A tugging sensation pulled on his navel, pulling on Loki's body and thrusting him into what felt like a thin plastic pipe.
Scenes fluttered past his peripheral vision as an artist's pallet of colours occupied much of his dominant sight, there were several scenes of people sitting and relaxing by their fires, while at other times Loki thought he saw people he recognised from his visits to Hogsmeade.
Soon, however, the structure of the rooms he was seeing changed as did the decorations in them. Instead of plain wallpapers and portraits, there were now sleek designs that expressed intricate metal work which Loki found amazing.
It felt like he was in a different place altogether.
Faces whizzed past along with several empty rooms as Loki finally came to a stop, his suit covered in dust and soot.
Stepping out of the fireplace while trying to reel back his senses from the disorientating journey, Loki dusted himself off with his wand and searched for Mr. Fawley standing before him.
"Come here Loki." Mr. Fawley said and pulled Loki towards himself as he stood beside a row of other groups of pairs.
Once everything in his vision stopped spinning around, Loki saw that there were both women and men in the room, most older than him and the only person closest to him was a girl older than him by at least three years.
The girl was strange. She kept drawing the attention of every other man in the room just by virtue of her presence.
Loki's hair stood on end as he connected the dots and immediately used the concealment rune to close away his mind from being affected by the girl's charm.
'A witch?'
'Where exactly are we?'
'And what is a witch doing here?'
'Did Mr. Fawley get charmed by one or something?'
Loki immediately looked toward the fireplace but frowned as he noticed the coals had already died down and there was no possibility of escape through the route he had used to arrive here.
Rubbing his index finger over his thumb Loki activated his spirit vision but missed when he noticed that he was rubbing his middle finger instead.
'Missed?'
Loki's hands froze.
'Is this a warning from the spirit world?'
Loki's back broke into a cold sweat as he wondered exactly what was going on in this place.
'But why?'
'Surely there can't be a God amongst us…'
Loki put a pause to his thoughts and looked around him carefully to check and analyse just what was going on around him.
All the people that had arrived in the room were split into pairs just like him and Mr. Fawley, and in all those pairs, one person was always impatient like him while the other maintained a calm outlook as if they knew exactly what was going to happen next.
There was no exit anywhere in the room. They were all surrounded by walls on all sides as if they were inside a box. No windows existed to give the view of the outside, and only a diffused light throughout the room kept everyone lit and visible.
'What's going on?'
Just when Loki's brain was going to start spitting theories at him a part of the wall began to morph.
The morphing wall started off as an abnormal protrusion. And for a few seconds, it looked like a piece of art before everyone realised it was a human pushing through. As if the wall were a cloth that had been wrapped tightly around the person inside it.
The wall stretched like an elastic cloth until it snapped as the man walked straight through it but what made him seem off to Loki were the sounds his body was making that got revealed as soon as he stepped through the hard surface.
Loki could swear that he could hear a few *clicks* and *creeks* in the man instead of muscles contracting and expanding.
But the man looked perfectly normal in every other way. His skin looked supple and properly moisturised. His eyeballs looked realistic as they spun around in their wet fleshy sockets. His chest rose and dropped with each breath.
The man looked like a butler aged around sixty. He had a straight back, a silver inlaid walking cane and a silk hat with a blue ribbon tied on it.
Only the sounds the man's body made put off all the newcomers in the area. Loki looked at Fawley to see if there were any hints of worry or fear but found him to be standing calmly and smiling with recognition.
So Loki chose to remain calm too.
Before anyone could speak or ask a question, the butler spoke looking at his pocket watch, "You have one second to answer."
It took Loki half a second to get out of shock and push his brain to start working.
'Answer?'
'Is this related to what Mr. Randolph said?'
'Something about this being the first round?'
'Are we in a competition?'
'But what am I supposed to say?'
'Have we already been given the question?'
Loki's brain played back everything he'd seen so far about the room.
The fireplace, the smooth walls, the number of people in the room, the butler's dress and even how the wall had morphed open to let him walk through it.
Yet nothing struck his mind as a question.
A quarter of a second had passed during all of this.
Loki spent another moment looking around and saw that no one had opened their mouths yet.
'So at least I have a chance, for now.'
With less than a fifth of a second remaining Loki's brain started firing like it had never done before.
'Is it about the words Mr. Fawley used to get here? Primus Ignis?'
'Translated as the First Fire.'
'Is that the answer?'
Loki opened his mouth to speak, "F-" but stopped himself and immediately changed his answer as a new train of thought crossed his mind.
'This is a gathering related to crafting so is it related to some crafting myth?'
'First fire? Crafting?'
'Hephaestus?'
"Prometheus!" Loki said in excitement while nearly all the others said, "First Fire!"
Loki said Prometheus since he'd researched his next potion's name in the Hogwarts library. Prometheus was the person who stole the flames from Hephaestus's workshop and passed them to humanity.
The butler looked right at Loki and then scanned the crowd for a few seconds before speaking in a calm monotone. "Prometheus is the right answer."
"Bloody hell-"
All the groups openly cursed at Loki while Mr. Fawley ducked closer to Loki and whispered, "Good. I knew you'd get it! You even confused them about the right answer."
Loki, embarrassed, could only take the praise with a slight smile as everyone else in the room glared at him, confused by his first syllable and giving the wrong answer.
'That was not my intention, but whatever, I guess I won? Now what? What did I win anyway?'
Before Loki could ask his question out loud the butler spoke up again, "Mr. Fawley, you and your apprentice may go inside and meet Mr. Flamel before the following tests."
Mr. Fawley nodded calmly and started walking while Loki was just confused.
'Mr. Flamel? Nicholas Flamel? No way that'd be too silly.'
Loki remained quiet and followed Mr. Fawley who was smiling with satisfaction as they stepped past the butler and moved towards the wall.
The wall then split open revealing a long narrow corridor that was evenly lit by the same invisible source of light as the room.
Loki paid close attention to everything, just in case another test involved this trip.
He paid close attention to the paintings and the various enshrined weapons as he walked by, trying to see if he could recognise any of them and their parts in history. Even though his senses blared at him about the value of these antiquities, Loki found his knowledge of history insufficient.
Arriving at a simple wooden door that had been carved to represent multiple magical artefacts, Mr Fawley stopped and slowly *knocked*.
Loki stood just like Mr. Fawley and waited for the door to open.
The door first opened soundlessly by a crack and then swung open quickly, creating a short breeze.
A man with pristine grey hair stood there with a smile on his face, dressed in the most regal robes Loki felt he'd ever seen.
The amount of spirituality running through those robes made Loki feel like the man was on fire and it caused his jaw to drop a little.
'The hell requires so much spirituality to maintain?'
"Welcom-" The man's words froze as he looked at Loki.
Fawley and Loki watched as his smiling face slowly turned into a frown.
"....similar, so similar yet so much farther." The man whispered, but his words were clearly audible to both Loki and Fawley.
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