Wiping the sweat off his brows Loki sat down on the grassy field staring at the dark moon of the night.
There were several posts with targets drawn on them buried around the field creating a sort of firing range around the meadow.
Loki had created this area to practice shooting targets and the like while he was moving to better his aim.
It was a small area buried in the midsection of the forbidden forest, well away from the territories of the tarantula and intruding a little upon the territory of the Unicorns, but since they knew him they allowed him to set up his little practice area there.
Now, with some simple aiming practice, Loki wouldn't be as tired as he currently was. If anyone saw him right now they would be worried that he had taken a swim in the Great Lake. He was sweating a lot.
No, Loki wasn't just training his aim, before arriving in the forbidden forest Loki had visited above the grey fog and used the Ruby ring to use the soul of the Twilight Giant in it to learn a little bit of combat knowledge.
Knowledge like basic movement, leg work, breath work and positioning.
Each aspect of combat came to a person on the Twilight Giant pathway instinctively, but Loki had to learn it all from scratch.
Using the soul didn't give him all the knowledge but a little bit that was just enough to get started on the subject and build on his own which he did by incorporating the use of a wand in combat.
'Norbert or Norberta should hatch tomorrow.' Loki thought as he gazed idly at the stars in the sky.
Hagrid and everyone together had decided on the name Norbert if it was a boy and Norberta if it was a girl.
Loki was eagerly waiting for the egg to hatch and had made sure to complete his homework so that no matter what the time was he could immediately go to Hagrid's hut when his message arrived tomorrow.
*Neigh*
A little golden foal walked up to Loki and dropped a bag filled with various herbs and leaves.
"Thank you Nyxie! How could I do anything without you!?" Loki said softly as he stroked her hair.
*Neigh*
"Hehe, I know, I have it right here.", Loki said pulling out a special ingredient that acted like catnip for the Unicorns, Fairy dust. He'd sneaked some away from the potions classroom in the morning for the Unicorns.
While the Unicorns collected the herbs that he had to present to Snape at the end of his detention, he practised combat. And when they gave him the herbs Loki had agreed to hand over some Fairy Dust to them.
It was a win-win situation for both parties involved.
With the foal leaving happily with its Fairy Dust, Loki also left towards the castle to hand over today's freshly picked herbs to Snape.
Snape inspected the goods but said nothing to Loki's relief and stored them away like normal.
Going back to the dormitory Loki interrupted Dominic who was reading from a thick fat book, "You're late." Dominic said as Loki tried to sneak by.
"I know, I got caught up while practising.", Loki said with a slightly embarrassed smile.
"Practising? What? How to sneak past me? If so then you failed."
"No, I was practising combat."
"?" Dominic raised his eyebrows and asked Loki, "What do you mean?"
"You'll be leaving soon right? So I was practising combat just so that I could keep myself safe, you know? Since there probably won't be anyone here to protect me next year?"
"Ha~ Is that so?" Dominic asked with a quirky smile. "What do you do?"
"Why? You want to help?" Loki asked randomly collapsing into a couch.
"Sure! Why not, I'll get to beat you up a little and practise a few spells along the way." Dominic said with a smile.
"You sure?" Loki asked surprised since he hadn't expected this.
"Yeah, let's start tomorrow, what do you say to meet up in the Great Hall at five in the evening?"
"Great!" Loki nodded.
"If you're any good, I'll help as much as I can, but if you're bad don't get your hopes up."
Loki nodded with excitement and after speaking a little more with Dominic he went to sleep in his dorm room.
Waking up early the next morning Loki had breakfast with Dominic but when he was about to head to class a large owl flew up to him and handed him a shorter letter.
"It's going to hatch soon!" Loki read in an excited tone.
But then it was drowned when Dominic said, "Too bad you've got to go to class right now." Dominic knew about the dragon's egg since Loki couldn't keep his mouth shut about how he was going to witness the birth of a dragon, something that Dominic hadn't seen yet.
"Damn it. I will see the hatching no matter what! I'll make sure of it!"
Loki immediately scribbled something on the back of the same letter he was holding and handed it back to the owl, giving it a few bread crumbs as payment so that it would go and deliver the letter back to Hagrid.
"What did you say?" Dominic asked.
"That I have double potions and I'll sneak away from class by using the washroom as an excuse if I have to and to keep me updated."
"Ho~ I half want you to miss the hatching because of how much you've tried to show me up this last month."
"As if I will miss it just like that! I will be there to watch over my baby!" Loki proudly proclaimed causing a few Slytherins to give him weird looks.
Finally during lunch when Loki was having food, a new letter dropped onto his plate, 'It's begun!'
Loki left his food half finished and rushed towards Hagrid's hut, on the way he met Harry, Ron and Hermione rushing toward the Hut but he didn't tell them anything since they seemed to already know.
Arriving at the Hut, Loki *knocked* on the door rapidly.
"Hagrid!!!"
"Ye' ye' I'm coming!" Hagrid shouted and opened the door.
Entering the house, Loki rushed past Hagrid and immediately secured himself the closest spot to the Dragon egg.
As the others came in they looked eagerly at the egg that was twitching ever so slightly, and when a few minutes passed the first crack appeared on the egg's surface.
Not even a few minutes later a beady-eyed small winged lizard fell out of the egg.
Its scales were a shiny blue, and its wings were leathery but none of it detracted from the charm of the little girl.
Loki scratched the dragon under its lazily unfurled wings and caused it to snort fireworks at him which he deftly avoided coming in contact with by creating a telekinetic shield around himself.
"So cute!" Loki said watching the short creature trying to bite his dodgy fingers.
"He's lost his marbles.", Ron commented but Loki ignored him.
Soon Hagrid joined the fray by asking the dragon, "Who's your mommy little fella!"
The Dragon shot a fireball and set fire to Hagrid's beard which he quickly put out by patting it out.
But just as Loki was about to get lost in playing with the dragon all the people in the room heard a pot on the window fall.
"Who was that!?" Hermione shouted and Hagrid rushed to the window to check, but out of all of them, only Loki immediately stepped out of the door and pointed his wand at the intruder.
"Flipendo!"
A searing red spark flew out from Loki's wand and extended towards the intruder throwing him off his feet and head first into the ground on the hill that extended from Hagrid's hut.
The intruder then unconsciously rolled down the hill and reached Loki's foot.
"Well, well, well, who do we have here?" Loki said as he knelt to the floor and looked at Malfoy who was unconscious with dirt on his face.
"Loki! You used a spell against a student! That's against the rules!" Hermione shouted but everyone ignored her.
"I have a fantastic idea. Who wants to take part?" Loki asked in a giddy tone.
Everyone looked at each other as if promising a vow of silence on the events that would transpire next before looking right at Loki, waiting for him to tell them what his plan was.
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