HP X LOTM : Please Call Me Mr. Error.

'*sigh* Do I ask Walburga about this directly? Or to Sirius in the Tarot Club?'

'Does Sirius even know about this?? I'm pretty sure he'd have been bragging about it all in case he'd have known about the Devils given how much he loves to brag about random things like his nightly adventures.'

Loki thought for a few seconds before he looked at Prenelle and nodded, "Alright, I understand. I'll ask Walburga for help."

"She's back?" Prenelle asked with raised eyebrows.

"Yes. She woke up today. I just helped her. A parasitic demon was attached to her, don't worry about it though. I sort of exorcised it."

Prenelle's eyes narrowed as she asked, "Do you know why it was there?"

"I guess it was there for the location of the Demonic beings, but I'm pretty sure that the Black Family had suspected something like that happening to them so it's probably hidden in a very convoluted way."

Prenelle nodded, "That makes sense. 'She' wanted an army of the devil kind but 'Her' plan was thwarted each time with the help of a few True Gods and eventually sealed when the Devils all left the Abyss and chose to abandon the place to go somewhere else with the Black Family."

Loki nodded.

"Thank you for telling me about all this."

Prenelle only smiled before brushing Loki's hair and speaking calmly, "I know the allure all this holds for you. But I want you to know that as long as you can return back safe and sound, a second chance is always better than a life-risking run."

Loki pushed away Prenelle's hands feeling a little embarrassed. "Don't do that…I'm fourteen already!"

Prenelle laughed and quickly gripped Loki with her strong hands before rubbing his hair to her heart's content.

"Fool! Don't try to tell me how old you are because I'm always going to be older than you!!!"

Locked in a headlock, Loki didn't try and separate himself from her since he knew she was a lot stronger than him. He had been taught that well from her punishing him.

But he found it in himself to joke around and escape by catching her off guard so he said in a sly tone-

"....the first time I've seen a woman take pride in her old age you old hag!!!"

*Gasp*

Prenelle froze and Loki quickly used the opportunity he created to rush out of the room and hide in Nicolas's experimental room to use the cloaking device that Nicholas used to hide his 'problematic' experiments from Prenelle while she herself rushed out similarly to catch him.

Prenelle missed Loki closing the door to Nichols's experimental room, on purpose or otherwise, but Nicolas just laughed when he saw that.

"Did you anger her again?"

"Anger is an understatement…" Loki said turning around and looking at Nicolas who was tinkering with Loki's alchemical puppet, sticking his wand at various spots on its body and chanting various spells as he examined the runes etched onto its surface and melded within the structure itself.

"What's up with the puppet? Is it fine?"

"Well by my standards it should be fine. But I can't judge this with my standards alone. I don't want to get the cold shoulder from Prenelle after all."

"Seriously?"

"Yes, you little brat! And I can see the several places you've tried to get away with scribbling runes in a jampacked way so that I might miss the few corners you've cut."

Loki stuck out his tongue a little with a silly expression and spoke like a toddler, "Ah~ you caught me~!"

Nicolas only continued to tap the various spots in Loki's puppet and fix any errors he saw before asking Loki a simple question.

"Where did you get the charm that allowed you to pilot the puppet?"

"It wasn't easy. I don't know if 'They' will be annoyed at me for revealing this, but the founders gifted me a charm after I helped them with something last year at Hogwarts." Loki made up a reason on the spot.

Nicolas's brows rose, "Helped 'Them' with something? Were you the one responsible for 'His' reappearance?"

Loki stayed silent, not wanting to discuss any further but his silence was also an answer. Still, Nicolas understood that Loki didn't want to discuss this further and hence didn't question him about it.

"This charm is invaluable. Are you sure you want to use it for this?"

"...I thought about it for quite a while, and I think I should do it. Especially since I promised a person that I'd do it for them too…"

"Oh? You swindled someone else out of something again?"

Loki laughed lightly before just waving his hand in embarrassment, "Calling this a con job would be hard. I mean I'm actually doing what I'm promising them. A payment is only fair."

"And the payment is worth equally to your job?"

"...well given how dangerous Prenelle makes it seem, no payment can match it. After all, isn't my life priceless? So any amount of price promised to me is still worthless in actuality."

Nicolas laughed for a good while before shaking his head, "Spoken like a true swindler."

Since it would take the Flamel couple a little longer to perfect his alchemical construct, Loki left for Diagon Alley the next day in the noon since that was when he'd promised Cassandra that he'd meet up with her and Elane.

During the night in between, Loki had spent inscribing 'all' (only illusion and theft) his abilities in a diary using runes and replicating them so that his worms of time in the Sefirah Castle could respond to people using them.

It was a manual to translate his abilities into magic with very elaborate wand movements and diagrams, but it was only built as a test project for Cassandra since Loki had promised to share his abilities with her much earlier.

'I should make this a part of the official handbook of the Error God's religion shouldn't I?'

'I'll ask Aunt Cassandra to give me a list of any errors she noticed so that I can improve it before giving it to everyone in the Tarot Club to publicize…'

'It feels like it's missing a few cool stories like the ones Fors wrote for Gehrman Sparrow...I could just make a few up and then this would become a proper religious textbook.'

'...I'll do that soon enough.'

The night ended and the next day soon arrived.

Loki was particularly happy to meet Elane once again after all this time. He had gotten an idea that she had prepared a gift for him from Cassandra and had done the same for her as usual along with a stuffy toy worm which he had decided he would give to her earlier.

Loki waited patiently at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour while waiting with Elane's favourite burger flavour and his own favourite pixie dust.

Loki heard the pitter-patter of feet come from behind him and a smile showed up on his face.

'She's here!'

Elane quickly placed her hands on Loki, awkwardly, since she was still a little smaller than Loki when he sat on a chair but Loki made sure to slip a little down and let her place her hands over his eyes.

"Guess who am I!?"

Loki put on a thoughtful expression, doing his best to keep the smile on his face from appearing.

"Hmm~m...are you my friend from Hogwarts?"

"No~!!!"

"Hmm~m…are you my professor from Hogwarts?"

It looked like that was it for Elane's patience since she rolled her eyes and *huffed* audibly before speaking, "Arghhh….Big brother forgot-"

"It's Elane!!!!!!" Loki cheered, turning around and picking Elane up into the air as she *giggled* like the little girl she was.

Elane *cheered* as Loki spun her around in the air while making sure to keep them hidden using an illusion for everyone else.

Making weird noises, Loki rubbed his face against Elane's and finally put her down only after she started protesting with a smile, she wanted to talk with him after all.

"I bought your favourite ice cream already. Wanna eat it with me?" Loki asked and Elane nodded before climbing onto her chair and eating the ice cream while making *delicious noises*.

While Elane ate the ice cream with Loki, he made his illusion give his 'handbook' about his powers to Cassandra who was standing slightly away as usual.

Illusory Loki asked Cassandra, "Will this do?"

Cassandra was suspicious and was wondering if Loki was backing out of their deal, but once the old lady scanned the book she frowned and looked at Loki.

"I thought I was the prophet in between us, how did I not know about this?"

Loki frowned too but then remembered he'd written all of it in the Sefirah Castle so he waved it off.

"Don't worry about it. But can I know why you want it?"

Cassandra remained frowning for a few seconds before speaking after a *sigh*, "My daughter…she's been corrupted by 'Him'."

Loki's brows raised.

He has long guessed that professor Trelawney at Hogwarts was related to Cassandra given their same surnames, but he had never really investigated it even lightly, preferring to leave such matters for when Cassandra might bring it up.

It was also especially since he hadn't wanted anyone to investigate the reason for his connection with Cassandra to keep Elane a secret from everyone else.

So when Loki realised Cassandra was talking about Dumbledore he felt a slight chill travel up his spine.

'Now that I think about it…'Adam' could easily be doing what he'd done to Harry to the other less knowledgeable professors too.'

'Perhaps that is how he keeps their wages unpayable…'

As such-

"I could-"

-Loki tried to help, since in his view Cassandra had been nothing but helpful to him by taking good care of Elane so far.

"No. I have to do it myself. It's the least I owe my daughter after my mistake."

Loki just nodded solemnly and dispelled his illusion and went back to enjoying the ice cream with Elane.

But, he was taken aback by Cassandra's stern refusal for his help so he ended up activating his spirit vision to scan through her emotions and thoughts.

'Not that I can probably see deep since she is using occlumenc-'

'No mental shields?' Loki was shocked since if her enemy was Dumbledore, she should've at least had basic shields.

There were the usual ups and downs in her emotions but Loki's eyes widened as he scanned her thoughts.

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