Getting off the carriage at the castle gates, Loki entered the Great Hall with everyone else but split off from them to go to the Slytherin table.
Sitting at the table Loki's gaze went over Dumbledore and he felt a little repulsed by what he had done to Harry.
'I could steal away his subconscious suggestion but it wouldn't do any good. He'd probably just replant it and also get alerted that someone else knew what he was doing.'
Tossing the thoughts to the back of his mind, Loki watched the sorting ceremony and turned toward the table to have some food after it was finished.
Having eaten plenty of snacks on the train, Loki wasn't very hungry so he kept his plate light and ended the dinner quickly with some dessert.
Once everyone was similarly done, Dumbledore stood up and spoke in a soft tone that commanded silence from everyone else.
"I have a few announcements to make to you all…" Dumbledore said but the sky projection above everyone's heads on the ceiling suddenly crackled with lightning and thunder.
The candles flickered and dimmed slightly before everyone noticed the door behind the teachers' table slam open with force enough to rattle the windows.
In it stood a strange man dressed in a black rubber raincoat that was draped over a baggy suit with several pockets and items hanging from it. He wore an eyepatch that was a strange eyeball spinning around in all directions as if preparing to catch an attack. And above all was the thick goat-headed staff in his hand.
As the lightning in the sky behind him crackled, Loki observed the man with a strange sense of familiarity.
He instantly activated his spirit vision but couldn't find anything special about him.
At least that was until his gaze slipped to his hand.
'He's a Death Eater?'
Loki saw a rune of corruption hovering around his hand as if it had been branded into the soul itself.
Normal spirit vision wouldn't have revealed such a mark but because Loki could steal the corruption from the man, he could see exactly what it was even though it was hidden to look normal.
'And he's familiar…was he the one who joined the Tarot Club?'
"Ah! Moody my friend!" Dumbledore greeted, gesturing Moody to come forward.
"This is Alastor Moody. A celebrated Auror and the person that is going to be your Defence Against the Dark Arts professor for the following year."
Dumbledore gestured for Moody to come ahead and give a short speech but the man just looked around the hall, his gaze stopping on Harry with one of his eyes while the magical one looked at Loki.
Loki gave the man a soft smile and did not act out in any way.
His gaze soon left them and Moody just nodded and went back to the free chair that was arranged for him on the teachers' table.
"I guess that was it. Now I have another announcement to make for you all." Dumbledore spoke and brought the hall back to usual silence, "As unfortunate as it is, Quidditch this year will be cancelled-"
"NOOOOooo!!!!"
The entire hall shouted almost simultaneously.
Loki frowned as he thought, 'Cancelling the Quidditch cup? Are they going to do something else this year?'
'For that thing that Dominic said he was going to be posted here?'
"-instead this year we will be inviting over two other highly reputed schools for the Triwizard Cup! Beuaxbatons and Drumstrang. They will be arriving on Halloween's eve, I hope everyone here presents the best face of Hogwarts in front of them!"
The students suddenly all fell silent and began to whisper to each other, the same question on all their minds, "What's the Triwizard Tournament?" Astoria asked Loki.
"I think I read something about it being a competition between three schools' champions, it was discontinued because the participants would die too often?" Loki said a little unsure since he didn't remember exactly where he'd read that little titbit.
"Die!?!" Astoria asked.
'Her eyes…they're shining…she's not afraid…is she…amused?' Loki thought with a wry smile and turned to look at Daphne who just shrugged to indicate that was how Astoria was.
Shaking his head Loki fell silent again since Dumbledore had spoken once again.
"To keep the Triwizard tournament safer than the conditions it had been conducted three hundred years earlier, it has congruently been decided by all the participating schools that only students above or exactly seventeen will be allowed to participate!"
"NOoooo!!!" The twins shouted again but Dumbledore paid no attention to them.
Everyone soon slipped back into their common rooms, excited to discuss with each other how they would participate in the tournament and how they'd become famous for winning it.
But Loki slipped away from the common room and under the cover of illusions he vanished into the Room of Conveniences.
Arriving there, he first took a close look at the remaining frozen crystals to see if they had undergone any changes, but once he realised they were the same, Loki skipped over to a corner where he began to read the book Nicholas had given him.
'Ritualistic Genisis- A Way to Appease the Gods.'
[Ritualistic magic is a simple way to expand magic diagrams by substituting your own spirituality with things that are related directly to the deity to gain their attention so that you can ask them for a favour.]
[All ritualistic magic has three stages to it.]
[The Gathering phase, the Aligning phase and finally the Execution phase.]
[The gathering phase attributes a list of the sacrifices you offer, the aligning phase aligns those gifts to the respective gods and goddesses while the execution phase is when you use everything set up to make your request.]
'If I'm right about what Nicolas taught me about Runic Spell Casting, it means that I should be able to bargain with the Evil gods to make a few spells of my own…'
'But what do I tempt them with?'
'Something that no Evil god would like to reject?'
'...for a normal wizard delving into Dark magic, it's probably the willingness of the wizard to become a follower or a believer…'
'But I can't do that.'
'So what can I tempt them with?'
Loki had a vague idea about what he wanted to do, but since he wasn't fully sure about it, he pushed it to the back of his mind for now.
Loki casually read the book as he softly started to doze and eventually, he fell into a deep sleep since he was a little tired from having read books all day on the train.
Early the next morning, Loki got ready and dressed himself after going back to his room from where he visited the first class of his day, Transfiguration.
As soon as Loki entered the class, he handed Professor McGonagall his homework but when he submitted it at her desk she spoke softly, "Mr. Loki, I would like to have a word with you after class if that is possible."
Loki looked at her, but her expression did not betray the purpose and so he just shrugged and nodded before returning to his seat, waiting eagerly for the end of class to see what Professor McGonagall would ask of him.
'Does she want me to prepare another play with Mione for when the other schools arrive?'
'But she was a little too serious for something like that…'
'OH!…she probably wants to give me the next potion since she thinks I've most likely digested the entire potion from last year…'
'Eh…I already planned for this, so there's nothing to worry about.'
'Maybe…well let's see what happens.'
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A/N : Here's your extra chapter for the day!!!! Let's goo!!!!! We're already at two hundred again lol...
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