Stranger Things Chapter 5 Karmatic Whale, a Harry Potter + Doctor Strange Crossover fanfic

Beta Love: Dragon and the Rose, Dutchgirl01

Stranger Things

Chapter Five

Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Hermione was having a severe case of lie-in syndrome, and she really, really didn't want to move.

It wasn't helping that Kudara was nestled close against her, providing a radiant heat that was terribly seductive in Jotunheim, and she was also wrapped up in Severus' arms as the pups tucked themselves around every available space around them.

The great act of reforming Asgard had made her sleep for an entire week, at least as Jotunheim judged it, and she'd had three dutiful men, a deviant beast and her pups, and even concerned Jotun hunters checking in on her after the feat.

She tried to tell them she was perfectly fine, it wasn't like she had single-handedly done anything but translate for her Mother, still Stephen and Severus hovered over her like a hen brooding over her chicks.

Stephen, of course, had to spout off a hundred reasons why moving that much magic when not used to it would have overtaxed anyone, and she just grunted and cuddled into him, accepting the berating snuggle with a soft whale croon.

She hadn't been the one moving mountains and creating matter out of cosmic energy. That had been her Mother—not that Hermione hadn't been paying close attention to what she had been doing. She always paid avid attention to what her Mother was teaching her directly or indirectly.

In some ways, she worried about Asgard. It had been a long time since the Asgardian people had had to worry about faith. The Norse gods had been established for a long time, and Asgard had been built in a time when faith was strong, and Midgard had relied on the stories of the Norse gods to build their society and culture.

In the more modern age, true faith was a dwindling, even quite rare resource—both in gods or in one's self or others. It made for a very unstable platform for feats that would surely be considered miracles.

Without such faith, it relied on the being's baseline power, and not all such beings were created equal. And if she had learned anything from being a sorceress—there were a lot of cosmic beings of unfathomable power. Most of the strongest, however, did not have the same interest in meddling with mortals that mortals often did with other mortals. Albus Dumbledore, in particular, came to mind. Grindelwald. Tom Riddle.

And those were only the Wizarding ones—

It wasn't to say that powerful beings didn't have the desire to stir up trouble, as the story of Thanos had been one of Death messing with his mind, having him fall for them, and then denying him. That story had been passed from whale to whale with a touch of horror and sorrow. While the story had nothing to do with Jotunheim, it was the kind of grand lesson a mother whale would use to tell her calf not to put all their krill into one mouthful.

There were a lot of such stories out there, and seawolf whales loved to collect them. In a way, they were like living libraries, and Hermione had to love that. She's always had a fondness for the written word but most of all the story itself.

Well, as long as it wasn't from the likes of Rita Skeeter.

Though she pondered how many seconds it would take a beetle to freeze to death in Jotunheim considering how small she would be coming through any portal as a beetle. She found the potential story from that both morbid and amusing.

Perhaps, it was her new perspective gained from how Jotunheim tested its creatures as much as it sheltered them.

Hermione shuddered as a certain lamprey affixed to her neck, and her arms flailed.

"You think too much in the morning," Severus rumbled against her skin. His deep tones appealed to her, and she wondered what his song would sound like as a whale. It pleased her.

The wizard sorcerer had always had that deep, wonderfully compelling voice, even when (or especially when) he used it cuttingly, but she hadn't truly noticed its allure until well after her schooling time with him. It was probably for the best, considering how mortifying it would have been to have a crush on a teacher.

Gilderoy Lockhart was a case in point.

Not her finest moment to be sure.

Thank the gods, never again.

Never.

Ever.

Again.

She was much more satisfied with the real, tangible, very much cuddle-prone tall, dark, and snarky that seemed to have spawned three very distinct personalities even while sharing a common denominator of intellectual stimulation.

Hermione meeped as Severus silenced her train of thought with a kiss, and her hands ran through his hair as his tongue found itself in mischief.

Okay, maybe other kinds of stimulation were okay too.

Being with Severus had felt like a surreal sort of dream after thinking he'd abandoned her—all a part of the plan if one thought about how the bean-nighe worked. To avert death was no small request, and the price was always equal to the feat. The easiest, oddly enough, was strong emotion and the subsequent anguish.

But she did wonder—

What had caused Death to turn from her and deny her death, however, remained to be discovered. She very much doubted; however, if the puzzle was going to prove to be an easy solution.

She hadn't been a Sorceress Supreme, nor had she ever aspired to be. She hadn't saved the world single-handedly or been born to greatness and groomed for the part. If anything, she was lucky to have survived her childhood at all. Survival had been a team effort along with a very healthy helping of sheer dumb luck.

A lot of the latter.

She had a sneaky suspicion that due to the latter, the reason would be beyond what was considered logical or sensical.

Her musings, however, did bring her back to the thought that she had promised to work on the cure for lycanthropy for Neville back before she had become an egg host for a Deathhead spider—and she was one to keep her word. While she knew of a few sorcery-based cures for the condition, a Wizarding one was—

How could she put it?

Primitive and backwards.

Not because the magic was somehow lesser (and one would only have to refer back to Severus' wiping the floor with Clea at one point in time to understand that) but that the cure for lycanthropy was designed to treat the symptoms rather than addressing the actual root of the matter.

Depending on the origin of the "curse," lycanthropy could be a curse that started with Chthon—one of the Elder Gods of Earth and one of the planet's first master of black magic in particular. However, power did not save them from the degeneration into what became known as demons—creatures that fed on the sin of humanity and revelled in suffering.

Not all Elder Gods went that way, but Chthon had, as did his siblings Set and Oshtur. Gaea, alone, had not been corrupted in her family. She gave birth to Atum, who had a form called the Demogorge—the god-eater.

But all of that epic story into the history of Earth boiled down to the magic that cursed the line of "most" werewolves came from Chthon, and thus separating that chaotic imprint of magic on the "host" was "simpler" than some of the strange attempts humanity had come up with to contain the "beast."

As a sorceress, she did not wish to meddle in the affairs of the Wizarding World. They had the right, in her mind at least, to rise and fall by their own power. What bothered her was—

She had promised to work on a cure for Neville, and despite the fact that her opinion of Neville was no longer as positive as it once had been after hearing the stories of him repeatedly demanding that Severus take up the cure in Hermione's wake after she had "disappeared"—she still felt tied to her original word.

The problem was—there was no Wizarding cure possible for a sorcery curse. The two types of magic were not the same, and while they could coexist, the curse of lycanthropy was not built to do so. It was created to take over the body and turn the host into a terror. A monster. A beast.

It was the human strength that could, somewhat, temper that transformation—but eventually it was doomed to fail. Eventually, no matter how well-meaning the person was, they would slip up, just as Remus Lupin had the night he had tried to attack his students.

Because he had forgotten to take his dose.

Forgotten.

It made her wonder what would cause a man who had been a werewolf that long to "forget" something that intrinsic to the safety of all the students he was teaching—unless—

She pondered.

Unless the very nature of the curse was to specifically erode such controls and make it so the wolf-like beast could out and "play." That would be a very Chthonic thing to do. Sowing chaos and suffering was a very familiar theme song for the corrupted Elder Gods.

"What has your brain smoking so early this morning," Severus inquired as he stroked her hair back from her face.

Hermione sighed. "My promise to Neville."

"Shove him underneath the Knight Bus and make sure he gets dragged at least twenty miles in agonising pain and disfiguring road rash."

Hermione closed her eyes and sighed. Severus' opinion of Neville hadn't gotten any better. Indeed, it had gotten markedly worse—something she hadn't even thought possible. Surprise, surprise. It was possible.

Severus was, if anything, a highly predictable individual when it came to grudges—he had his own mastery in the field there.

Severus sighed, and he turned her head to look him in the eyes. "Neville found his own cure. Himself."

"Excuse me?" Hermione said, looking utterly confused.

"While I was busy learning sorcery, Longbottom made the worldwide Wizarding news by becoming the very first cure of lycanthropy—after drinking a potential cure to 'test' it for safety before giving it to his parents." Severus' face scrunched up in distaste. "He was all over the Wizarding World news from the Prophet to Wizarding American to the Antarctic Penguin Press. His blood is the cure. Unfortunately, it is not shelf stable—it requires, ah, a fresh harvest direct to the mouth, so every cured werewolf had to bite Mr Longbottom and take some of his blood into their system. I heard Amelia attempted to take blood draws and use that instead, but alas, no love there."

Hermione stared at him in gobsmacked astonishment.

Severus gently kissed her nose. "You are free of his demands and your promise, love. As am I. The condition of your agreement was a cure that worked on his parents, and technically it is a cure that worked on his parents."

"I really need to sit down."

"You're laying down already, love."

"I need to lay down deeper," Hermione said, her expression utterly flabbergasted.

A small whale-shaped spirit let out a cheerful crooning song and then promptly zipped off into the aether.

Hermione groaned. "Oh no."

"What?" Severus said with a frown.

"Now, every whale will know," Hermione said sheepishly.

"Why do I have the feeling when you say every whale you mean every whale ever?" Severus asked suspiciously.

Hermione gave him her best angelic whale halo. She made a soft crooning drone.

"Couldn't have happened to a more deserving idiot," Severus said, deadpan. He frowned suddenly. "Since when do we have small whale spirits to go along with our full-sized giant, living whales?"

Hermione shrugged. "They just showed up."

Severus sighed. "I'm going to blame the mutt god of Ásgardr for this."

Hermione sputtered. "Severus!"

Severus kissed the end of her nose. "Now, if you are quite finished trying to inject the likes of Longbottom into our peaceful morning routine, can I get back to reunification with your lovely neck?"

Hermione's subsequent squeak of pleasure was his only answer as he carried out his promise.

Meanwhile, McLaggen brought Stephen a black slipper in his mouth, tail wagging madly for play. The Sorcerer Supreme looked up from his pile of reading material and made a quizzical face. Stephen eyed the deviant beast pup, took the slipper, and threw it.

McLaggen went tearing off after it with a happy yip just before the entire puppy pack followed with a thundering rumble of puppy paws across the floor.

Stephen winced as his cloak slapped him upside the head in admonishment. "Yes, I know; I owe Severus a new pair of slippers."

The Cloak of Levitation seemed to sigh as it floated off to tend to other matters without him.

As Thor stepped onto the firm ground of Asgard once more, his mind was swirling with a hundred thousand questions and even more questions to go along with them. He'd seen Surtur destroy Asgard with his very own eyes, and watching the Asgardians, both old and young, working side by side to rebuild the once vast and glimmering city was a lot to take in.

And absent—other than the obvious city itself—was the ominous feeling of dread that had come once they had discovered Hela's connection to Asgard. The land, much as his people had whispered and even yelled, was absolutely pristine.

Unscarred.

Valkyrie was overseeing the rebuilding as best she could, as was the duty of the "king" of Asgard, and Thor found a certain comfort in that she was far less reckless with her decisions as most would be with such a stressful change in reality crashing down into her unsuspecting lap.

But, perhaps the most shaking of all the realities he had to come to terms with was that his mother and father were there to help rebuild Asgard.

They made it clear they were not there to take back the role of leadership. If anything, it seemed the both of them were enjoying a wistful retirement outside of Valhalla before they returned. The fact that they were able to at all—that Love could met her grandfather and grandmother—

It was so much to take in.

Perhaps, too, it was something his mother hadn't been able to experience in life. She had never been able to enjoy grandchildren thanks to her premature death saving—

Thor winced.

Jane.

Jane had died a hero, but her life had been fleeting. He had wasted it, regrettably, with so many excuses. In the end, he had learned what truly mattered, and perhaps that was the greatest gift he could have had in the face of raising Love as his own child. To appreciate the gift of time, however long it may be, was something he had not truly appreciated until then.

At least Love would have the opportunity to know her grandparents before they returned to Valhalla, and they would return on their own terms instead of dying in a violent cataclysmic event.

Jane, the returners said, were with the Warriors Three—coming to terms with the fact there was even an afterlife. She had chosen to remain in Valhalla, and—Thor understood her reasons now that he had experienced her death.

To a Midgardian, to live one's life and die for something meaningful was a life fulfilled. To obtain one's afterlife—a true miracle.

For her to return would be more than a mortal mind would be able to withstand. The meaning of life would be harder to fathom without death—and that was something true immortals struggled with every day. Even Asgardians had a finite lifespan, and that was what inspired great acts of art, poetry, science, magic, or even battle.

True immortality was rare, and it was a matter of debate on if the condition was because of Death or in spite of it. Either way, those who lived lives unending struggled to find reason to do so. There were those such as some of the Elder Gods that had devolved into demons in their struggle to find meaning, and there were far more beings that found themselves becoming less and less altruistic in the face of—boredom.

Such musings had become normal for him, Thor realised. It allowed him to embrace the gifts he had been given and respect what had passed through his life, however short or long that might have been.

The tale of how Asgard had reformed, however, was a garbled mess of a story. The people spoke of a giant whale. Two giant whales that sang Creation into space and time and willed Asgard to be whole again.

For only when all the Realms were whole could the Yggdrasill be whole again.

That meant that Ásgardr and Midgard could not exist and sustain the Yggdrasill by themselves. Muspelheim (the Land of Fire), Nilheim (the Realm of Fog and Mist), Vanaheim (home of the Vanir, the masters of sorcery and magic), Alfheim (Home of the Light Elves), Svartalfheim (Home of the Dwarves), Helheim (Home of the Dishonourable Dead), and even Jotunheim (Home of the Giants) all had to be stable as well—or as stable as any of the created Realms could possibly be.

It was all too much thinking for Thor, if he were honest with himself. He was not used to being so cerebral in the face of the uncertain future. The Realms had always been there, and—

Well, he'd pretty much taken for granted they'd always be there.

Until they weren't.

But—

Something had brought back Ásgardr—

Something akin to the power level of Eternity. And if the rumours were correct, that something was the patron goddess of Jotunheim.

Was it possible for a power that great to have existed for so long without being as obvious as Thanos tromping his way around the cosmos? Even he had caused a multitude of ripples, and he was hardly one with enough power to create something out of nothing. That was more hocus pocus from the Vanir—

Thor grimaced. He knew he shouldn't disrespect his mother's origins. The Vanir were masters of magic as much as Asgardians were of advanced science. And if Loki's dabbling in it was any measure of its effectiveness—

Thumbing his nose at magic was hardly wise.

Still, it was rather disconcerting that something so powerful lay hidden right under his nose, and they had trekked into Jotunheim a great many times—

Mind, it wasn't in peace, and there were often casualties on the Jotuns' side far more than the Asgardian one assuredly.

Thor winced.

"Why are you frowning, Dad?" Love asked.

"I've done regrettable things in my past that may not reflect well on my negotiations with Jotunheim," Thor replied thoughtfully.

"The land of the giants?"

Thor nodded. "That is the one."

"What did you do?" Love was, as usual, straight to the point.

"I made war upon Jotunheim," Thor said with a sigh.

"Did they do something you needed to defend others against?"

"Sometimes."

"Not all the time?"

"No, sometimes we acted proactively."

"Proactively—like—before they actually did something bad?"

Thor sighed again. "Yes."

"But you said we have to defend those that cannot help themselves."

"We do."

"So, if I thought about taking the last biscuit without asking, you'd have punished me before I did it."

Thor winced. "It was a different time. At the time—I thought it justified."

Love wrinkled her nose. "But you don't now?"

"I have—regrets," Thor admitted.

"So, you are sorry?"

Thor nodded. "I am."

Love scrunched her nose again. "Then just tell them you're sorry."

"If only it were that easy, Love," Thor said with a heavy weariness.

Love, even when brought back to life a bit "enhanced" was still but a child, and her life experiences tended to make things appear rather black and white. Her concepts, while valid in many ways, neglected to see the problem with just walking up to a society that had been at war with you for thousands of years and just—apologising.

Still, according to the Asgardians that had been there to see it, it had been Jotunheim's renewed faith that had allowed Asgard to rise again—at least enough to be built again. And construction was going well. Slow but steady.

Faith, it seemed, was a powerful but finite resource, and Asgardians hadn't had to wield it in—

Thor sighed.

A lot longer than he'd been alive. Asgard was well and truly built long before he'd come around, and while Midgard had stories of Thor and the other Norse gods in myth dating back since what Midgard would have considered 500 BCE, he had to wonder what came first—the myth or the Asgardian.

Or did such things originate from the first sightings of the more advanced Asgardians, who could be no less than gods to those that were still banging rocks together and crafting weapons in primitive forges? If anything, there was always someone more advanced than someone else. More powerful.

When he was younger, pitting himself against the most powerful was how he had judged his own worth. He'd come to realise that just because you could, it didn't necessarily mean that you should. It had been a long path to reaching such epiphanies, and he was definitely not the man he was before. Even so, he was still—feeling just a bit lost.

Loki had always been more of a—thinker. Sometimes he thought too much—his paranoia getting the better of him. In a way, Thor couldn't truly blame him. Odin had kept something very important from him—for a good reason at the time, perhaps—that couldn't not be a betrayal of trust.

He'd totally gone off the tracks and done some really horrible things, but he'd also struggled to become more than that. Thor had seen the struggle in him. Alas, he'd never been able to find that peace, and Thor could certainly sympathise.

He hadn't truly found it either. Just when he thought he had—something else would happen that just threw him into absolute chaos.

Jane's coming back into his life again only to die, the arrival of Love, and the greater Snap and subsequent Blip—everything had turned on its head. And just when he was getting into the groove of being a single father to Love (not that others hadn't contributed to her education) Asgard had come back from the nothingness of Surtur's destruction.

Not because of anything he'd done.

Not because Asgardians had worked together to make it happen, no.

Not because the Avengers had done something vast and wonderful to fix the Realms.

Not because some aftereffect of the Snap and Blip had fixed something—

No, it happened because a goddess of Jotunheim had decided that the Realms were better if all of them existed in a healthy state.

What did that make the Asgardians?

What did that make the Greek gods hiding away on top of Mount Olympus?

The goddess of Jotunheim didn't even have an anchor in Midgard. She did not seem to meddle in the affairs of other Realms save for that one time—

He didn't know what to think.

Thor sighed. He had to take Love to school. These worries could wait for another time.

"I don't think this is a good idea, Love," Axl said as he eyed the Bifröst summoned by Stormbreaker.

"Dad said he's really sorry, but he won't tell them," Love said. "I can tell them, and he can be forgiven. My first dad did some pretty horrible things, but he was really sorry about it. He didn't get to tell everyone, just me. He died. I don't want dad to die and not have anyone understand that he was sorry."

"I don't think it works like that," Axl said, his golden eyes squinting in a disbelieving expression. "And Jotunheim is dangerous. It's created to be dangerous to keep people that aren't meant to be there out."

Love frowned. "If the giants can live there, then it can't be that bad."

" I'm telling you, this isn't a good idea, Love," Axl warned. "If you really want to be an envoy to Jotunheim, you have to show—" Axl frowned as he tried to come up with the right word. "Diplomacy."

"You've been talking too much with your dad," Love said. "They said he was always stopping people from doing things."

"Unwise things,"Axl said. "He could see many things."

"And what do you see?" Love asked, her eyes narrowing.

"I can't see as much as he could, yet,"Axl said. "Dad says I have to grow into it. To see too much too soon—could drive me mad."

"Well, what do you see in Jotunheim?" Love asked grumpily.

"Ice and snow—and lots of water," Axl said. "Animals that are huge and fierce."

"I'm not scared," Love said as she stroked Stormbreaker.

"Maybe you should!" Axl said hotly. "When Eternity brought you back, They gave you gifts, but those gifts have made you reckless!"

"I help protect people!" Love defended.

"Yes, but even your father tells you to wait!" Axl said. "He'd tell you not to go right now. The time isn't right!"

"That's why I'm going now," Love said stubbornly. "The time will never be right for him. He needs forgiveness now, so he can get on with his life!"

Axl shook his head adamantly. "Healing takes time, Love. You know that! If you go now, you could make a mistake, and it could be a really big one. None of us know the real rules of Jotunheim! That is why there was a war to begin with!"

"Look, are you coming with or not?" Love demanded.

Axl shook his head. "I promised mum I'd be home by now."

"You won't tell anyone where I've gone."

Axl grimaced. "Love—"

"You won't. I saved your life before."

"And I yours."

"And I saved yours more."

Axl shook his head. "This isn't fair."

"Promise me. You won't tell anyone."

Axl slumped. "I promise."

Love wrinkled her nose and stepped into the Bifröst and disappeared.

"Thank you, Priestess," the hunter said as he patted his frost sabre under the chin and rubbed. The great beast purred in clear appreciation.

"It was nothing, Birger," Hermione said kindly. "Aðalbjörg's been a real pleasure to treat. She reminds me of a much smaller cat in my life. He loved salmon, too."

The frost sabre purred again, louder, bumping her head against Hermione and then Birger in equal opportunity attention seeking.

"She'll be glad to be hunting again," Birger said. "She's always been a great help on hunts, but that massive bear was a bit too much for her."

"The bears are easy to annoy this time of year," Hermione said. "Their food has moved to other places, and they must either follow the floes or starve. Midgard has similar animals in their northern pole. Polar bears. They are, oddly enough, not even close to being as cranky as Jotenheim's."

"All of our beasts are extra everything, much like our people," Birger said with a hearty laugh.

Hermione smiled.

"I am glad you have returned our goddess to us, Priestess," Birger said. "To some of us, we see our goddess in the eyes of our beasts—that moment when they bond to us and we see Her in that gaze. But not all hunters are so blessed, and faith had become hard."

"She was always here, watching, listening—if anything, I have only reminded Jotunheim that She has never stopped."

Birger smiled. "Either way, I am grateful for your help in it." He rubbed the frost sabre fondly. "Even the great beasts seem to remember the old reasons why we partnered to begin with.

"You just appreciate the feasts," Hermione said to the purring frost sabre.

Aðalbjörg purred, tail thumping against the woven, spider-silk woven and stuffed bed that had become "hers" during her recovery.

"I fear you'll have to take the bed with you," Hermione said. "They'll be no living with her without it."

Birger sighed. "She's worth it. I will be sure to thank the spider for his hard work."

Hermione smiled. "They'll be no living with him, either."

Birger laughed. "May I help you prepare the kills for the other patients?"

Hermione nodded. "I would appreciate it. Loki is off helping move an oven to the far village near Utgarde."

"Do they still blame you for the downfall of their once great civilization?"

"They blame me for a lot of things," Hermione said. "It is the nature of tragedy and being betrayed by someone you trusted. Many blame themselves when they shouldn't. Others blame others when they shouldn't."

"So, who is to blame?"

Hermione tilted her head. "Sometimes it's not about blame. It's about picking up your life and learning from it. It's not to say there isn't blame to be had—Utgard-Loki was most definitely to blame in a lot of ways, but do you blame the parents who only wanted the best for their son? I cannot say. I can see a hundred thousand possible ends. I can see Utgard-Loki as a just and honourable ruler who deserved respect and his throne. I can see him as a trickster who fooled the Norse gods—but we can only live the life we are given here. I think we are poised to be better in Jotunheim. Now that the Covenant between the hunters and the whales and the Great Frost Mother are reaffirmed, we can look forward to more reward for our devotion."

"Whatever do you mean?" Birger asked.

Hermione smiled. "Come, I'll show you."

"What are these?" Birger asked with wonder.

"The old stories call them comet fruit because of their shape," Hermione said. "On Midgard, they ones this shape that are yellow called bananas or plantains depending on how you make them or use them."

"But— to till the ground—it is unheard of," Birger said.

"Simply forgotten," Hermione said. "The oldest stories tell of them, but as faith dwindled, so did the old knowledge. Like how to make these domes."

Birger placed his hand on the highly polished ice that shone so bright they could see outside—and the inside was perfectly warm from the sun. "Such a wonder that it can be so warm in here but still so cold outside that this ice remains ice—but these plants thrive."

Aðalbjörg chewed on the insides of one of the comet fruits with avid interest, making purring squeaking noises of pleasure.

Hermione laughed. "Thankfully, everything here is safe for our beasts as well as us. The ones in the smaller human-sized greenhouses are not, but they are warded to keep them from accidentally getting into them. Not that they would fit through the door."

Birger laughed. "Jotun had rarely thought of humans or their Realm. Too warm. There was talk a long time ago of taking the Casket of Frozen Winters to Midgard and making it more like home, but—"

"But?"

"Midgard has too many gods and meddlers," Birger said. "There was a reason the Great Frost Mother gave us Jotunheim, and it might have taken us a while to remember it—but part of us, I think, never forgot what home was."

Hermione smiled. "There's no place like home."

"Priestess—"

"Hrm?"

"Will you teach me about this kind of growing?"

"Of course," Hermione said with a smile. "But first we must fit our lovely Aðalbjörg here with an ice shaver."

Mrl? The frost sabre made a cutely cub-like sound.

Birger laughed as he pet the sabre under the chin.

"Congratulations, you've made the first greater greenhouse on Jotunheim," Hermione said as she sent off an iceberg loaded with prime offerings into the sea. The songs of the approving whales rang out around them.

The frost sabres all mrowl-roared into the sky as the frost beasts howled.

"The Great Frost Mother never intended for our people to be tortured and tested for all time," Hermione said as she passed around hot mugs of fragrant tea. "The gift of growth was meant for the faithful to live on when the hunts grew scarce. This will augment your hunts with different flavours for which to savour. Nutrients that would normally be hard to find in a frozen world of perpetual ice and snow. This will be a great permanent home for your village—a place to come home to when the hunters must return. A place blessed by good people, rich hunting trails, and a path of listening whales to carry your prayers away to the ear of She-Who-Listens."

"Priestess!"

Hermione turned as she was suddenly glommed by a fuzzball sabre cub to the face. A sandpaper tongue slid across her cheek as the runes lit up across her body.

"He likes her, father!" a young Jotun child said with a giggle.

One of the hunters nodded in approval. "It was a good match."

Hermione's tears turned crystalline as they fell from her cheeks. "Thank you," Hermione whispered into the purring cub's warm fur.

"No, Priestess," the Jotun said warmly. "Thank you and the Great Frost Mother for teaching us what prosperity feels like—for reminding us that this is not a prison. It is Home."

"Your tiny fuzzbucket is trying really hard to break his teeth," Severus said with no little consternation.

Hermione scooped up the sabre cub and cuddled him. "He loves you," she said.

"He loves my boots," Severus muttered.

"And the man," Hermione said with a cheeky smile.

The frost sabre cub licked Hermione's cheek, lighting up her runes with each lick.

"Gah, Roar. Staahp," Hermione protested. "I should have named you Bathes-You-Raw instead of "fame and spear" I think."

Walter extracted the cub off Hermione's face and deposited the unruly frost sabre cub into his playpen.

Hermione laughed as Walter tucked himself back in around her. "Thanks, Walter."

Roar made sad, pitiful sounds from his playpen, feline mischief managed.

Hermione's resolve weakened.

"Don't do it," Severus warned her.

Hermione slumped. "But he's so adorable!"

"Resist the kitty evil."

"He's not evil, he's just a baby!"

"Babies are especially evil," Severus reasoned.

"I can raise a baby!"

"Whale. You've raised a baby whale."

"If I can raise a baby whale, I can certainly raise a frost sabre!"

"Frost sabres don't like water."

"I'm not going to raise him like a whale!"

"So you admit, you have no idea how to raise a frost sabre!"

"Oooo! Men!" Hermione hissed in exasperation as she turned herself into a giant frost sabre female, yoinked her cub up by the scruff, and padded off into the cold.

Stephen looked up from his meticulous calculations and sniffed. "Bet you didn't expect that."

"Shut it, you," Severus groused, stirring his cauldron unhappily.

Hermione frowned as a shadow limped into the encampment, trailing blood behind them. A young Jotun boy practically fell off his beast's scruff, sliding into the snow without a sound of protest.

"Loki!" Hermione called.

The Jotun swiftly rushed to her side, a group of hunters trailing close behind him. They cradled the child, wrapping him in seal skins as they checked his body for wounds.

"He's wounded," one yelled, grabbing a wrapped kit. They took out a packet of herbs and chewed them, pressing them into the ugly gash before wrapping it.

Hermione checked over the beast, and the frost beast whined softly as it slumped onto the ground. The glow of its eyes dimmed.

"Oh no, no no," Hermione hit the injured beast with a spell, levitating it to another area as she crafted a shelter around it from the ice and snow with her magic, making the top of the dome polished so the warmth of the sun could heat the inside. As the body levitated, Noggin busied himself making a soft stuffable cover, and Hermione filled it with magically transfigured down to keep the padding warm and light.

She laid her hands on the beast's skin, singing as a mother whale to her calf, and the little frost sabre at her side started to thrum-purrr, radiating a healing croon. Aðalbjörg curled up next to the beast, purring up a storm. Magic flowed between them into the wounded beast, and it spread to the boy, who the hunters tucked in beside his loyal beast with a thick blanket.

Hermione made some complicated gestures with her fingers, and the bowl of food emptied.

"Priestess?"

"Just helping to get the food into his stomach, appropriately pulverised," she said. She repeated the gesture, making the meat for the beast get to his stomach to help him get his nutrients without having to be fully conscious.

"Aðalbjörg will stay with him. Her croon will encourage their healing."

The hunters nodded as they placed some supplies next to the boy and the beast so there would be something reassuring nearby when he woke.

"Frode will watch over them," one of the hunters said. "We did not expect to make this a long-term camp, but we will make do."

"I will assist in making temporary shelters," Hermione said. "It is the least I can do since this was not intended to be more than a hunting shelter."

"You honour us, Priestess," the hunters said as they bowed in reverence.

"I will help you, love," Loki said as Kudara whufted her agreement from nearby. The pups scurried about making themselves as useful as possible, even if it was just dragging stuff with their mouth across the camp.

Hermione smiled, bouncing on her toes to give him a gentle kiss on the cheek. "Thank you. Let's make transparent ceilings to help keep the shelters warm during the day, and hearths for the night.

"I will fetch the hearth rocks. I think that would help the most in keeping the camp warm. They weren't planning on staying here, and the wind here is more fierce than on other shores."

"I will assist with the shelters and leave them open for the hearths," Loki said. "Leave it to me."

Hermione smiled. "See you soon," she said as she slipped into the water and disappeared.

Loki smiled as he helped bring the materials over to build the shelters, and he and the other "pups" leaned against the sides of the shelters so the Jotun could build the snow and ice up in form to their sides. Kudara used her plasma tails to move the materials around to set them in place, outdoing all of them with a smug flash of beastly fang and claw.

"Way to show us up, mum," Loki muttered as the giants moved the snow into place and placed the polished ice in the domes. Each building left one side open to the wind where they would build the hearths.

And just as they had finished each shelter to where they could go no more, Hermione rose up to the surface and beached herself on the shore, sliding in with a mouth full of rich clay and hearthstones. The hunters rushed forward to gather the building materials, and Loki used his magic to remove them from Hermione's open mouth. Even as they thought there wouldn't be enough in one trip, another whale surfaced to beach themselves on the ice, opening their mouth full of mud and stone—and another—and another. All of them kept their positions, mouths open and tails in the air, their soft crooning songs to each other echoing across the ice.

The giants rushed over to relieve each whale of their cargo, and when the last bit of clay and stone was cleared, each hunter placed a cut of their hunt in the whale's open mouth.

The whales shimmied back into the frigid water, the sigils and runes glowing across their skin as they sang together and disappeared into the depths of the ocean. Hermione shed her whale form as she used her magic to rid herself of the remnants of clay and mud in her mouth. She smiled at the hunters rather sheepishly as they hoisted her up and spun her around before returning to work on the hearths.

Later, as Loki, Hermione, Kudara, and the pups all curled up together around their hearth chamber watching the night sky's glorious light show, Loki nuzzled her tenderly.

"Tell me," he said. "Why do you bring them stones and clay from the ocean when you could just magic some in place like you did for the boy and his beast?"

"Some of the very best magic is what one creates for themselves or with others," Hermione explained. "It helps the individual feel more powerful, and the team grow stronger. Now, they know they can do it—and that the beasts are more than just beasts. Little miracles become greater miracles made with their own hands—with a little help. But now—this place will be much more than just a small temporary camp. It will become a hunter's camp that they can return to season after season. There will be places for both their beasts and themselves. Places where they can cut through the ice and fish. There is an old saying on Midgard. Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he eats for a lifetime."

Loki pressed his face into her neck and let out his breath. "Severus is right," he commented. "You are such a know-it-all."

Hermione ffted and shoved Loki away from her. "Git."

"I love every know-it-all-inch of you," he whispered.

Hermione's lip trembled, and she gently pressed her lips to his.

Yoink!

Loki yelped as he suddenly became grumpy pup and was tucked at Kudara's side, her plasma tails pinning her errant pups against her as she lay her head down.

Hermione laughed and snuggled against Kudara's warmth. "I love you too," she said quietly.

Lord and Lady Malfoy

Wiltshire, United Kingdom

To the Esteemed Malfoy Family

You are cordially invited to the wedding of

Master Severus Snape

Dr Stephen Strange

Loki Odinson

Dr Hermione Granger

Portkey and cold-weather gear will be provided.

Find attached dates and Portkey activation passphrase.

Please circle the entrees you would like for the event.

Lucius' eyelid twitched as he stared at the parchment invitation.

"NARCISSA!" he yelled into the estate halls. "Is this some sort of April Fool's Day trickery?"

"You are getting married?"

"Obviously."

"But you hate people."

"I hate morons," Severus corrected. "There is a difference."

"You're getting married with two other men."

"One is questionably a man with proclivities of chewing on my boots, but my fiancée is a conspicuous cosmic whale," Severus allowed, "but it is a rather packaged all or nothing deal."

"And you're okay with this?"

"I did send out the wedding invitation."

"Wait, what do you mean your fiancée is a conspicuous cosmic whale?" Lucius demanded. "Is this some sort of new DoM designation?"

"Well, it is its own designation, most assuredly," Severus replied.

Lucius waved his hand, content to leave it at "DoM designation" and think no more of it. "Whatever. So, who is this Dr Granger?"

Severus stared at Lucius. "Do you seriously not remember her?"

Lucius snorted. "I would remember a cosmic whale. I take it she is a Muggle given the doctor designation?"

Severus arched a brow. "She was born to Muggles, yes. Are we going to have problems?"

Lucius shook his head. "It's easier if she's a Muggle," Lucius said. "Less drama to explain because of the war."

Severus' lip twitched. "I suppose."

The man stood lurking in the shadows as he watched people going in and out of the building for years. He'd seen the familiar "townhouse" facade change into that of a tattoo parlour—the blatant abuse of sorcery that offended every single hair the man had.

He couldn't stand to be around such things anymore, and the fact he'd once been a believer in sorcery—a teacher—disgusted him all the more.

The fact that Stephen Strange had taken on the mantle of the Sorcerer Supreme, been Snapped away and then came back from it—

It was an offence to the very fabric of life.

And what was even worse?

There were other people hidden within who were using a kind of primitive magic to hide their unnatural and disgusting manipulations of the natural order all over the world.

They called themselves wizards and witches.

He had heard rumours of them everywhere, but the one place that seemed suspiciously annoying to him had been Britain.

Some family kept popping up in the tabloids complaining that their nephew was a freak who cast spells on them. It was all in the trash tabloids that came with UFO sightings, but Mordo knew that with every rubbish bin full of lies came random bits of truth.

So, he did a little experiment to see if he could rid the world of such travesties in a more subtle way.

It was terribly easy to slip the Deathhead spider into the crate of plants the plant-obsessed idiot boy had. He figured it would inject its egg into the man's head, and that would prove an effective way to deal with the magical menace plaguing England. He was so obsessed with finding some cure for his "magical" parents that he was going to break even more magical laws trying to cure them. Meaning more magical offensive parasites to afflict the world.

But the spider had been delivered to a place he couldn't get to, and by the time he had found the man again, he had no symptoms. It had taken him even longer to realise that the spider hadn't just died due to some freaking combination of unnatural magic and the body. The man had been avoiding the injection altogether—

And the spider had found another host.

And just when he thought he'd found who—

He'd run into a fae.

And fae were—

Admittedly annoying, but they had very firm rules.

They were, at least, better than sorcerers. They were born in faerie—a realm of true magic.

The fae had told him that the one he was looking for was beyond his grasp forevermore, talking in that cryptic way that fae were so notorious for.

He'd been so angry with the old hag that he'd been sure to thank her for her help—something the fae considered the utmost in rude. She'd deserved it for talking to him like he was a foolish child. Like he didn't know anything.

He was saving the world from itself.

He was saving the fae from "magical" humans.

Surely, that was worth some damn respect!

Especially after the meddling of those who couldn't be trusted with magic!

Now, he thought he knew who'd been afflicted by the Deathhead spider. Some so-called "witch" from the unnatural "magical" Britain. He'd tried to get in close to assess how far along it was, having tracked her to a library in New York, but then that damnable Asgardian "god" Loki had taken the fight to him, transporting them into a physical brawl in some country cow pasture—

By the time he'd crawled his way out of that fight (having had a hay elevator collapse on him and no Loki being there afterwards) there had been no trace of the woman at the library she had been in.

Or that meddlesome, troublemaking god.

Thankfully, he'd finally managed to catch a break.

Security at the old Sanctum Sanctorum was getting more lax. People were going in and out of it that he didn't recognise, but he could practically smell the unnatural warp of "magic" around them.

They were of those backwards people who manipulated the magic of the Earth with those ridiculously primitive spells.

Well, perhaps he could take advantage of all the comings and goings.

He saw the man staring at a piece of parchment with directions written upon it and smiled.

Perfect.

It was so cold.

It was more than just cold.

It was cold enough that her eyes were freezing even as she blinked rapidly.

All of her skin that wasn't covered in warm gear was quickly being frozen, and her grip on Stormbreaker was not doing well with her mittens on.

But if she didn't wear the mittens, her hand would start to freeze.

She had—

Regrets.

Almost from the very moment when she hit the wall of unbelievable cold she knew she shouldn't have made Axl promise not to tell.

He wouldn't.

He would always keep his word—just like his father.

She'd become used to being resilient since her return thanks to Eternity. She'd been given gifts—gifts that let her fight side by side with her dad. She'd even been given a little extra in being able to utilise cosmic energy.

But Jotunheim—

It was apparently created to both shelter its denizens and deter potential interlopers.

It treated everything with the same "tests" as those who lived there, only she hadn't been granted powers to withstand such things.

It was hardly fair.

What if they had to protect someone in Jotunheim?

A nagging truth came in the cold itself. The only things Jotunheim had to protect itself from were Asgardians.

There was even the chance that Jotunheim had upped its defences to make it so even Asgardians had to think twice before coming to Jotunheim.

This place, though—it was a frozen wasteland.

It was like the desert she had died in only cold instead of hot—the ultimate extremes.

She trudged carefully across the ice, fearful that it might crack and break under her weight like the crusts that covered the hazards of her desert home or the brittle ice of Earth that rarely seemed as sturdy as it looked.

The Earth people called it "global warming," but it just made for unstable places to walk.

She thumped Stormbreaker across the ice, listening for any cracking noises, and the ice made a dull thump that seemed to pass through the ground and resonate.

But as she kept going, she felt a rumbling under her even before the sound reached her.

Nnnnngh.

Whistles and clicks heralded the arrival of something incredibly massive beneath the ice.

She saw movement over the ice—what looked like a giant seal.

It was larger than anything she'd ever seen on her world on land, and larger than anything she'd ever seen on Earth, either. In New Asgard, there were whales that frequented the ocean there. This one seal was larger than that.

The stories said the giants were big, but they had also made them something they could battle and win—

But if just the seal was so large, what would prey—

A snarl broke the silence as a giant cat landed on the unsuspecting seal and hit with such a force that the ice under cracked. The beast grasped the seal by the head, its teeth crunching down so hard that she could hear the bones crunching.

She staggered away.

Panic caused her heart to thud.

She and Thor had always fought things that were bad—evil doers or malicious people. But this great beast was fighting another for food, only one was the food.

The struggle was cracking the ground, and she felt it seem to move under her, and just as the seal's struggle moved to stillness, a giant bear descended on the great feline, its jaws crushing the cat's head between its even greater jaws.

Even as the cat fought to claw and free itself, the bear shook the other violently, even as its face was being clawed. Blood spread upon the icy ground.

Crack!

CRRR-ack!

CRAAACK!

BOOM!

The ice shattered underneath the combatants, and the jaws of a giant whale snapped over the fighting beasts, and the entire area of ice crashed into the water. The great whales tore into their prey, dragging them deep into their watery graves.

And perhaps the most terrifying of all, the cold froze over the surface into a pristine layer once more—with only the smears of blood upon the ice that had remained to remind a passerby what had occurred.

That she was even alive was—miraculous.

There was a great cracking noise under her, and she frantically attempted to get out of the way, but she grasped Stormbreaker with a vice-grip. Her lifeline to survival.

She should have just summoned the Bifröst and left—

But she just had to find a way to get Thor the forgiveness he deserved, just like her father had deserved forgiveness.

Stormbreaker thumped across the ice as she fumbled with it, the cold making it hard to lift with her mittens on. The sound, however, clanged across the ice. It made a loud, discordant noise that seemed to shriek across the floes.

The ice was breaking underneath her—

The sound was like a roaring cacophony of garbled crackling, grating, and movement.

It was then, she remembered that she was a protector of the innocent! She would not lie down and die out here on the ice!

She tore off her mittens and grasped Stormbreaker firmly, digging her feet into the ice and snow as the fin of a great whale broke through the surface of the water. The ice cracked under her feet, and she saw a tooth-filled maw yawning wide as the water rushed out and in from all directions.

Love let loose cosmic beams from her eyes as she smashed Stormbreaker into the whale's head with an almighty crack, her beams doing the rest as it cut through the body of the whale from head to tail.

The great beast lay in half on each side of her, body steaming in the cold as Love stood panting in exertion. The whale's blood coated Stormbreaker completely, staining it crimson.

She staggered, cleaning her hands in the snow before putting her mittens back on. She tried to clean off Stormbreaker, but it seemed permanently stained. She tried to pick the axe up off the ice, but the weapon remained firmly stuck on the ice.

She tugged at it frantically, but it was as if it had somehow melded with the ground.

The wind was picking up, causing the snow to swirl around wildly, condensing and shaping it into something that almost seemed to shift and reform at will. The sky was suddenly filled with a brilliant light that danced angrily across the horizon.

The entire horizon of light seemed to form into the shape of a great whale as figures stepped out of the swirling snow.

"You are not welcome here, adopted child of Ásgardr," a female voice said, the sound strange as if it was being forced into something Love could hear and understand. "You bring death to the sacred whales of Jotunheim as you have come here unprepared and without invitation."

Love saw a blue-skinned woman step upon the ice with her bare feet. There were a number of bangles on her ankles that tinkled pleasantly like a wind chime as she walked. A blue-white cape fluttered behind her, but she was not wearing as much as the intense cold should have demanded. Glowing intricate runes covered her exposed skin in a flickering path of magic.

Beside the woman was a great beast that towered over her, multiple lines of glowing eyes staring into her as Dark plasma tails moved against the wind. At her side stood a "small" sabre-toothed cub whose head came up to her waist.

"It attacked me!" Love protested. "I was only defending myself!"

The woman's eyes glowed as the sound of whale song resonated in the air from seemingly everywhere. She tilted her head as if to listen and then narrowed her eyes. "You stand upon actual ground," the woman said. "The whale you killed was simply driving you toward it. All those that stand upon the shelf ice are prey to be tested in the Rite of the Hunter and Prey."

Love looked down and realised she was standing on snow and ice—on the rocky ground, not the ice floes.

Blood stained the ground she was on.

Blood pooled around Stormbreaker as it stood on the icy ground.

"I've come to deliver a message! It's important!" Love insisted.

"After this?" the woman said. "No. This is a Realm of tests, and this was only your first test. And like with all tests, there are successes and failures. You must earn the right to parlay, Love of New Ásgardr."

The beast beside her growled lowly, tails lashing in clear warning.

"The blood that you have spilled this day seals your fate, whale-killer," the woman said. "Your weapon is christened in whale blood, and it will now only respond to the call of one judged worthy of its power and only in the defence of the truly innocent. Something, perhaps, it should have been instilled with upon its making—but that somehow slipped through the cracks."

Love looked on in horror as the whale's soul rose from the carcass she had made. It sang, and the female that stood before her began to glow as as she both repeated the song and absorbed the runic history from the whale's soul to her skin's runes. The woman caressed the whale's spirit with her hands, pressing her face to its ghostly beak.

Tears flowed down from Love's eyes as she lived every story—felt every life it had recorded, every prayer, every song. She couldn't understand the "words," but the emotion pummelled her as the weight of that one life had carried the struggles and memories of so many more from joy to tragedy.

The woman gave the whale's spirit a final caress, and it flew off into the cosmos, singing a lamenting dirge that squeezed even more tears from Love's body.

Love wept.

She wept even as predators and scavengers came to tear into the slaughtered carcass she had made. Bears. Frost sabres. Frost Beasts. Smaller creatures she had no name for. All came to make use of the offering of flesh that would feed them more than well.

Giant teeth extracted themselves from the skeleton, and they swirled around the blue-skinned woman. They strung themselves on vaporous magic, shrinking down to alight upon her neck as a memorial to the whale that had left behind its physical form.

The great bones swirled and created a skeletal shelter around Stormbreaker as the very rock and snow lifted from the ground as a floating monument. Vapourous magic swirled around it and around Love. The cosmic energy that Love harboured in her body shot out of her eyes and imbued the bones with a ominous glow.

"Your power is bound, Whale-Killer of New Ásgardr," the woman said. The deep songs of the cosmic whale pod resounded from the skies. "You will not be welcome in Jotunheim until the weight of your sin is paid in deeds equal to the lives you erased from the whale that saved your life. Only then, will you be worthy of parlay."

The woman's eyes glowed crimson and gold.

"Begone."

She waved her hand, and complicated mandalas of magic exploded from her body, and Love found herself catapulted through space arse over tit.

Thor slumped as he saw the shrine of bones floating next to Asgard. Stormbreaker, stained a crimson of unmistakable blood, stood on a rock pedestal in the middle of the crossing bones. Love was hugging him tightly, sobbing gibberish that made little to no sense.

Cosmic whales gathered around the shrine, singing together in lament and grief. They paid their respects then swam off into space.

"Let this be the last misunderstanding ending in murder between our Realms, Thor Odinson of Ásgardr."

A great whale that was far larger than others hung in space as it would the water. Beside that one was another, even greater whale that dwarfed the other—a great beast that could have carried the whole of Asgard on its back.

"Here lies a record of the lives once sung by the whale who carried their stories," the "smaller" whale sang. "This is a memorial for the struggle of life and death and kindness paid in murder. Of misunderstandings where lack of knowledge paved the way to violence. Here, those Asgardians who wish to remember the stories of the denizens of Jotunheim may come to learn. Here, Stormbreaker will lay dormant until it is truly needed by one in need to protect the helpless and innocent from all those who would do them harm. Here, it shall return when its task is fulfilled."

"For her crime against the sacred whale and the crime of wilful ignorance, your adopted daughter should have been torn to pieces by the many predators of Jotunheim," the smaller whale translated. "But an eye for an eye makes all the Realms blind. Instead, both her powers and those of Stormbreaker will remain dormant until they are truly needed and be banished again when they are not."

The largest whale turned her body and swam off into deep space. The smaller one lingered. "You know what you must do to serve penance, Love of New Ásgardr," she sang. "Should you attempt to enter Jotunheim again without invitation, there will be no mercy upon you."

The smaller whale swam off into space, disappearing into a nebula as one would into fog.

Thor looked down at Love and scowled. "What have you done, young lady?"

Stephen frowned as he watched Hermione bring up another batch of clay and stone from the ocean floor, waiting patiently for the hunters to gather it from her mouth before disappearing under the waves again. "She's sulking."

"Mmn," Severus said. "A child cleaved a whale into pieces. I don't think she was prepared for that—and every whale death is like the death of her son."

Stephen sighed. "It wasn't her fault."

"Knowing that and feeling it are difficult for her," Severus said heavily. "It always has been. She has always been one to feel. This "Love" person was lucky she didn't kill Hermione's son. She would not have been so—accepting."

"And what would you have done, Severus?" Stephen asked.

Severus watched Hermione surface again to bring yet another load of rich clay and stone to the surface.

"She made Hermione cry," he said darkly. "I would have buried her in a gas planet and turned her into countless atoms."

"Remind me never to piss you off," Stephen said.

"You need reminding?" Severus replied.

"I have a lot on my mind," Stephen said.

"I've been thinking," Severus said.

"Dangerous," said Stephen.

"I think I will make this my permanent home after our marriage. There should never be just one guarding a Sanctum no matter how good the wards are."

"And just happens to be where our wife will be?" Stephen asked, amused.

"Happy coincidence."

Stephen snorted. "I envy you," he said after a while. "Being able to be close to her when she truly needs that feeling of companionship."

Severus sighed. "You have certain obligations. She understands. I—understand, too. There was a time when understanding such vast protectorates was beyond my capabilities to fathom—how anyone could even care about an entire sector of space, a dimension—what have you. I have come to realise that there is more at stake than a small patch of Britain. Or even a world. Saying that sounds so terrible out there, even now."

Stephen chuckled. "Try being a neurosurgeon and have magic change your life but not before turning it upside down and—what was that rather apt term Hermione likes to use? Ah, yes—pear-shaped."

Severus sniffed and resumed poking at the meat he was cooking over the fire.

"What are you making?"

"Spicy barbequed seal 'brisket'."

"Do seals even have a brisket cut?"

"Close enough," Severus said.

"It smells absolutely divine," Stephen said with clear approval.

"She always loved when I cooked," Severus shared. "I fell out of practice when she became ill, and I—regret having not spent more time with her when it mattered most."

"You were hoping to cure her," Stephen said quietly. "There is no way you could have known."

"What the brain knows the heart forgets," Severus said with a sigh.

Stephen put a hand on his shoulder as the Cloak of Levitation wrapped around Severus comfortingly. "There will be plenty of time, now," he said. "If anything, the Great Frost Mother has given us all much more time with her to make up for any past indecisions and bad judgements."

"And in your studies of the Principalities and cosmic powers, did a giant cosmic whale even make an appearance?" Severus asked.

"No," Stephen admitted. "The amount of power required to remain so hidden and yet be that powerful is quite telling in itself."

"Well, we can all be very thankful that She is nothing like Albus Dumbledore when it comes to scheming and meddling."

"So I have gathered," Stephen said. He let out a long breath. "I am glad you will be here with her. Even Loki—I've never seen him so—at peace."

"Helps to be brought up by a primordial deviant beast that literally has eyes everywhere to constantly keep tabs on him," Severus observed.

Stephen snorted. "I am—so glad we have found this place in our lives. There was a time when I thought such things were impossible. It was why the pseudo marriage with Clea seemed so perfect. It was all a lie I told myself."

"I once—" Severus trailed off. "I thought of myself as a very inflexible man. Unbending. Unyielding. I did not think myself able to share a life with one person let alone more, and then I met her. Someone who has so much love for everyone in her life and now has the time to share it in. I will admit that most who claim such things in a relationship are just lying to themselves. There is always someone left out. A favourite. A less favoured one. But she—makes me feel like we are all special. I find myself more accepting of a great many things with this revelation. She had every right to cast me aside for what I had done—even for the best of reasons. I made her think I didn't love her. But she—" Severus closed his eyes.

"Is willing to give everyone a second chance—even a whale murderer," Stephen said.

Severus nodded. "Though, I think that was because the girl is still a child. She was forced to do some heinous things as a child—things no child should ever have to do while growing up. In a way—I am glad she had however many years we would call it as a whale. She had a true childhood. It's not to say her human parents didn't love her, because I'm sure they did—but how does a non-magical truly understand or even identify with the magical?"

"I can say that my parents are content to think I'm a sideshow magician pulling rabbits out of hats," Stephen said.

Severus snorted. "And then there is that."

"Denial is a powerful thing," Stephen said. "At times, it serves us well in our line of work. No one truly wants to admit there are mutants, sorcerers, aliens, or space whales. Most people would be happy enough knowing nothing about it. Mutants on Earth have a certain prejudice against them. Fear. Some rightfully so, some not. Much like anything with that human element—there are those that use their abilities for self gain and those that can think ahead toward the betterment of the whole. But humanity has been struggling with that since the continents first broke free of each other."

Severus shook his head. "I am a simple man," he said. "I wish to marry her and live my life knowing that I have a home and her smile."

Stephen raised a brow. "I think we both know we are both hardly simple. We are complicated incarnate."

"Leave me to my delusions, insufferable wretch," Severus growled.

Stephen laughed. "I will relent in that we are simpler than many things in the cosmos."

Severus rolled his eyes.

McLaggen paused in his mauling of a rib bone and wagged his tail at both sorcerers.

Stephen raised an eyebrow.

"Don't even start," Severus said.

"Our lives are the furthest from simple."

Severus sighed. "Fine. We're complicated."

Stephen laughed. "We are indeed."

"I'm trying really hard," Hermione said quietly as she gently pressed her forehead to the young whale's. "Not to be hateful, but it's hard."

The young whale sang to her brightly, and Hermione smiled as it slipped back under the water and disappeared.

"Giving chances to those that have done great evils, knowingly or not, is something that mortals and gods both struggle with, I think," Loki said, his crimson eyes flicking toward the far sea. "Many gods are driven by the same injustices—only on a more massive scale in their anger and grief. Put the wrong tool in a mortal's hands, and they can be even more dangerous."

"This Love," Hermione said. "She lost her father—but he had first lost her. My Mother says he went on a quest to kill all gods because he found them selfish and lacking in compassion. He wielded a greater evil—a necrosword—that both gave him unfathomable power but also killed him."

"I do not remember this event," Loki said. "I think I was still a pup, quite literally, at the time."

Hermione chuckled. "It is just one story of many my Mother collects, but—regardless of her guilt or innocence—she will have to live with what she has done. She was given cosmic powers but no moral compass but what she had as a child—and children are, by my own experience, all over the place when it comes to actions worthy of praise or condemnation."

Loki nudged her with his shoulder. "Some of us simply take a lot longer to find ourselves. Thor was impulsive and brash, but Mjölnir at least tempered some of his acts. I remember distinctly that it refused to let him attack the whales when we believed them to be annoying animals that guarded the seas of Jotunheim."

"I did—horrible things in an attempt to make myself seem worthy of respect," Loki said. "And amidst every crawl I did in an attempt to be better, I would lapse. It wasn't until I was truly parted from the ones I had sought to impress that I realised the extent of my misdeeds. The difference is—when a god trudges through making mistakes, mortals often suffer for it."

"Rapu, this Bringer of Light, was by very name, the enemy of All-Black the Necrosword, since the very beginning when Knull rose from the tinkering of the Celestials. Gorr, Love's father, was a tool in a far greater grudge," Hermione said. "He was used in his grief. Eternity returned Love, but then Thor gave her Stormbreaker—a weapon created in crisis with no temper and no sentience or moral compass—unable to prevent itself from being held by those of great power but horrible intentions."

"I try to remember that when attempting to forgive this Love," Hermione admitted as she closed her eyes. "But it is so very hard."

"But thanks to you," Loki pointed out, "the songs are not lost entirely. The history. The souls of the whales return to the Great Frost Mother. In her cosmic pod. Is that not some consolation?"

Hermione stared into the water. "Why is it that you can always put things into perspective for me?"

"Centuries worth of exceedingly bad decisions in torturous practice," Loki said grimly. He looked at her, his brows knitting together in a tortured grimace. "I had never known peace until I had met you. Not with myself. Not with my life. You brought me back as a deviant beast—and it was the most infuriatingly simplistic solution to a lifetime of inadequacy."

Hermione blinked. "You're happy I inadvertently gave you a new life as a deviant beast pup?"

"You may not realise this, but Kudara is a mum that cannot be questioned. You can try, but the argument always ends with her on top."

Hermione choked on a laugh. "I've never tried to argue with her. If anything, I actively seek her counsel."

"She has a great deal of knowledge stored within her brain," Loki said. "She can keep up with me—and all of my brothers and sisters as well."

Hermione chuckled. "I supposed keeping tabs on little bundles of energetic doomsday makes a telling argument as to her level of parenting skill. Admittedly, though, you were quite the slippery little deviant. I am pretty sure she wanted me to glue your tail to the ground with a permanent sticking charm for a while there."

Loki smiled. "Even without all my memories, mischief has always been a natural aptitude of mine."

Hermione sniffed. "Remind me to be mad at you for inspiring such things in the Weasley twins."

Loki pouted. "I cannot help being an inspiration for mischief any more than you can help being an archivist whale."

Hermione rolled her eyes.

"It's true," Loki purred. "How often does a man get to say he's marrying the whale of his dreams?"

Hermione sputtered incoherently, ending in a soft whale squeak.

"You see?" Loki said, beaming. "I have it all. I am undoubtedly the luckiest deviant beast of mischief that ever had the pleasure of walking Jotunheim. Just think of all the boots I'll be able to chew up in a lifetime shared with two sorcerers that seem to have a thing with exotic footwear."

Hermione gave Loki a playful shove, and he made a dramatic display of falling to his death.

"You're so insufferable," Hermione complained.

"Your kind of insufferable, I hope," Loki said with a cheeky smile.

"To have and to hold," Hermione said with a sigh.

Loki opened his arms to her. "I could do with a little holding right now, if you don't mind."

Hermione's expression softened as she lowered herself down beside him, snuggling into his side.

Loki made a soft sigh as he held her tighter against himself.

"I'm not going anywhere," Hermione whispered into his ear.

"I am used to everything I care about running through my fingers like sand," Loki said.

"Well, now you have paws and plasma tails to help you out," Hermione said with a chuckle.

"Harumph," Loki commented as he nuzzled her hair. "I find myself—driven to ensure your survival. It is even stronger amongst the other deviant beasts."

Hermione let out her breath slowly. "Kudara tells me that the Celestials abandoned them—created them for a purpose then tried to eradicate them when they were too good at their job."

"It is the problem with creating a creature designed to take out apex predators—they were made to survive." Loki nuzzled into her neck. "But, in your acceptance of the deviant beasts into your magic, you have gifted them with new purpose and something they never had before."

Hermione tilted her head. "What?"

"Protection of one who cares for them," Loki said.

Hermione's eyes widened even as Kudara appeared out of the snow and curled around them, her Dark plasma tails tucking them both beside her. She buried her face into Kudara's fur, rejoicing in her warmth and seemingly endless devotion. "How could I not care? She has so much to give and asks for so little."

Loki smiled. "That is why the goddess chose you as Her daughter. You care for so many others while others care mostly for themselves."

Kudara pinned Hermione down with her plasma tails and gave her a thorough grooming. Hermione squeak laughed at the impromptu bathtime.

"Where are the pups?" Hermione asked with curiosity.

Kudara radiated silent mischief.

Hermione grimaced. "Oh no."

"Hrm?" Loki asked.

"Kudara left the pups with Severus," Hermione said with a groan.

Loki tilted his head. "Look at the bright side, love," he advised. "They won't get away with anything."

Stephen walked out onto the floes with his morning mug of tea and knit his brows together into a unibrow.

Hermione thumped into his back. "Oof. What's wrong?" she peeked around the Cloak of Levitation with a curious whale croon.

"Did we order a wedding statue?"

"Not that I recall," Hermione said with a slight frown.

Snow was gathering on top of the statue, very prominently placed on the grounds that had begun to be cleared for the purpose of the wedding. They had made a sort of garden harbour where the guests and whales could mingle together—the channels cleared where the whales could surface and see the goings on, hearth beasts could more easily move about and make temporary nests, and their guests could be seated at tables comfortably. Elaborate enchantments had gone into the grounds to temporarily make all sizes "similar" so the human guests didn't get literally stepped on. The ambient temperature was made pleasantly cool but not the frigid normal that killed so many uninvited guests, and the Jotun wouldn't notice the difference due to their immunity to the more fatal aspects of the cold.

Hermione stared hard at the statue.

"Is that—Mordo?"

"And Fenrisúlfr," Loki said cheerfully as he ran his finger over the frozen black wolf of Asgard.

Hermione scrunched up her face a little as she searched her memories. "I seem to have a number of stories about Fenrisúlfr," she said. "In some worlds, she served Hela. In some, he is your son. Which one is this? She or—he?"

Loki pursed his lips. "I had a son with Angrboða. It is a long, tedious, terribly complicated story that involves much angst, defiance, and a desperate attempt to get Sigyn to divorce me."

"Work that out of your system, did you?" Strange asked with an arched brow.

"Dying helped," Loki said, utterly deadpan. He traced his hand on the giant wolf's frozen body. "This would be my son who is not my step-sister's pet wolf from whatever random timeline."

Hermione made a confused croon. "Your timelines are so hideously complicated."

"Says the time-travelling whale," Loki quipped.

"I should know," Hermione said with a cheeky wink. She concentrated, her hand alighting on the frozen wolf. "It seems rather ignoble of me to shun family during our upcoming wedding." A glow moved from her hand to the frozen combatants, and cracks formed in the icy prisons. The ice fell away as the great wolf snarled and bit Mordo's head, his teeth clacking together with a sharp snap.

Mordo's magic blasted Fenrisúlfr's jaws apart as they battled on obliviously, sending tables and wedding decorations flying in all directions.

Stephen tucked in his chin, a scowl forming a fine line of displeasure about his mouth. "I would intervene, but once Mordo realises where he is and who I am, I have a feeling this will swiftly become a battlefield."

Hermione watched as the ice sculpture of a noble frost beast tilted over and shattered. Her eyes narrowed. "And this isn't?"

Stephen scratched his chin through his neatly trimmed beard, sighing. As another sculpture went careening into the icy ocean, a muscle in his face twitched. "Severus actually liked that one."

Hermione closed her eyes. "Sometimes, what we really need is a god."

"I don't think my voice is going to help calm him at this point," Loki said.

Hermione's lips twitched.

She drew a crystalline claw down her sternum, drawing a streak of crimson blood down the sacred line over her heart. The blood coated her fingers and she drew a circle on the ground that looked like a snarling Mayan beast.

"Camazotz," she whispered, her eyes flipping to a deep fathomless black.

The circle glowed and grew, and a swelling of primordial darkness rose up from the ice like a cloud of night. It unfolded itself like the great wings of Chernabog as the shape of a snarling bat emerged from the deep Dark. Cosmic plasma dripped off its body, its head jerked, neck cracking audibly as fangs flashed. A long sinuous tail flipped out and crushed the two combatants together as a deep, piercing SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEE stunned them both into absolute silence and utter stillness.

Fenrisúlfr immediately squatted and piddled on the spot and then sat down.

Mordo stood as still as a statue as a trickle of blood trailed out of his ear canals.

The snarling expression on the Mayan God of Death softened as he turned to look at Hermione. "Herrrmione," he rumbled. "By blood you have summoned me. By magic we are one. What would you ask of Death?"

Hermione ran up to him, wrapping her arms around his mane of fur. A flare of ancient magic resonated, recognising the bond between the ancient god and his bonded apprentice.

She pressed her head to his muzzle. "I intended to send a normal letter," she said sheepishly, "but would you mind terribly marrying us?"

Manfred tilted back his head and laughed heartily, his tongue flicking across his sharp teeth. "It would be my immense pleasure."

"I like him," Loki announced, smiling.

Stephen snapped his head over to stare at Loki. "Why didn't someone tell me that she was magically bound to Death from the very start?"

Manfred crooned as he nuzzle-cuddled Hermione in a wing hug. "Because until she accepted the divine imprint upon her soul and accepted an auspice, there was only the possibility to evolve. Not all apprentices become masters in their own right."

"I should be mad at you," Hermione said as she thumped her forehead to Manfred's. "You could have told me."

"You would not have believed."

Hermione sighed. "Why do you always have to be right?"

"I'm a god," Manfred said loftily. "I tend to be right more often than not."

"Dare I ask what you were ever wrong about?" Loki asked, visibly curious.

Manfred smiled wickedly, his fangs glinting.

"Alas, there was no great cataclysm that sundered the world on December 21st, 2012," he said with a smile.

Loki seemed to do the maths in his head. "The end of the Mayan calendar."

Manfred smiled. "To be truthful, the society did not see themselves so far ahead—to think so far would have been beyond them. The infinite. I did not believe the world would explode, but I did predict there would be chaos—as people do like their silly conspiracies. Every culture, every society—they tend to mix in a little drama to inspire them to live harder. Stronger. Be a bit more appreciative, perhaps."

"Are you truly a god?"

Manfred's muzzle wrinkled as his eyes seemed to glow. "Are you?"

Loki's eyes widened.

Manfred's muzzle eased into a grimace-like smile. "A god is just a name given by the average being to what they believe to be unfathomable—those who bear magic in a world of machines. Those who bring fire to a world whose people huddle in caves in the cold. To the giants that tower over countless ants. To the whales that sing in the space above and below Jotunheim."

Hermione looked into Manfred's eyes. "That's why I didn't die. I accepted my death, and in accepting death, I truly accepted you."

Manfred nodded. "We are—complicated. By whatever name we are called. Gods. Embodiments of the Seventh Cosmos—they are just words for what has too much scope to be penned down on a scroll of parchment."

YIP!

They all turned to see Fenrisúlfr staring down at an ornery Deviant beast pup that had just chomped on his tail. The World Eater stared at the pup with no little consternation, torn between instinctual needs and the knowledge that anything he did would likely lead to his most untimely demise.

Severus walked in, plucking the errant pup up by the scruff. "McLaggen, what have I told you about where you put your mouth?"

The pup squirmed and whined, his tail tucked in hopeful appeasement.

Fenrisúlfr cocked his head to the side with a puzzled browl, completely unsure what to think of the entry of a new man on the stage—a man who stood as tall as a giant but wasn't the same. He then looked at Loki, his muzzle wrinkling as he realised Loki, too, was considerably taller than he remembered.

And—

Bluer.

And smelled strangely of—whatever that thing was that bit his tail.

Manfred cricked his neck and wingwalked over to where Mordo was standing, quite rigid and relatively "small" in comparison to everything around him. "Well, mortal," he rumbled. "Do you know who I am?"

Mordo's eyes were wide. He swallowed visibly. "You are—Death."

Manfred did a slow blink. "Just one name of many. Names are such terribly finite things. Limiting. Constraining. Do you know what name I like best? Desmodon. It has such a finality to it. As if the end comes. It was a name given to me when mankind huddled in fear around the very first fires. There were others after. Names like—Camazotz."

Mordo's skin went deathly pale as the blood escaped his capillaries due to intense terror.

"Ahh, so you do know the name," Manfred rumbled. "Human hearts were once torn from chests and given to me to appease my ire—by those desperately hoping to stave off their deaths. What do you offer, mortal, to stave off yours? You who have already brought so many to my door in your misguided quest to equalise the universe?"

"Sorcerers are a blight on the natural order!" Mordo protested.

"So, some say, are mosquitos, yet without them, what would feed the bats and birds, the fish, the dragonflies, or even the turtles?" Manfred flicked one ear then the other. "You think that because someone used a tool in a way there was no rulebook for that somehow it is wrong, well, think on who writes rulebooks. Think of who writes history. Do you believe that Einstein was an evil man even though his studies lead to the atomic bomb? Do you think that Gustave Whitehead or the Wright Brothers were evil for inventing a machine that could fly? Would you fault the person who made the very first wand? The first printing press? Or the person who figured out how to make ink? Use a quill? How about the person who picked up the first rock? Wait, animals use tools too. Let's kill them. Let's just kill everyone, shall we? Because everyone could possibly do something utterly heinous."

Manfred's fangs glinted. "Every person could be you."

The dragonbat's form shimmered, and for a moment, every form of every figure of "Death" appeared in his place, from the more Earthen to the alien. With each shift, Mordo became more and more pale. More and more utterly terrified.

"So," Manfred said as he stepped forward as a figure, all skeleton, bones humanoid but only just—skull humanoid but only barely. His "hands" were like taloned daggers as the phalanges tapered into bone claws. "Tell me the real reason you believe that crashing my heart-daughter's wedding and trying to murder her and her fiance was a truly great plan. Not that I don't appreciate you falling into the World Eater Wolf on the way through the teleportation gateway, which all I can say is—that's what you get for sneaking in as someone else."

Fenrisúlfr whined softly, tail slightly wagging on the ice even as he tried to look inconspicuous.

"Now, I hope now that you have all that rage out of your system," Manfred said to the Asgardian wolf, "you will bind yourself to someone more suitable than a power-hungry godling who cannot see the cosmos through their inflated ego, hrm?"

Fenrisúlfr hung his head. He sort of belly-crawled over to where Hermione was and stuck his wet nose into her palm, tail wagging hopefully.

Hermione startled and then slowly caressed the wolf on the head between the ears and under the jaw. She then deliberately placed her hand into the huge wolf's mouth, and his jaws clamped over her hand. Where his teeth had touched her skin, runic markings rose into place with a pale, eerie glow. He released her hand gently and sat down with a few furious tail wags.

"Good choice," Manfred said, his head snapping back to Mordo. "I still await your answer, mortal."

"Death told me it was the only way to prove I was right," Mordo whispered. "To prove my worthiness."

Manfred tilted his head. "I think there has been some scrambled communication. At no point have I ever spoken to you. Nor would I court you, sorcerer. You are not my type."

Mordo flushed with embarrassment while simultaneously being utterly terrified. The path between pale and bloodless and flushed with embarrassment paved a trail of dusky and semi ash-pink across his dark skin.

"Many things like to believe themselves Death," Manfred said calmly. "Picking and choosing the things they wish to utilise to woo the unwary or those harder to convince of their vast power and omniscience, but very few truly understand the full scope of what I am. Far fewer, it seems, than those who attempt to study and determine the meaning of Life. For whatever reason—Life seems somewhat easier for most to fathom even in its uncertainty and harshness than Death."

Manfred's eye sockets glowed brightly, fire and plasma dancing inside the void between bones.

A large puddle of acrid urine was pooling at Mordo's feet regardless of whatever self-control he may have possessed while facing myriad cosmic threats throughout his lifetime.

Fenrisúlfr, the deviant pups, and Kudara all wrinkled their noses in unison, hastily placing paws over their sensitive nostrils in a desperate attempt to quell the offensive odour. Perhaps mercifully, the ambient cold and brisk winds of Jotunheim blew in and carried the ungodly stench away with the biting scent of the sea and ancient minerals.

Manfred gave a slow blink. "So, what do you plan to do now, mortal?" he asked.

Mordo looked like he was trying to come up with an answer, but his face resembled a man with constipation. He tapped the ice with his feet as he tried to warm back up thanks to his self-wetting.

Crack!

CrrrrACK!

CRACK!

The ice crashed as a giant mouth opened and closed with a snap around Mordo and dragged him under the surface.

Hermione blinked and then looked at Manfred. "I am SO sorry!" she said as she dove into the shattered hole in the ice where the irritated whale had disappeared. Her whale form consumed her as she swam rapidly after the whale in question.

Fenrisúlfr licked his chops and tail wagged.

The pups all wore their best halos.

Severus turned to Manfred sternly. "Must you make such a dramatic entrance, Manfred?"

"Is there any other way to make an important entrance?" Manfred replied with a shrug as his form reverted to his more favoured dragonbat shape.

"I suppose the spare room that appeared the other day must be for you," Severus noted, waving his hand dismissively.

"How considerate of you," Manfred said as the entire litter of deviant pups just "had" to pounce the dragonbat's alluringly armoured tail.

"How is it that you can be mortally terrifying and yet completely attractive to young pups of any species?" Severus demanded.

"For the same reason that Jotunheim seems to think allowing you to be the proper Jotun size is a perfectly natural progression," Manfred said.

Severus seemed to want to say something and then closed his mouth with an audible snap.

Manfred grinned, all fang, and wing-walked toward the Sanctum, carrying the pups wrapped securely in his tail.

Kudara, taking everything in her stride, trotted along behind, the spikey pup of mischief carried in her jaws.

Stephen waved his hand, righting the wrongs of the wedding grounds and clapping his hands together in a finished gesture.

Just then a giant whale beached themselves on the ice, skid to a halt next to him, and spat out a Mordo ice-cube. Hermione slid off the whale and pressed her forehead to the whale's beak and patted them fondly.

"I'm so glad you didn't swallow him," Hermione said warmly. "Just think of the indigestion."

The whale sang, radiating pure amusement.

Hermione cleaned around the whale's teeth with her magic and then rubbed his tongue. "Be well," she said as the whale shimmied off the ice and back into the water.

Stephen eyed the frozen victim and his fiancée , his expression caught somewhere between curiosity and resignation.

"And what are we going to do with him?" Stephen asked wearily.

Hermione shrugged, giving him a sheepish smile. "I really don't know him all that well," she said. "He seems to have a grudge against me, but I fear I do not know him well enough pass judgment on where he should go other than letting the whales eat him probably won't solve anything, giving him back to Fenrisúlfr will just cause a fight and a mess, and letting Loki or Severus decide will ultimately end up with him being a cucumber waiting to be chopped for the salad bowl."

"This happened before, has it?" Stephen asked.

Hermione sputtered as he enfolded her, pressing his lips to her forehead. "I don't want him to find trouble now that we've finally set a date. We've had enough drama the last few years."

"Inviting Clea to the wedding?" Hermione suggested.

"Hard pass," Stephen said with a shudder.

"It's okay if you still care for her," Hermione said.

"Care for, yes," Stephen said. "Desire her presence at my wedding, no. I might as well invite Surtur to come barbecue for us and Dormammu to provide mood lighting at that point."

Hermione sputtered. "Can we pass?"

"Please," Stephen said. "I beg you."

He turned to stare at the frozen cube of Mordo. "Can we just ship him to Ásgardr?"

"Not and keep the peace," Hermione said.

Stephen's eyebrows knit as he tried to come up with a solution. "I know, I'll let Wong decide."

Hermione snorted softly. "Cheater."

Stephen kissed her tenderly. "I love you."

A cloaked figure stepped out of the shadows as they slowly approached the frozen man in stasis. They ran a delicate finger across the magical wards, their face covered by shadow and hood.

The room was utterly silent.

The rooms around them—even more so.

But the figure moved without a care or concern.

The hearth beasts were not alerted—the great beasts normally tuned in to hear the slightest thing that was out of place.

A curve of the mouth indicated no little amusement.

Light flashed from underneath the hood, and Mordo fell forward onto the floor. His face landed hard but inches from the figure's feet.

"Problems proving yourself?" The voice was passably female but only just.

"I met—" Mordo croaked hoarsely, his voice dry and tortured. "Death."

"Impossible," the woman said archly. "For Death is me."

"That's what I told them," Mordo said. "But—"

"There is no but, Mordo," the woman said, her voice a bare whisper. "Prove yourself to me, and there will be no doubts."

"I cannot," Mordo said, grimacing.

"Cannot?" the figure said with a pout. "Or won't."

"I cannot kill what Death has denied," Mordo said shakily. "She has been marked by Death. Bound."

"I think you're just making excuses, Mordo," the figure said. "Did you not promise to prove yourself? Am I not—worth it?"

Mordo flattened to the ground. "You are worth every death," he said as he grovelled, "but I cannot kill what Death has already protected."

"I have given no such blessing," the figure said to Mordo.

"But I did," a deep voice rumbled as the Dark seemed to sweep into the room. Shadows moved without anything to cast them. Light fled as if to escape something infinitely more sinister.

The figure in the hood took a step backwards.

"Did I not tell you, child," Manfred said darkly as he walked into the room, his multiple shadows taking on various moving shapes upon the chamber's walls. "To find your own domain in which to meddle if you were not going to follow the rules of mine?"

"No, this is impossible! You were gone! You gave up your mantle!"

"You mistake your inability to see me as my absence," Manfred said. "I have never left. But you—you would rather hasten deaths around the cosmos, endlessly tampering and encouraging those you meet to prove themselves to you. Whispering into the ears of your chosen—selected not for being exceptional in understanding the balance in all things or possessing the ability to separate themselves from smaller coils to see the larger universe, no. Instead, you drive your chosen to insanity—imbued with a driving need and loyalty to an ideal that you planted within their minds."

Manfred's lip curled. "Ours is not to mould those we meet into our desired shape. Ours is to inspire and encourage what is to be to be. It makes those capable of embracing what we truly are—special."

"I inspire," the figure argued. "It is only right that they see my magnificence and the perfection of death!"

"As they say in the human world," Manfred said coldly. "I think I need to take you over my knee."

"But rejoice," he said after a moment. "Your machinations have birthed one whale of a gift to the goddess of Jotunheim—a daughter. A goddess. Whale done."

His smile was feral, his form elusive as it shifted in and out. "As a reward for this gift, I have shared this whale of a tale to the one who most deserves to know precisely who brought this all into motion. It is to Her you must answer to, for I am only Death, and no matter how much I would like to permanently erase you from existence—there are others far more deserving in their roles."

Manfred smiled. "And this Jotunheim."

The figure whipped around as if to argue, but Manfred was nowhere in sight—as if he'd never been there.

The figure smiled, victorious.

They turned to stare at Mordo, but the sorcerer was shaking his head wildly, attempting to scoot himself backwards as if desperate to escape, his dark eyes impossibly wide with terror.

Suddenly, a strange low croon filled the chamber. The decorative murals painted on the walls seemed to move as if coming alive, reenacting epic scenes from countless stories. They lit up in glowing colour as the sounds of croons, whistles, and clicks filled the air.

A figure stepped out of the wall, skin as black as the furthest depths of space. Patches of stark white shone along the sides of her eyes. Her face was finely chiselled as if sculpted from the very ice, and her eyes swirled with nebula much like her skin, shifting as the celestial objects moved in space.

Nnnnngh.

The sound vibrated against the walls.

"Death" turned her head up, her chin jutting out with a haughty confidence. "You do not frighten me, supposed goddess of whales. I am Death. Death bows to nothing, god or otherwise."

She-Who-Sings blinked slowly, saying nothing from her mouth, but the sound of croons and clicks filled the silence.

Mordo covered his ears, the onslaught of sound seemingly buffeting him more intensely.

"Speak plainly," Death snarled. "I know you can."

"And why would you need me to?" The voice was but a whisper, but it was layered by countless voices. Countless species. Countless songs.

Death staggered back, and Mordo let out a shrill scream as if his ears were torn and bleeding. A few seconds later, blood trickled down from his nose and from his ears.

"Won't you protect your champion?" She-Who-Sings asked. "Did he not do everything you commanded? Whispered. Coaxed. Misled him into doing your will?"

"I am Death," Death answered haughtily. "I do not need to explain myself."

Mordo jerked his head up, obviously in pain, but whether it was from his bleeding nose and ears or Death's betrayal was yet to be seen.

"You sicced his sorcerer on his own people," She-Who-Sings said. "Filling his mind with doubts. Cutting him off from support. Turning him into a weapon. You didn't even care who he killed—only that he did. For each death made you feel powerful. How many other knights have you so fooled? Lured in by the illusion of a possible love only for you to warp their minds into absolute madness?"

"Is that the impartiality of death?" She-Who-Sings asked. "Or is it simple prejudice? How many powers have you fooled, cloaked in your illusion of being necessary and essential? Skimming off the wake of the natural order and pretending that you are something greater?"

Mordo was rolling about and moaning in pain on the ground, and the Great Frost Mother's gaze shifted to him. She blinked slowly and then waved a hand, and he was transformed into a penguin-like creature that immediately squawked and waddle-flapped out of the chamber in a panic and into the ice and snow outside the Sanctum, taking out the side wall in his haste to escape as his body continued to grow and expand to a much more Jotunheim "appropriate" size.

The wall debris shuddered and reformed, setting itself back into place with an audible sigh.

"You'll pay for that," Death snarled, and thrust out their hand to summon their power at the goddess.

The goddess stood there, the whale song sounding out all around her as countless prayers sounded off around them. Amidst the flood of mental images, one manifested in the here and now, that of a young boy on a yellow rubber dingy surrounded by other people who saw his first whale breach in the ocean of a purple-hued planet with azure whales.

In that very moment, the boy saw the goddess—and believed.

Death made the gesture again, and then there was an image of people working together to bring a beached whale back into the ocean—her panicked calf swimming in the shallows in distressed circles. The whale made it to the water as the people hurriedly splashed cool water over her sun-drying body. They pushed her further out—the whale's pod gathering in the water.

The previously beached whale was reunited with its pod and her calf, and the whales breached out in the deeper water—as if to say thanks to the tearful people lingering on the shore and shallows.

In that moment, a surge of faith in the unknowable and the divine imprint of the cosmic whale pulsed.

Death, quickly becoming frustrated, sent out her power again, using it like a lance.

And in that flash of power, a memory surfaced.

A baby whale followed her mum in the wake of her path through the water. The mother and baby gently touched their rostrums. The mother sang, and the baby repeated her song, swimming happy circles and then breaching the surface as if to proclaim their sheer happiness at being alive.

Days sped by.

Weeks.

Months.

Years.

The calf grew into a young whale, the bond between them only strengthened. The mother whale sang of pride and love. The calf sang of love and appreciation—

Even when the calf beached herself upon the ice and became Jotun—the songs remained.

The love remained.

Death blew backwards from the tremendous power of that bond, staggering, falling flat on their arse.

"Such respect and love comes only with steady nurturing and encouragement," the goddess said. "I did not create the soul that became my daughter. I did not demand her love or respect. It grew from her—and her in me. What I rebirthed was a body to house the soul—a vessel in which she had a choice. To move on to a pod of her own choosing as a mortal or become truly a part of mine as my true daughter. This—was her choice. What you offer is what should be given freely. You assiduously stroke their egos, turn them into murderers, promising them your love if they would just prove themselves worthy of you. These are not the actions of an indifferent force of the universe. You—are an imposter. A creature who has brought premature deaths to Jotunheim. To whales spread across the Multiverses. But here—no longer."

"You cannot kill Death!" Death snapped.

The Great Frost Mother smiled with an unnerving turn of her lips. "Who said I want to kill you?"

Death's eyes widened as the goddess' cosmic gaze locked with hers, and the voices of the countless beings and worlds and multiverses rang out in the silence as a roar.

"And do you, Hermione, Sorceress, Daughter of She-Who-Watches-Listens-and-Sings, Keeper of the Stories take these somewhat questionable men to have and to hold, in sickness or in health, in crisis or in peace, in whole or in pieces, to be your mates until the end of time?"

Chuckles ran through the gathered audience as Hermione stood with Severus, Stephen, and Loki on top of a whale's smooth head.

"I do," Hermione said with a smile.

"And do you, Severus, Sorcerer Wizard, Stephen, Doctor and Sorcerer Supreme, Loki, former son of Laufey, son of Odin, God of Mischief and Deviant Loyalty take this whale to be your cosmic mate to have and to hold, in sickness or in health, in crisis or in peace, in whole or in pieces, to be your mate until end all things?"

"We do," they chimed together.

The Deviant beasts were all sporting icy decorative collars, their plasma tails beating enthusiastically against the ice as the whales crooned from under it. Fenrisúlfr proudly wore a bright green and silver ribbon around his neck. The hearth beasts were all impeccably groomed to a sparkle, all of them surrounding the grounds with their massive wall of protective bodies.

Yet, even so, some of the wild beasts gathered around the outer edges as if sensing the importance of this day above most others.

Fenrisúlfr padded up with what seemed like a cord in his mouth, and it magically floated up and wove itself around Hermione, Severus, Stephen, and Loki's hands in a complicated bind.

"As this knot is tied, so are your lives securely bound. Woven within this cord are the hopes of both friends and family, allies and yourselves, for your new life together. With the fashioning of this knot, I do tie together the dreams, love, desires, and happiness formed before and in this place to last throughout your lives and span of your love. In the joining of your hands and the formation of this knot, so are your lives now bound one to another. By this cord, you are bound to your vows. May your hands be drawn together in love, never in anger. May your vows be strong but better bitter. May you be bound by your commitment to each other, entwined in love, facing all fears and grief, sadness and joy, hardship or victory, anger or reconciliation—may you be given strength with each test in an even greater union."

The cord tightened and sank into their flesh.

"With the cord of Gleipnir, emancipated from the body of Fenrisúlfr, hold you tight to each other not in duress but in acceptance and love. May its strength serve and protect you rather than bind you in deception. May its magic unite you in spirit and in soul as you travel the star paths through life together. May you stand strong together to face all adversity in both honour and strength, dreams and compassion."

Manfred nodded. "I now pronounce you mated before the eyes of all here. May these grounds which have been consecrated forever be preserved as a place of peace and learning that it may shelter all who seek its succour."

Manfred smiled. "You may kiss your mates."

Hermione made a whale squeak of surprise as her husbands kissed her together in various places.

The whale beneath them rose up, raising his rostrum to the skies to heave them upward to the cosmos as a great joyous cheer ran out across Jotunheim. A great blast of magic blew out across the grounds, and an array of lush greenery sprouted up from the very ice and curled around the gables and the walls in defiance of the rest of the ice floes. Curlicues of steam arose from the spring fed pools, inviting all to rest their weary bones within.

And there, in the middle of the new chain of newly exposed hot springs, was a curious hooded statue figure that spewed a gush of opalescent water from its mouth as it played host to a variety of strange new vines heavy with a wide array of succulent ripe fruits and vegetables.

On the centre table lay a tall, layered chocolate and fruit cake shaped like a seal, and piled high around the cake was an exotic fruit salad mixture the likes of which had never before been seen on Jotunheim. On either side of the enormous wedding cake were enormous ever-filling bowls of mulled cider and fruit punch as well as a bubbling champagne fountain.

Great buffet tables, one Jotun sized and another scaled down for their human guests, sported an array of delicacies from all over Jotunheim. From an enormous pit-barbecued boar and a massive spit-roasted frost elk from the forested areas to a huge cauldron full of giant snow crab legs, a vast platter of rare seal steaks, a tempting spread of casseroles and vegetable dishes that infused colour everywhere, lobster, oysters, jumbo prawns, seaweed salad, smoked fish, and so much more than the mind could fathom in one place—were all somehow magically squeezed onto one table.

The Jotun children were especially charmed by huge trays filled with colourful shortbread biscuits decorated with sparkling sugar scales in shades of red, yellow, orange, blue, and green, all partaking of the fish-shaped sweets with gleeful giggling.

Hermione and her mates stepped off the great whale that was serving as the wedding dais, and she magicked over an expertly wrapped meaty bundle, sending it straight into the whale's open mouth.

"Thank you, my son," she said as she kissed the whale on the rostrum.

The whale jetted misty water from his blowhole and sang happily, giving his mum a playful, celebratory bonk.

Parcels of wrapped meat floated over to the whale guests on wisps of magic, and some of the calves were wearing what looked like ice bows that were somehow affixed to their smooth skin.

Manfred snagged what looked like a champagne mango from a fruit basket. "Let the eating commence," he said, biting into the juicy mango with great relish.

And so it did.

And there was much rejoicing.

End of Chapter Five

A/N: Happy belated Mother's Day for all you mothers of human spawn and furry or feathered spawn. I was busy tending to my mum yesterday, so this story had to wait for today. Let's just pretend it was finished yesterday, okay?

Okay!

In this story, Marvel Universe Death is just a poser that taps into the auspice hoping that no one will know any different. Manfred is Death, but just one more digestable aspect of Them. He believes in encouraging the living to grow into themselves, even helping them at times but not forcing their hands. Marvel Death in this story (and in canon to be honest) is not so impartial. She/They like to meddle (like Thanos' story.) Like in all my stories, karma comes back with fangs.

Ok, so, this story will be finished soon™ but you guys get to chime in on a few things. 1) Does Love shape the heck up?! 2) Do Thor, Odin, and Frigga get to meet Loki again? Were they there at the wedding? 3) Who do we see at the reception? Do we even care if the Wizarding World remembers Hermione now? 4) Clea: yes/no? 5) Do you think either Stephen or Loki will pay Neville a little "thank you for the whale of my dreams" talk (we won't ask Severus to confront Neville because Neville would be paste 6) Did Lucius even survive the wedding ceremony or did he think it was a prank and not show up?

Hah. Feel free to comment and who knows, maybe something will show up in the conclusion that answers those questions, hehe!