.

To some, she threatened the very fabric of what was and had always been.

There was a giant named Utgard-Loki, a name which caused Loki to lift his brow, who ruled over "his people" in the lands far from the hunting grounds that tested the mettle of both giant and beast. He'd carved his castle on a bed of stone, and crafted a great city deaf to the songs of the "beasts of the frost and snow." Rumour had it he was a magical giant and that if someone tested him he could turn into a giant frost bear—the like of which did not exist anywhere in Jotunheim. It was also said his castle hid a great artefact from which a fountain of fresh water flowed from one side and an endless supply of food from the other—the key to his people's survival but also their dependence on him.

To go against him was to be cast out into the wastes to find their own food, and none of those who lived in the great city remembered the old stories let alone how to craft a spear, a knife, or a shelter from the frigid winds and storms.

Loki had since learned of such people, having not known of them even when living in Asgard, thanks to local hunters finding their frostbitten bodies either dead or nearly dead while out hunting. Some, the hunters said, had wandered blindly out onto the ice, having never known its danger or recognising the feel of ice under their feet versus solid rock.

The whales devoured them, crashing up through the ice to stop their irreverent footsteps.

But every so often, one of these banished giants would be dragged off to the sanctum, and there they would join the others in learning the ways of the Great Frost Mother.

Hermione accepted them all the same.

And these "city giants" soon learned how to survive and even thrive as hunters, to respect the whales, to find the edible crisp sea plants that grew amidst the shallows, to hunt and trap game in the tundra, but to also to respectfully hunt the ice floes—where the greatest treasure in food lay waiting for only the most skillful of hunters and those who treated the whales with proper respect.

But they weren't the only ones learning, no.

Loki, too, was learning the stories and the ways of the Jotunn hunter. He was learning about the culture of the hunting people, and (with rising, sickening horror) the sheer magnitude of the war between Jotunheim and Asgard.

The giants were already being tested in so many ways.

Loki sighed as he realised that it did take two parties to make a war, and whoever had started it may have long since perished. The war lived on thanks to them, long after the people had forgotten the why of it, perhaps even making up stories so it made "sense" to them, but war—seldom made sense to the people who weren't doing the actual fighting. For those eking out a life on the floes, they were just trying to survive and provide for their families. And while those like Thor and even Loki himself waged war against the perceived "enemy" in blind hatred, even while some of Jotunheim were arguably quite eager for such wars—much like the people of Utgard, not every giant knew what the goddess really wanted for her people.

Jotunheim was created to both shelter and test her people, but some ancient giants had grown bored of normal "life" and decided to take the relic Casket of Ancient Winters and conquer beyond Jotunheim. Asgard had responded in kind to put an end to the violence—with even more violence.

And so the Great Frost Mother's voice was drowned out in a cacophony of blood and violence.

At last Loki truly understood the Great Frost Mother's need for Hermione. Jotunheim had no sorcerer or sorceress designated to protect it from outside influences. It had no one that knew the reason the place even existed. Knew the stories. Sang the songs. Learned the prayers. Felt the heartbeat of Jotunheim in the way the goddess had wanted—

Hell, she had suckled on the goddess Herself and learned from Her.

Hermione may have started out as a mortal, but perhaps her lifetimes had been, life after life, preparing her for this time, this moment—when the Goddess found her daughter and messenger and implanted within her the seeds of a goddess and creation.

And gave her the choice of whether to take up the cup or be—normal.

Hermione had never been normal, he knew. Had she been, she'd never have captured his attention in the first place.

As he watched her tend the hunter's frost beast, crafting it a shelter in which to recover from an attack from one of the wild, untamed sabres of the land, he began to understand that being a god of Asgard was far less than it should have been.

Maybe, he thought, that was why Asgard had fallen to Surtr.

Asgard had fallen from its duty as gods—become misguided, lost their way. It may have started long before Thor was even an idea, though many liked to blame his brother for the decline. Even Odin had treated Midgardians as if they were beneath him—far from the old myths of the god who gave up his sight in one eye to see further and know more and bring such knowledge to Midgard.

Yet Jotunheim remained.

The goddess remained.

And now—Her people were remembering Her.

And through Hermione, even those like Loki were learning new things, perhaps—the things that had truly mattered all along only he'd been too arrogant, too stubborn, too full of himself to see it.

"I'm so sorry, Mother," he whispered to his dead mother. "I see, now, what you tried to teach me. You never cared that I was Jotun, and I cared too much for what didn't even matter. I wish you were here." He stared out over the ocean. "I miss you."

They walked together a lot on the ice floes. Loki found he truly enjoyed it. Before, he'd never really found peace in it, but walking out on the ice with Hermione, tucked beside Kudara's radiant furnace heat, checking on the hunters' beasts they had left with her to heal while they returned to the hunt—it felt like a life well worth living.

Her footsteps on the ice were always reverent, like the softest of steps that did not even cause a creak in the ice. She walked like a creature much smaller, even now that her foot was most definitely larger than a human's body.

She had joked one night as she stared at her own hand and realised, perhaps for the first time, that she was not the small human she had once been. She was of Jotunheim now, where everything that lived there was larger than life anywhere else.

"When this portal activates and Stephen or whoever manages to come through, I don't think they are going to recognise me," she mused. "I suppose I should make some smaller areas—more suited for—" She seemed to search for the appropriate word. "Guests."

She spoke in the language of the Jotun, and when she did, he often imagined her going through a virtual library of languages to find the one most fitting. He had no doubt that her most intimate language was no longer the English of Midgard but pure and complicated Great Frost Mother whalesong that seemed to project beyond three dimensions into cosmic layers. The words of sorcery suddenly seemed terribly primitive in comparison.

He had no doubt that she spoke to the frost beast and sabres directly, much as she did with Kudara. Even in hunting the seals, she prayed for their spirits to be at peace as she thanked them for the gift of their life.

In a way, Loki realised he was glad time passed differently in Jotunheim. It made him feel less hurried and no longer inflicted with a pressing need to finish things on some preconceived time scale. It also—gave him time to get to know himself better. And Hermione.

Especially Hermione.

Without the distraction of, to be honest with himself, the other powerful men in her life.

For if anything, Hermione would wish to share time equally, and while noble on paper, having not had a relationship with her as a foundation, he felt a bit behind. It would be hard to be—vulnerable when others he definitely hadn't gotten to know were there too.

He felt that he was getting to know the raw, genuine Hermione. He admired that she had so much power but never used more than was required for the task at hand. She never made the hunters she was teaching feel they were lacking in the ability to learn, only that they hadn't learned the right things yet. She humbled herself to learn from them, too, never thinking of herself as superior.

She treated him—like a person whose value was in what they did, not in his blood, his species, or even his past.

Hermione stilled beside him, and Loki scanned the ice to see what could have gotten her attention.

She rushed forward, and that was when he saw it.

Bones.

He ran to catch up to her, and he saw that the carcass had been predated on by wandering beasts of all types, but the skeleton was unmistakable.

It was a whale.

A calf.

On a size scale, the calf would have dwarfed any of the largest whales of Earth, but in Jotunheim—

Hermione fell to her knees by the carcass, her hand running over the bleaching bones. It never took long for bones to be exposed to the weather. Predators were everywhere, and bones were about the only things that withstood the teeth and claws of the greater beasts.

Bones of the lesser whales were used to make hunter spears, for they were small enough and just flexible enough in the right ways yet sturdy enough to serve well made into a weapon. Such spears were highly prized, carved with family runes, and passed down through the generations if they were not lost in the hunts.

But this calf—

It was no lesser whale.

It was a seawolf whale calf.

She ran her hands over the bones, her body slumped. Grief came off her in waves.

She pet the bones as if the calf was still alive, her body trembling with tangible grief.

Loki recognised the emotion all too well. The loss of his mother had broken him so badly that no amount of destruction or subjugation or killing could possibly hope to ease his pain. But this emotion was something that touched something deeper.

The stories.

Loki's eyes widened in rising horror.

Someone's story would be lost to the Great Frost Mother because the whale that was supposed to be there would never grow up. If what Hermione's stories she taught to the hunters was true, and he had a hard time believing they weren't anymore, a great seawolf whale calf was born of a soul that had lived many lives, sang many songs, and thus was blessed by the Great Frost Mother to remember the stories, hear the prayers, and sing them back to She-Who-Sings.

It meant that some old soul—had reached the final end of their journey. All the stories that were. All the songs that were yet to be sung—ended.

Suddenly, Hermione let out a wail. A piercing cry that tore into his soul and ripped it to shreds.

Grief.

Rage.

Rage unlike anything he had ever felt. Rage that made what he had ever felt seem petty, and he'd known rage a long, long time.

His eyes focused on what had her attention.

A spear.

Shoved into the skull cavity of the seawolf calf—stuck there, half broken at the shaft.

Someone had deliberately hunted the calf and brought about its end.

And that meant—

Its mother was most likely dead too.

Two lives wiped off the face of memory, their songs snuffed out forever.

"Do the seawolves—" Loki had asked her one night as the hunters gathered around to tell their stories and listen to Hermione tell the tales, "die?"

"They can," Hermione said, "and it is a sombre time, but also a time of great joy, for before dying, the whale sings its songs to all the others, and they remember them. So nothing is truly lost. Their soul joins the pod of the Great Frost Mother, swimming the cosmos with her until they find new life somewhere else to be reborn in, starting their life anew. Sometimes they return to Jotunheim. Sometimes, they find new places to explore. New songs to sing in newer places, forgotten places—"

"But a calf is such a treasured thing," Hermione said with a warm smile. "For it means their soul has experienced all of Jotunheim in every form and is ready to sing the songs of each life, if only they grow up enough to remember them. Only after many lifetimes can a soul handle such vast knowledge and—responsibility, I think."

"I was a bit of an anomaly," Hermione said. "I had to learn it all from scratch. Perhaps, so I would know how to better teach those that come after me."

Loki felt the weight of past guilt in his gut for having once, like Thor, believed the seawolf whales an annoyance that simply prevented travel into Jotunheim via the ocean. They had once wondered what it would take to kill them off to make it easier to make war on Jotunheim.

How little they knew.

Suddenly, Hermione stood up, ramrod straight. Her hand thrust out to her side where the spear was, and magic swirled in a mandala around it and up. A Jotun was now standing before them, semi-transparent on the ice. Rich seal furs covered his body, and he was not the lean frame of the hunters or even the grim bodies he remembered of the Jotun that had greeted Thor and himself during the time of war.

The image poured a skin full of blood into what looked like a great chalice surrounded in shiny metal and glimmering gems. The chalice glowed, and enormous platters of food and drink formed on great, long tables, and some strange magic carried the food off into a great, shining city.

Hermione roared, and it was the sound of anguish and grief turned to absolute rage. She crashed into the ice in her whale form, dwarfing him completely a hundred thousand times over.

BLAM!

Her tail smashed into the ice.

BLAM!

Her great tail swept the shards of ice away—

And a wave of icy ocean water knocked him backwards toward the shore as the great seawolf whale dove into the depths of the ocean where none but the whales could follow—nor would they dare.

Loki staggered back to his feet and returned to where the hologram of the guilty Jotun remained fixed in magic.

"I don't know who you are," Loki growled at the image, his eyes cold as ice. "But Ragnarok is going to look like a childrens' tea party compared to what is coming for you."

His hand passed through the hologram as if testing the temperature of water. "And for once, I'm not the one who's going to be turned into paste."

Loki looked out into the sea and closed his eyes. Using his magic, he used his magic to ease the corpse of the slain calf to its watery grave, deep in the ocean where it should have been swimming.

"May the Great Frost Mother guide you to Her pod, little one, that your story may never be forgotten."

Utgard-Loki sat on his throne at the palace and smiled in smug satisfaction. His people were all fat and happy, and the artefact had been appeased for another hundred years. There would be plentiful food and drink for all, provided they bowed to him.

He had few that questioned him in the face of the wastes.

The wastes devoured unwary Jotun, either due to the highly inhospitable conditions or its plethora of fearsome beasts.

It was pretty easy to convince some hungry, starving hunter to go out and spear a whale for him. All he had to do was promise them a lifetime of safety and luxury within the walls of his great city of Utgard.

They would be set for another hundred years before he had to find some other starving hunter that was willing to do anything, break any taboo, to feed themselves.

Most of the foolhardy idiots didn't even remember the old stories, which was perfectly fine by him.

Better than fine.

They were all nice and fat and happy, what did it matter what the old stories said. And the stupid taboos against the whales? Heathen beliefs. He was bringing out a better age. What was a whale here or there compared to a hundred years of never having to worry about food or drink or even the bitter cold?

Nothing.

Nothing at all.

He had left the heathen ways of the Jotun behind. He had created a great city, a marvel of modern civilization. He had learned sorcery the likes of which none of Jotunheim could claim they knew or even fathom. He had found ancient artefacts that brought prosperity to his people.

No beast's life could possibly compare to the thousands of lives that lived in his city.

He was the saviour of his people. The greatest frost giant that ever was! He did not resort to bloodshed like that shameless warmonger, Laufey.

He had found an artefact that was far better than the Casket of Ancient Winters. Even Laufey had been too much of a coward to use it.

He was not!

He was smart!

He built his palace and city on the hardest of stone far from the meddling of the beasts and the unforgiving ice.

Besides—

He wasn't the one that killed the whales. He let the starving heathens pay their way into prosperity as was his right as king.

So what if his people slaved away to improve the palace and statues to make the city beautiful instead of hunting for food. At least they had time in which to do so. At least they were fed and warm.

At least they were protected from the savage elements and need not fear the cold. They did not have to worry about their -family getting eaten by predators. They did not have to share space with vicious beasts.

A messenger ran in from the outer palace, panting hard. "Highness!" he cried. "The dome has fallen!"

Utgard-Loki stood in shock. "WHAT? Impossible!"

"The foul weather has brought the city to a complete standstill! People are struggling to light fires to stay warm! The walls, sire, are already cracking due to unprecedented gale force winds!"

Utgard-Loki summoned his magic and sent it zinging out to examine and reinforce the barriers only the accursed weather seemed to fight against what was normally easy for him to control. He grabbed for his staff, channelling energy from Jotunheim itself to fight against itself.

This shouldn't be happening, he thought desperately. The artefact has been fed! The city should be safe for another hundred years!

He rushed to the place where the artefact was housed, slamming his staff end into the locking mechanism to open it, sprinting over the tunnel paths to where the pedestal lay in wait.

He opened up the secondary door with his magic and ran up to the pedestal that housed Utgard's artefact.

Only—

The floor was water.

Waves lapped around the centre pedestal.

And the chamber's walls were—missing. As if someone had just vanished them from existence.

Utgarde-Loki abruptly found himself out in the middle of the ocean, standing on the sole iceberg for miles around. The waves were lapping all around it, and the iceberg itself was littered with—skeletons.

Whale skeletons.

Nnnnnnngh.

The sound was deafening. It was all around him.

"I will admit, I was going to tear you apart myself for what you've done," a female voice said.

He whirled. The voice had a strange accent to it. Ancient. It was old Jotun—the language left behind with the heathens. It was a heathen woman. Uncivilised. Barbarians.

"But someone—convinced me that retribution was not mine to be had," she said. She placed her hand on one of the giant bones—bones that towered over them. The ancient stories told of shelters made of one of the first whales that gave its life that the first Jotun could have shelter, but only upon seeing the bones of the great beast in person did he finally understand just how unbelievably massive the great beasts had been. "I will admit," she said after a while. "I was not exactly in my right mind."

She cocked her head as if listening to something. "Mother tells me that your artefact was once created from the flesh and blood of the first whale that gave its life to shelter the very first Jotun. His bones went to create the first shelter. His skin broke the ceaseless cold and wind. His meat fed them until the storm broke, and his heart became the artefact. His very blood fed it to keep the Jotun alive long enough to learn the ways of my Mother and pay her back for her generosity—and the whale's sacrifice. She was so impressed by this whale's selflessness, she gifted them song and memory that such deeds would never be forgotten. Henceforth, they carried the prayers and the songs back to Her."

"You think I care about some mythological goddess?" Utgard-Loki snarled as he hissed at her. "Some ridiculous story made up to scare little children?"

"You know, I would say learn to be quiet around your betters, but you never know who your betters are, do you?"

Utgarde-Loki's head snapped up as he stared at the new frost giant on the scene. "Loki," he snarled. "The lowly runt."

Loki ran his fingers along his chin. "Now, that wasn't very nice."

"It wasn't meant to be."

"You don't even know who your betters are," Utgard-Loki said with a sneer. "You never have. I've heard a lot about you, imposter. Galavanting around the Realms trying to prove you're better than everyone, but in the end, you just fail. I am the original and the only Loki of Jotunheim, and you are nothing to me but the mere mewling of some lame beast limping across the ice."

Loki's face seemed to harden, and Utgarde-Loki sneered in victory.

Loki looked up at him, and his eyes glowed crimson. "We have both failed Jotunheim," he said. "But she is far better than us."

Utgarde-Loki's face seemed to turn purple, but then an even stranger colour spread across his body. His cobalt blue skin, and the distinctive runs of power that ran across his flesh abruptly—vanished. His blue skin changed to brown which changed to the pale white-pink flesh of the giants that made their homes outside of the icy cold's bitter embrace.

Loki's head jerked back in surprise. "You're not a frost giant at all." His eyes widened as an almost-laugh escaped his lips. "You're a hill giant."

Utgarde-Loki patted his pale skin frantically. "NO! I am the King of Utgard!"

Hermione's brows furrowed as she stared at him.

The sounds of whales singing below and around them sounded out over the rush of wind.

"I remember the stories of you. You killed another giant as a child over a fish. Your parents fled with you from the winter forests and hills to the only place the others would never go: the ice floes. The land where there was no land. Only endless ice and ocean. Where the hill giants feared to tread."

Hermione blinked slowly. "But their child was so hungry. Demanding as all children are with no understanding of hardship or difficulty. They pressed on, nobly, perhaps. Foolishly, perhaps. But what choice did they have? But, they had no stories of the ice and snow that lived above the endless ocean. They were only desperate to save their child."

The bones around them seemed to shimmer and glow.

"They carried their child with them across the ice, hoping to find shelter. Food. Something that would make their great risk worth it and save their family."

"But they did not know how to walk the ice softly like a hunter. Their footsteps rang out under the ice like clarion bells and the unwelcome crash of disharmony. The seals fled. The fish and squid retreated into the depths. And the frost sabre tracked them. Her cubs were also hungry, and she had no hearth family to provide. She was a wild beast who knew no touch but that of the ice and snow. She took the father swiftly, sending the mother panicked into the blind snow and wind, carrying her child to her breast as the sabre dragged her prey away."

"Making this up are you?" Utgard-Loki said with a sneer. "That has nothing to do with me."

Hermione looked down, her expression filled with sorrow. "One should always remember one's parents. Even the imperfect ones. They are what make us who we are today. Their imprint crafts us, shapes us, and guides us on the path that makes us who we are." She stared at the waves. "Our time with them never seems long enough to those of us blessed with a true parent."

"Your little sad tale means nothing to me. I am the king of Utgarde. My sorcery is the greatest in all of Jotunheim!" He stamped his staff into the ice, and it trembled. The tremors caused the bones around them to collapse, some of them falling into the sea.

"It should mean something to you, Utgard king," Hermione said grimly. "Your mother's dying prayer is what gave the artefact that you have corrupted and misused for however many thousands of years—a wish for her son to be able to survive and grow to become as powerful as they hoped he could be. Proof that his people were wrong to want him dead."

An image formed in the blowing snow to show a female hill giant crumpled in the ice and snow, covering her son's body with her own as she prayed. The female giant was wounded, and she was obviously trembling even as she attempted to protect her son and keep him warm. The child was wriggling and struggling against her, wailing and flailing, fighting against his mother's intentions.

"The Great Frost Mother heard your mum's desperate prayer and gifted her the artefact, and it was her blood from a wound sustained in saving you from the jaws of a frost beast that primed it. Long enough to support you into adulthood. Her final sacrifice before she died."

The image in the blowing snow shifted to present an image of the ever-hungry young giant gorging himself on the food and drink that came from the artefact. Instead of seeking help from the passing hunters, he hid himself in snowy crevices with his artefact, and when the hunters made a base camp to store their items before hunting, he would take from them anything he found useful from seal skins, clothes, blankets, and even their rations.

"But when you grew older, you searched for a hundred ways to prolong its effects. The blood, the seal, the fish, even the mighty frost beasts did nothing to appease it. Eventually, you turned to sorcery, pretending to be addled in mind and only fit to be a servant to hedge wizards and sorcerers, even while you paid attention. Even as you stole their magic out from under them. But while that taught you sufficient skills for survival, it did not power the artefact, and you were not going to cast it into the sea as your mum had asked upon her deathbed."

"So when you found the beached calf on the ice, marooned on the surface like an offering of fate, instead of using your sorcery to allow it to return to the ocean and take the artefact with it," Hermione said stonily,"you beat it to death in anger and rage. Demanding that it reveal its secrets. Covering the artefact with the blood of the faithful. And that one act convinced you of your given right to rule, and you used that artefact to sway the hungry and starving to your rightness. You used its magic to power your own sorcery. You used it to look like a frost giant—a saviour amongst them all."

"And when the king of the frost giants of the ice and snow met you, his people suffering from a war with both the elements and hunger, he asked you how your great city fed so many in one place. How was it you did not travel the wastes? How was it they never moved from place to place but always found food? And when he began to suspect that you had done something terribly heinous—and continued to, you sent him off on a holy war against the one people you knew would keep him busy. Ásgardr."

"You misdirected his anger and frustration, and so grateful was he that he named his future son after you. Loki." Hermione let out a soft breath. "You fanned the flames of hatred to keep your dirty little secret safe—and who questioned that the heathen Asgardians would kill a whale or two in their ignorance and stupidity of Jotunheim's oldest stories? It was so easy to blame Ásgardr for Laufey's son being born smaller and seemingly weaker than other frost giants. They had taken the Casket of Ancient Winters. They had killed the whales. They had orchestrated all the evils. But it was your insidious magic upon Laufey that had suppressed his own innate magic and thus the magic of his newborn son. Magic you put in place to make him blind to your manipulations. Magic that made him unable to protect his people from the attacks of Asgard."

The whale song around them seemed to change into a sorrowful tune. Hermione closed her eyes and shook her head. "Magic that led the King of the Frost Giants to believe his son had been born a runt and would never survive, so he left him to the snows to be claimed by Jotunheim. Better to be taken by the embrace of the cold and wind than the blades of Asgard, or so he thought."

"So you succeeded," Hermione said darkly. "You turned an entire society against another. You preserved your secrets at the expense of blood-stained snow and ugly prejudice that now scars both sides. Well done. I know someone you should meet very soon, or rather—"

Hermione shrugged her shoulders as her "cloak" moved off her shoulders and seemed to float beside her. "Soon enough."

"I truly abhor violence," Hermione said. "But nature is not always kind. Just as people are not always nice. Just as you are a horrible excuse for life. But it is not my place to test your constitution against the true fury of Jotunheim. That belongs to Jotunheim and its goddess alone."

"Are you threatening me, puny woman?"

The corner of Hermione's lips twitched.

Shades were rising up from the water and bones—

Whale spirits emerged from the frigid depths, their musical whistles and clicks changing to that of the hunting calls that came only after a great silence—the silence that the whales put upon themselves just before a kill. Even as they did, massive beast shapes emerged from the blinding white of the arctic landscape.

Sabres.

Beasts.

Even the rare but towering ice bears.

"Normally, I feed Walter myself to keep him from making decisions that could lead to indigestion," Hermione said, "but I think that this time, he'll be fine after his food has been properly tenderised."

"You won't lay a finger on me, puny woman," Utgard-Loki snarled at her. He stamped his staff, and the ground quaked.

Nnnnnnnnngh.

The water churned violently around the iceberg.

"You're right," Hermione said coolly as she stepped back. Glowing bones shifted and churned, and whale teeth swirled around her, forming into a necklace that gently lay around her neck. She clasped it in her hand, closing her eyes. "I will always remember your songs."

The water churned as the physical whales moved around and beneath the ice, their bodies causing even greater cracks to form on what was or had once been solid ground.

Hers is the gaze that watches.

Hers are the ears that listen.

Hers are the songs we sing.

Utgarde-Loki let out a loud yell as a certain spikey grumpy pup bit him soundly on the ankle. Utgarde-Loki kicked the pup away, and Loki-pup's body went tumbling away across the ice even as it cracked and shifted.

Kudara materialised out of the white field of snow, her huge paws sizzling on the ice as she walked. Her plasma tails lashed back and forth as she retrieved her wayward pup, snatching him up by the scruff. Hermione placed her hand on Kudara's side, and they disappeared with a crack.

Utgarde-Loki felt a growing burning pain in his ankle just before the spirit whales tore into his soul and ripped it from his body an instant before the beasts did the same to his physical body, bite by bite, claw by claw.

If Utgarde-Loki had anything to say in response, it was lost amidst the sound of his agonised screams.

The artefact he had linked to the effigy displayed in his once great city, always fanatically hidden on his person, fell and sank down to the bottom of the sea.

And far away, on a blank wall in Jotunheim's sanctum sanctorum, a new mural appeared of a screaming giant being torn apart by both spirits and beasts as a great and looming city burned in the background.

Loki found himself perched on the back of a seawolf whale as Hermione swam toward home. The pod swam with her, whistling and clicking, singing and crooning, droning their songs to her.

She, in turn, sang back to them.

Stories of the whales that had lost their lives would remain alive, the spirits of those whales finally able to rest.

While his "revenge" of sorts had come in the form of his puppy teeth sinking into a giant's ankle, he supposed it was better than nothing at all. The story of how the giant had deceived so many had filled him with anger, and he almost regretted having calmed Hermione down and pleaded for her to let Jotunheim have its justice.

He hadn't planned on it, really.

He'd intended to let that bloody bastard burn and have nothing to do with it.

But then, he realised that he couldn't let Hermione's innate compassion be twisted by such manipulation.

If there was anything he knew well, it was manipulation.

She didn't deserve that, he knew deep in his heart.

Thankfully, it wasn't that hard to find a heat-seeking whale missile making a beeline toward Utgard. He was a shapeshifter, after all. Even if that ability wasn't very reliable as of late.

He had just enough will and power to do that one thing—

Find her.

Convince her that seeking retribution was not for her.

That whoever it was was not worth letting them win.

And by some miracle, she'd actually listened to him. She'd calmed enough to remember herself and the will of her Mother.

"They deserve to suffer!" Hermione cried, tears flowing down her face. "Murderers! Songs lost! Souls forced to wander, restless, their songs lost to pain and suffering! Prayers that never reach Mother!"

Loki pinned her to his chest, his arms wrapping around her strongly. He ignored the tremor of powerful magic that shot through him the moment their runic markings touched. He ignored that she was both beating on his body and sobbing on him at the same time. He held her as she sagged against him, weeping, the all-compassing grief passing out of her as tears and a little beating upon his body.

"He deserves so much more than suffering, I agree," Loki said, "but this is not the reason you are here. The goddess saved you for a reason. Because you are special. Because you are kind. Because you forgive. Because you can bring peace to those that passed before their time. Bring them justice, not revenge. Revenge— I know, believe me—brings nothing but more grief. An aching hole that can never be filled. Never be enough. Never be satisfied. That is not the fate for you! That is not what YOU deserve! Remember what you told me about the portal and your being a beacon? Don't let this event signal the Realms with your hate. Don't let this insignificantly stupid being taint YOUR song!"

She clawed her fingers against his skin and wept, no longer fighting him.

And he held her.

He held her until her tears finally ceased and her trembling stilled against him. He held her until her rage and fury turned to exhaustion, and she fell into a deathlike sleep against him.

He held her, unmoving, unable to risk it lest it disturb her fragile acceptance of her grief.

He held her until her hand touched his cheek and her sane eyes looked back into his.

"Thank you," she whispered, her voice a lament of whale song but no longer a scream of rage. "I'm ready," she said after a while, "to let Jotunheim test its faithful."

Loki cupped her face with his hands, pressing his forehead to hers. Their magic met like the movement of Kudara in a stretching yawn, moving from nose to the tips of her plasma tails. A tingle. A warmth. A tremble that moved in a vibration of warmth that acted like a siren song to any pup. It was unlike anything he had ever felt, and it moved him in a way that he thought would never be his.

Something passed over Hermione's expression like a cloud dancing across the frozen sky, wispy like the coldest tendrils. She smiled at him, and his entire soul felt like it both left him and came back as a different animal entirely.

Her fingers traced the runes upon his forehead and face. "Can we—talk about this feeling after I am done leading the spirits of unrest to their justice?"

Loki let out a huff of amusement. "I can wait."

Foop!

Loki was a pup again as Kudara's jaws closed around him. The spikey, grumpy pup growled and squirmed in his mum's mouth as his mother nuzzled Hermione tenderly.

Walter warmed around her shoulders, and Hermione settled into a softer sort of sanity as the compassion of her companions tempered her into a more rational being. The Song of her Mother filled her, and she took in a deep breath and exhaled. She was ready.

As Loki felt the warmth of the whale beneath him, he couldn't help but feel that something more than significant had happened without his sensing it coming. While he had long since come to terms with the fact that he couldn't see everything coming, he felt that something had happened he should have at least sensed.

But he had no words for what it was, let alone could he even fathom its effect on him in any way that was sensical.

He vaguely remembered how odd it was to see his brother so infatuated with a mortal Midgardian, Thor's history being a little less than stellar on faithfulness, and realised with a sickening horror that he was being rather single-minded in his devotion to Hermione.

He could, he supposed, blame it on being reincarnated (of sorts) into a deviant beast pup, but he had a feeling that it wasn't that at all. It would be too easy to blame that aspect of his life to a genetic imprinting process.

No, he supposed, Kudara had been waiting for Hermione because Hermione was right for her. His brothers and sisters of the claw and fang had all chosen to be with her, all save that one pup that had decided the potions master had been a safer bet for getting the most attention. Even so, all the deviant beasts had seemed totally enamoured with Hermione because she actually gave a damn about them, and in that way he could definitely relate.

Walter had returned shortly after their departure from the scene of Utgard-Loki's demise and seemingly merged with the whale as a pattern of markings on her skin, and Loki realised that the goddess had ensured that her daughter's companions had been suitably blessed to remain with her always.

Noggin, however, preferred to keep the house tidy, and he chose to stay with the sanctum. The spider was, he noted, like an enthusiastic eight-legged housekeeper who greatly enjoyed making silken items, doing chores, and weaving clothes.

While no frost giant truly needed heavy protective clothing like a human would in such frigid conditions, they did wear some things, and he was pretty sure that even Frigga would have considered performing many acts of a rather questionable nature to have such exquisite spider-made luxuries like silken sheets and bedclothes.

How one (arguably not so little) spider generated such a seemingly never ending supply of silk was quite a mystery.

Suddenly, Loki realised they were surrounded.

The spirits of the great whales that had perished under Utgard-Loki's reign of whaling were "swimming" beside Hermione. Even knowing how large the whales were, they seemed small against Hermione, and he'd remembered that Hermione said her Mother was, by comparison, an extraordinarily vast specimen of seawolf whale.

They whistled, clicked, and sang, and Hermione answered in kind. With dawning realisation, he realised they were teaching her their songs. She, in turn, was remembering them, repeating them back. He saw their lives and the spans of their memory, even as some of it slipped through his mind like grains of sand in his hands.

He was not designed to remember such things. Spells, grudges, and even a thousand and one acts of absolute indecency on Thor's part, yes. He remembered that sort of thing all too easily. In being remade into the Great Frost Mother's calf, Hermione was now able to remember as only a seawolf whale could remember.

Vast and alien, but utterly beautiful songs.

He wasn't even sure how long they were singing together, but a few times he had fallen asleep with his gaze on the cosmos as he lay on his back on Hermione's. He was filled with such a profound sense of peace and closure that all of his past pains seemed to fade in comparison. Perhaps, even they were slipping away in the depths of the fathomless sea.

The sky was lit up with light and colour, turning the night sky into a vibrant canvas of space and energy. He had to admit that even in comparison to Asgard, Jotunheim had the purest of skies—completely untainted by even light pollution from the most "civilised" world.

As each whale had their turn, they then swam through the skies toward the vastness of space where the She-Who-Sings waited for their arrival into her cosmic pod. Loki lost count of how many had come and then gone. It felt like a celebration but also closure.

Their songs remembered—their entire lives preserved forever in song—the whales bid Hermione farewell as they flew off into space to the next great adventure.

When he awoke back at the sanctum, tucked up against Kudara with his brothers and sisters, he had to wonder if the Great Frost Mother had given him a far more poignant gift than rule or power. Here—he had found true peace.

Wriggling free of Kudara's plasma tails and the other pups, Loki bounded over to where Hermione was sleeping. He eyed the edge of the bed with intent concentration, his rump doing some wiggling as he tried to judge the distance.

Whump!

He scrambled up the side of the bed, stuck his nose under the edge of the duvet, and burrowed in closer to Hermione's side, making a nest under her arm as she slept peacefully on.

Severus stood by the window-like portal that had appeared in the Nexus and saw only a frozen wasteland that was so intense that it was hard to see even a few feet forward in the blowing, drifting snow. McLaggen placed his paws up on the barrier, tail wagging as if the most interesting thing ever lay on the opposite side.

"This is new," Severus said as stared into the blowing snow. "There is nothing out there, mutt," he informed McLaggen.

The deviant pup just growled at him and tail wagged harder.

Whether by adaptation or design, McLaggen had taken on the form of a black labrador retriever, and the more intimidating spikes and Dark plasma had been replaced by Earthen puppy fluff and fur that exuded "Earth normal". Even that had started to shed into a more mature pup, but Severus had no idea how much of it was just the deviant beast doing what they did best: adapt and survive. McLaggen's growth rate was, if anything, slower in size than a real labrador, but if Kudara's lifespan had any litmus test for length of life—who knew what the "pup" was age wise.

And with their lives bound together, what did that mean for him? Severus had wondered.

Stephen cast a spell mandala and stared at the portal window. "This—wasn't here yesterday."

"Yet here it is—today."

Stephen frowned. "Indeed."

Stephen cast a few more spells, but they seemed to irritate the portal window. Frozen plasma tendrils extended out from the portal and smacked him silly, tending him tumbling into the far wall. Stephen held his head and winced slightly as he stood, grateful for Severus hitting him with a timely cushioning charm. "You really need to teach me that."

"Mover of gods and Sorcerer Supreme but you still seem to have arguments with gravity," Severus said grimly.

The Cloak of Levitation floated next to the new portal window, seeming to ignore Stephen completely.

Stephen sighed. "Some artefact," he muttered.

"It probably knew you weren't going to die," Severus said with a smirk. "Just hurt."

Stephen shook his head. "Wonderful."

Severus placed one hand on the portal window's barrier, frowning. "This must have shown up for a reason, Stephen," he said.

"Do we need an extra large freezer?" Strange said with a smirk of his own.

Severus' eyebrow twitched.

Stephen waved him off in a way that made Severus suspect that Lucius Malfoy was haunting him all the way from Wiltshire. You could take the wizard out of the Wizarding World, but sometimes the Wizarding World came round for a visit and a cuppa.

Suddenly the portal window changed views, and a gigantic body slammed against the portal's barrier as it—swam by?

NNnnnnnnngh.

The sound caused both sorcerers to hastily cover their ears with the first vibration. The sound cut through their bodies like a sword, resonating within their very souls.

Severus, McLaggen-pup, Stephen, and the Cloak all went tumbling backwards.

Eeerrrrriii, an answering, smaller call came.

And as the massive blackening shape moved away from the portal window, a "smaller" figure took form in the gloom.

A whale calf chased its mum, dutifully following, but it was by far no small thing. Nothing on Earth even came close.

Loud whistles, clicks, and thrums made the portal room shake. Runic markings glowed in the murky fathoms, outlining the shape of the whales.

A sleek form swam across the portal—a seal the size of an Earth sperm whale—and the runic lights on the whales' skin abruptly went out. All the sound stopped.

The portal window was dark—

CRACKCRACKCRACKABOOM!

The whale smashed up through the ice, sending shrapnel of ice shards the size of ships in all directions as she breached, her eyes glowing in the gloom as light shimmered off her runic patterns. Teeth gleamed like swords in the night as her flippers flicked water away from her body.

CLACK!

Those teeth clamped tightly around the fleeing seal that clearly thought itself safe on top of the ice. The whale's body landed back into the water with a massive splash, sending a wave into the portal window even as blood stained the freezing water. The whale thrashed once, twice, ending the seal's struggle.

Stephen and Severus watched in horrified fascination as some real life documentary took on a nightmarish size and shape in the portal window only to change in demeanour as the larger whale gently tore into the seal carcass and let small pieces drift away for her calf to snap up. The "little" calf sang and clicked as it ate, the glow from its skin growing stronger and more defined.

Only when the calf was full did the larger whale take from the seal's remains, and even then, she did not eat nearly as much as one might expect a creature of her size would.

Nnnggaa.

Uurrwwwuuu. Click.

Nnuuuuwuu.

The mother whale gently took the seal's remains into her mouth, and began to swim upwards towards the ice again. Her calf followed dutifully as their songs rang out. Hers, then her calf repeating with its smaller but no less determined voice.

The whale mother leapt up onto the ice, its huge body sliding across the thick ice with a skid, seal still clasped in her jaws. The calf landed beside her, skidding a bit awkwardly into its mum's body with a thump.

The mother whale dropped the carcass on the top of the ice—

And a number of large blue-skinned figures materialised out of the snow and gloom, all carrying spears.

The calf immediately started to panic, squiggling against its mum with frantic clicks and squeaks.

But the female tenderly nudged her calf with her nose, gently caressing it with her flipper.

The giants, at least to Stephen and Severus, promptly laid down their spears and began to butcher the remains of the seal, and one of them approached the calf with a small offering.

Tiny.

Some precious piece of the seal that would have fed them quite well.

A whale, not so much.

The calf seemed quite nervous, but the mother whale was calm, encouraging her calf to be brave.

The giant offered the seal tidbit to the calf, and the calf slowly opened its mouth. They placed the offering onto the calf's tongue and then politely backed away.

The nervous calf closed its mouth and then seemed to jolt with surprise as its skin patterns began to glow brightly. It let out a string of whistles and clicks.

Then, with no fanfare, the mother whale nudged its calf into the water and followed behind, disappearing back into the dark and frigid depths.

Stephen and Severus watched with a growing sense of wonder as flashes of life passed by. The mother whale taught its calf of life in the frigid seas, how to stalk the seals, to sing, and to hunt. It learned to respect and to trust, it learned—

He grew.

He became a gargantuan whale, but he stayed beside its mum even as she introduced it to other whales. She stayed even as he slowly started to make his way from her side—learning to trust in others and himself. He learned to respect the matriarch of the pod, learn their dialect, and attract the attention of other whales.

And then one day, his mother began to swim away.

He chased after her, not ready, not ever ready to leave her safe and comforting side.

She sang to him of life and adventure, of stories that needed to be told and he needed to be there to listen to them.

He sang to her of love and how there could not possibly be any without her!

She rubbed her pectoral fins against him, gently nudging him with her beak as she drew her melon across his skin. Her markings glowing.

She sang to him of readiness. He was ready. He had learned everything she had to teach him.

He sang of the unknown! Of separation! Of his fear and uncertainty!

She sang to him of his bravery and his skill in the hunt. She sang to him of his deeds. She sang to him of birth, and the tragedy of his first mother that was sadly lost. She sang to him of love that knew no boundaries, her pride in her adopted son, and her encouragement of his hopes and dreams.

He sang of dubious disbelief and self doubt.

She sang to him of the wonders of the universe.

But you won't be there, he protested!

I will always be here, his mother sang, rubbing her body against his just as she had when he was so small and fearful.

She sang to him of a beautiful female whale that waited for his song—for his story to be joined with hers. She sang to him of calves yet to come, and his great hunting that never left them wanting.

They swam together as they always had, side by side, but in this final swim, he seemed to gain more anxiety as he knew she would eventually leave him. He protested. He vehemently disagreed!

But as his mum breached with him, he saw the cosmos with his inner eye as it expanded into forever, the songs of She-Who-Sings echoing as if in the sea. He realised all the stories were true.

And he—

He had to be there to listen and share them with others and most of all to She-Who-Sings.

The great she-whale beached herself upon the ice once more, her body shuddering as it became smaller if but only in comparison to the whale.

A Jotun female pressed her lips to her son's beak as tears ran down her face. Even as they did, they froze upon her skin, breaking away into crystals that fell into the water.

"I will love you forever, my son," she told the young whale. "I am so very proud of you."

"Mother," the whale sang, his great heart filled with love that spilt out into the whole wide universe.

He swam away alone, singing the songs he had learned even as he sang the songs that could be, would be, and were.

The Jotun female fell onto her knees as tears fell from her eyes even as they turned into drops of crystal and fell into the water as offerings.

She sang then, and it was an ethereal whale song that lit up the skies with vivid rays of light and emotion. A ghostly female whale swam slowly around her, singing of her gratitude and love. She pressed her beak to the Jotun's body, nudging her, her glowing markings moving into the singer—merging with her body's story written in magic upon her skin.

The female whale spirit sang of weight lifted and forgiveness, and she swam into the skies where the electromagnetic lightshow coloured the night with impossible flare.

The Jotun was alone as the skies began to dim again. Her song ended in a strangled sob, and she crumpled in the snow and ice.

A hand touched her shoulder.

She looked up.

"Welcome home, love," the other Jotun said. The language was foreign to the two men behind the window barrier, but it meaning was clear as the songs and the life and the stories had been so terribly, emotionally clear.

She sobbed into the other's chest, and the male held her gently, not asking, just waiting as if time was a matter best left to other, lesser beings.

She stood straighter after a while, and she pressed her forehead to the other's as she closed her eyes. Their markings glowed with an ethereal pulse in the dusky gloom of the ice and snow.

"It felt like a lifetime," the woman said as she looked out over the ocean.

"Then it was," the male said.

"How long was I gone?"

"A few days," he replied. "Long enough for all the beasts to miss you."

She chuckled, a smile on her lips. "Time is so strange for whales," she said. "They live forward and backward—the present and the past. It's hard to remember when I am."

"Just for now," the male replied with a small chuckle. "It is enough."

"You're so much more content," she said. "Are you sure it's only been a few days?"

"Does my inner peace bring you such discomfort?"

She scoffed. "I just—find it comforting. Some of the very best moments were—with Severus reading by the fire. Some exceedingly complex research in the library with Stephen. And here, just," she trailed off as she stared into the water. "Sharing this moment with someone knowing I don't have all the answers. That I'm just a calf trying to make her mum proud."

"Hermione," the male said, his blue hand brushing her cheek with a gentle touch. "She is proud of you. Look at all you have done in the span of days, centuries, minutes—however you call time. She chose you out of all the cosmic beings out there, infinite powers, vast and incomprehensibly mighty creatures and beings, She chose you as being ready to swim at Her side. As no other has. And no other will."

"This power that She gifted you—placed within you—She knew that you alone could handle it being there and not lose your mind to arrogance or the need to dominate or subjugate. It makes you very special. Not even the gods are immune to such grave deficiencies. I was not, and it is because of my own failing that I recognise how special you are."

He sighed softly. "It took me a long time to find this peace," he said. "Longer than most mortals could fathom. And maybe because we are born to be gods we forget that we, too, must learn. You, however, never stop learning. You were born learning and you never lost that wonder or that drive. Imagine all those people out there who think themselves done. That a number of years somehow makes them perfect. That's not you. It probably never was, and that little something mixed with however many lifetimes of experience, combined to make you the way the goddess believed was ready. Not because you were born knowing this. Not because you knew what fate had in store. Not because you were raised to believe you were meant to rule. No. Not because you wanted some great honour or grovelling sycophants kissing your feet. No. Hermione, you are special because you are you. You brought the ghosts of the fallen whales to justice. You quelled your own need for vengeance. You forgave me. You raised a calf on your own for how many years uncounted in the breath of three days? A bull that bravely sings of the great adventure and so much more because of you. He'll find his mate. Have calves of his own. Teach them your songs and so many others. You bonded to a deviant beast whose entire purpose of destruction was turned on its head and changed to devotion. Your legacy is in this place, Hermione. The soul of Jotunheim sings within your blood and magic, now."

"To hear it, even the little or large I am granted, is a true privilege." Loki tenderly brushed her hair behind her ear. "Don't you hear Her singing songs of you? Of Her pride in you? Her love for you extends far beyond Jotunheim. Just as yours does for the love of your son."

"And if Severus and the strange sorcerer were here, they would tell you the same," Loki said, his crimson eyes glowing with amusement. "If they could survive the initial step in, almost absolute zero temperatures, and general hostility to all live environment."

Hermione's eyes filled with water, and she shed tears with a sniffle. She let out a choking laugh and smiled genuinely as her tears turned to crystals and tumbled into the water.

Nnnnnnghhh, rumbled around them, and Hermione's eyes grew wide as a great dorsal fin broke the water, giant caudal fins dripping waterfalls as She breached.

"Mother," she whispered.

Loki touched his forehead to hers. "Go to Her," he said with a warm smile. "She's been waiting to hear the songs of your son."

Hermione let out a soft cry of wonder as placed a kiss upon his lips and spun away, diving into the water with a joyous surge of song.

The Great Frost Mother, She-Who-Sings, rubbed up against her treasured calf, singing the songs of welcome and love.

Hermione sang, and the feel of her tangible love cut through the air as her song delivered it. Songs of her son's life from calf to bull, songs of his future, and songs of his great adventure, but as she continued her song—

Loki's eyes widened.

She sang of the deviant beast whose patience spanned lifetimes and devotion brought her to Jotunheim. She sang of the loyal and dutiful Lethifold, of a homespinning spider, of a people battered and betrayed whose prayers were only starting to be heard against across the floes—

She sang of the black-haired, black-eyed potions mater whose love he had given up to see her well again. She wondered if he could accept what she had become after so many trials and changes. Her love for him remained, and she would carry it to the end.

She sang of Doctor Stephen Vincent Strange. Teacher. Mentor. Friend. His unresolved love that kept him from committing to a then (or so they thought) mortal Hermione. Her realisation that her lifespan was no longer a limiter on her love and her acceptance that it was okay for him to love others just as she could hold love for others. She had no need of jealousy or worry that there wouldn't be enough room for her in his life. There would be time when time was needed. She hoped he would still find her acceptable when he discovered she was a whale.

She sang of Loki—he who was born to be a king but was cast away from the land of his birth, taken in by the enemy and raised as a brother but by keeping such a secret was also betrayed. She told the story of his life, born of betrayal, adopted in secret, and raised to be the king he would never be allowed to be. She sang of jealousy and treachery, manipulation, loss, and grief. She sang of the fight for redemption, the fall back into deceit, and the slow crawl back. She sang of the ultimate sacrifice, and rebirth— free of the chains of expectation. The power of forgiveness. The love between brothers not born of the same mother. The wisdom that could only be obtained from the fall from grace and the struggle to stand. Life. Living. The meaning in a single breath of frigid air and being grateful for every last moment.

And the greatest of the seawolf whales sang the songs back to her, recording Hermione's greatest loves into the stories that the very soul of Jotunheim would remember.

The whales breached together, beaks pointed to the cosmos as water and magic fell from their pectoral and caudal fins like waterfalls, their bodies suspended in the air as if held by an invisible hand. They let out a droning song together, the heartbeat of magic shared between them. Deep magic flared off their runic markings, dripping off their bodies as water would, and then their bodies crashed back into the water.

Waves crashed into the ice as Loki watched, and a smile spread across his face as an expression of content ease settled there.

Yoink!

Grumpy pup growled and squirmed, dangling impotently as his mum carried him off by the scruff for a proper grooming.

Kudara whuffed, her plasma tails waving merrily in the wind as she carried her wayward pup off into the storm, back home to where a warm hearth awaited them.

Severus and Stephen sat down hard on their rear ends as they stared, gaping in disbelief out at the swirling snow in the portal window. They exchanged utterly horrified expressions as the shocking truth settled into their stomachs like a heavy stone.

"She WAS the whale!" they cried out together.

"What do you mean we can't go through it?" Severus snapped.

"The portal is not yet stable," Stephen explained, running a hand through his hair. "She probably anchored one the first moment she could—but it hasn't finished connecting to the energy of the place she's in. We could end up there in pieces. We could end up somewhere else entirely. There is an entire vast Multiverse out there, and we could end up with an arm in one place and a head in another."

"Then why can we see it?" Severus growled.

Stephen let out a slow breath, a small smile playing on his lips. "To let us know she is okay. To make sure we didn't port on in all cocky and promptly freeze to death."

Severus closed his eyes and twitched. "Know-it-all," he whispered. His eyebrows knit together suddenly. "Why was she bloody blue?"

"Jotun," Stephen said matter-of-factly. "Frost giant."

"But she's not a frost giant," Severus protested.

"No, she's a giant cosmic seawolf whale that can shapeshift," Stephen said, his lips puckering.

Severus shot the other sorcerer a scathing look that would have withered and set someone less hardy on fire.

Stephen, having developed an immunity due to constant exposure, waved one hand. "Look." He moved his fingers to create a complicated magical calculation mandela. Runes flew in all directions and rearranged themselves. "Most everyone who is not a frost giant stays well away from Jotunheim," he said. "Its climate is fatal to us lowly mortals, and it isn't exactly kind to the giants either. There was a great war between Jotunheim and Asgard. If that song Hermione sang to her "mother" was any clue, the war was because of someone named Utgard-Loki—the Loki that our Loki, er—Asgard-Loki was named after. It was all a manipulation by Utgard-Loki to secure his seat as king of the frost giants. Something he couldn't be for his own people due to some childhood murder he'd committed."

"Someone engineered a war just so no one would be left to contest his throne?" Severus summarised with a twitch of his jaw.

"You heard the song just as clearly as I did," Stephen said grimly. "Relived it, even. I'm not quite sure how, but apparently, seawolf whales allow you to relive events through their songs. I can't say I studied them much before now to know differently."

"I heard it, but I don't have to like it," Severus muttered.

"Time flows differently in Jotunheim than in Midgard. Our Earth is a part of the Multiverse, but the Realms are separate. There is only one Jotunheim, and its goddess created it that way on purpose to both protect and test her realm. I can't be sure, but there is probably only one—er, was only one—Asgard. Before Surtur, erm, obliterated it from the face of memory."

"Why didn't Surtur ever try that with Jotunheim?" Severus asked, frowning.

"Jotunheim's goddess is powerful enough to have seen things in motion that brings her daughter to her after lifetimes of experience, plants the seeds of the Singularities in her mind via a very specific brain-incubating spider, but neutralises them to where she can only tap into them once acceptance of her place with the goddess was cemented—she had enough foresight to realise that Hermione would be denied by Death, blessed with a misdirection aura that literally made people forget she existed without constant exposure to her, and then drawn to Jotunheim by an utterly random act of either protective fury or else Clea's jealousy. I'm still not certain which I believe more."

Stephen scratched his head and shrugged. "I'm not sure about you, my friend, but I don't think that kind of power just rolls over and lets Surtur take Jotunheim. That—and I don't think Surtur would even want Jotunheim. Its forbidding climate is its greatest defence and an even greater deterrent. No one wants to go on vacation in a place that makes Antarctica look like Hawaii."

"My holiday dream," Severus said with a curl of his lip. "Wait, I've changed my mind. Neville Longbottom and all the entitled children who would rather snog than study would never go there. Sign me the hell up."

Stephen gave Severus puckered lips in a way that reminded him vividly of Minerva McGonagall preparing to take her dainty feline claws to someone's unprotected leg.

"I'm not saying that the Jotunheim goddess manipulated anything directly to get what she wanted, but I think she was watching Hermione very closely through her lifetimes. And from what you've told me of her experiences just in this lifetime, I can only imagine what other soul experiences she's undergone to get to this point."

"The perfect storm," Severus said.

Stephen nodded. "You've said before that she was an old soul trapped in a young body."

Severus took in a breath and let it out slowly. "Yes." He narrowed his eyes. "So this goddess sent the spider that started this entire mess?" His fingers tightened into a clenched fist, his knuckles whitening.

Stephen shook his head. "No, Severus," he said. "I think the goddess couldn't help but notice our Hermione because of all the things that happened to her. When she ended up in Jotunheim, she snapped her up, and how could she not?"

"And the Deathhead spider egg?"

"A way to place the seeds of the Singularities within her in a dormant state or even perhaps to give her a better chance to survive. It is hard to say for sure. If she survived, she might make her way to the goddess. If not, no one would have known they were there. I'm not convinced someone would even know now, as they are now integrated into her magical soul. It is what allows her to travel time as she does. Raise a whale that would take hundreds if not thousands of years in our time. Essential for the goddess' work but easily abused by less disciplined minds."

"Perfect storm," Severus said with a sigh. "As much as I would like to think a goddess would be looking out for Hermione when she was used by Longbottom's hitchhiker, I have to wonder why the Singularities. From what I've read of our records of the Snap and the subsequent return—Thanos was only able to wield them without being obliterated because of his exceedingly mutated constitution and the fact Death refuses to let him die. How did he die, actually, or are we going to have to die all over again to see him contained?"

Stephen grimaced. "It is my hope that he is, actually, done in this timeline. It is my understanding that in some timelines he returned, in some Tony and Natasha died to end the war—but here, in this world—we are finally done with him."

Severus sighed. "At least there's that. From what I've seen of Tony Stark, he's not exactly the self-sacrificing type."

"Ours, no," Stephen said with a chuckle. "But, much like the multiverse, there are many different versions of us." Stephen blinked suddenly and moved around the room in a series of frantic teleportations, picking up books, looking up info, being in other places, and reading books over and over.

Severus, used to such frantic research episodes, waited for the other sorcerer to get his brain together before he exploded.

Stephen closed the latest book with a decisive snap as he put it back on the shelf. He cast a magical circle and performed some complicated wand waving.

It must have been complicated if Strange was using actual tools. It was exceedingly rare for Stephen to use a wand or any other such artefact.

"And?" Severus prompted as Stephen suddenly seemed to turn the milky alabaster colour of Lucius Malfoy.

"There's only one," Stephen whispered in a strangled voice.

"One sun, okay, moving on—" Severus said.

Stephen shook his head, jerking his chin up. "No, I mean—"

Severus waved his hand, and Stephen and he sat at a table with tea cups in hand. "Yes?"

Stephen drank down the tea and clunked the cup down on the saucer. "There is only one—Hermione."

Severus drank his entire cup of tea in a single gulp and set it down, his fingers extending in a manner that resembled impatient spider legs. "What?"

"In all the multiverses—there is only one, now."

Severus stared at the bottom of his teacup and saw a whale. He set it down and pushed it firmly away. "So, there is no longer more than one of her?"

"There is just Hermione," Stephen said heavily.

"What exactly does that mean, Stephen?" Severus said, his eyes narrowing.

Stephen banished the calculation circle of magic and let out his breath slowly. "Hermione is—a true god. She is all of the incarnations in a single form. She is all of their stories. All of their souls. She is Hermione. The Hermione. True daughter of She-Who-Sings."

Severus tipped the teacup to see the form of a seawolf whale still where he left it. "What does that make us, Stephen?"

Stephen ran his hand through the white streak in his hair. "Very blessed to be her beloveds," he said with a twitch of his lips. "And not her enemies." He stared at the radiant ring on his finger. It glowed strongly, a heart seemingly beating from within.

He stared at it and smiled. With a smooth gesture he passed his hand over it, and another ring appeared between his fingers. Identical in every way. "She would want you to have this, too."

He extended the ring to Severus.

Severus's facial muscles twitched as some great emotion struggled to surface even as he struggled to contain them. His pale fingers extended to take the ring, and he slipped it onto his ring finger.

The moment it did, the heartbeat sensation thrummed strongly. A magical pulse extended from their combined rings as their magic resonated—synchronising to its deep thrumming beat.

Nnnnnngh.

The song of a whale resounded in their kitchen and there was a loud rumble in the next room. They both ran toward the noise and found a swirling portal had opened up in the library, tucked between the isles of I and K. The room had expanded to more easily accommodate the change in spatial needs.

Grawwrrff!

McLaggen's tail wagged madly next to the portal, a couple of packed suitcases and a pile of arctic gear having seemingly magically appeared.

Stephen rubbed the space between his eyes simultaneously with Severus.

"Know-it-all," Severus said with a gusty exhale.

The Cloak of Levitation wrapped itself snugly around Stephen's shoulders as it herded both men toward the pile of arctic gear.

The only thing Severus was aware of was the bitter cold, even through his arctic weather gear and a gratuitous amount of strong warming charms.

A frost giant regarded them with a curious stare, their work on a spear halted in order to look upon them. The walls around them were covered in murals and sculptures. The giant had horned ridges over their head instead of hair, and armoured plates that curved around the shoulders and chest. Runic markings made raised patterns down their body.

A giant cat that made the giant look like a dwarf yawned toothily beside him, pausing in the gnawing of a long bone of some sort. Its raspy tongue was tearing the flesh off the bone with a crackling scrape.

The Jotun said something, but both sorcerers had to cast a translating spell when they realised they were not going to get anywhere.

"She said to expect you," the giant said, pointing his spear at a human-sized doorway. "Those rooms are for you."

"Thank you," Stephen said politely as they walked toward the door.

As they brought their luggage in, they found the living area to be both ample and warm enough for them to take off their coats. The walls were, with some inspection, constructed of thick ice bricks, but when they placed hands upon them, they were not nearly as frigid as they expected.

There were rugs placed across the floor that were clearly hides of some sort and had been worked until they were both thick and soft. Massive bookcases were set into the walls and arranged much as they had back at the New York sanctum, and the adjoining sleeping chambres were much as they were back on Earth; only the light was provided via pale blue and white lamps.

The area set aside for a kitchen of sorts had an impressively wide stone hearth that would have made both bread makers and pizza bakers (and probably Molly Weasley) quite envious indeed, and Severus found a brewing area set to the side on the opposite side of the rooms, isolated from cross contamination as only someone who knew about proper potions brewing would have ever thought of.

A garden branched off from the main room, extending with multiple rows of already growing and watered plants, some hydroponic, some purely aquatic, and some grown in soil. The ceiling was transparent like sea glass, and bright (and deceptively not warm) sun filtered through the greenhouse-like area, keeping the room to a balmy and near-tropical level of warmth.

The astounding variety of plants truly surprised them, and both men looked at the neat plant stake labels that clearly marked species, common name, and that was checked for edibility for humans.

A branch of the main greenhouse seemed to cater to herbs and more exotic items, and the labels listed various potions uses, ratios, substitutions, and individual quirks—

Quirks that literally had one cheeky plant biting Stephen on the finger in agitation.

Fortunately, it wasn't the poisonous one, just—cranky.

Severus gave Stephen the withering "you're such a sodding dunderhead" look that he'd come to know very well as the man examined all the plant specimens with keen interest.

"This place is amazing," Stephen said with no little wonder. He looked out of the greenhouse windows and saw out over the ocean as well as the floes.

"She was always one to do her research," Severus said absently as he fingered a plant's flower with one finger. He rubbed it under the chin, and it rattled, depositing its "fangs" into his hand. "Apparently there are Jotunheim fanged geraniums," he said with amusement.

He picked up a small jar that was conveniently located nearby and smiled as he noted Hermione's handwriting clearly labelling the jar as containing fanged geraniums.

"Always prepared," he said to the jar.

"Hrm?" Stephen said as he narrowly avoided a nip from a feisty nearby vine.

Severus shelved the jar. "She's still Hermione."

"Dinner is ready!" a small voice said.

The two sorcerers turned to see Noggin perched on top of one of the leaves.

The spider spun in a circle happily. "Welcome to Jotunheim," he said. "This way to the dining area!"

The spider scurried off, and the two men followed him. They moved down a muralled corridor, boggling at the epic stories depicted there. Even more surprising, they saw themselves throughout the last years training, fighting, and engaging in battles to defend Earth and beyond.

Severus touched the mural with nothing short of reverence. "She never stopped thinking of us."

Stephen put a hand on his shoulder. "Nor did we her."

Severus jerked a nod, containing his emotion. "Yes."

As they reached the end of the corridor, it opened into a vast underwater dining area sheltered in a transparent dome.

Nnnnnnng.

Whales sang above and around them, swimming by the dome. Their dark blue, black, and white patterns glowed like conjured magic in the gloom of the sea. Schools of fish flitted by, their collective movement glinting like metallic coins in the water.

Suddenly there was a flurry of movement as a great shark moved into the area, making a straight line toward an unwary whale calf that had strayed too far from his mum's side. The seas rang out with alarm songs, and the calf made frantic whistles and clicks as it blindly swam away from the hunting shark.

CrackacrackaBOOM!

The body of the shark was slammed violently into the dome and the adult whales promptly tore into it, staining the water crimson with its blood.

As the blood diffused into the ocean, the wayward calf was frantically suckling from its mum, sticking to her as tightly as possible.

The carcass of the unlucky shark was shared between the adult whales and some of the older calves, but it seemed the younger calf had learned his lesson well enough to not go wandering without his mum.

"Ah, youth," a familiar voice said. "Along with great bravery can also be great obliviousness, making one wonder if bravery is just ignorance in the face of death."

The two men saw a cobalt-skinned female standing with a spear in one hand. She placed it on a holder by the door as she brought in a large platter of what looked like bloody remains. She placed it on a pillar in the middle of the room, and it rose upward to the top of the dome, passing through the shimmering barrier.

"Our thanks to you, great Mother, for bringing two travellers safely into Jotunheim," she said. "May this food nourish us much as our prayers enrich you."

The mother whales nudged their calves forward, and each calf took but a piece of the offerings.

Tiny in size. But a pea compared to a Bludger.

The calves zipped around excitedly, bursting into happy song as their bodies glowed with bright patterns. The whales above and around them sang, and a sense of peacefulness settled on the dining dome.

The tables in front of them were filled with a vast array of foods as Jotun filed in to take their places at them, talking and eating.

"Hello, Stephen, Severus," Hermione said as her body shrank down to the size they were accustomed to. "I am glad to see—MPHF!"

Hermione's words were cut off by Severus, instigating the snog of all snogs in front of Merlin, the Goddess, and everyone. The Cloak of Levitation beat him off and tackled Hermione, enveloping her in a warm hug.

"I'm feeling a bit jealous," Stephen said.

Hermione laughed as she caressed the happy Cloak of Levitation and walked into Stephen's embrace. "Hello, love."

Stephen grimaced at first, stiffened, and then wrapped his arms around her as a soft sob exited into her curls. It ended with a soft kiss and a press of foreheads.

"I've missed you both," Hermione said. "Come, join us for dinner. "Astrid has been slaving away at the cooking fire with a kind of culinary magic that makes Molly Weasley seems like a teenager with a microwave."

She gestured to the smaller table where food was piled high like on the other tables. "Don't worry about the waste. What we do not eat goes to the hearth beasts who need a little extra rich food to recover from their wounds."

"What is all of this?" Severus asked. "It smells divine."

"Astrid likes to keep us guessing," Hermione said, "but it looks like peppered seal steak, smoked fish, giant glazed prawns, seaweed salad, grilled deep octopus, stuffed sea urchins, sea cucumber noodles, and iceberry tea. She had a feeling you were coming, so the food is all perfectly safe for you."

"The names are just a little off-putting," Severus observed with a quirked lip.

"Try it, love," Hermione encouraged with a tug of a smile on her lips. "You have not even tried food until you have tasted our Astrid's cooking."

They sat at the table enjoying the surprisingly tasty food and company with pauses for simple staring in awe as if the moment would expire in a puff of smoke.

"We heard your songs," Severus said, his expression turning haunted. "We searched for you for so long."

"I put up the gate as soon as I was able," she said. "But it works on a different time scale than would be logical or sensical. I knew there would be a portal window showing up at the Sanctum around the time it started to be ready, but I had no idea what you would see."

"We saw you raise your son," Stephen said softly.

Hermione's eyes closed. "He is a truly devoted son," she said. "He will bring many songs and prayers to She-Who-Sings."

"I'm sorry I wasn't there to stop Clea," Stephen apologised. "Had I but known—"

Hermione put her hand over his. "I have come to realise that some things happen. It may not be fate, but they do happen and then other things happen because of it. Because of her, I met my Mother, and I would not trade that childhood at her side. Clea may not have had noble intentions, or perhaps she truly believed Kudara a threat, but her actions brought me to Jotunheim. Through Loki praying to save me, she both devoured and gave birth to me anew. I gained a purpose that I never knew I needed."

Hermione tilted her head. "But I have missed you both."

"We saw the murals," Stephen said.

"I often thought of you, and sometimes I would even get glimpses of what you were going through," Hermione said. "It really helped me sometimes—to remember what had helped me through trying times. And sometimes, I wondered if—you could accept what I have become."

"How could we not?" Severus said. "You have always given so much of yourself. Can we not also give something back to you?"

"Somehow, I doubt the Wizarding World would be ready to accept marriage to a whale," Hermione mused.

"I look forward to sending loads of photographs to Lucius," Severus said, deadpan.

Hermione's eyes widened. "D-do you really mean that?"

"I can think of no other whale I would want to be married to," Severus said sincerely.

"You truly have that many whales lined up to marry you?" Hermione asked with a mischievous smile.

"So many," Severus rumbled. "So terribly hard to choose just one."

Hermione burst into tears throwing her arms around Severus as he tried to keep the tea from spilling out of his glass.

"It's going to be one whale of a good wedding," Stephen said, sipping his iceberry tea.

Severus used a magical circle to levitate his much abused tea glass back over the table. "I have spent too much time without you, Hermione. I would not waste a moment more without you." He caressed her cheek with his fingers. "I will even share you with the mutt god of Asgard."

Hermione choked on a laugh. She looked at Stephen.

"Ditto," Stephen said.

Hermione hugged them both tightly, sobbing with happiness as her magic filled her. She sang.

Nnnnngggg!

Her arms flew outward as her body rose up into the air and passed out of the barrier. Her body shimmered as her body shifted into that of the whale. She sang, her song resonating through the deep sea, and every whale answered her with joyous calls.

Hermione swam in dizzying circles around the dome, and the other whales joined her in the frantic dance that only those of the sea could understand. She shot up through the surface, breaching high into the air as the sky lit up with a glorious display of colour and light. Magic and water dripped over her body as her song rang out across the cosmos, the very fabric of Jotunheim echoing the heartbeat of Hermione's joyous soulfelt song.

All across Jotunheim, hunters stared up into the cosmic sky and saw the graceful form of the Great Frost Mother swimming across the space sea, Her celestial pod following behind Her in celebratory song as they draped Jotunheim in cloud nebulas. Falling stars showered down on the land below, lighting up the darkness with blazing trails of fiery beauty.

A single tear threatened to drop from Severus' eye, and Stephen looked up in awe to see the sky reflected in the water all around them. At Severus' feet, McLaggen let out a puppy howl, and it was answered by every sabre's roar and each frost beast's deep howl.

And in the rebuilding city of Utgarde, Jotun felt their very first spark of hope since the fall of their great city of prosperity when their king abandoned them.

As the two sorcerers walked out into the freezing winds of Jotunheim, they did not feel the cold. They looked out into the cosmic sky painted in colour and watched as Hermione rose from the water, suspended as her body freed itself from the sea and rose up into the sky.

Nnnnnnhhhhh!

Her song rang out as she flew into the atmosphere and beyond, joining her Mother in the celestial dance. Whale song sounded out, spreading the true history of Jotunheim through every ear, mind, and heart.

As hearts filled with belief, prayers rang out across Jotunheim, and the whales sang them to their goddess. The goddess and Her daughter swam together, side by side. They exited the Realm of Jotunheim, swimming around the great roots of the Yggdrasill. Spinning around the burnt and unhealed roots, they sang together.

A tale of betrayal.

A tale of cruelty and bigotry.

A tale of justice and healing.

A tale of forgiveness.

A tale of love.

The roots of the great tree cast off their burnt bark and began to heal. They grew outward once more, and the gaping wound that had been left by the destruction of Asgard began to reform. Stones danced and stacked themselves into order. Dirt covered stone. A whirlwind of seeds spread out across the dirt as great waterfalls formed from cosmic rock and energy. Rainbows sparkled as a dense layer of mist spread over the seeded land and trees, flowers, and grass grew anew. Water filled the chasms as it fell into the cosmos. Clouds swirled above mountains.

Rainbows swirled and concentrated, reforming into the vast reaching Bifröst. The nexus points were set into place and rerooted, anchoring themselves once more into the Realm's unique cosmic tapestry.

Portals formed, and wide-eyed Asgardians walked out, staring at the wonder of Asgard reborn.

The smaller whale glided down to the ground reforming into a curly-haired Jotun whose eyes blazed gold on a field of red. The greater whale above them sang.

"The war between the people of Jotunheim and Ásgardr was built on a lie," Hermione said, her body's runic markings rippling with magic. "My Mother would have this rift repaired between Her people and those of Ásgardr. Were it not for the ambition of one giant's want of a throne, a subsequent chain of hatred would not have been formed. But, so, too, was the warmongering of Bor, who in his jealousy of his son sought to punish the Realm of Midgard."

The people of Asgard gasped as their minds and hearts were suddenly filled with the true story and history.

"The whales of Jotunheim have a long memory, but the time for hatred has passed," Hermione spoke for her Mother. "The health of the Realms relies on all of them thriving. For only thus will the Yggdrasill also thrive."

Hermione's eyes flashed, and they took on the look of nebulae formed in the vastness of space. "This land was yours, and it is yours once more, Asgardians. Rebuild a better Ásgardr on a foundation untainted by hate and fear."

The great seawolf whale sang in the sky, and another portal opened, and Asgardians that once passed into Valhalla walked out, eyes wide with confusion.

"Those that passed beyond now have a choice—they may remain to enjoy their well deserved rest in Valhalla, or they may return to help rebuild Ásgardr to become a place they can be proud to leave behind for their loved ones. And when their closure is fulfilled, they may return to their peace in Valhalla."

Hermione swayed to the song of the whale swimming above them.

"The portals shall remain open so that those who wish to return to Valhalla may do so. There shall be no judgement. No guilt. Your peaceful rest was earned, and your choices are yours alone to make."

Hermione pointed to one of the open portals. "This portal leads to New Asgard, where you may go back and forth freely until the reconstruction is completed. When the Bifröst is stable and guarded once more, it shall disappear."

She pulled out a sword key out of the cosmic aether and shoved it deep into a boulder. "When it is time to activate the Bifröst again, the sword will go to its chosen champion."

Hermione looked upward and smiled. "May Ásgardr rise as the beacon of hope for all the Realms as it could have been. War is easy. Peace is much harder. Let there be peace amongst our peoples."

One of the baffled Asgardians stumbled forward. "Who are you?" he blurted.

Hermione smiled. "I am just Hermione. I speak for She-Who-Watches, She-Who-Listens, and She-Who Sings. She is the Great Frost Mother who created Jotunheim to both shelter and test her people.

"And why should we believe a Jotun?"

Hermione closed her eyes and shook her head. "Feel free to stand here upon the lie," she said. "Ásgardr will not rebuild itself. And you may not remember this, but faith is what spawned the materials that built the great city. Without it, this place will remain pristine but unbuilt. With it, the glittering city will return. It is your choice. Your opportunity."

"Believe or not. Have faith or not. Inspire faith or not." Hermione tilted her head. "But I will tell you this. It was the faith of the Jotun in Jotunheim that allowed for the healing of the Yggdrasill that in turn allowed for the return of Ásgardr. It was their desire for peace that gave you back the foundation you can use to rebuild your city. What you do now is entirely up to you."

Hermione then cast her arms to the side and fell off the side of Ásgardr causing a gasp to rise from the gathered Asgardians.

She rose up to the sky as the cosmic whale, rejoining her Mother. The greater seawolf whale nuzzled her beloved calf, and they swam off together into the celestial nebula and disappeared from sight.

At the sight, a few of the Asgardians' hearts were filled with renewed faith, and a new, golden road extended under their feet into the heart of where the once great city had stood. They clung to each other in renewed strength as the man who had doubted looked shamefully and faithlessly into the cosmic void, unable to conjure even the smallest brick.

End of Chapter Four

A/N: So, do you think Loki will survive long enough to get married? XD

I think if Clea comes to visit, she's in for a big surprise. Not sure if she will, though. She'd never think to visit Jotunheim for a vacation. The Dark Dimension would seem like a tropical pleasure palace in comparison.

This chapter ends here because it's long and Dragon and the Rose is passing out.

Blame her for actually wanting to sleep like a normal person. XD

Silly normal people. Fffft. Night owl for life!