Having been allowed to leave by Madam Pomfrey, Loki didn't immediately rush to the Slytherin common room where he was half sure everyone was waiting to congratulate him, instead, he walked up to a cubicle in the lavatory and pulled out the Marauder's map.
Loki's eyes searched around for Barty Crouch and to his surprise, there was one Barty Crouch in Dumbledore's office while another was walking into Moody's office.
There was another name that caught Loki's attention in Dumbledore's office, but he ignored it for now for the stability of his sanity.
'Two?'
'Did someone know that the Marauder's map existed and changed their name to hide themselves?'
'But why would the death eater in Moody's office disguise himself as Barty Crouch?'
'That's probably not it. There has to be some other strange reason why two Barty Crouch are roaming around.'
'Maybe I can look into the newspapers in the library later…'
'Yeah, I'll do that.'
But as soon as Loki was about to close the map, his eyes suddenly fell on the same unassuming name that was written on the map and was inside Dumbledore's office, something he'd ignored just a few seconds prior.
'Gellert Grindlewald.'
'Why would he be here?'
The gears on Loki's brain turned around a little until he suddenly came up with a theory, "Something regarding you-know-who?"
Loki did not look into it any further as he calmly folded the map and went back to his dorm quietly since he didn't know how strong Grindlewald was or even what pathway he was from.
The Slytherin common room was quieter than he'd expected with students sipping on butterbeer like they were a professional sommelier. Astoria was the only one who cheered irrespective of the gazes the other students gave her.
Malfoy also came up to him and congratulated him in front of everyone for doing better than Potter, but Loki didn't take any of it at face value and just politely thanked him before telling everyone he needed to rest since he was a little tired.
The rest of the day passed by without any more surprises and Loki spent it sleeping in his bed reading random books and planning random things for the future of Arcadia Royale.
After dinner, Loki slipped into the library when it was closed and searched through newspapers for any information relating to Barty Crouch.
'There's just this one incident where his son was sent to Azkaban when he was ousted as a death eater, that could be related.'
'But is it seriously him? Did the father help the son escape from Azkaban? But then didn't the Dementors report it to anyone?'
Loki frowned while holding the newspaper, looking at the picture of the man who was being held back by the Aurors in the court so that he wouldn't attack his own father.
"So the son's pretending to be Moody?"
"He's the death eater that put my name into the goblet of fire under the order of you-know-who?"
'What a strange family, one's a staunch supporter of the light while the other prefers the darkness that swallows it.'
'Wait a second…did he use my confounding item to confound the Goblet Of Fire into taking my name?'
'And 'Adam' allowed it to happen!?'
'Seriously!?'
Loki's frown deepened.
"I don't like this."
*sigh*
"Well, I guess there's nothing I can do for now, except prepare for the situation so that when something eventually happens I can take care of myself and at least a few of those around me…"
'Should I wake 'Her' up?'
Satisfied with the new information he'd figured out, Loki used the moving staircases to go to the seventh floor.
Just as he was about to open the Room of Conveniences, he found someone else stranded in the corridor talking to a ghost by the window.
The two people turned around and looked at Loki.
One with her moony eyes and a small smile while the other with sharp eyes and a firm gaze.
"Loki!" Luna said with a soft airy smile while looking right at him. "You're here. Did the Nargels cause you to leave your common room too?"
Loki frowned, "Did someone bully you out of your room? In the middle of the night? Why?"
Luna, remained silent as she turned away to look out of the window with a smile.
Loki walked up to the two of them and politely greeted the Grey Lady who seemed to have become annoyed with his presence, "Good evening Miss Ravenclaw."
As the three people stared at the beautiful moonlit scenery out of the window Loki was the first to break the silence, "Which founder is your favourite Luna?"
Luna looked at Loki with her perpetually surprised expression as she spoke in an airy tone, "I don't have any favourite people, only favourite things that I let control my life. Like my favourite Nargles! They give me the opportunity to explore the castle during the night!!"
Loki paused for a moment trying to decode what Luna had said before rephrasing his question, "Is there some action that a founder performed that you liked??"
"Ah- That would be Rowena Ravenclaw's quote, wit beyond measure is a man's greatest treasure."
"She said that?" Loki asked but his question was more directed towards the ghost lady floating around them, Luna noticing this remained silent.
"...She did. She used to say it all the time. Even when she was dying."
"Did she come up with it?" Loki asked with some confusion.
"No. Mother used to say a man beat it into her."
"...." Loki was stunned into silence. "Seriously?" Loki frowned as he asked, "It's a little hard to believe that someone could beat anything into her…"
Luna on the side nodded too since this was the first time she'd heard anything about this.
As Loki and Luna looked at the Grey Lady with earnest expressions she frowned for a second before *sighing* and explaining further, "I don't know who it was. But all the founders seemed to respect him quite a bit."
Loki's mind suddenly clicked and he immediately recognised who it was but Luna didn't know better so she asked, "Was he a Beyonder too?"
"Hm~m." Helena nodded, "'He' probably was. I don't know much about 'Him'. All of 'Them' used to look up to 'Him' whoever 'He' was."
"I see.", Luna said calmly before going back to looking at the Forbidden Forest.
All of a sudden, Luna looked like she'd seen something in the air before she said, "I'm sorry. I will have to skip our Nargle and riddles party. I just saw some Nargles and want to capture a few of them."
'Wait…capture?! What?'
Luna left after whispering something to Helena but Loki paid no attention to their gossip since he was thinking if he would do something that had just come up in his mind.
With Luna leaving, Helena was about to leave but she was stopped by Loki's soft voice.
"I can revive your mother.", Loki said, trying to give Helena an offer without revealing much about his ways or what he knew.
But it did have the intended effect since Helena stopped floating away and spoke without turning around. "It's not good to joke around."
"I'm not really joking around. If I could I would prove it to you." Loki said and Helena immediately retorted. "Then swear it by our laws."
"What do you want me to do? Notarize a contract and sign it?" Loki asked with a slight laugh.
But Helena kept staring at him like he owed her something so he stopped laughing for a second, "You're serious!?"
And Helena's silence was a clear answer.
So Loki did the next best thing, "What about doing a ritual that uses the Sun God as a witness? That good enough?"
Helena's eyes widened but since there could be no better and more thorough method she nodded and said, "I will believe you if you do that, but only trust you if you earn it."
Loki looked into her firm eyes for a few seconds before nodding, "I understand. I wouldn't trust a random person who could resurrect dead people too."
________________________________________________________________________________________________
A/N : Join my Patreon (p@treon.com/hooin_kyoma_au) to read 20 chapters ahead for just $3.