Walking around in Knockturn alley, Loki looked around himself to see if anyone was around him. He was supposed to be paired with Hermione to do a routine patrol to clear up the recent troublemakers who were trying to perform some random 'evil' ritual to gain 'power'.
It had become almost a weekly occurrence for the Hogwarts students to come out into Knockturn Alley to perform this routine, and Loki had taken advantage of this.
Once there was no one around him which he confirmed with divination, Loki changed his clothes into something showy with the help of transfiguration, adding a golden monocle using illusions, before he used apparition, an ability he'd temporarily stolen from a random wizard, to teleport to 12 Grimmauld Place.
Once here, Loki casually strode into the place under the guise of an illusion that kept everything about him hidden.
As he walked to the stairs going to the basement he found himself looking at Sirius Black who was blacked out at the head of the stairs.
Loki frowned as he looked at him, feeling an inherent sense of disgust towards the man.
'Is this how he represents the House of Black to our guests?'
Loki kicked him a little and caused him to tumble away, but Sirius didn't sense a thing since he was more worried about saving his head which was suddenly getting knocked on each stair as he rolled down like a ball.
Loki walked past him to the underground basement and stepped into the room to search for an object he'd remembered seeing here. Loki walked past Walburga's coffin, he looked at it for a bit before giving his respects and walking away.
Finally, Loki came to a stop at an old register.
Loki opened the thick book and began to search through the several names written in it.
"Hmm…not this village."
"Not this village either…"
"This one? No there are too few villages nearby."
Loki was going through a book that detailed all the properties owned by the Black Family all across Britain. There were several but most were so old Loki had to cross them out since they'd turned into major points in and around the city of London.
There were several other pages of information that Loki glanced over because the book had a strange set of records every few pages which in detail noted some sort of ritualistic experiment that had been conducted in the Black family properties in these places.
They seemed to be related to demons given how a few details were written in what Loki recognised was the language of foulness, but since Loki didn't have very much time right now, he quickly skipped over all of them, opting to read more about them later once he was free or when school ended.
Loki was using only properties related to the Black Family since he believed that these places would have some sort of protection against any sudden inteferences from other wizards and no one would dare to try and perform there own experiments in these places.
Finally using divination to help speed up his searching, Loki found a decently populated village built on the route from London to Birmingham, Burnham.
Loki didn't waste time drawing up a picture using a ritual to make his apparition accurate since he just needed to be in the general area.
Loki memorised the general position on the map provided in the book and walked out of the Black Family home, kicking Sirius a few times 'accidentally' as he stepped out.
Once out of the Black Family home, Loki apparated to a random street in Burnham. He casually walked up to a man who was sipping on his tea while enjoying his garden and the rare wonderful weather and asked him a question, "Sir, if I may…"
The man nodded as he settled the tea on its plate.
"Where exactly am I right now? Am I in Burnham?" Loki asked casually, but seeing the man look at him like he was a fool he explained.
"-It is a completely reasonable question.", Loki said while surgically placing the thought into the man's mind.
"I'm part of a drama troupe that's performing at Birmingham tomorrow and I need to get my assistant to come pick me up today. So if I wanted him to come over, where would I tell him to pick me up?"
The man thought for a moment as he looked at Loki's elegant three-piece suit and his flowing robes along with the cane in his hand and nodded to himself before he said, "You're a long way from Birmingham aren't ya? If ya need someone to pick you up, tell 'im he needs to get you at the Burnham post office. It's right round the corner."
Loki nodded and walked away after giving the man a polite thanks for answering him in spite of interrupting his tea time.
Turning the street, Loki entered a lonesome alleyway and quickly set up a wall of spirituality with a silver knife.
Once that was done, Loki pulled out the gold chatterbox and placed his fingers in the four cups.
"Alright…I know it works, and I know the price, now I just have to use it to advance my Sequence."
Loki took a few deep breaths to calm down and then closed his eyes as he imagined a specific image of himself.
In his mind, he was wearing a dark regal three-piece suit, added to it was a royal blue robe dotted with stars on his back, he was holding a black cane with silver inlays and had a golden monocle on his right eye along with a regal blue witches hat that patiently rested on his head.
His focus was clear and there was no other thought in his mind. Not even a ripple disturbed the clear image he had pictured.
Slowly, very slowly, Loki poured his spirituality into the golden chatterbox. Nothing happened for a second before the chatterbox *hummed* and began to manipulate his nimble fingers, opening and closing in a distinct pattern that mimicked how a normal person would use it.
Suddenly the *humm* was disturbed and there was a soothing magical sound that flowed out of the chatterbox.
"Chatterbox, chatterbox what do you say?" the chatterbox asked.
"I say, I say, I want a dream what do you say?" Loki replied.
"Chatterbox, chatterbox, a dream ten thousand large? What do you say?"
"I say, I say, that's what I want."
There was no verbal response to the answer Loki had given and the chatterbox fell silent as if it had died. But Loki knew even with his closed eyes that the chatterbox was anything but dead.
A sudden unknowing wave spread along Loki's subconscious.
His Body of Heart and Mind which was just undisturbedly still was suddenly humming.
The *humm* was strong and ungiving in the beginning, laying on the surface, but soon it started to sink deeper and deeper into Loki's mind. It felt like the *humm* had arrived as a guest and had left lighter after leaving something behind in his mind.
Loki waited patiently for the next few minutes and once he was sure that there was nothing else going to happen, he slowly opened his eyes.
"Damn, I knew what was coming, yet it felt so strange and uncomfortable."
Loki looked around himself. Nothing seemed to have changed at all. No one was asleep, or even sleepy.
Under his guise of invisibility, Loki found the man he'd spoken to and found him drinking his tea perfectly safe.
If he didn't trust his research on the object in his hand because of his mastery of runes, he wouldn't have believed that something had even happened to these people.
But trusting the process, Loki used apparition and left Burnham arriving at Knockturn Alley, right where he had teleported from in the first place.
Loki found Hermione after a few minutes and concluded the weekly patrol as they returned to Hogwarts.
But Loki was excited, terribly excited for today as he walked back into the dungeons, into his room, and hid behind a wall of spirituality as he stared at the simple beaker with the contents of an incomplete glimmering potion.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
A/N : Join my Patreon (p@treon.com/hooin_kyoma_au) to read 20 chapters ahead for just $3.