Bad Impression.

Sitting in the carriage, Loki looked at Luna stroking the Theastral backside and began to ponder about asking her a simple question.

"Would you like to join the Hogwarts Honest Mill newspaper Luna?"

Without even turning to look at Loki, Luna spoke in her dreamy tone-

"...Alright."

"Hmm…but since you're joining now, I'd like to test you later."

Luna looked at Loki for a second, but then went back to stroking the Theastral and nodded.

"Alright. I'll send you the necessary documents later, let me know if you need to change anything and we can discuss more about this later." Loki said.

The plan was to 'pretend' the test was fixing Tom's soul.

How was it related to Hogwarts Honest Mill? Loki did not know.

But he did know that Luna already knew that his goal was the test and not the newspaper, and so when she nodded he understood that she'd keep whatever the test was their little secret.

With their conversation concluding, Loki began stroking the Theastral too, causing the winged horse to unfurl its wings a little as it enjoyed getting scratches in an area that would've otherwise been very difficult.

"Loki!" Hermione cheered as soon as she entered the carriage.

"Oh? Mione? What're you doing here?"

"Thanks for sending me that letter through Rowley!"

"Huh? What?" Loki was suddenly confused.

'I sent a letter to Mione?'

'Through Rowley?'

'Where? When?'

But then Loki remembered he owned a time turner and so he looked at Hermione with a smile as he asked her, "So how was it? Did you like it?"

Hermione nodded, "Hard not to like winning two galleons worth of chocolates from the cart lady! How did you even know about the winning numbers if you didn't use divination!?"

"Ah…" Loki's mind whirled as he tried to think of a reasonable explanation but when his eyes landed on Luna who was still petting her Theastral, he spoke quickly, "Wackspurts delivered the information to me."

"Wackspurts?" Hermione asked with a confused look on her face before she turned towards Luna and then back at Loki before she frowned as she complained-

"You didn't use divination, did you? If you did, I'll tell Professor McGonagall about it! That's not the right way to use our abilities!"

Loki quickly shook his head, "No! I didn't! I swear! Why don't you just perform a divination to figure out if I did!?"

'Actually, you really should! Since I want to know why and how I did this too!'

Hermione frowned for a bit before nodding and believing Loki.

"Alright. Well, thanks anyway for letting me know that there were exactly seventeen hundred and forty-eight beans in that jar. I would never have been able to guess such a big number myself."

Loki nodded and the duo, other than himself, looked at the Theastrals with varying expressions, Hermione was clearly upset, and Luna was lost in her own world. But remembering that he'd just extended an invitation to Luna, Loki turned towards Hermione and spoke softly-

"Mione, I just invited Luna to join us at the Hogwarts Honest Mill."

Hermione nodded absentmindedly before she froze mid-nod and looked at Loki with wide eyes.

"I mean….with Daphne not being here any longer…I…we have to keep the paper going…and? You know…?" Loki said, his words getting softer and softer by the end.

"No! No! I get it! I mean we can't have a paper without illustrations can we!?"

Hermione's eyes teared up a little as she quickly dabbed their ends with her fingers. Then, she put on a happy smile, turned towards Luna, and extended her hand for a handshake.

"Welcome to the team Luna."

Luna broke away from petting the Theastral and finally looked at Hermione and shook her hand by strangely intertwining her fingers with Hermione's and then shaking them side to side.

"Thank you. I promise to be just as sane as you."

Hermione was puzzled and she gave Loki a questioning look but when she saw him shrug she just mentally *sighed* before nodding and shaking her hand, normally, "And I promise to do the same."

With no one arriving at their carriage anymore since all the students had already left in others, the carriage they were in also started to move.

Their journey to the castle was spent in silence and it wasn't long before they found themselves standing in front of the castle gates through which hoards of other students were walking in.

Arriving at the Great Hall, Loki separated from Luna and Hermione and went to sit at the Slytherin table. Astoria sat beside him, and surprisingly, Draco sat opposite to her with his gang on either side, they sat exactly where Daphne used to always sit, making Astoria very uncomfortable.

Loki could see the weight of responsibility on Astoria's shoulders as she was being forced to put up an act of nobility even though she really wanted to stand up and smack Draco's large head on a plate full of cake.

So Loki did the best that he came up with in that moment, "Oh? Draco? Happy now that you've been handed Daphne's spot in Slytherin? I mean why wouldn't you be? After all your entire family lives on handouts from others, doesn't it?"

Draco was stunned for a second, but before he or even his lackeys could respond to the sudden verbal attack, Loki spoke again.

"I've heard rumours in the black market…about the Black Family making moves…I wonder if they're returning soon. Wouldn't you like to know? After all, wouldn't the reigning position of your father's grip on the Dark faction waver if the true Nobles returned?"

"Oh!? Wait a second!!" Loki said as if he was granted a great revelation, "Is that why you wanted to serve Heiress Greengrass!? So that you can lick their boots to wealth and nobility!?!?"

Astoria covered her mouth as her shoulders trembled a little. Everyone was stifling a laugh too but Loki's next words shocked them a little and sowed a little fear into them all.

"But Tory told me that your 'negotiations' aren't going well? What will you do if they fail? What then? Will you ask for Voldemort's help? Crawl over to him and become a bootlicker of his ghostly black fumes that he passes out of his arse?"

Everyone's eyes widened in horror when they saw Loki speak Voldemort's name without fear.

But apart from him using Voldemort's name, what made everyone even more afraid was that as the agonising seconds ticked by, nothing happened to Loki.

He did not kneel down, screaming in pain, leaking blood through all his orifices or even scratching his scalp as he heard a maddening deliberate assault of ravings and lost control.

Nothing happened to him.

Absolutely nothing.

A twinge of fear started to seep into the hearts of everyone on the Slytherin table which led to an unnatural silence in their part of the hall.

The teachers all noticed and immediately turned towards the table, while Dumbledore was the only person who was looking at Loki with an inquisitive look as he tried to study the boy.

'Can he use Tom's name because of the sense of misfortune that lingers on him?'

'Does Tom feel it too now that he's risen a Sequence?'

Before matters could get worse, however, Dumbledore quickly stood up and walked up to the podium that was in front of his seat to lift up the mood.

"Welcome again to another year at Hogwarts everyone!"

The students from other houses *cheered* but the Slytherin table still remained mum, including Astoria who was looking at Loki in a new light.

A few other students sent Loki the same glances before they chose to ignore him so that they wouldn't get involved in whatever he was doing, since clearly it would drag them into dangerous matters that they weren't ready for themselves.

"I would like to introduce to all of you our new Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor, Madam Dolores Umbridge."

There was a short applause from all the students as they saw the lady dressed in a pink fluffy cardigan stand up from her seat at the teacher's table.

She had a toad-like face with flabby cheeks, with her hazel hair parted like a bow on top of her head.

Loki looked at her and with a simple glance felt that she was wearing the world's most expensive rings on her fingers.

'What even are those Beyonder items? How does she even manage so many negative effects and keep them all in line and prevent them from acting out? And what does she need so many items for anyway?'

'Is she afraid like Moody? Constant Vigilance?'

'But that strange atmosphere around her…it's almost suffocatingly 'good'.'

'Her eyes carry a hint of distrust in all they see just like Moody, but it isn't from a place of inferiority or vigilance…it's more like she thinks that she's on the top of the world. Everyone else is beneath her, like worms that don't even stand a chance in front of her.'

'Like Voldemort.'

'Why do I have this feeling that her image is only going to take a deep dive and plunge into a bottomless hole once she opens her mouth to speak…'

'Ewww…'

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