Summary: [Hermione/Loki] After the war, Hermione picks up her old time-turner from Dumbledore's office. There's a note attached, with a last request from the late headmaster. However, the interference of another party causes things to go pear-shaped.

Disclaimer:Not making money on this, and the characters you recognise aren't mine, unless they actually were.

A/N: Uhhh… rated M for delicate sensibilities.

Beta Love: The Dragon and the Rose, Dutchgirl01, Flyby Commander Shepard

Castaways

In every conceivable manner, the family is link to our past, bridge to our future. — Alex Haley

My Dear Miss Granger,

I know by the time you read this that the war may be well and truly over, and I sincerely hope that is so. Much grief and horror has come from a mistake I made several decades ago— believing I could save a young boy with magical talent and the promise of greatness.

That boy was Tom Riddle, who eventually became Lord Voldemort by his own coining.

Had I known then what I know now, perhaps I would not have brought him to Hogwarts. I do not know. At the time, I believed I could save him. A part of me, even as I write this, still believes that perhaps I could have.

This time-turner is the very same one you used for your third year classes as well as to save Sirius Black and Buckbeak, though that now seems like ages ago. There is one large difference in this device, however— I have altered it so the time sands are stabilised by none other than my familiar, Fawkes' tears. Fawkes and those of his kind have always had a touch of time stability about them. It is why phoenixes can be reborn as many times as they do and yet remain stable, remembering everything they ever have seen or experienced. This time-turner, however, is attuned specifically to you. You were the one to use it for over an entire year, and to you it must return. I ask of you, however, before you consider burying it away in some dark chest and forgetting about it, I beseech you to do this old man one last favour.

Please save Severus Snape.

It was by my command alone that Severus killed me, and via his oath to serve me in exchange for saving Lily Potter's life that he continued to serve, even after Lily and James sadly lost their lives— not by my hand or the lack of my aid, but because in their mistrust of the wrong people, they bound their secret to none other than Peter Pettigrew.

And I believe you well know what came of that, Miss Granger.

I knew that Severus had taken you under wing your second year, and while I did not approve of it openly, I took care to ensure that the Board of Governors never found out, as there were many upon that board that would have wished ill upon the both of you, had they ever learned of your secret tutelage. I did, however, pressure the Mastery Board to arrange for you to be tested early— before your seventh year, because I had a feeling that you and Mr Potter would not be attending Hogwarts by that time. I wanted to be sure you had the credentials you had worked so very hard for— and I know, despite Severus' grumbling, that he would have certainly done the same.

Your then-upcoming quest with Mr Potter, and I supposed Mr Weasley as well, was bound to be exceedingly difficult in a great many ways, which is why I had Minerva approach you with an offer to study with her to become an Animagus. Under her, you would be registered, legal, and learn the skill as part of an accelerated study program— something that I am certain you will have had no problem with. You truly are the brightest witch of your age, Ms Granger.

I hope whatever form you took has served you well.

I ask you to please, turn back in time and rescue your old master from whatever death he probably resigned himself to. The man has done so much for everyone, and never once did he want anyone to know. The fact he found it within himself to trust you with such information was no small thing. I know he cared deeply for you. You were the closest thing to family the man had.

I have a safe house located off the coast of Norway, which has been painstakingly warded and is keyed to your magic alone. Once you are there, you can alter it to permit whomever you wish to enter, but it will make quite an ideal place to hide Severus away, permitting him to live out the remainder of his life in peace. He deserves so much more than that, but a peaceful life in a very remote location— I believe he will greatly appreciate such an opportunity.

I have arranged for my personal funds and assets to be immediately transferred to your own account at Gringotts upon the moment of my death, Miss Granger. It will have been done quite discreetly, and there will be no official record of it. It was by goblin contract— and we all know they always have the last word at Gringotts. They also know that something terrible is coming if Tom Riddle is not stopped quickly, and should you have run afoul of them, perhaps inadvertently causing trouble in your quest, I have also pre-arranged for any restitution they might require be taken from my own coffers instead of yours. Regardless, unless you managed to level the entirety of Gringotts, there will be more than enough to ensure that you can arrange for food and supplies to be sent to Severus as needed for the rest of his life and yours as well, as I do not intend to forget your hand in this great machine either.

The true hands behinds the ending of wars, Ms Granger, are rarely ever the ones who are celebrated for it, but those in the know will be aware of your part in this. You will find a chest in your vault with documents and vials of memories that will clear Severus of any possible charge in regard to my death and whatever deaths he has most likely been framed for. I trust you will have no problem with bringing this information to the proper people when the time comes.

For what it is worth, my dear, I am truly sorry for all that you have gone through. While I do now know most of what you will face during the next few years, I know those things will be more than dire. Tom will not stop until true death claims him at last. My biggest regret is my own hand in bringing him to this place, where he learned how to hone his gift for magic into something as terrible, broken and hungry as he himself was.

Your Obedient Servant,

Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore

(his seal, the phoenix and crest of the Headmaster of Hogwarts)

"I've brought you someone," Håkon grunted as he pushed his way into the cave, nudging aside the thick sealskin hides that blocked the bitter winds from the door so he could get in. "Idiot stayed on the ice too long hoping for that last seal. He's lucky the Great Frost Mother didn't send a sea-wolf whale to devour him instead of a break in the ice.

"Aw, Håkon, you shouldn't have," Hermione laughed, throwing up her hands. "How did you know I wanted a prize idiot with a side of blatantly oblivious?"

The Jötunn hunter snorted, throwing the body of the other Jötunn down on the furs. "Not that I give a shite if the dolt wanted to commit suicide by sheer stupidity, but I did swear to his mother I'd keep him from death on the floes for a year like his father would have done, had he survived the war. I grew up with his mother before you came to us. She's a good woman, Hilde, and she doesn't deserve what life gave her."

"Sometimes we do the very best we can, Håkon, and life still chooses to throws us into the middle of frozen wasteland," Hermione said with a sad sort of smile.

"I'd make you my mate in an instant, Hermione, if I ever thought you'd accept me," Håkon said with a rueful shake of his head. At least then you'd be the proper size."

Hermione stuck her tongue out at him. "My size is just fine, thank you very much," she said with a pseudo-haughty sniff. Her face turned serious. "Besides, Håkon, you know as well as I that your heart has been set on Gunnvor for as long as the glaciers have been high. You're just waiting for her to remember that respectable males do, in fact, exist."

Håkon sighed. "It's been a very long wait already."

"That normal for the average Jötunn?" Hermione asked.

Håkon laughed. "No. Some females are just… fickle. They take longer to figure out what it is that they want. We males tend to feel what we want in our very bones. Almost instantly."

"You've been waiting for nigh over a hundred years," Hermione said with a soft whistle. "Isn't that long enough even for a fickle female?"

Håkon roared with laughter. "For a race that counts their lives, not in years as you do but in how many children are grown, who is to say for certain?"

Hermione looked thoughtful, her brown eyes took on a shimmering golden hint, as though sand were rushing across her irises. "You've been waiting longer than what I'd call a hundred years, Håkon."

The Jötunn hunter sighed wearily. "Can't fool you, can I, Hermione?"

Hermione grasped his pinky as one would touch a hand, and Håkon smiled at her, patting her gently.

"You've been out here longer than most Jötunn ever stay in one place, Hermione," he said quietly as he watched her tend the young, injured hunter. "Why have you not moved your camp?"

"This is Sigrunn's old cave—" Hermione said with a face tinged with emotion. "I find I cannot bear to leave it after she—"

Håkon pulled Hermione to him awkwardly due to the size difference, he pressed her into his fur belt and rubbed her back with his thumb. "She was a great healer, Hermione. She taught you well. It was not your fault that horrid Asgardian found her out on the ice. It wasn't."

"Her death started the war. If I had just—"

"Then you would be dead too, Hermione," Håkon said grimly. "King Bör was not known for his mercy, only his temper and his drive to conquer."

"I've lost track of how many years have passed, Håkon. I know only how many friends have died since I landed here."

"Landed in my arms like a prize frost-seal bursting through the ice!" Håkon laughed. "I was but a child then. Scared and entirely unsure of what to do."

"You screamed well enough," Hermione mused.

"Hush, you," Håkon laughed. "You came speaking some strange language, gesturing with your tiny stick, and then you just burst into tears. It was no wonder Sigrunn loved you so. She was always adopting strays— but you, you she loved like a daughter."

Hermione smiled. "I miss her so."

"I do too, Hermione," Håkon agreed. "At least it only took you a year as we count them to learn our language well enough that you didn't sound like some sodding Asgardian."

"Håkon, that is hardly fair!" Hermione protested. "Now I speak Asgardian like a Jötunn!"

"That only took you three years."

"Because no one here wanted to speak it!"

"Psh, who needs to know the language of the false gods when you can speak the language of the frozen wastes where everything is real?"

Hermione beat her head against the Jötunn's belt.

"Come now, Hermione," Håkon laughed. "Stop beating yourself upon me. I do not want Sigrunn's spirit to come back to haunt me from her grave."

Hermione mumbled things but stopped trying to give herself a concussion.

Håkon placed a finger on your shoulder, brushing against her cheek with tenderness. "I do wish you would find a mate, Hermione. It is far too long, even for one who measures time as we do, to sit alone upon the wastes, even if you do have that brute to help you keep warm at night."

The Jötunheimr beast lifted his head from the rear of the cave and whuff-snorted, as if he knew he was being spoken of.

"I am hardly going to shrivel up and die just because I get a little lonely now and then, Håkon," Hermione told him. "Besides, you know as well as I that every male in in this frozen wasteland has a heart that has been claimed by another, and it has been so for thousands of years, or so it feels. Sometimes I wish I had a timepiece here. Even my time spell goes by Jötunheimr years, and we both know Jötunheimr years are almost forever and a day in comparison.

Håkon laughed. "You sound like our king, Hermione."

"My ears are burning, Håkon, and somehow I knew it would be you at the heart of it," a low voice rumbled as another Jötunn moved into the cave.

"My king," Håkon said with a bow of deep respect.

King Laufey shook his head as he saw the injured hunter on the furs.

"I swear that Snorre will find his death in the most humiliating way possible the very moment you are no longer looking out for him, Håkon," Laufey sighed with weariness. "Healer Hermione," he greeted her with a bow.

"King Laufey," Hermione said with a bow of her head.

"You are skin and bone, little Healer," Laufey said, throwing a great seal down by the fire. "Please honour me by eating of my hunt."

"You bring meat to my hearth, my king," Hermione said with a fond smile. "It warms both my heart and my stomach," she finished formally.

Håkon turned his nose up in mock offense. "Bah! She can hunt her own seal. Why do you spoil her so?"

"Don't make me thump you about the head with my club, Håkon," Laufey chided the other male. "Besides. You would have done so, had you not been so preoccupied dragging Snorre's sorry arse across the floes instead."

"I can do my own hunting!" Hermione protested.

"Bah," both males said, dismissing her protests.

"While I admire a female who can hunt so well with a spear, Hermione," Laufey purred, "you take care of our people, and it is—"

"Tradition, I know," Hermione moaned, but her brown eyes were warm. "Thank you, King Laufey."

"Just Laufey," the Jötunn king admonished. "Call me by title only when you think someone doubts who I am."

"Well, technically, we are around Snorre—"

The two Jötunn males shook their heads. "He doesn't count, Hermione. He doubts the validity of anyone who does not beat him upside the head soundly with a whale."

Hermione sputtered and pulled her ulu from her belt. "I have not, nor shall I ever, beat my patients upside the head with a whale!"

"You should with him," Laufey laughed. "He needs it."

Hermione shook her head and set to work on the Jötunn's offering. The seal, as all frost seals were, large enough to feed many Jötunn for many, many days, so it fed Hermione for months upon months, unless she had guests or patients, which was much of the time. Jötunheimr was astonishingly inhospitable, even for a native Jötunn, and while they were immune to the cold, they were not immune to the dangers that lurked upon the snow and ice. Some of those dangers were due to the environment itself. Some— were, unfortunately, dangers from other Realms who came with violence in their hearts, believing the Jötunn were lesser beings than themselves and needed to be reminded who was superior.

Now, at least, there was a tenuous peace between the Jötunheimr and Ásgarðr, brokered by Útgarða-Loki of Útgarðr. Útgarða-Loki was the only giant on Jötunheimr that could demand of Laufey and his people to lay down their spears in peace when their very hearts cried out for justice, for Útgarða-Loki was a sorcerer with the power to control the already dangerous weather. Defy him and Jötunheimr would surely swallow you whole. While Laufey was known as the king of his people, Útgarða-Loki spoke for Jötunheimr— one because of his power of the weather of Jötunheimr, and two because when Odin of Ásgarðr came down to beat Laufey in combat, Laufey had been deep in the throes of grief at the death of his mate. The bond between them had shattered his heart and mind to the point where he was but a club-swinging brute with very little mind left to him. It had taken Laufey many long years of wandering the wastes to assuage his grief and rediscover his own sanity, and by the time he finally had, Útgarða-Loki had firmly seized the throne of power, even if not in title. He had not been alone. Many, many Jötunn hunters had banished themselves off to the wastes to mourn after the war. Not all had returned.

Hermione skinned the seal quickly, gutted it, and set the various offal into piles according to purpose. The meat she sliced thinly and smoked by the fire, but the fatty blubber, she cut into more manageable pieces and preserved in caches in the cave. She cut out a few large chunks of choice blubber and and set them by the fire. "Join me for dinner, my friends?"

"Of course," Håkon chuckled as he waited for his king to sit first. Both sat by the fire and enjoyed a quiet meal with their hostess.

"What did do you do to this, Hermione?" Håkon said with a moan of pleasure. "You never fail to ensorcell me with your insidious food magic."

"It's called seasoning, Håkon, you should try it some time," Hermione snorted, causing Laufey to laugh.

"No wonder your woman refuses you," Laufey scoffed.

Håkon pouted. "I am a very good provider, my king, and you know it!"

"Provider, yes," Laufey said. "Creativity, not so much."

Håkon sulked. "You appreciate me, don't you, Hermione?"

"Of course I do, Håkon," she assured him.

"I swear I was bonded to the wrong female," Håkon pouted.

"We cannot help who we are drawn to, my friend," Laufey said, "or most assuredly I would court her myself, so she would never wish to leave our people."

"Bah! She fell on me first," Håkon muttered disconsolately.

"You were a CHILD!" Hermione protested.

Laufey chuckled. "You have been with us a very long time, Hermione. Long enough that I keep waiting for one of our own to find he is called to woo you with his hunting prowess and take you as a mate."

"Argh! Now you sound like the elder females telling me I'm going to pine away without a proper mate."

Laufey smiled. "Is it so bad that we would wish you to be happy?"

"Believe me, I am far happier now that I was so many moons ago, back when I first fell on Håkon."

"Burst into tears at the very bellow of a seal," Laufey said, remembering the moment quite vividly.

"I was raised to believe that seals were not for eating!"

"If not eating, what?" Håkon groaned.

Hermione slumped. "Obviously I got over it after almost starving myself to death."

"Obviously," Laufey chuckled.

"My mother thought you were going to starve altogether," Håkon observed. "You looked at our food as though it would haunt you forever if you ate it."

Hermione slumped. "Where I come from, most seal species are endangered and at risk of extinction. Only the natives of certain areas are permitted to hunt and eat them."

"Only natives of certain areas are allowed not to starve?"

Hermione facepalmed. "Not exactly."

"Let it go, Håkon," Laufey said with a soft snort. "I'm sure if we ever visited Miðgarðr, we would surely horrify the masses with our heathen manners and eating of seals."

Hermione groaned, just shaking her head at the two frost giants. "You do realise that the very sight of you in Miðgarðr would probably send the masses into a screaming panic as they tried to take you down with fighter jets and tactical missiles, right?"

The two giants looked at her with utterly baffled expressions.

Hermione, realising she had unthinkingly woven her native English into a perfectly normal Jötunn conversation said, "Flying metal machine that shoots exploding projectiles" and "metal-crafted dragons."

"You didn't run screaming in panic," Håkon observed.

"No, that was you," Laufey ribbed, grinning.

"Do shut it," Håkon muttered. "My king," he hastily added. "I will have you know that I was barely in my hundreds at the time."

Hermione snickered into her palm. "I will admit, I was far too occupied with trying to figure out where on earth I was just then to bother with much else. The existence of Jötunheimr, nevermind the other Realms, is hardly a standard teaching in any class, and even my admittedly extensive knowledge of mythology wasn't much help there."

"We are hardly beings of myth," Håkon pointed out.

"Well, I'm afraid that you are to Midgardians," Hermione replied, visibly amused.

"What was that word you used for Miðgarðr?"

"Earth."

"Earth… hrm. Well, it is a bit shorter to say." Håkon shrugged.

"Learning how to speak the language here had my tongue tied in knots," Hermione said with a sigh. "Almost literally. That and it sounded like everyone was angry with each other, which was more than a little alarming."

"At least you didn't start with mountain giants," Laufey said. "Then you would have thought us all dullards and our language like gargling with dirt."

"I did make that comparison when you had me learn it," Hermione confessed. "I cursed your name quite frequently back then."

Laufey smiled. "I figured that's what that odd barking was about."

Hermione shook her head and then her finger at the smirking Jötunn king.

A loud rustling and thumping signalled that someone was coming near the entrance to the cave, and Laufey and Håkon were on their feet almost immediately, spears brandished. A giant pushed past the hides, letting in a blast of frigid air that caused Hermione to shudder immediately, despite herself.

"Please pardon my intrusion, Healer Hermione!" the giant blurted. "My king, the Bifröst has opened over the wastes!"

"What?" Laufey growled, his knuckles tightening around his spear. "Have the females carry their daggers," he growled. "Håkon, see to it that the children are hidden."

"Yes, my king," Håkon said, fleeing the cave in a mad rush.

"Take me to where the Bifröst opened," Laufey said darkly, his face twisted into a mask of barely-contained hatred.

The hides rustled again as a singularly large brute of a Jötunn pushed his way in.

"Magnus?"

"My king," Magnus said as he patted a limp body slung over his shoulder. "Something fell through the Bifröst and into the wastes," he said with a very strange, rather baffled look on his face. "He is— Jötunn, my king. But he is the size of an Asgardian, as you can see."

Laufey blinked as Magnus lay the comparatively small body down on the pile of furs next to Snorre.

"He is also bleeding from a great many places."

Hermione immediately ran up, carrying a bowl of charm-heated water and various supplies. "Move aside please," she requested, setting to work at once.

"How is this even possible?" Laufey asked faintly, his garnet eyes wide with shock.

"I'd imagine in the usual way," Hermione said distractedly, carefully cleansing the injured Jotunn's wounds and passing her hands over the bowls. The ingredients hovered in the air, merging together into a fragrant poultice, and then it applied itself to the wounds. Hermione wrapped them all securely with long strands of tough ice-plant fibre. She grabbed some of it between her teeth, weaving it with her fingers to knot it in place, even as her magic surged across her skin and assisted her in weaving the rest.

Golden strands of her altered magic glided across the strange Jötunn's cobalt skin, running across his runic markings and causing them to glow brightly. Laufey swiftly exchanged glances with Magnus, something unspoken travelling between them. The two then silently slipped out of the cave, leaving Hermione alone with the injured male, stopping only to stealthily grab Snorre by the legs and drag him out by his feet.

She ran a warm, damp cloth over his face and arms, cleaning the blood away. She moved her hand over the soiled cloth, cleaning it with her magic. The cloth was soft, like silk, but it was unlike any silk she had ever felt before. Her magic made quick work of the cleansing process, and Hermione smiled, happy that her many years in exile to this foreign realm had given her plenty of time to hone and refine her naturally powerful magic into the kind that didn't require the use of a wand. In fact, Hermione found she didn't even miss her wand anymore— it was carefully tucked away in a frozen cache more for the fond memories than an actual need.

The truth was, ever since a petulant Ron had so ingloriously hit her with some horrid mishmash of a badly mispronounced spell, shattering the magically-altered time-turner that Dumbledore had left for her and sending her careening into the ether and beyond— to the Realm of Jötunheimr, her magic had, out of sheer necessity, been forced to evolve. Laufey called it sorcery, much like that of their un-king Útgarða-Loki. Whatever it was or had been, and whatever it might come to be, Hermione knew that it was very different from the magic of her childhood and different from what she would expect as a witch. It responded to her need and will in a way her other magic did not.

Even her Animagus form was different here on the frozen wastes— here in this Realm of snow and ice. Here, she became something she could only describe as a— beast. Once, when she had been out hunting on the floes as her giant beastly self, trying to get used to having tusks and jagged fangs and the kind of astonishing speed that made her dizzy just walking fast, she'd stumbled across an apparently orphaned creature of her Animagus kind frozen out on the ice. It had been a mere pup of a Jötunheimr frost-beast, from what Laufey had told her, and eventually it had grown into a great hulking beast that liked to cuddle with his "mum" and guard the cave. Håkon had said they tended to travel in "small" packs with the mother until the young males felt the drive to find a mate and start their own family, but Bjørn had demonstrated no sign of new aggression or of desiring to leave. She'd given him the name Bjørn because he had rather resembled a bear cub as a pup, with thick woolly fur and a barrel chest, oversized feet and a bumbling, clumsy demeanour. He'd grown into quite the monster over time, and he seemed quite in tune with her needs.

Hermione carefully patted the injured Jötunn's skin dry with a soft cloth, moving his shirt back in place to allow him some dignity. She had never seen a Jötunn like him before— one her size, relatively speaking. She knew he was at least two metres high by the earth standard estimate, which was hardly short by her judge of height. She herself was lucky to hit around one point seven meters on a good day, sans her wild mane of hair. His face was finely chiseled with high cheekbones. His markings were in high relief, standing out against his smooth dark cobalt skin. There was something about him— the dark tangle of glossy black hair or the shape of his hands. It was something utterly provocative, and it caused Hermione no small amount of awkward discomfort as she realised there really was something strangely attractive about him.

What is wrong with you, Hermione? You have never thought of one of your patients as being attractive! Get a grip, girl!

Hermione moved to push herself away and off the ground when the young man's eyes suddenly shot open. He flung her into the side of the cave wall, shoving his arm up against her throat.

"Who are you?!" he demanded. "And where am I?"

Bjørn, who had risen from the back of the cave, growled menacingly, baring his teeth as his spiked tail lashed back and forth in clear warning.

Hermione, who had never heard his type of speech without the distinctive Jötunn accent, narrowed her eyes. He was Asgardian— a non-giant Jötunn who spoke fluent Asgardian, anyway.

"Bjørn, be still," Hermione ordered the ever-protective beast in fluent Jötunn. It was now the language of choice that she defaulted to. She dreamed in it, even to the point of when she dreamed of Earth and being back home with her parents, her parents had blue faces, red eyes, and spoke to her in Jötunn.

The beast narrowed his eyes, obviously conflicted. She couldn't really blame him. Her guest's body was as tightly wound as a spring, and she— she really needed to stop feeling this strange undeniable attraction to this stranger who spoke fluent Asgardian. Bjørn decided that obeying was better than being scolded later for eating her guest, and he curled back up at the back of the cave, keeping a careful eye on their "guest".

The hunter, or at least, that is what she assumed he was, seemed very confused.

Hermione struggled to remember her Asgardian. "Speak your language if you must. Slowly, for you sound… different."

His eyes widened, his throat working as his mind did the digesting. "Please. Where am I? What have you done to me?"

Hermione's eyes narrowed. "You fell out from the Bifröst into Jötunheimr. Magnus, one of our hunters, brought you in here so that I could bind your wounds."

"You have ensorcelled me!" he cried, pressing close to her, yet he seemed horrified that he was doing so. He showed wildly conflicting emotions, both wanting to press closer and shove her away at the same time.

"I am a healer. I did nothing to you that you did not require."

"Did you just call me a cabbage?"

Hermione closed her eyes and slowly counted to ten. "I am a healer. Healer," she enunciated clearly, pointing to herself. Then she pointed to his various wounds and made elaborate wrapping motions.

"Hermione," she said, pointing to herself.

He seemed to struggle a moment. "I am called Loki."

He released his hold upon her, both apologetic and hungry to feel her touch upon his fevered skin. What was wrong with him?

The flap of the hides at the entrance signalled a powerful gust of wind, and it sent a strong chill through the cave. Oddly, it did not feel so bad to him, but he could tell its effect on her, she rubbed her hands over her arms to warm herself and stood closer to the fire. The great Jötunheimr beast moved closer, curling itself around her, and she snuggled into its body for warmth.

Loki felt a pounding in his chest as a strange feeling of jealousy came over him. She should be seeking him for warmth! What in Helheim was going on in his head?

He moved to pin the hides better to the entrance, noting the rocks had moved, and he carefully replaced them. As he stood, he froze, staring at the ice-wall as he caught sight of his very blue skin— distinctive runic patterns spread across his arms and hands. He felt the sides of his face, finding them there as well. No, this couldn't be!

He staggered back, visibly panicked, and Hermione stood up, ignoring the cold to approach him, a worried look on her face.

Jötunn?

How was that even possible?

Was that the reason Sigyn had taken her dagger to his gut and cast him into the whirlpool the very day before they were to be wed?

And why did he feel so very relieved about that?

He staggered, clutching his head. "What is wrong with me?"

"Loki?" Hermione said. Her hands touched his arms as her warm eyes stared into his face.

A jolt of pleasure so intense that it was almost pain ran from his toes all the way up to his brain, and he suddenly blacked out.

Loki opened his eyes in the darkness of the cave, with only embers sending a soft glow through the dwelling this strange and beautiful sorceress had made her home in.

She lay, pressed snugly against his body, tucked against his skin in a way that both maddened and calmed him at the same time. Never in his life had he ever felt such an overwhelming pull before to anyone, neither male nor female. It was a need so powerful that he found could not even hope to ignore it— the need for her approval, the need to have her, hold her, join his body to hers. He could not imagine his life without her, yet he knew so very little about her. How could this be?

He stared at her sleeping face, his breath hitching in his throat as he saw the distinctive raised markings had spread across her skin as well, a distinctive deep blue moving across her pale, pinkish skin. Each night they lay together, it took a little more from her, inexorably binding her to him with such warmth and closeness that he could hardly think of what life would be like without her there. He pressed his mouth to her markings, his tongue sliding across the intricately raised flesh, hungering for her and the very taste of her. No female had ever called to him like she did, and she did not even have to say a word.

Even now, in her sleep, she curled up against him peacefully, seeking out the curve of his body around her. With each subsequent coupling, the bond was becoming absolutely undeniable— as clear as the spread of blue across her fair skin and the markings across her body. She slept when they were not joined together in an intense drive to mate— a magical sleep that pulled her into oblivion as her body succumbed to the bond and the transformation that was both tearing her apart and remaking her entirely. Sometimes she would wake from that deep, encompassing slumber, and he would feed her, chewing the food for her and passing it to her as the wild animals were known to do, but he didn't even balk at it. She didn't seem to mind. It seemed so natural to feed one's mate. If she was weak, he could help her eat. He would help her grow strong again.

"Soon," Loki whispered into her hair. "Soon, nothing and no one shall ever part us, my love."

Something told him that he had to keep her close, that constant physical contact was essential until the blue had covered every inch of her body and the crimson had swallowed up her lovely eyes.

But she was there now, with him. Unafraid.

He pressed his nose into her hair, imprinting the strongest of her scent of skin into his memory. "Hermione," he whispered, watching her eyes flutter and open slowly, drowsily. Trails of crimson were starting to bleed across her eyes, but it was the trust he saw there that unmade him. She trusted him to protect her— to love her.

Suddenly, she was pulled from his arms, torn from him as one would a coat.

Loki screamed in agony as Hermione was dragged away by the hair, deprived of her stabilising touch.

Her eyes—

No.

The betrayal in her eyes.

No, Hermione! He tried to go to her, but his legs wouldn't move.

Hermione disappeared into the blizzard as the snow and ice swallowed her up.

Sigyn was there, screaming at him for betraying their betrothal, calling him a Jötunn freak.

"I heard you parents talking, PRINCE Loki. You're not even truly their son! You're NOT one of us!"

"Sigyn, what in Helheim are you talking about—"

"I will never marry you. I will not bind myself to some blue, red-eyed freak!"

Her dagger was in her hand.

And then it was plunged straight into his gut—

He was falling, spinning, drowning and the glimmer of the Bifröst swallowed him whole.

Loki awoke feeling the pain of longing so intense that it wrung a soft cry of pain from his lips.

A cool cloth brushed against his forehead, but it it was the light brush of fingers across his skin, no, his markings that calmed him and gave him the most exquisite pleasure imaginable.

His Jötunn markings.

Loki's eyes shot open in a panic, convinced that he would endanger everything merely by existing— murdering simply for no reason than being a mindless, raging beast.

The vision tortured him with such a promise of blissful completeness yet tortured him with the terrible pain of watching her torn from his side as a look of utter betrayal filled her eyes. His hand was around her wrist, holding it like a vice, and Hermione winced in pain.

The moment it happened, he felt her pain, and he loosened his grip as though he'd touched a burning piece of metal.

The damage was done.

She dropped the cloth, giving him a concerned look, but she didn't make any other movements. Not close to him. Not to touch him.

"I know you are bound to another," she said sadly, her brown eyes tinged with pain. "You call out to her in your sleep. Do not be ashamed that your Jötunn hormones tell you otherwise."

"There is no other," Loki whispered.

Hermione gave him a shake of her head. "Who is Sigyn then?"

Loki winced. "My betrothed."

Hermione gave him a look.

"She is the reason I'm here," Loki explained. "I dreamt of her— calling me a freak and plunging her dagger into my gut— throwing me into the whirlpool, hoping I that would drown, but it spat me out into the Bifröst instead."

Hermione frowned, concentrating on his words. "I am truly sorry," she said after a while. "It takes me a while to work out what is that you're saying. It's like knowing the words but your… accent is very different from what I'm accustomed to. I'm not sure what Asgardian culture truly is, but if stabbing your betrothed is considered to be standard procedure, I am very glad I am here and not there."

"Somehow, she knew I was Jötunn," he said.

Hermione gave him a look. "It is somewhat obvious."

Loki shook his head. "I did not look like this at the time!" Loki yelled then cringed as Hermione took a step back. He took a deep breath. "This," he said pinching his skin. "This is new."

"Håkon says if a frost Jötunn goes to a place that is not cold, they shrink and look… strange."

"By strange, you mean normal."

"Not for a Jötunn," Hermione replied, frowning. "Perhaps exposure to the freezing cold is what changed you."

"I am not a monster!"

Hermione's brow furrowed. "Is that what truly you think that Jötunn are?" she said, her voice raising. "Sigrunn trained me for over hundreds of years to take her place as healer for this tribe. She defended me from those that called me a runt. Tiny. She believed in me. She taught me to hunt. She taught me to weave. She taught me to watch the beasts on the floes to know when one was hunting and when it was just passing through. She taught me the language of all the Jötunn races so I would never be caught off guard. And you, Asgardian. Your people shoved a spear through her back for being a heathen."

Loki's face changed to a look of frank disbelief.

Hermione's fist clenched. "Families bring me food from their hunts every week to help me feed my patients and myself. Håkon, who should be out there impressing his intended mate, brings me seals and frost-sabres because he thinks I will freeze to death before I starve to death. King Laufey comes by every week and tells me stories of his people dating back to the time for the first snows— stories taught to him by his father's father. They protect me here, which is more than I can say of my own people, who cast me out for my 'tainted' blood, and my supposed best friend, who couldn't handle that I didn't want to marry him, so he cursed me to this place in an utterly random bit of hate-filled magic."

Loki looked as though he were going to say something.

"No, do not give me any excuses," Hermione said, her anger making her hair lift and writhe like serpents. Plump frost-spiders, looking like fluffy little snowballs, clung to the strands making frightened little squeaks as her hair tried to fly away with them. They quickly scurried about, casting silken jets, bringing Hermione's hair back under control so that they could dart back under it in safety.

"F— you have frost spiders in your hair," Loki stammered a bit nervously.

"What of it?" Hermione hissed. "Are you going to tell me they are monsters too?"

Loki's jaw worked. "Well, they are the most venomous creature of Jötunheimr and you can't even try to squish them without them coming back to attack you."

"You can thank THEM for your bandages, Asgardian," Hermione said coldly. "Or do you think silk bandages spring out of the ground from the frozen glacier, pre-made?" She placed her hand by her neck, and a frost-spider crawled out onto her fingers and cooed. She lowered her head, and the creature hugged her cheek with its legs before scurrying back into her hair.

Loki stared, perhaps contemplating the new meaning of self-defense if someone were to try and get too close, only to end up with a face full of highly venomous, pissed-off frost spiders.

"Please, my name is Loki," he said quietly. "And I thank you— for saving my life."

Hermione's lip curled, but she closed her eyes briefly in acknowledgement. "You may stay here until you are healed. Then, it will be up to our king to decide your fate."

"Heal me up only to throw me back into the wastes?" Loki blurted.

Hermione did a slow blink. "Perhaps you should get to know them before making such presumptions, Loki of Ásgarðr."

Loki stiffened, digging his nails into his palms. "I'm sorry, I can't— I can barely— It is maddening. This… need. I want—"

Hermione's face turned clinical. "You have the fevers," she said quietly, a note of sympathy in her voice, despite the earlier fury. "I will go fetch the King and see if we can transport you back to Ásgarðr to be with your intended mate."

Loki trembled. "Sigyn is not who I see in my head, it is you."

Hermione shook her head adamantly.

"Please," Loki whispered. "Just the touch of your skin— it… it calms me. Please, I beg you. This madness." His breaths came in heated gasps, his body driven by instincts he didn't understand, nor had he ever felt them before.

Hermione seemed somewhat conflicted. "You have never seen me before. It cannot be me."

"I swear to you, it is not just… hormones. It is maddening. It is fire and ice. I need— please… Hermione," Loki's crimson eyes stared pleadingly into hers. "Please?"

"It cannot be me," Hermione said again, shaking her head adamantly.

Loki carefully extended his hand to her.

Slow, Hermione placed her hand in his, and the moment that first essential contact was made, a jolt of powerful energy surged between them. Hermione gasped, suddenly all too aware of what Loki was feeling— everything he was feeling at once.

His arms pulled her close, and he pressed his face into her air, dislodging a few disgruntled spiders that parachuted off her opposite shoulder to find a place to settle for the time being. A low, rumbling growl came from deep within his throat as he took her neck between his teeth, his pearly white almost-fangs wreaking havoc upon her skin.

Hermione gasped, her voice coming out as groan, the very sound of it causing Loki to pull her even more tightly to himself. He rubbed his cheek against her like a cat, his hands moving slowly down her bare arms. He growled with frustration as his hands met her furs— meant to keep her warm but it restricted him from what he wanted. He wanted to feel her skin mated entirely to his. He wanted to feel her move against— writhing as his touch both destroyed and remade her. He wanted—

"Hermione," he breathed unsteadily into her ear. "Please, will you accept me as your lover?"

Hermione gave a gasping whimper. She panted, her body quivering with the strength of her own desire. "I'm frightened," she admitted quietly.

"A kiss," Loki breathed against her skin. "Then you can decide—" Loki paused, tormented. "Then you can decide to stay or push me away."

"Okay," Hermione said, her voice trembling, hundreds of years worth of terrible, aching loneliness whispering behind her voice.

Loki was no inept or inexperienced lover, but he realised that far more than the possibility of rejection lay within this single act of passion. Every female he had bedded before had been a mere fleeting lover, none of which he had ever cared about, save, perhaps, a marginal want to at least give her a fair share of pleasure in return. It wasn't, however, anything like this irresistible drive to imprint himself thoroughly upon Hermione, to roll in her luscious scent, and merge their bodies together as one.

Loki gently pressed his mouth to hers, his tongue teasing her lips for the most important entry, and she hesitantly parted for him. His tongue found hers, and then they slid against each other, shyly at first and then hungrily, initially tentative but then dominant. They battled for it, the moans elicited by their heightened passion growing ever louder and longer between them. They parted only briefly to accommodate their mutual need to breathe, and Loki's breath created a cloud of frost that Hermione breathed in, eyes fluttering.

Hermione panted, her hands sliding against his exposed sides where his shirt had been creeping ever upward, and her skin made contact with his with her gentle caressing of his runic markings.

Loki's long legs buckled as he let loose a deep groan, his crimson eyes growing wide and filling with lust as he both latched onto her neck and swiftly de-shirted himself, exposing his chest and back for her exploration. She arched upwards, the light brush of her skin against his caused him to suck on her neck, and she whimpered with the intense pleasure of his mouth wreaking havoc upon her nerve endings. His deft fingers found the ties to her fur and hide coverings, and he enveloped one inviting nipple in the heat of his mouth.

The moment his heated mouth touched her sensitive skin, she cried out, and her hips ground into his. He, in turn, ground against hers, but was stymied by his own pants. She was hot against him, her body nearly steaming in the chill Jötunheimr air, even so close to the fire. His heated mouth combined with the cool touch of his skin teased her into full readiness, and if her soft pants and moans, and writhing against his body wasn't enough of an indicator, there were other, wetter indicators to be had.

And yet, she knew exactly what he was.

Still, she so obviously wanted him just as much as he did her.

Loki panted, pausing a moment, frightened by the overwhelming strength of this emotion without even a short courtship to precede such intense yearnings. Yet a part of him knew without a doubt, that he would do absolutely anything to be with her and keep her forever at his side. There was a tingling thought buried somewhere deep inside his brain, reminding him that his long courtship with Sigyn had been singular for an utter lack of stimulation of any kind, and that 'courtship' had already spanned multiple centuries.

Centuries.

Centuries without even a fraction of the need he felt for her— this lovely healer. Hermione.

How was it possible?

He had never been a believer in love at first sight, thinking it to be just some made-up mortal stupidity to justify their random lustful couplings without instant regret.

So what was this feeling— this driving, all-encompassing need?

"Hermione," he breathed into her ear, his breaths heavy and filled with unmistakable need. "Please—" his palms brushed her cheeks on both sides as he pressed his forehead to hers, relishing the feel of her soft skin against his. "Allow me to love you."

Hermione looked painfully conflicted, her desire and her want for him mixed with a mind that could not accept that he— or perhaps anyone else— would have interest in her. How long had she lived here? Surrounded by Jötunn couples but without a mate to call her own? Perhaps, she had thought she needed no mate to complete her— until one showed up.

Her fingers traced the lines of his face, even as a rush of pleasurable magic sent a thrum of ecstasy through every nerve ending in his face, sending it rushing straight to his brain and lower, to more primal places. And then he saw it—

"You really are just a frigid little bint of a bookworm. I bet you wouldn't even know what to do with a cock if you ever saw one. Maybe faint dead away. I bet that's the real reason Viktor doesn't come calling anymore. You're way too afraid of actually enjoying a little sex, aren't you?" a blazing, red-faced redhead screamed at her, his wand tip glowing ominously and flickering back and forth between a violent red and a sickly shade of green. "You think you're too good for me, don't you,'Mione? Too good for anyone, maybe? You're every bit as bad as those bloody Slytherin wankers, you are! You think you're too good for anyone!"

"Ron! For Merlin's sake, I'm trying to do something for Dumble—"

"Oh, now don't you start too, 'Mione! I know you're just looking for any excuse to meddle. Harry got all the fame and glory from the war and you want some of that for yourself! Not satisfied! Not ever willing to even consider that other people have needs too—"

"Ron! It's not like that at all! I need to go back and save—"

"Save who?" Ron snarled. "Save WHO, 'Mione? Because it had better as FUCK be Fred who my mother is crying over every day. Every fucking day!"

Hermione was silent.

Ron's face darkened. "It's not, is it. WHO is it, 'Mione?"

"Ron—"

"WHO THE FUCK IS IT THAT YOU JUST HAVE TO FUCKING SAVE?!"

"Professor Snape," Hermione said quietly.

"Oh, FUCK no," Ron yelled. "If Dumbledore gave you a way to save someone, it's going to be my dead brother who DESERVES to be saved!"

"Dumbledore said—"

Ron made to snatch the time-turner around Hermione's neck. Hermione grabbed it back, holding it tightly. "No, Ron!"

In an instant, Ron's wand was aimed just below her throat and he blurted out a chain of words that almost sounded like some kind of language but wasn't anything Hermione actually recognised. The blast struck her directly in the chest, shattering the time-turner in her hands. The object made a high-pitched whine just before it exploded and shattered, sending shards of the turner, sand, and some kind of glimmering liquid to embed themselves into her body as the brunt of the strange spell surrounded her with a bright, pulsing light.

"Hermione, I brought you the cloak so you can— HERMIONE!" Harry yelled as he threw himself at Hermione, but the magic blasted him backwards, arse over teakettle.

"HERMIONE!"

"Harry—" Hermione desperately reached for him, her fingers outstretched. She screamed as it felt like she was being torn apart, body and soul, even as the sound of a solitary phoenix's mournful cry rang out over the rushing of sand. Bitter, paralysing, frigid cold blew in from a forming vortex, seeming to vacuum the broken bits of her up into itself. The vortex seened to roar in triumph just as it winked them both out of existence with a blinding flash of light.

Hermione was gone.

It was as if she had never existed in the first place.

A huge blue giant of a woman wrapped a warm fur around Hermione as she gently ushered her into a large ice cave. Hermione looked around frantically, visibly frightened, dwarfed by even the "small" fur covering she had been given for warmth.

The woman thumped her chest, pointing to herself. "Sigrunn," she said. She said other things, but Hermione couldn't understand her.

Hermione shook her head. She pointed to herself. "Hermione."

The Jötunn woman smiled and patted the furs next to the fire for her. She dug around the cave and found a small bowl— or at least small for her. The bowl was about the size of Hermione's head. Sigrunn took an ulu and sliced up small pieces of a nearby cache of food, putting it in the bowl, pantomiming eating and giving it to Hermione.

Hermione stared at the bowl with frank suspicion.

Sigrunn snorted softly, taking a piece from the top and eating it in front of her. She grunted something that probably meant, "Eat."

Hermione tentatively picked up a piece, wrinkling her nose in obvious distaste.

Sigrunn narrowed her eyes, making a gesture at her that all children know well from their mothers. "Eat it and like it."

Hermione seemed to gather her willpower and took a bite. Her eyes widened in surprise, and she devoured the whole bowl full in a matter of minutes.

Sigrunn let out a chortling laugh, thumping Hermione on the back with her hand ever so gently. She pointed to the sleeping furs near the crackling fire and pantomimed resting her head down. She repeated a word again, and Hermione repeated it. Sigrunn smiled and said it again, this time, it was in the unmistakable tone of a direct order.

Hermione cuddled under the furs and tried to sleep, but even with the fire it seemed strangely colder than she could sleep in.

Sigrunn opened up the furs and dropped in something next to her— something that was warm and... purring?

MrrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRrrrr.

Hermione stared at a wide-eyed kitten-looking, long-toothed… something that stared right back at her. The furs heated up almost immediately, and she got a rough but thorough tongue bath for her trouble.

The "kitten" which was nearly as large as a Siberian tiger on Earth, promptly cuddled up against her and murred happily in obvious contentment.

Hermione tentatively pet the kitten's thick fur and snuggled into its warmth, finding that sleep was much easier now.

"You ride that thing like a warcat, Hermione," Laufey chuckled.

"He's warm!" Hermione laughed. "I love him."

"And he loves you," the giant replied, sitting by the fire. He pulled his haul with him and sat by the fire.

"May I help?"

"Of course," Laufey chuckled. "I have a present for you."

"Ooo!" Hermione exclaimed. "A coat my own size?"

The Jötunn laughed. "Alas, no, but something that might help you to make your own."

Hermione perked. She jumped off the giant kitten and hugged his neck before sitting next to the Jötunn hunter.

Laufey unwrapped something from a seal skin and handed to her.

"My own ulu!" Hermione squealed with delight. She hugged Laufey, managing only to wrap her arms partially around his belt as he sat down. The giant chuckled warmly and cupped her in a hand-hug.

"I had our most talented blacksmith craft that for you, Hermione. He wanted to know why I was supplying children with skinning blades."

Hermione laughed. "Some of us never grow up!" Hermione said with a grin.

"I'm glad you have taken to our language so well," he said, clearly pleased. "Many of us were worried when you fell on poor Håkon that you might have hit your head on the way down."

Hermione huffed. "Really?"

Laufey grinned at her. "We have found that you may be small, but your heart is the size of the sea-wolf whale, and your spirit is as fierce as the mother sabre-cat protecting her young."

"Well, it's definitely not our lazy bones there," Hermione said, pointing to the sleeping sabre-toothed kitten.

"Hah! But he has had no reason to defend anyone, Hermione. If this ever came up, he would bare his fangs and claws like nothing you have ever seen."

"He makes a better snuggle buddy," Hermione said. "Except when he passes gas."

Laufey bellowed laughter. "I would imagine so."

"Mrowwwww," the sabre-kitten yawned.

"Have you named him yet?" Laufey asked.

"Tryggr," Hermione told him.

"The trustworthy one, very apt," Laufey said with a smile.

The sabre-kitten lifted his head and yawned toothily at the sound of his name.

Hermione leaned into Laufey's knee as she helped him skin the hide. "I heard from Håkon that you are planning to fight the king," she said.

"I hope not to," Laufey said grimly. "It is my hope that he is willing to listen to reason. Our people must move this camp to where the stone supports the ground. We can hear the ice moving under, and the Great Frost Mother is sending us a clear warning. As it is, Sigrunn is allowing the elderly to shelter in her cave with you, for if the ice cracks, they will be far too slow to move to safety in time."

Hermione was thoughtful. "Maybe— we can convince him the gods have moved us overnight."

Laufey gently turned Hermione to look at him. "What are you plotting, little one?"

"A way to keep you from fighting the king."

Laufey looked thoughtful. "It may happen later even if not sooner."

"True, but later is later."

Laufey looked thoughtful. "Tell you what, little one. Skin this hide clean, and I will listen to your idea."

Hermione grinned at him. "Deal."

Hermione hugged Tryggr tightly as he ran across the floes, jumping from iceberg to iceberg as deftly as a athlete running hurdles.

Tryggr moved to her will, and she wasn't sure how he knew where she wanted to go, but he always seemed to know. Perhaps it was subtle movements of her muscles, or maybe he could read her mind. Hermione wasn't sure, but the skillful sabre-cat was always able to tell exactly where she needed to be and get her there.

The floes were melting, and Laufey had been right. It was time for the camp to find solid ground under the ice instead of relying on the ice to hold where they had camped. To be fair, the camp had survived for over a hundred years as Hermione measured time, but it was rapidly changing. Even Hermione could feel it moving under her as she hunted the wastes to bring back food for Sigrunn. Sigrunn had taught her well, and she had done all she could to make it up to her by ensuring the elder Jötunn never wanted for food or hides. Sigrunn took care of the infirm and elderly. It was a full-time job, and Hermione's job was to learn from her and make sure Sigrunn also remembered to eat.

Tryggr mrowled and skidded to a halt on the snows, sniffing the air and Hermione hopped off his back. It was getting harder to just hop off as the kitten was getting larger towards his full adult size— and the full adult size hunted Jötunn. It wasn't that Tryggr himself seemed to notice any difference. He still slept beside her every night thinking himself to be a kitten the size of a Siberian Tiger. All Tryggr cared about was that she was his mistress, playmate, and friend, and really that was all he ever needed to remember.

Hermione heard a strange cacophony of squeaks and chatter coming from nearby.

"Oh no! The shore!"

"The shore!"

"Can't reach…"

"Shoot the silk to the shore!"

"Tried! It's— EEEEE! Tilt!"

"Mummy, what are we going to do!"

"Cling to me, little ones!"

"But Mummy, the shore is that way!"

Hermione stared across the floes. Who—?

There, on a floating piece of ice, was a large, fluffy-looking spider covered with countless baby spiders clinging to her back. It was much like a wolf spider with young, only— cuter. Much cuter. They looked like cotton balls with eyes and legs. They were also obviously terrified, trembling against their mother as they realised that land was going the wrong direction, and they were being swept out to sea. The current, breaking up the floes was apparently causing chaos for more than just the frost giants, it had stranded the poor spiders too.

Hermione, used to magical creatures from her childhood, really didn't question the fact that these spiders were talking. Acromantulas could speak, if and when they really wanted to, so what was one more talking spider? These were much smaller spiders, very unlike Acromantulas, and she felt bad they were being endangered by their own environment.

Quickly pulling out her wand, she aimed it the rapidly fleeing iceberg. "Wingardium Leviosa!"

The iceberg floated up above the water, slowly making its way back to shore. As the berg flopped down on the firm, unbreakable ice, the spiders all ran to the edge of the berg and looked, feeling with their feelers to the ground under it.

"Safe?"

"Saved!"

"She saved us!"

"She's not as big as the giants who step on us!"

"Mummy hates that!"

"She bites their toes so they limp for weeks!"

"We should say thanks!"

"Do you think she'll hear us?"

"Nobody hears us. We're too tiny."

"I can hear you," Hermione said. Tryggr lowered his head and whuffed, sending a few spiders tumbling head over abdomen.

"Eee!"

The larger mother spider slowly moved up to Hermione and tapped her front legs on Hermione's seal-hide boots. "Thank you."

Hermione smiled. "You're welcome."

"We come with you?" the babies asked sweetly.

"We can keep your neck warm!"

"We're light!"

"We travel well!"

"Mummy won't bite you, will you, Mummy?"

"We can make silk soon!"

"Help you!"

"You saved us!"

"Saved us!"

Hermione blinked. "Well, okay, but only if you promise not to bite."

"We promise!" they all chimed together.

Hermione put her hand down, and they all crawled up her arm and chained themselves together around her neck like a scarf. Sure enough, they were quite warm and kept her neck nicely protected from the bitter cold.

Hermione wasn't sure how well this was going to go over back at the camp, but they had promised not to bite her. Why had she simply taken them at their word?

Still, they seemed quite happy to oblige—

She looked around the area. "What do you think, Tryggr?"

The frost sabre gave her a shrug.

The shore was rocky, but it was flat with a ring of cliffs that were just high enough to separate the shore from the glaciers and ice beyond. She tapped the stone with her walking stick, and it did not ring hollow like the ice would to signal something cavernous beneath— or watery.

Hermione took some things out from the saddlebags on Tryggr and hugged his neck, rubbing his ears gently. "Well, let's see if the Great Frost Mother approves of this place… and my plan."

She unstrapped her hunting spear from Tryggr, and she gave him a fond pat before setting off to walk the shore— when she saw the highly distinctive, black-tipped white fin of another kind of hunter patrolling the frigid waters: the ice-shark. Known to beach themselves to get at frost seals, the ice-shark was the kind of predator that wouldn't mind taking Jötunn children if they strayed too close to the shore— and Hermione was just the right size.

Hermione smiled. Exactly the right size, in fact. She walked right up to the edge of the water and plunked herself down. She shoved her legs into the cold sand and rock and carefully positioned her spear.

"Just how hungry are you, sea-hunter?" Hermione asked the shark.

"Great Frost Mother," she whispered the ancient prayer. "Guide my spear directly to its heart that my prey does not suffer but that my family will eat well. Protect me with your cold embrace that I might know mercy both from the beasts and the fury of Jötunheimr herself. I am but a lowly young hunter, struggling to survive and to feed my family. Please bless me with your divine vision that I might carry you in my heart another day."

Several terrified, yelping seals plunged into the water, but as she suspected, the shark was not paying attention to any of them. Ths shark had seen her— easy prey belonging to some foolish, unwary, soon-to-be-grieving Jötunn mother.

"O Great Mother," Hermione said softly. "Please guide my spear. For I do not wish to suffer, nor do I wish another to suffer because of me."

Never had the words come so easily. She, like the other Jötunn children, learned the words but never actually had to say them. All times before, she had hunted the small prey— the frost hares the ice fish and the snow-elk, staying with the small and the infirm. This was a full-sized ice-shark. These were the prey of Jötunn hunters. It was the only offering worthy of the Great Frost Mother. She had no choice. Her timing had to be perfect— or she would be crushed under the weight of a hundred ton shark. Megalodon, eat your heart out.

SPLOOSH!

There was a roaring sound in her ears, and Hermione braced herself. "Engorgio!" she yelled, willing all of her power into her spear. The runes she had carved, each and every one by hand using the traditional sabre-tooth awl and the sabre-claw etching tool. Every one she had said the prayers over just as tradition had demanded. Every bit of the ways she had adopted, studied, and incorporated into her own life— this she had channeled into her spear. The hunter's spear. The one thing, like her wand, that she could not, would not, ever leave behind unless the Great Mother herself carried it off into the murky, frozen seas by her own act of will. She may not be the true hunter of the tribe, but she would not dishonour it by walking out onto the oft-treacherous ice floes like an ignorant child without the tools the Great Mother had taught her to use.

No.

However many hundreds of years she had been here, first learning how to survive but then choosing to learn because they had become her people— her new way of life— she would not even think to dishonour them now. A Jötunn child took many hundreds of years to reach adulthood, but that did not mean it took them forever to grow, no. It took them hundreds of years to learn the skills that would help them to survive out there in the great wasteland of snow and ice. And no matter how big you grew, if you did not succeed in your great hunt— you remained a child until you finally DID succeed.

Or, you died trying.

Hermione had no intention of becoming the one who died trying, born a Jötunn or no. Sigrunn had invested too much time into teaching her well for Hermione to go out and fail. The tribe depended on her, whether it knew it or not, to find a place they could safely move their camp, hopefully for the good. The elders needed a place that wouldn't swallow them up during the night when the ice shifted just as much as the mothers with children did.

Hermione watched the shark's descent upon her spear and she screamed with all her might as she thrust it up towards its heart, bracing herself in the shore as she cast one, final, shielding charm and prayed it would be strong enough to hold up against one extremely heavy and seriously pissed off ice-shark.

The runes on her spear glowed bright blue, and her spear grew to the size of a Jötunn hunter's. It plunged keep into the shark's body, seeking the heart, with a speed so fast that it sent the shark tumbling belly over fins onto the rocky shore. It twitched, convulsed, and flopped on the rocky shore, jaws snapping futilely, but eventually, the great beast at last went still. Hermione ran over to it and used all her might to thrust the spear in deeper, making sure the shark was well and truly dead, and she screamed out across the frozen wastes. She yanked the spear out from the shark's lifeless carcass, even as it shrank down to a more manageable size for her. She beat the spear to her chest in her raw surge of victory as she bellowed her prowess and survival to the very skies and to the Great Frost Mother below.

Then, like a switch had suddenly been thrown, she set to work, using her ulu to remove the choicest parts of the shark: the head, the tail and fins, and the guts. All of the things she would prefer to keep for how useful the teeth were for tools, the fins for soup, and the guts for binding. Everything had a use above and beyond the meat itself— but she was not going to bring those parts back home. This was her first great hunt. The first hunt's very best pieces always went to the Great Frost Mother.

No exceptions.

The pieces she was preparing to offer were— far more than merely heavy, and Hermione had to use her magic to lighten them, guiding them all into a neat pile on a nearby iceberg. She loaded it with the choice pieces that made her heart sad to see such a fine bounty "wasted" as a sacrifice, but a part of her understood that this was the way it had to be.

Laufey would tell her that it was not a waste to pay respect to the gods, and a happy god always took care of its people. The divine would always give something great in return for an appropriate sacrifice, sometimes giving it even before the sacrifice was actually given, so paying respect where it was due was really not such hard a thing, after all.

Hermione smiled. Laufey tended to always be right. The jerk. He was so very much like Severus. Guiding her hand with patience, but never above teasing or ribbing her for some silly thing she did that didn't work, or at least didn't work out quite the way she had planned. He never asked her to do anything he wasn't fully certain that she could do, no matter how frustrated she got. And he always had that proudly smug smile whenever she proved him right. Every damn time.

He pushed her to learn all the languages of the Jötunn from Sigrunn. All of them. He pushed her to learn Asgardian, even enough she thought the language sounded like a bunch of arguing Portuguese who had at some point gotten it on with a random pastor yelling his Sunday sermon. To be fair, she liked the sound of Portuguese, but she wasn't fond of the yelling Sunday sermon aspect.

Not at all.

She really loved him. She had come to love all of her adopted people, save perhaps for Snorre, whom no one liked. Well, maybe his mother. Laufey said he was most likely going to be one of those "children" who didn't manage a successful great hunt until he was well into his thousands. Hermione couldn't even imagine living that long and not getting a clue— then again, if your species counted time in eternities, well, what was a few thousand years amongst friends?

Håkon had made the joke that Snorre had been dropped headfirst on the ice as a baby— his mother being quite new to the entire situation— and Snorre hadn't been right in the head ever since. Hermione wasn't quite sure if it had been a joke or the actual truth. Håkon was a treasure trove of great stories, but it was hard to tell which ones were just stories and which others were the truth. She had a feeling that Håkon himself wasn't always sure either. Håkon had at least succeeded in his great hunt and become a "man" or rather a hunter of the tribe. Snorre, well, not so much. Håkon complained that his family was friends with Snorre's and now that he was a hunter, that meant that eventually, if something happened to Snorre's father, Håkon's family would have to watch over Snorre when he went hunting. Hermione didn't think anyone really envied him that position.

By the time she had piled everything she needed up on the berg, Hermione shook herself out of her thoughts. She lit a small fire on the iceberg, dropped in a small pouch of incense, and bowed her head over her hands. "Great Frost Mother, this is my first kill. My first great beast. Please, accept this offering of the best of my hunt in gratitude for guiding my spear and keeping me safe in your loving embrace. You have given me a wonderful home. You have given me a new family. Please allow me to help them move to this place that they may live in safety again. All I ask is the meat, to take back to the tribe that they may eat and be full tonight, and a single tooth, that I might keep it to forever remember this day. All else, Great Frost Mother, is yours, as am I."

Hermione took one tooth from the mouth of the giant shark, carved runes on it with her sabre-knife, and bound it with cord and put it around her neck. She walked off the berg, feeling it crack and strain to break free of the shore. Then, just as she stepped down, it broke off, and the berg drifted slowly off to sea.

"Nnnnnnnnggggggggaaahhhhhhhhhh!"

The gigantic breach of the great seal-wolf whale broke through the very ice, its enormous mouth gaping wide as it took the entire berg, the shark, and a large mouthful of water into its maw. Hermione staggered backwards as the waves created by the great whale's breach threatened to sweep her off her feet and carry her out into the ocean.

But a huge warm hand scooped her up and cradled her to his chest.

Laufey.

The giant stared off into the water and back at her. Silently, he knelt down next to the remains of the shark, dipped his fingers into the blood, and drew them lightly across her face. "You have become a grown hunter on this day, Hermione. May no one ever doubt this. And if they do, I shall soundly beat them about the head with my club. My fierce, miniature hunter," he said fondly. "Living proof that size is not everything."

"And to think, you at first told Sigrunn to throw me back into the sea," Hermione said with a smile.

Laufey snorted. "I have since changed my opinion on size, along with a great many other things. Perhaps, instead, I shall throw Snorre into the sea instead."

Hermione snorted.

"Will you allow me to carry your hunt back to the tribe, Hermione?"

Hermione nodded with a little relief. "Thank you."

"Save your magic for the morrow, my fierce miniature hunter," Laufey said. "Tonight, rest and celebrate that you have become a hunter and given respect to the Great Frost Mother."

Hermione smiled and nodded as Tryggr head-bumped into her back, impatient to get moving. She hopped onto his back and strapped her spear and a few bundles of meat into the saddlebags. Laufey took the rest onto his shoulder and walked the way back to the tribe, the newest young hunter of the tribe clinging to the back of the frost-sabre as it bolted home.

By the time Hermione got back to the cave, she was so exhausted that she slept right through the festivities as the tribe dined on the spoils of her first great hunt. Sigrunn drove the rest of tribe away from the cave unless they were in dire straights and Tryggr did the rest by guarding her body from excited visitors. The token traditional offerings to a new hunter for the tribe were left in a neat pile just inside the cave entrance: sweetened frostberry jerky, a hunter's belt and pouches, whetstones, rune carvers, a carved sabertooth, and hunting clothes, altered so they would keep her warm in the frozen wastes instead of the more minimal clothes most Jötunn wore. There were other gifts as well, but the coming of age for a new hunter was a very big deal, and much like the gifts to the Great Frost Mother, gifts for the hunter were a gamble that in supporting the hunter, you supported yourself in that no one went hungry where there were many hunters to supply the tribe.

In succeeding in her great hunt, even though her main reason had been to seek the Great Mother's blessing for the move, she had proven herself an adult in the tribe. Her voice was equal at the council fire, and she was also free to be courted and to accept (not that that particular area had even been on her mind.) Laufey and Sigrunn had pulled her aside and explained the frost-sabres and the jellyfish some time ago, reminding Hermione about when her parents had tried to explain the birds and the bees to her when she was a budding teenager. It had been just as awkward amongst the Jötunn as it was with human parents.

But, the main thing Hermione learned was that Jötunn males experienced something like love at first sight when they imprinted on a female, and they would obsess over them until the mating was consummated unto pregnancy or the female rejected them formally. There was also the standard attraction and hormones, but once the Jötunn male found "the one" it was all over for any other relationships, no matter how close they had been. The male would be driven to impress and seek the approval of the female to the point where she would allow his touch of his markings to hers. If that happened, the chances of her rejection was much more slim as a bond would form between them— a whirlwind of memories shared and intimacy that drew them together in one intense bond that usually, but not always, led to consummation of a mating bond.

The female could still, however, refuse. If the hunter was a failure or she somehow doubted his ability to provide for her and a child, she could reject him by either invoking the name of the Great Mother as she spoke the words of the rite that dissolved the bond and released the male from his singular focus. It did not happen often, but it had occurred in situations where one female had more than one suitor imprinted on them or the hunter became ill or infirm in a way that the constant obsession threatened their life. Even rarer were the fickle females that waited for some sort of sign they wanted from a male before accepting him, and each female often had something different they looked for. Some were simply more specific than others. A good hunter was good, solid thing to look for. A hunter that brought back two whales, fourteen seals, and a frost sabre in one season was asking a lot.

Hermione had asked Laufey if the male could, in fact, choose to dissolve the obsession himself, and he said it was possible but not probable. It was the common belief that the Great Frost Mother was the one that set the imprint on the male to begin with, and the final test was the approval of the female, which he could either gain or lose depending on his prowess. The imprint prevented jealousy over "another male's female" and reduced inter-tribal violence, something they considered a gift from She Who Watched Over Them. The land was inhospitable enough, and preventable loss of life was all the more tragic.

-o-o-o-o-

"It's not like I'm ever going to be mated with one of the tribe, Håkon," Hermione had told him one day as they went out to ice fish together. "There is a little bit of a size difference that would make such a thing nigh impossible."

Håkon shook his head at her and gave her that look that told her she needed to pay better attention to the stories around the fire at night. "Hermione, if you'd listened to the people talk, you'd know that if the bond is true, you'd become Jötunn like us. For real. That's why there are no half breeds amongst frost giants. The bond can only form and remain amongst the willing, and the Great Frost Mother gifts us that if we find our mate, they are changed that we can be together."

"You know I don't like listening to people talk," Hermione said. "How am I to know when they aren't just stories like you often make up to get a rise out of me?"

Håkon snorted. "I would not make up stories about this. In fact, I hope when we are both hunters that I will find out I am driven to you."

"Don't be ridiculous," Hermione said.

"I am being true," Håkon said adamantly.

Hermione shook her head. "Fine, if, and only if we are both hunters and you are driven to me, then I will deal with it then."

Håkon grinned cheekily. "It has to be you, Hermione. You fell on me from the skies. Surely that must mean something."

"Sometimes falling out of the sky on someone just means they fell out of the sky and landed on someone instead of something," Hermione protested.

Håkon shook his head and thrust a fishing pole into her hands.

"Bet you I catch more ice fish than you today."

"Oh, you're on, boy," Hermione said, sticking out her tongue at him.

-o-o-o-o-

Hermione woke and realised her entire body ached from head to toe. She tried to move and groaned as her body protested that it wasn't done healing from her shark-induced muscle spasms.

"Here, rub this all over," Sigrunn said with a smile as she nudged her with a "small" tin of something.

Hermione took the tin, which was the size of a large Muggle pizza, and dipped her hand into the ointment. The moment it touched her skin she instantly felt better, and Hermione said a few blessings and thank yous to Sigrunn.

The elder Jötunn female smiled at her. "Tryggr has been trying to groom you to death in your sleep, which may have helped you sleep, but he went off to drive the ice-rats out of Knut's ice-caches."

"That explains why my hair is sticking straight up and to the side at the same time," Hermione muttered.

"Your eight-legged friends wove you a silken sleeping bag," Sigrunn said with a chuckle. "Find them out on your hunt?"

"Yeah, they were trying to float out to sea without paddles," Hermione said. "I brought them to shore and they wanted to stay with me."

"I figured as much," Sigrunn replied. "They didn't swarm to attack me."

"As I understand, they only attack when you step on their babies," Hermione said.

"Hrm, I suppose I wouldn't take being stepped on very well, myself, and if someone tried to step on my child, I'd probably be even less inclined to converse. It would help if we could actually see them before we stepped on them, as opposed to after we get the bite on our toes."

Hermione pondered silently for a moment, her mind working to solve the puzzle. "Sigrunn, is there a colour you see very, very clearly in the snow?"

Sigrunn tilted her head. She looked around and placed her hand on the cave painting on the wall. "This colour." She placed her hand on the wisps of the sky swirls. "It glows brightly, like our markings, only a different shade."

Hermione frowned. "I only see a yellow-green."

Sigrunn smiled. "One day, when you are mated, you will understand."

"Ugh, again with the mating!"

Sigrunn grinned at her. "Hermione, eventually it will happen. You are a hunter of the tribe, and you will be a great one. I'm surprised Håkon isn't here, panting in the heat of the imprint, begging you to let him touch you and seal the bond."

"Stop it!" Hermione said, blushing furiously. "There is no way Håkon and I— no!"

"Do you not care for him?"

"Of course I care for him! It's just—"

Sigrunn frowned. "What?"

Hermione turned her head away. "He is meant for another."

"What? How can this?"

"He's been resisting it for months now," Hermione said. "It's why he's either hunting or with me. I know the signs, though he tries to hide it well. He's imprinted, Sigrunn, but not to me."

Sigrunn sighed, placing a hand around Hermione in a hug. "I am sorry."

Hermione shook her head. "He is a good friend. I didn't even think about it until I realised there wasn't even a chance."

"It means there is another out there for you, child," Sigrunn comforted. "It will happen. Some poor male is going to see you and everything they know is going to be thrown into the icy sea in favour of you."

Hermione snorted. "You're such a romantic."

Sigrunn smiled.

Hermione perks. "I got it! Hey little ones, where did you go?"

Small fluffy spiders scurried out of the cracks in the cave wall. "Need us?"

"How would you like to stand out to the Jötunn so they know not to step on you?"

"Ooo!"

"We like that!"

"Being stepped on hurts."

"Being stepped on makes mummy cranky!"

"Will it hurt?"

Hermione shook her head. "No, it shouldn't hurt at all."

The baby spiders surged out of the cracks in the walls and crawled into her lap.

Hermione took out her wand and closed her eyes, making a movement over them as she formed in her mind exactly what she wanted. Sigrunn let out a gasp.

"I can see them!" Sigrunn said with a laugh of relief. "I can really, really see them now!"

"To me they look the same, but now the Jötunn will be able to see you and avoid stepping on you," Hermione said. "But please, my friends, try not to be underfoot. It wouldn't be fair for them to try and not step on you if you were everywhere."

The clutter of spiders waved their legs. "Okay! We'll try!"

Hermione cast her hand over them, and they rubbed up against her with a sound much like a purr and coo. The mother spider gently wrapped her legs around Hermione's fingers in a more dignified thank you.

"We'll be moving tonight," Hermione said. "Don't get lost."

"We won't!" the spiderlings said, scurrying back into the cracks as some of them rode on their mother's back as she headed towards a larger crack in the cave wall.

"Laufey told me of your plan, child," Sigrunn said quietly. She looked over to the back of the cave where the elders were sleeping. "I am glad you found a way so he doesn't have to fight the king."

Hermione nodded. "I should go talk to him. Even I can hear the water moving under the ice. We cannot afford to wait much longer."

Sigrunn nodded. "The tribe gifted you hunters leathers as well as other tools. You should put them on before you go out."

Hermione hugged Sigrunn's arm. "Thanks, mum."

Sigrunn smiled at her warmly. "Go, get dressed, before the tribe thinks you ungrateful."

Hermione gave her a cheeky smile and fetched the pile of clothes at the front of the cave, disappearing behind the dressing blind she had set up so the elders didn't have to see her fumble with dressing herself. Jötunn tended to be quite blasé to dressing in front of each other, but Hermione still had a few human "scruples" left that she clung to fiercely. They were slowly being eroded by her assimilation into the tribe, but at least for now, she had a few.

As the moon hung high in the sky over the tribe's encampment, Hermione could hear the ice creaking ominously under her feet, and she wondered, had she been a upwards of ten meters high if she's be under the ice completely. She worried for her people's lives. Many of them were not warriors by trade. They were families, all, but most were led by hunters and fishermen, trappers, and crafterfolk. Survival was hard enough to worry about training for war. War was something they left to Útgarðr and the Jötunn who chose to live there behind their high walls and in their safe homes.

There were some warriors, defenders of the tribe, such as Laufey, but you'd never have known it from how he interacted with the tribe. He hunted, fished, trapped, and crafted like the rest— a man of the people who took care of what mattered. And while he did train Hermione in the ways of Jötunn weapons, she and Håkon being favoured sparring partners, it almost seemed like he was training them just in case something happened to him rather than for an immediate need for warriors.

As Hermione leaned on her spear, her breath coming in large clouds of fog, she closed her eyes and sensed all the Portkeys she had chained together with a specific area of effect. Each house, including the ice beneath them, would be going together, and after careful, meticulous planning, they would all arrive in exactly the same formation in the new place.

A safe place.

Hermione had finally found something she truly believed in, and while she had not found that in the Wizarding world, nor the war solely out of blind dedication, she had to admit that she had felt far more adamant about the freeing of the house-elves rather than the fight against Voldemort. She knew Voldemort had to be stopped, but that was more of a logical decision and a frank necessity. She wanted to be able to protect her friends and her family. Voldemort wanted them all dead. So simply remove Voldemort from the equation. Friends and family were no longer in dire danger of maiming and death. Eminently logical.

Harry had a quest. Harry needed help. She could offer him help. Harry would live longer with help. Hermione helped Harry. Harry wins. Voldemort dies. Friends and family were no longer in danger of maiming and death. Win.

In her head, it was all perfectly logical.

Yet, here, for the first time in her strangely extended life, she felt driven to protect her people. Adopted or no, she knew their struggles, their everyday fears, their joys, their celebrations of life, however small or had accepted her, their strange child that literally never grew up. And Hermione felt more akin to these people than ever she had in the Muggle or Wizarding world.

It was personal. All of their lives were bound to hers. She felt it in her very bones.

Tryggr pressed his muzzle into her hand, and she wrapped her arm around his neck, having to stand on her tippy toes to do so due to his substantially increased size.

"You're getting huge," Hermione complained. "Soon I'm going to be like a flea upon your back."

Tryggr whuffled her face, tickling her with his long whiskers.

The spider brigade had fastened itself around her neck like a scarf, linking their plush, fuzzy bodies together to both keep her warm and themselves from being blown away in the wind.

"Hermione?" Håkon said, huffing as he approached in a hurry. "Everyone is in position."

Hermione opened her eyes, her gaze seemingly far away. Golden grains seemd to pass across her eyes. "Are you ready, Håkon?"

"Ready as ever," he said.

Hermione slammed her spear down into the ground with a crack, the runes glowed a bright blue. Håkon did the same, and a beam of magic linked them. Another further away, held by one of Laufey's trusted joined the link. Another. And Another until all it joined back up with Hermione's spear.

"Great Frost Mother, hear my prayer," Hermione said, her voice floating and far from her body. "Guide my steps that I may travel in safety across the ice and snow. Guide my spear that none may suffer long. Lend me the strength to move mountains that my people may live."

Around her, the Jötunn said said their own prayers to the Great Frost Mother, their voices blending into the frozen wind and the rushing of the water below the ice.

Crack.

Crack!

CRACK!

Giant cracks in the ice spread rapidly across the frozen ground.

Hermione called the magic to her, sensing every port-key in the chain— she triggered them all at once with a blast of magic, channeled through the core of her in a flare of electromagnetic colour.

FWOOOOOOOMMMM!

The ice heaved and cracked as the great sea-wolf whale breached through the broken ice, its great maw open to devour anything and all that remained on the surface. Its great tail thrashed, slamming into the unbroken ice, shattering it to pieces.

But there was nothing left to be destroyed. The entire encampment, every shelter and family, elder, and beast— all were gone save for the pristine carcass of a fattened seal left upon the ice where Hermione had once stood.

The jaws of the whale crashed down upon the offering as the great sea-wolf whale disappeared back into the deep, frigid sea.

As the entire encampment transported itself at once, Håkon boggled at the raw power that the smallest hunter had summoned. It was if the mighty hand of the Great Frost Mother had swooped down and moved the entire tribe's settlement in one great scoop, and perhaps he was not so far off from the truth. Every home, every person, and even the sleeping village beasts were still where they had been. The night lanterns hung exactly where they had been.

Everything— everything was perfectly in place.

Even the healer's cave had been merged flawlessly into the cliffs with perfect precision.

Thud.

Håkon turned around to see Hermione had fallen, her skin as pale as the snow she lay upon and almost blue with the cold— and Håkon knew blue was not the right colour for her— not out here. Not now.

"No," he groaned, running toward her. He scooped her up in his hands, pressing her close to his body. Long had it been since she and he were the same size. Now, he was an adult, but his caring for her had never abated. When his traitorous body told him that his mate was not her, he fought it. He drove himself out into the wastes to hunt rather than face the fact that the one he had always wanted was not meant for him.

Didn't the Great Frost Mother understand?

Without the bond to one of his people, Hermione would always be alone— She would never see the colours of the frozen wastes as they did. She would always have to wear a hundred layers of fur to stay warm in a land that should embrace her as one of its own.

She of all people—

She deserved to be one with Jötunheimr.

Especially now that she had channeled the divine power of the Great Frost Mother herself. Truly she was the chosen of Jötunheimr. Why wouldn't the Great Frost Mother chose one of them to imprint upon her? Why did he have to be imprinted on someone else? Even now, the drive to go to her burned from within, but he resisted. He resisted because that female had never once given him a kind word or even a lick of interest. Why should he succumb to the madness for Gunnvor who even after becoming a hunter sat on the ice floes spearing ice-fish instead of hunting the larger prey.

Yet he wanted her, that Gunnvor.

Oh, how he wanted her.

It didn't make sense!

Håkon hurriedly carried Hermione to the relocated healer's cave.

Laufey was running up behind him. "What's wrong?"

"She just collapsed!" Håkon said, very gently patting an unconscious Hermione's cheeks..

Tryggr bounded in behind them, mrrowling and beginning to pace worriedly.

"She needs rest!" Sigrunn yelled, snatching Hermione up into her arms and tucking her into her silken sleeping bag. The entire clutter of baby spiders and one extra-fluffy momma spider quickly filled any empty spaces in the bag to help keep her warm as Tryggr lay down close beside her, wrapping her in his huge paws and drawing her close to his warm body. The healer propped Hermione up just long enough to pour some cooled broth down her throat, chew some food and pass it to her, and then let her sleep it off as the two panicked males just stared helplessly at her.

Sigrunn grunted at them, throwing up her hands in exasperation. "She just moved an entire village, shelters and all. She's probably going to need to sleep it off for a month after channeling all that through such a tiny body!"

Laufey and Håkon sank to the ground and sat, visibly relieved.

"Oh, okay," they said together, promptly leaning back against the wall.

"Thank goodness."

Sigrunn shook her head. "Males."

"I am Bör Burison, king of Ásgarðr, and you will bow to me," the bearded Asgardian yelled across the snows as he pursued a young Jötunheimr beast that was fleeing for its very life. The shaggy red curls of the man's mane of hair were barely contained by his ram's horn helm upon his head. His light brown eyes were ablaze with fury.

Standing so tall and proud despite being in the land of the mighty Jötunn— refusing to bow before the fierce elements anymore than he would to the giants themselves.

The children were fleeing past her, back to the safety of their village.

Hermione scowled. It was the village he would never find, for she had woven the same untraceable, unmappable magic that had protected both Hogwarts and Grimmauld Place— only she had anchored it the churning fury of Jötunheimr itself— the land that never slept. She clenched her fist on her spear.

"Beast killer," Hermione hissed. "Terrifier of children," she accused. "You tread so heavily that even the whales can find you from under the deep ice. Leave this place. There is nothing for you here."

"You even speak like one of them," Bör accused. "But you are not one of them. Are you a slave to them? Did they tell you no others like you exist?"

"This is my home, Bör Burison," Hermione said, stamping her spear down to the snow. "And you have not been invited to this place, nor are you welcome here."

"I need no invitation to walk Jötunheimr, little wench," Bör snorted. "I am a king and a god!"

"You are no king to me," Hermione snorted, the runes on her spear beginning to glow in the snowy twilight.

"You will bow to me by the time I am done with you, girl," Bör said. "I give you one last chance to bow, and I will take you from this frozen wasteland. Or, I can lay waste these people who have obviously brainwashed you, starting with you."

"She will not bow to you, Bör Burison," Sigrunn said, standing beside Hermione. "She stands with us of her own free will, unlike the Asgardians who believe all should be made to bow to them. We bow only to the will of the Great Frost Mother, the very land of Jötunheimr."

Other Jötunn began to gather around the glacier, their spears held beside them as they glowered down at the Asgardian interloper.

"Leave him to the snows," Hermione said, "and let the Great Frost Mother test this god's mettle."

The winds were kicking up, blinding the field of view with swirling snow. Only the red, glowing eyes of the Jötunn showed through the blur of ice and snow.

The Jötunn wrinkled their noses in distaste and turned their back on King Bör.

"What? You listen to a puny female who cannot even grow?" a voice bellowed in the snow. "I say we crush this Asgardian! Why do you listen to some small runt who cannot even stand in the weather without clothes? She is just like HIM!" Snorre stepped out of the swirling snow, his face twisted in disgust. "An invader that Sigrunn thought to small and cute to throw back into the sea!"

"That is enough, Snorre!" Laufey snarled. "You have not even succeeded in hunting an ice-fish and you dare challenge one who has succeeded in her great hunt?"

"She is a little sorceress, not a hunter," Snorre argued. "She could not even carry a hunt back herself!"

"ENOUGH!" Laufey roared, the runes on his warclub glowing in the snow. "Let me remind you again where you stand."

"No, he is right," another voice said, and this time the gathered Jötunn, including Laufey, balked in disbelief as the Jötunn king stepped out into the snows. "Every since this puny whelp of a female has come to us, disaster has come in its wake. Snorre's father dies hunting seal—"

"How was that HER fault?" one of the giants boomed.

"The seals have become harder to find—"

"The seals move where the ice is thicker to protect them from whales!"

"The very solid ice beneath our village melted to swallow us whole—" he bellowed in return.

"The floes have always shifted! We were supposed to move many moons ago!"

"She used SORCERY to move our home!"

"With the goddess' blessing!"

"There IS NO GODDESS!" the king roared. "There are only those smart enough to live and those who die stupid!" the king thumped his warclub down, runes glowing. "Now we will smash this Asgardian into the ice and cast his body into the sea, where all puny bodies belong." He stormed toward Bör, his club raised.

"No, my king!" Sigrunn stepped in front of him. Despite his being king, Sigrunn was taller— and had she had the gumption, would have easily pound him into the snows. "Please, do not bring war to Jötunheimr."

"Get out of my way, Sigrunn," the king snarled. "It is because of you and your stupid love for a foreign runt that prevented us from going back to Útgarðr where we belong!"

Angry murmurs went through the gathered Jötunn.

"What?" Sigrunn gasped. "You purposely kept us at camp so it would fall into the sea?"

"And the survivors would have followed me back to Útgarðr," the king bit out coldly. "Back where we belong."

"I don't believe you! There were elders! Children!" Sigrunn yelled, visibly furious.

"Replaceable," the king snapped. "Just like your runt. Just like you." He raised his club to take a swing at Sigrunn.

SHIRRRRRKKKKK!

Sigrunn and the king fell to the snows, crimson freezing in pools on top of the ice, Bör's spear plunged through Sigrunn's back and right into the king's heart.

"NO!" Hermione screamed. "LOCOMOTOR MORTIS! STUPEFY! PETRIFICUS TOTALUS! INCARCEROUS!" she screeched in quick succession.

Bör's body went crashing to the ground, backwards, stiff and bound.

Hermione went to Sigrunn's side, slicing through the spear with a spell to free from the the now-dead king. "Mother. MOTHER!" she cried. Blood was trickling from Sigrunn's mouth and gushing from her chest. Hermione's hands glowed as she tried to channel her magic into the Jötunn female's body.

Sigrunn's hand pulled Hermione to her and pinned her to her side. "No, my child. My time is done."

"No! No! You're—"

Sigrunn smiled at her. "You are my daughter in all but blood, Hermione. Heal our people. You are ready. It is time."

Hermione cried, her tears streaming down her cheeks as she clung to Sigrunn's fur stole.

"I go to the embrace of the Great Frost Mother, Hermione. I will always be there to watch over you." Sigrunn coughed up blood, her hand tightening around Hermione. "You are mine, Hermione. Hermione, daughter of Sigrunn. Do not make war on Ásgarðr once Bör is dead. Heal our people, daughter of my heart. Guide the hand of our new king. He will need your wise counsel when all is done."

Sigrunn's hand enveloped Hermione. "You are Jötunn. Let no one tell you otherwise.

"I love you!" Hermione wept into her mother's fur stole, clinging to it.

"Oh, my little love," Sigrunn chided. "I love you more." With one final, ragged breath, Sigrunn was gone.

Hermione get out a howling wail that transformed into a snarl of pure, untethered hatred. She stood from the corpse of her dead mother, her eyes bloodshot red with her tears as they glowed with the fire of her pain. She stormed over to the bound body of Bör, lifting her spear high as the runes glowed fiercely in the haze of the snow.

"You deserve to die," she said coldly, her very blood and bones crying out for vengeance. "But my mother does not wish me to make war on Ásgarðr for your death. And you may thank her spirit for your life as you leave Jötunheimr. Get. Out."

Hermione released him from her spells and turned away, walking straight into Laufey, who pulled her into his embrace as she burst into tears.

Bör, humiliated and angry, pulled a dagger from its sheath and pulled it back, throwing it—

"Carnes nix aeternam," Hermione snapped, her eyes flashing gold in the gloom of the snows.

Bör, frozen in place, turned to snow, blowing away in the frigid wind. His dagger, frozen in mid-flight, clattered harmlessly to the ground.

Laufey, staring at the place where Bör had once stood, clutched Hermione even more tightly as she sobbed out her grief.

Loki touched Hermione's cheek, his thumbs brushing gently against her soft skin. His breaths came in heavy pants as his mind struggled to process the flood of memories. Her eyes stared into his, and he realised she had seen into his past— just as he had seen into hers. Was it enough to soften her regard for a foreign male who looked as Jötunn, but who knew even less than she did?

He'd seen enough to know that this petite healer was Jötunn. She may not have the skin and the eyes, the stature or the genetics, but she was frost giant, through and through, and he had known nothing at all about them. Not even one story he had been told had gone as he had been told. Not of the truth of Bör— nor the truth of the war. Nothing.

Touching her relieved the aching, driving need inside him, and his head cleared a little, provided he was touching her in some way. Whatever this bonding process was, and Ásgarðr clearly knew nothing of it, it seemed to be giving pieces of their lives to the other to fill in the blanks of each other's life, sharing the core of what had gone into the other's life.

He hoped she didn't get the memory of himself and Thor running naked covered only in flour throughout the palace halls.

Hermione snorted in amusement.

Why couldn't she have shared the memory of Thor humping the bedpost calling out Sif's name instead? That was at least amusing and didn't involve HIM.

Hermione chortled, staring at him with laughter in her eyes.

Oh no. She could read his thoughts!

"If I said I truly wanted you and only you, would you believe me now?" Loki asked, trying very hard to think of his mother's favourite fountain, filled with her flesh-eating Pira fish. Only the Pira all had Hermione's face, and he really wanted to pick one up and cuddle with it. Oh, fuck. He was freaking done for.

For a moment, just as a thought escaped of what it would be like to run his tongue along her skin, he caught a glimpse of her pondering what it would be like to feel his mouth on her breast.

Oh… really?

Hermione flushed.

Loki pressed his forehead to hers, a low resonating growl in his throat. "Hrrrmione," he said her name as he ached for her, more now that he had managed to get a crash course in her life and what made her even more alluring. Apparently learning about him had done the same to her, wearing down her resistance to him like waves against the the rock.

His biology told him with no uncertain terms that she was the one, the only, the very reason he was put into existence, but his mind— his mind struggled for consent lest he go down on her like a heathen beast who cared not for her feelings— not that he wouldn't devolved and go there anyway after consent.

Loki's eyes widened as his own thoughts appalled him. Hermione's pupils went wide, nostrils flaring, breath coming in pants. Yet she still resisted him. She still turned her face away, refusing to look him in the eye and make that last step into the Abyss. Why?

And then the answer came with a flood of disjointed memories.

"Filthy Mudblood."

"You're a bloody ice queen aren't you, Hermione."

Clumsy groping in the dark.

Painful grabbing of her breasts.

"Come on, Hermione. Live a little."

Not like Viktor. Not one bit.

"You tell me, da? Tell me if you… not like it."

"It's okay," Hermione whispered.

Viktor's black eyes were warm, despite their colour. "Safe to touch here, nothing I cannot handle. Touch lower, it harder to control. If you want to be safe, is okay. Understand, ok?"

Hermione nodded nervously.

Viktor's warm breath tickled her neck as his hand touched her belly as he whispered something in Bulgarian. A strange tickle fluttered in her abdomen. "No obligation. Say no, if you mean no."

Hermione smiled at him.

"Now, if you want to drive man mad, put hand here. Mouth here," Viktor guided her hand lower and her mouth to his neck. "Practice do same time-AH! Like that."

Hermione giggled a little, flushing.

He panted a little, his teeth fastened on her neck as his hand roamed her body, gently caressing her breasts and moving lower until her legs spread by by themselves, seeking his touch without even knowing it. He placed a kiss on her mouth, moving in to seek her tongue, coaxing it out to play. Hermione moaned slightly, and he moved her down onto the furs he had enchanted.

By the time he had finally entered her, she was more than ready— eager, even. There was very little pain, and even that was driven away by his warm embrace and hot passion. He muffled her scream with his mouth, laughing softly as she clawed at his back with a ferocity she hadn't known was in her.

They had coupled many times, each just as passionate, yet he never once pressed her further than she wanted to go, but thanks to his gentleness and compassion, she trusted him. He was kind, generous lover, and she was glad it was him that had been there for her.

"You really are just a frigid little bint of a bookworm," Ron snarled at her, his red face wrinkling in disgust. "I bet you wouldn't even know what to do with real cock if you saw one, not that you wouldn't just faint dead away if you did."

"Mudblood."

"You're a worthless know-it-all. What can you do other than spout useless book facts?"

"Come on, 'ermione! Tell me how your date with Viktor went! Did you get down to it?"

"Ginny!"

"Tell me, 'ermione! Is he hot? Is he bigger down there?"

"What kind of question is that!" Hermione squeaked, mortified.

"Oh, come on! Tell me something, otherwise I'm just going to assume you dumped him and went out under the tree to read that stupid book of yours."

"It's none of your bloody business!" Hermione hissed furiously.

Ginny sighed. "Look, if you didn't really go out with him, just say so."

Hermione gave Ginny a flabbergasted look. "I don't believe you." She stormed out of the Gryffindor common room and headed down to the library.

"Well, did she shag him?" someone asked as the portrait hole closed.

"Naw, she's still the bloody Virgin of Gryffindor," Ginny said sadly in reply.

"Oh! Oh my god. Håkon! Can you just— cover yourself up!"

Hermione threw him his loin cloth.

"Hermione, why are you blushing?"

"Because you're— oh Merlin, Morgana, and Hecate!" a very red-faced Hermione hastily covered her eyes.

"There is nothing here that you and everyone else hasn't already seen!" Håkon snorted.

"How can you just be so… so… blasé about it!"

"Blu-what?" Håkon said, boggling at her odd word.

Hermione closed her eyes, switching back to Jötunn. "Blasé!"

"Oh, why didn't you just say that?"

Hermione threw up her hands, then squeaked, covering her eyes again. "There are just some things I really don't want to know, okay?"

Håkon tucked himself back into his loincloth and shook his head in amusement. "You have some pretty odd hangups, Hermione. The people in your former world must have been really stuck on themselves."

"I don't think that was the issue," Hermione said. "And if they were here, just whipping it out to take a piss might make vital parts fall off!"

Håkon just rolled his eyes at her. "If you can't even stand the cold long enough to take a piss, how the hell do you take one? Soil your own cave? Disgusting."

Hermione sighed. "Humans weren't exactly designed for living in subzero wastelands, Håkon."

"You're doing okay."

"I'm not exactly normal."

"Well, I for one, am glad you aren't," Håkon said. "I cannot imagine having pieces of you falling off every time you go outside."

"Håkon!"

"One day, when I am a hunter, and you are a hunter, I hope you get over this strange fascination with covering yourself."

"Not likely, considering that it's bloody freezing out here for me."

"Under the right conditions, you may change your mind."

"What the hell are you talking about, Håkon?"

Laufey rapped Håkon soundly upside the head. "You. Go hunt for your mother."

"Yes, Laufey," Håkon grumbled, shuffling off.

Laufey sat down beside Hermione, sighing. "I think it's time for you and I to have that awkward talk. The one I had when my father grabbed me by the belt. dragged me off to the ice floes and threatened to drown me unless I listened to him."

Hermione eyed Laufey. "That sounds… comforting."

Laufey snorted. "Håkon is getting older— old enough that he may succeed in his first great hunt and not get himself killed, unlike Snorre."

"I don't think Snorre is ever going to get anything more than a great ice-fish," Hermione muttered.

Laufey shook his head, rubbing his temples. "Anyway, there are some things you really need to know, especially since you've been around long enough to grow up as most of us would, or, well— become hunters. Males of our species—fixate."

"You mean like Steinar and his rock collection?"

"No, he's just odd," Laufey snorted. "I mean— Great Frost Mother— we imprint on a female that is to be our mate or, well, the one that the Great Frost Mother believes would be our ideal mate. Once it hits there is nothing more alluring and more perfect to us than she is. We are utterly driven to claim her, prove ourselves to her, and, with any luck, we will start touching skin-to-skin. IF she allows that, those first touches initiate the forming of a bond. Shared memories, emotions, life— and the female can either accept us or deny us depending on how great or awful we were at the proving part. Then we spend about a week in seclusion making sure there is a child on the way and come out married."

Hermione stared at him with wide eyes. "No ceremony, just— married?"

"Well it's not like anyone is going to doubt we're mates at that point—" Laufey said rather awkwardly. "It's a very intimate process, and the female is vulnerable. We get a little possessive and growly about protecting her, erm, from anything that might break the bond in its infancy."

Hermione was silent for several moments. "Um, not that I don't appreciate the lesson, but, why are you telling me this, Laufey?"

Laufey sighed. "Because Håkon may be a hunter soon, and when he is— he may suffer from the imprint. The one he imprints on might well be… you."

"WHAT?" Hermione screeched. "Have you not seen the slight difference in size that would make such activities basically impossible?!"

Laufey thumped his head against his hands. "The Great Frost Mother gave our people a very special gift. When we find the one we wish to make our mate, and she is willing to accept the bond, at some point during the bonding process, she undergoes— or he, depending… anyway— they go through a change in which they turn into a Jötunn, specifically a frost giant. If they weren't already one of us in the first place, of course. Ahem. Pregnancy seals the change and makes it permanent." Laufey shifted uncomfortably. "I'm telling you this to prepare you, just in case— Eventually, Hermione, there will be hunter who looks upon you and is instantly smitten, body and soul. He will not be able to think of anyone else but you. I want you to be prepared, but not afraid, when it does happen. And I have no doubt that it will. I don't want you to think that the Great Frost Mother is some kind of sadist, Hermione."

Hermione was silent. "Well, at least she thinks ahead?"

Laufey snorted. "Are we good now? Can we go back to talking about seals and grunting about 101 ways Snorre might meet his end before his thousandth birthday?"

Hermione laughed. "Of course."

"Thank the Great Frost Mother," Laufey said with feeling, throwing down a plump seal in front of Hermione. "That's for your mother."

Hermione grinned, pulling out her ulu. "I know just how she likes it."

Loki looked into Hermione's eyes, his crimson eyes glowing as he placed a finger under her chin, forcing her to look up at him. The vision of her awkward conversation with the one known as Laufey gave him some insight on his obsession with her. It was a relief to know that he wasn't going mad— well, any more mad than was expected— over a female. Asgardians most definitely did not have this imprinting thing going on, but then again— Asgardians didn't make Asgardians out of their mates, either. Hell, they had problems even figuring out who their mates were, provided they weren't part of an arranged marriage.

"It's you that I want," Loki insisted, holding her gaze with his. "More than anything. I can feel it in my very bones. Please, do not judge me solely on where I was raised or believe that I might judge you wrongly based on some strange notion of having dirt in your blood. You've seen my past too. How I never truly fit in." He brushed her hair away from her face and pressed his mouth to the skin near her earlobe. He let out a heated breath, his eyes practically rolling back into his head as his cheek lightly grazed hers. "Will you have me, Hermione?"

Loki, suddenly remembering something he had heard in her memories, whispered into her ear in Jötunn, "If I am not sincere, may the Great Frost Mother swallow me whole where I stand."

Hermione shuddered against him, her hands pressed against his face as her fingers traced the runic circles on his forehead. Her eyes closed as she ran her fingers down every curve. "Yes," she whispered at last.

Loki's response was utterly primal, and he descended upon her at once. His back arched, muscles rippling as though they would split and some other creature would burst forth. His runic markings glowed brightly as he attached his mouth to her neck as his hands slid down her body. His ruby eyes glowed in the darkness of the cave as he clamped down on her skin, his hand moving between her legs. The moment he found the spot he was looking for, she arched into him with an almost-scream. Her legs parted, back arched, and neck flexed.

He growled deeper, biting down harder as he moved his fingers between her legs, giving her the delicious friction that she craved. She trembled against him, her body going through spasms, and he pressed his body flush against her, reveling in the heady feel of her against his skin. She was whimpering, crying— her voice heavy and needy. Glowing runes started to trail down from where he was biting her, moving across skin like the writhing of snakes. She was convulsing against him, and he held her tightly, keeping that essential skin-to-skin contact that he knew they both needed. Blue was spreading down her neck and up her face, consuming and transforming it. At first, it was but a light blue, but as it spread, it became darker and more concentrated. Bright glowing patterns spread across her skin even is brighter ones raised up as the runic markings wove themselves over her skin like a tapestry.

Hermione was panting, her hips grinding herself into his hand, and he found that somehow he had lost his trousers and his pants. With a wicked smile, he positioned himself and instantly buried himself within her. She screamed, her body arching, her nails dragging down his back. He thrust himself into her again and again, finding her desperate rhythm and matching it, knowing that there would be no lasting— she was calling out for him, and he could only obey.

He looked into her half-lidded eyes as she gazed up into his. With each insistent thrust, the crimson light within grew ever stronger, setting her eyes on fire with the glow of twin red suns.

"Mine," he managed to say, bringing her to the edge as he struggled to hold on, fighting back his own imminent release.

"Yours," she agreed, moaning raggedly. Thousands of tiny starlike markings glowed on her skin, arranging themselves like the constellations from some unknown, alien world.

He thrust strongly one final time and felt himself give way, but her body clamped around him simultaneously. Loki let out a loud cry of almost agonising rapture as he suddenly saw stars. His arms went around her, clamping her tightly to him as their bodies merged into one— body and soul. Hermione's body thrashed wildly, her legs kicking out as the wave of cobalt pigment tore through her triumphantly, signalling the beginning of deeper, unseen changes within. The cascading wave of shared pleasure rippled through their bodies, and they collapsed in a panting, boneless heap even as the sweet oblivion of the bonding sleep dragged them both under together.

Down in the village, King Laufey tilted his head and smiled. "Mmm, finally."

Håkon just shook his head. "Lucky bastard," he muttered.

Laufey shoved Håkon off his seat. "Håkon, you need to go find that female of yours, walk up behind her, and give her a hug. Preferably whilst naked and carrying a large seal carcass."

Håkon slumped.

"NOW!" Laufey bellowed.

"Yes, my king!" Håkon spluttered, grabbing his spear and heading out to the icy wastes.

Laufey shook his head. "I swear if we didn't spell it out for them, some hunters wouldn't know what to do with a female, even if she bit him on the face."

Magnus passed Laufey a smoked fish. "Maybe he needs some of that," Magnus suggested.

"You didn't require any coddling to figure it all out," Laufey snorted.

"Neither did Hermione," Magnus said with a mischievous wink.

"She always was the bright one," Laufey noted fondly.

"Ach," Magnus sighed. "Håkon has been in love with Hermione ever since the day she fell on him. It must be hard for him to comes to terms with the Great Frost Mother's choice to not pair them together."

Laufey poked the smoking fire with a stick and grunted. "Give them a week to seal the bond and we can figure out who our new friend is and why he arrived so very… short."

"Seems the perfect size to start for Hermione," Magnus observed.

"Not that I doubt her ferocity, Magnus, but I really would like to be able to hug her properly with my arms and not just my hand."

"You're not the only one, my king," Magnus chuckled. "We have many elders in the sidelines, just waiting to pounce her the moment she 'mates with a fine young specimen of Jötunn manhood'."

"Are they taking bets on their children yet?"

"Always," Magnus said with a shake of his head.

"What's the best bet?"

Magnus smiled. "Female first, born runty but beats the males in everything but the pissing contests."

"Harumph," Laufey said with a sniff.

"You have another idea, my king?" Magnus asked.

"Firstborn male, second-born female. Full-sized to term," Laufey predicted.

"Really? Twins on the first go?" Magnus looked rather dubious. "She's a tiny little thing. That's a lot to ask, even for the fierce hunter she is."

Laufey snorted. "The Great Frost Mother may surprise you yet, Magnus."

"Oh, don't pull that elder cryptic stuff on me, my king," Magnus snorted. "One day someone is going to guess right and it won't be you."

"There is a reason I'm king," Laufey pointed out, smirking.

"No one else wants the job?" Magnus muttered.

Laufey just rolled his eyes. "Don't you have a mate to impregnate?"

Magnus sighed. "She's out teaching Gunnolf how to fish."

"Still hasn't figured it out?"

"Still gets tangled up in the net."

"Him or the fish?"

"Yes."

"Well, at least it's not your mate anymore."

"Erm…"

"Go out there and teach your son how to fish, you lazy sod," Laufey said, pushing Magnus off his seat too. "Before he tries to catch a seal and ends up in the ocean!"

Magnus grumbled. "Yes, my king," he said, taking up his spear and shuffling off into the wastes.

Laufey shook his head slowly. "Kids."

"What do you mean you knew?!" Ron yelled at Harry.

"Of course I knew! You don't think I'd just randomly come in and offer someone my invisibility cloak for no reason do you?" Harry yelled back.

"She was going back to save fucking SNAPE!" Ron accused as if it was Harry's fault.

"On Dumbledore's orders, and you didn't see the memories, Ron. He wasn't the horrible selfish jackass everyone thought he was!" Harry exclaimed. "Now you bloody tell me where the hell you sent Hermione!" Harry's face was red with anger. His wand hand trembled as he held it out, wand tightly gripped in his hand.

"You're going to point a wand— at me?" Ron spluttered in disbelief. "After all I've done to help you out?"

"I just watched you cast someone into a swirling vortex that looked like it opened up the sodding arctic, Ron. So excuse me if I'm more than a little leery about where you'd send me if you get a twig stuck up your arse!" Harry yelled. "Hermione got permission from the Department of Mysteries to do this one last task. It was sanctioned!"

"Fred was far more important that that greasy git!" Ron blurted. "My mother is crying every day over him. George can barely get out of bed. You can't tell me that isn't more important than some greasy-haired wanker!"

"You want to know why we won, Ron?" Harry hissed dangerously. "Because Professor Snape made sure we got the Sword of Gryffindor. He even led me to it with his Patronus. You want to know why we survived? It was because of Hermione. You want to know why Hermione was almost always prepared, no matter how stupid we were? It was because Snape taught her. McGonagall taught her! I saw the letter Dumbledore gave her. Dumbledore has had our backs since the beginning, and he had a request for her. She had a mission to do, and you— what the hell did you DO, Ron?"

Ron crossed his arms petulantly. "That frigid minger is where she belongs."

Harry's face twisted in pure disbelief. "What the hell, Ron? You wanted to marry her!

Crack!

Crack!

Crack!

People dressed in pristine white robes and elaborate headdresses that covered their entire heads, a black blindfold across their eyes, and a distorted, grotesque plate of some sort across their mouths stood in a circle around Ron and Harry, their wands pointed squarely at Ron's heart.

Crack!

Amelia Bones stepped out from behind the Unspeakables, her eyes dark and unreadable.

"By authority of the Department of Mysteries, you are under arrest for your willful corruption of time-altering magic without authorisation. Ronald Weasley, your specific magical signature was detected tampering with an unauthorised time stream stemming from this point," Amelia informed him.

Ron paled. "You're supposed to be dead!"

Amelia's eyes narrowed. Her wand glowed brightly as she performed an intricate-looking sort of tracing spell.

The door opened as Bill and George pushed their way into the room.

"We have the papers for you, Hermione," Bill said. "George put together a care package to tide you over until you can merge back into our time— Amelia? What's going on?"

Amelia gestured to one of the white-clad unspeakables, who pointed a wand to their face and hissed some sort of incantation that sounded disturbingly like Parseltongue. The headdress fell away.

"Ronniekins done fucked up the plan, bro," Fred snarled, his freckled face scowling darkly.

Ron looked from Fred to his brothers, to Harry to Amelia, and from the Unspeakables to where Hermione had once stood.

There was a stumble at the door as Neville fell in, carrying a bulbous, toothy, irritated-looking plant with him. "Hey Hermione, I got the plant for you. It should neutralise any poison that you—uh, I swear I didn't to it!" he squeaked to the Unspeakables.

Amelia Bones turned to a shockingly pale Ronald Weasley. "You have a great deal of explaining to do, Mr Weasley.

Loki's eyes opened slowly, and he felt a strange lethargy in his body. He stretched out his legs experimentally and frowned as his feet touched the cave wall. He pulled Hermione close to him, smiling as she pressed into his body in her sleep, seeking out his touch. Her beautiful cobalt skin shimmered with glowing patterns and runic raised markings like a tapestry. A light, silken blanket covered her, and Loki noticed the brightly coloured spiders moving about in Hermione's hair. Strange that they seemed— much smaller than usual.

Did the baby spiders have… babies?

As much as it grieved him, he decided he had to relieve himself, and he patted around for his pants and trousers only to find them— shrunken in miniature.

Loki eyed them. Normally HE was the God of Mischief, and he didn't remember pranking himself. He eyed the spiders somewhat suspiciously. "Did you make me 'new' trousers?"

The multi-coloured spiders scattered about frantically and formed an arrow pointing toward—

Oh, there were his pants and trousers.

"Thanks," Loki said, putting them on. Oddly, they felt so much more comfortable than before, new even.

He leaned in and kissed Hermione on the forehead, pushing himself off the sleeping furs and stumbled out the entrance to the cave. So intent was he on relieving his bladder, he didn't even notice the Jötunn sitting at the entrance to the cave, one hand soothing the ears of a giant frost-sabre as the other rubbed the belly of the Jötunheimr beast— at least until he turned around.

The Jötunn eyed him appraisingly, his spear cradled in the crook of his arm, and Loki recognised him immediately from Hermione's memories.

"King Laufey," Loki said, stunned.

Hermione's feelings for Laufey were strongly loyal and undeniably the love one would have for a close family member. Loki found he didn't feel threatened by him, nor did he have the drive to protect his mate from him, both of which gave no small amount of relief. Hermione's memories of him were clear. She was good with a spear. Great, even. But Laufey had taught her.

Laufey's eyes raked over him, and Loki could almost feel the burn of them grazing across his skin. Then the elder Jötunn's eyes widened. "I see you have readjusted to our climate and have returned to your proper size," Laufey said calmly. "There was some speculation on the cause of your unusually small stature."

Loki blinked. He looked down at himself and then over to Laufey, the gears in his mind working overtime as he looked around him for someone, something familiar by which to judge his current size. But everything looked perfectly normal.

But wait. This was Jötunheimr. Everything was larger than life—

Frost giants were huge. That was a given. But if that was true, why did this King Laufey seem normal-sized? Just like himself?

A small smile tugged insistently at Laufey's lips. "Please allow me to help… put things in perspective." He stood up.

Loki found himself now able to look the king in the face.

The Jötunheimr beast regarded him, standing up and stretching lazily. Laufey rubbed the beast's head, and Loki began to put two and two together and got an irrational imaginary number.

"How?" Loki boggled.

"The snows and cold are our natural environment," Laufey said calmly. "We thrive here when all other humanoid species must cover every inch of their bodies and virtually hide themselves away. We, like the beasts that call this place home, are much larger than life when compared to the other realms. But, if we were to be in a warmer place, we would soon shrink down to size— our bodies being far too hot to sustain the size that protects us from the bitter cold, but not the heat. The other giants, they live in Útgarðr— hiding from the cold because they know if they were to come out here in the frozen wastes, they would shrink, their bodies responding to want of the warmth that we shun."

"But, I am Hermione's size," Loki protested.

Laufey chuckled. "No, young one. She is now the size of the rest of us at last. As it should be."

The frost-sabre, which Loki found slightly intimidating even with his new and improved size, gave a rumbling purr and bounded towards the cave flap and pounced inside. Hermione's voice exclaimed, "AHHOOOF! Tryggr! ARGH!"

Tryggr dragged Hermione out like a freshly-caught prey animal, and Hermione wrestled with him, tumbling out the mouth of the cave in a sprawl of blue and white.

"Eeee!"

"Tilt!"

"Mayday!"

Multicoloured spiders clung desperately to Hermione's hair and neck, trying to maintain a scarflike formation.

Tryggr flopped himself on top of Hermione, pinning her down and licking her hair, ruffling it up into a strange sort of curly cowlick.

"Gah!" Hermione moaned. "A little help here?"

"I'm rather enjoying this," Laufey said, chuckling deeply and extending his hand to her.

Hermione huffed as she pulled herself up, mumbling. Then she froze. She touched Laufey's hand, staring as her hands surrounded his. She looked up into his face, the realisation she was no longer staring at his belt buckle in the way a normal Jötunn would look at his face. "Laufey?"

"Finally, your body matches the size of your heart, Hermione," Laufey said warmly, extending his arms to her. "May that I could but hug you at last with something more than my hand?"

Hermione gave a joyful cry and flung herself into Laufey's embrace, and the elder giant held her closely. He gave a great sigh of relief. Tryggr mrowled and shoved his huge head in-between them.

Hermione laughed, throwing her arms around the huge cat's neck. "I can ride you again!" she cried, hugging his neck tightly. She threw herself onto his back and the great sabre bolted across the floes with Hermione clinging to his back.

Loki had to stifle an immediate sense of longing as he watched the cat and his mate disappear off into the snows.

"She will return," Laufey said, immediately understanding the source of the younger male's distress. "She always does. And Tryggr, well, he'll always take excellent care of her. Just as Bjørn here does."

The Jötunheimr beast whufted, rolling on his back to get a belly rub.

"I will confess that he looks much cuter when my size is not fit to be crunched in his mouth," Loki said after a moment.

Laufey chuckled. "I would imagine that is no small amount of relief to you."

Loki looked skyward. "It may be."

Laufey sat down again, his face lined in concentration. "Loki… what do you remember of your past? What was told to you?"

"You know my name?"

"Everyone in the village knows your name… now," Laufey said, his garnet eyes sparkling with unmistakable amusement.

Loki realised what the elder giant meant and flushed a vivid purple. "Oh."

Loki sat down, shuffling his legs like a nervous teen facing his girlfriend's father for the very first time.

"I… only remember Ásgarðr. I grew up with Thor. We were brothers. I never quite fit in, so our mother— Frigga— taught me magic. I became quite good at it. Life was peaceful, but I was engaged to be married— the day I came here was the day before I would be wed to Lady Sigyn. Somehow— she knew what I did not. She called me a filthy Jötunn, a monster— a freak. She drove her dagger into my gut and pushed me into a whirlpool, probably thinking I'd drown, but it spat me out into the Bifröst, and the Bifröst brought me here."

"And what is your opinion of the Jötunn now?"

Loki looked down at his own hands. "Notably better than it was before," he admitted.

Laufey sighed. "Jötunn wear their families on their skin, young Loki. Relations are as simple as looking to the tapestry that Great Frost Mother gives us. You will notice that your mate has distinctive markings."

Loki's eyes widened. "They are like yours."

"No, Loki. She got her markings from you," Laufey said, letting that thought settle in.

Loki frowned, his face crinkling as he slowly digested that. "That means that I— you…"

Laufey closed his eyes, and looked out over towards the distant sea. "Shortly after the death of Sigrunn and the death of our previous king, war came to Jötunheimr, regardless of how much we might've wished otherwise. I'm sure you have some memories that your mate shared of that time— but what she never knew was that in the war that followed, my mate and our unborn son were buried in the rubble of the winter palace— the inherited abode of the previous king. The Asgardians leveled it, believing myself to be inside, but I had been out on the floes at the time, ensuring that our borders remained secure."

Laufey turned to Loki. "She perished. I felt her— go. I was… delirious, caught up in the madness of grief, of the death of our bond. I walked out into the frozen wastes and mourned for a great many moons, barely able to remember my name. Hermione found me there, literally forced food down my throat. Cleaned me up with her magic because I stank so badly. Had Bjørn drag me places because I wouldn't move. Then, in perhaps a year or a few years— I had not counted, nor had I cared, I finally came back to my senses again. Hermione had led our people in my absence. She kept them hidden— safe from those of Ásgarðr. She saved them, not with war, but with stealth. It was because of her that I even had people to come back to, and when I did, she returned the sabre-tooth of the king back around my neck and said not one further word about it."

"I thought— I had lost everything that day, Loki. I believed I had no family left. I realised that day, coming back to a village full of thriving people, that I had almost willed myself to death and left my daughter in all but blood alone, but she had never given up on me."

"And now, she is my daughter-in-law," Laufey said with no small amount of pride. "And I feel I must go and slaughter the fatted seal and leave it for the Great Frost Mother in thanks for not sending death to meet me before this wondrous revelation could come to pass."

Loki was silent, his brows furrowed in thought. "All-Father brought me back to Ásgarðr."

"And raised you as his son, I would guess," Laufey sighed. "I fear, had he not done so, you would have fared no better with me. I was not— could not— function at the time."

Loki closed his eyes, struggling with a myriad number of emotions.

"I imagine, growing up in such a— warm— climate masked your true nature, and I— would also imagine that Odin would have preferred you never have known, lest you should think of yourself as you did the moment you discovered yourself to be Jötunn — a monster."

"Well-meaning or no, he knew that the general belief is that our kind are nothing more than heathens and barbarians— and in his heart, he may also believe us to the murderer of his father, Bör. But— if Odin did indeed carve you from your dead mother's womb to save your life, perhaps there is hope for him to rise above his father's malice and wanton cruelty."

Loki snorted, coming to a realisation. "Perhaps this was better. Not in that I did not realise who I was or even what— but that had I been taken in by you in such a bad state, I would have most likely been raised by Hermione, and that would have proved rather awkward."

Laufey laughed. "You are probably right. Or Håkon would be a very happy Jötunn." Laufey's expression turned serious. "Be assured, Loki. Once the mating bond is sealed, no Jötunn, not even Håkon, would dare to challenge you. That is not our way. Håkon's history with Hermione is quite long and compassionate. They would have perhaps been siblings in another life— or a very old couple arguing over the migration of seals."

Loki spluttered.

A bounding giant saber-cat screeched to a halt, panting heavily as Hermione jumped off his back. She hugged the great feline and ruffled his fur, earning herself an enthusiastic series of rough tongue baths. Multi-coloured spiders bounced up and down on his head.

"Yay!"

"Again!"

"That was fun!"

"Wheee!"

Hermione smiled tiredly, her legs shaking a little. Loki was there in an instant, his arm wrapped securely around her waist. She leaned on him, a tired yet serene smile on her face.

"The bond will take a few days to set unless you happen to be extremely fertile," Laufey said with an amused, knowing smile. "Until then you must always remain near, preferably in physical contact, or the changes will begin to degrade. Here, in the heart of the people, it is less likely so, but in case you were thinking of traveling, I would postpone any such plans until later."

Loki touched Hermione's cheek. "Not likely."

"Well, let me give my new daughter-in-law a hug before you set yourself to work on my grandchildren, hrm?"

Hermione's eyes almost bulged out of her head. "Wha—?"

"Look in a mirror, my daughter-in-law," Laufey chuckled. "We are related through my son. Long lost… and now found again."

Hermione stared at Loki and then back to Laufey, the gears turning in her head almost audibly only to grind to to a sudden halt with a screeching sound. She flung her arms around them both, hugging them tight. She grasped Laufey's head and pressed her forehead to his, a warm brush of familial magic shared between them.

"At last I have a family again," Laufey said quietly, "and am now able to embrace them properly. You have always been a daughter to me, Hermione, and now you are my daughter by marriage. I could not be happier or any more proud that this is so."

Laufey removed a sabre-claw necklace from around his own neck. "This I made for my youngest son, who I long believed to be dead. It seems only fitting that it comes back to you now." He placed it around Loki's neck. "If the frost-sabre ever attacks you on the floes, and you are not allowed to call Tryggr a wild frost-sabre—"

Tryggr looked up and snorted, baring his teeth.

"If you have not already had your first great hunt, only two things you need ask the Great Mother for. The sabre teeth. One for you and one for her. Pray to her that she may gift you with the knowledge of the runes that go upon them as you give her the rest of your kill. This one time, all but the twin teeth go to her. But this will wait, for now, until the bond is sealed, and She Who Watches Over Us will know and understand."

Loki nodded, his eyes filled with emotion.

"Now go," Laufey said. "Impregnate your mate in glorious consummation. I will leave food by the cave entrance until you can crawl your way back to the tribe, laden with my grandchildren."

Loki and Hermione flushed deeply as Laufey shoved them back behind the hide doors and closed the flap, weighing it down with a rock.

"Mrowl?" Tryggr said.

"Mrfff," Bjørn replied.

"We stay with you today?" the baby frost spiders asked.

"If you wish it," Laufey said with a kind smile.

"We can spin you a scarf!" the spiders suggested.

"Silk loincloth?" another suggested.

Laufey shook his head in amusement. "Whatever you wish, my fluffy little friends."

"Okay!"

They crawled up Laufey's hand, up his arm, and arranged themselves around his neck like a rainbow-coloured stole.

Laufey smiled. Times were changing— for the better.

Loki stared at his blue hand as it curved around Hermione's waist. The glow of her markings seemed so incredibly beautiful to him. Her body seemed like a work of art that should be exposed for all to see just how glorious it was— how perfect. Suddenly, just how little the frost giants wore seemed to make a lot more sense. Their glowing markings against the blue skin— glowed against the snow's fierce radiance. Jötunn vision made them stand out like beacons in the frozen wasteland.

How had such beauty been missed?

How had Asgardian society become so biased against the Jötunn race?

Had it really been so simple as King Bör believing himself superior, attempting to conquer the Jötunn races, and then his "disappearance" spurring on a long, costly war based on retribution for something that was Bör's own fault ?

Had the All-Father and the Asgardian warriors seen how the real event had played out, would it have made a difference?

Rumour had it that sometimes Odin woke up calling out in his sleep for his father to leave him alone. It always came during the winter months— specifically with the snows. It was often said that Odin was always trying to find a powerful sorcerer who could dispel a great and powerful curse that had been placed upon his father— but perhaps there was rather more to that than merely rumour.

As he stared at the fluctuations in the deepening colour of Hermione's skin, Loki couldn't help but marvel at what a great a gift this Great Frost Mother had given the frost giants. The forbidden romances with mortals or basically non-Asgardians seemed an utterly moot point. You'd always know if the love was a true bond, or the transformation would not occur. But, the imprint— if it was truly given by the Great Frost Mother, Herself, then the chances of being imprinted on one that wasn't compatible was pretty slim. As for hunting ability, well, that was a different thing altogether.

Hunting. Now how was THAT going to go over?

Loki was not a hunter, technically, because he hadn't succeeded yet in his first great hunt. That made Hermione the adult in the relationship and himself embarrassingly like a was, if but a little, like Snorre, and that wouldn't do at all! No one wanted to be like Snorre: the Jötunn who'd been a ruddy child for almost two thousand years.

Thor did have his share of moments— but even Thor had more sense than than Snorre.

Seal dung had more sense than Snorre.

A small voice from the furthest corners of his mind protested, "Why should you even care?"

Loki frowned. "It matters to these people," he answered himself. "It matters to HER, and if I'm going to find my happiness with her, then I bloody well will care!"

As he looked around the cave, he realised that even with his upgraded size, the inside was spacious and large enough to accommodate the both of them, two very large animals, and quite a few others, if Hermione were to have sick or wounded to tend to. Thankfully for them, there were no sick or wounded at that given moment or they might have the free show of their lives. Loki had the feeling that Jötunn had seen it all before and so weren't fazed by too much. From Hermione's memories, they pretty much did exactly what they wanted, whenever the mood struck and wherever they bloody well chose to do it. Hermione had a particularly mortifying memory of Håkon and herself walking into his parents' shelter to get a game and having to walk right by mum and dad getting it on. Jötunn kids just walked right by, got whatever it was that they wanted and went back outside without so much as batting an eyelash. Hermione, however, had been traumatised for days.

After spending over a thousand and some years believing himself purely Asgardian, he could only relate to the degree of cultural shock that might have caused. Intimacy of a sexual nature usually happened beyond and behind closed doors. Well beyond and very much behind. Even Thor at least took the females to the privacy of his bed instead of throwing her down on the bar table or going at it in the palace hallways. Mind you, what you might HEAR from Thor and said female, even behind closed doors, was another matter entirely, but at least you didn't have to actually see them going at it.

Jötunn, on the other hand, only had eyes for their mates. And if you happened to be enjoying your mate's company out on the ice floes, well, any other Jötunn in the vicinity just privately hoped the couple didn't end up falling into the ocean due to sheer enthusiastic abandon.

But, what about adolescent experimentation? A tiny voice in the back of Loki's mind protested.

How DID that work?

Hermione obviously wasn't asking and either did very well not noticing on purpose or not noticing because it didn't happen. Loki knew from his own experience that the sexual act, no matter how pleasurable it might be, did not automatically lead to a mating bond, so— maybe there was SOME experimentation out there until the imprint smacked the male upside the face and said "Your female is over THERE, stupid!"

Loki cast a sideways glance. Not that he would have ever had that issue. Cough. Not at all. I wasn't almost married to a homicidal maniac woman who would have shanked me in my sleep no matter how good the sex was…

What if he had married to her?

Then what?

What if he'd met Hermione after he'd been married?

Would that have even BEEN a marriage?

Would it have worked?

Hell, would his male plumbing even work for her?

And considering that real arousal seemed to bring out the blue in him, he had a feeling Sigyn would have tried to murder him one way or another.

He'd had his share of lovers through the years, but it had never been accompanied by that driving, fire and ice need. That had been the gift of his Jötunn biology. Yet, with it came the greater gift of being able to claim Hermione as his true mate— making her his more than just emotionally.

Hermione yawned and snuggled into him, and Loki purred as he fastened his mouth to her neck, gnawing a little to get to just the right spot before—

Hermione cried out as he clamped his teeth on her skin, sending intense rivulets of magic and pleasure coursing throughout her body. Her arms flailed out, and he wrapped himself around her.

"Hello," he rumbled, humming as he mated his marks fully to hers.

"Hnnnggg!" Hermione groaned, her body still trembling against his. "Loki… "

"Yes?" he replied, rubbing his cheek against hers.

Hermione jerked suddenly, using her legs to wrench him off her and roll him over onto the furs. She pinned him down with her body as her hands clamped over his wrists.

"I want you," Hermione growled. "Right. Now."

Loki's eyes widened in absolute worship. "Yes, ma'am."

"You, dinky. Get out of Snorre's spot," the big lout of a Jötunn male said as he tried to loom over Loki.

Loki, spear in hand, narrowed his eyes in annoyance. Snorre was not a hunter, nor was he trying to be one, as all he had was a fishing net, so the rules were a little hazy. Adults, when possible, yielded to children so the children could learn— but if food was on the line for a family, hunters always trumped children. Loki, however, was still a "child" by societal standards. That put him on equal ground with Snorre.

Deciding that he would get nowhere with the big lug scaring away the seals, Loki moved to a new spot and found a new breathing hole to station himself by. Not far away, Laufey was carving himself a new spear, having given his old one to Loki for him to use on his hunt. As father and son, it was a tradition for the father to hand down a spear to their son for their first hunt, and it was considered a great honour if your spear broke during that first hunt, to be given along with the carcass to the Great Frost Mother. Hermione, however, had carved her own, having no blood relation in which to gain such a gift— but Loki had a feeling that Hermione's spear would not break very easily, if at all. It was imbued with her spirit and tenacity, and even more so her deep faith in the the Great Frost Mother. Even after her change, the spear had simply grown with her. One day, if they had a daughter, that daughter would gain the most powerful spear a young hunter could get, one that had been blessed by countless hunts and prayers.

In time, Loki would carve his own spear, based on the runic carvings on his father's, but that would not be today. Today, he had to prove to his mate that was a hunter and to the tribe that wasn't a child. And as to the Great Frost Mother, to She he had to prove he was not a disrespectful imbecile.

With Hermione so near, Loki did not feel the discomfiture that he would have experienced had he tried to go out and hunt without having fully sealed the bond between them. For now, their bond was stable, but the all-important pregnancy had not yet occurred.

Soon, he knew. Patience, like waiting for the seal.

Laufey, of course, made it look easy.

Hermione, of course, made it look like magic. The seal practically leaped up into her arms and cried "Have me, oh goddess! Take me into yourself!"

Loki would settle just for bagging a seal, well, secondary to it not being an embarrassingly small representative of its species.

Hermione was ice-fishing. She had already prepared and dressed the carcass of her catch, setting out choice pieces for the Great Frost Mother in thanks for the catch and in thanks for her new mate, both of them seemingly equal in importance. He supposed that wasn't so hard to relate to. If you didn't eat you were dead, and then what good were you to any mate?

Hermione had also dressed and prepared Laufey's catch too, skinning and filleting the fish with the ease of a true professional. Laufey looked on proudly, realising that his teachings had not fallen on deaf ears. She had already started to smoke a rack of ice-fish, and it smelled absolutely delicious. Sadly, he could hear Snorre smacking his lips as noisily as possible, and he really wanted to see a wild frost-sabre appear to take a piece out of the Jötunn's rear end. Even if he had to transform himself into one in order to make it happen.

No, no he wasn't going to engage in his usual pranks, despite how much he really wished to. This was far too important for him to risk botching it with misunderstandings. He couldn't bear to see Hermione hurt even THINKING that he wasn't taking their mating seriously. He would never do that. He'd just discovered his real father— biological father— well, one of his fathers. Loki rolled his eyes. Things were… really complicated.

This seal hole was just starting to freeze back over. Laufey had said not to bother it unless it truly froze all the way over. The sound of the ice being broken could scare the seal away faster than any whale.

Oh, and there were the whales.

The sea-wolf whale was a monstrous, terrifying beast, often known as the very will and force of the Great Frost Mother— the soul of Jötunheimr itself. Even the smallest of them spanned further upwards of 36 meters in length, and that was at least three to four times longer than a full-grown adult Jötunn was high. And that was only the very smallest of their kind!

Only idiots underestimated the sea-wolf whale— many preferred to overestimate the massive creatures, as being wrong after running away was far better than ending up dead. They hunted and ate the largest of seals by breaking through the thickest of ice, smashing into with their bodies, and then engulfing their prey whole in one fantastic swallow.

It was, truly, the smartest move to run for land when one saw even a hint of the great shadow looming just under the ice. The smartest knew never to go too far out from solid land, no matter how tempting it might be, because reaching land was the only thing that could save you from the ever-hungry sea-wolf whale.

The old village that Hermione remembered had been surrounded by the great glacier for many hundreds of years— safe from the melts and safe from the whales. But over the years, the glaciers shifted, and the roots of it had changed, allowing the ice under the village to be exposed to current. Current brought warmer waters, and that thinned the ice below. The insulative ice that had protected them from the whale's attentions had slowly been whittling away at the village's safety zone.

Hermione had moved her people just in time, and the Great Frost Mother had rewarded her for her faith by reminding her people just how easily the land could change and swallow them up.

Suddenly, Loki saw a shadow moving towards the hole, and he got his spear ready, bracing himself on the ice. "O, Great Frost Mother, guide my spear directly to its heart that my prey does not suffer but that my family will eat well," he recited the words, remembering the warmth in Hermione's memory as she said them. "Protect me with your icy embrace that I might know mercy both from the beasts and the fury of Jötunheimr herself. I am but a lowly young hunter, struggling to survive and to feed my family. Please bless me with your divine vision that I might carry you in my heart another day."

He opened his eyes just as the seal burst from the breathing hole, bellowing in terror. He saw, or rather felt, Snorre as he was bounding towards him with a determined look on his face. But Loki wasn't paying attention, not truly, for below him moved a shadow's shadow. The massive expanse of fathomless black swam in the great, frozen deep, and an icy chill ran up his spine.

He might be a god— but these creatures were god-eaters.

If not the very hand of a true god, without the magically-imbued hammer Mjölnir, Loki knew that even Thor would have issues if those great jaws came hunting for him.

"Run, Snorre!" Loki yelled, grabbing his spear and hoofing it toward the shore. Hermione and Laufey had set up camp firmly upon the solid ground, far enough away not to attract hungry, opportunistic sharks. He saw them both suddenly stand up, staring at him as he ran as fast as his feet could carry him. Seals were scattering in all directions, desperate to get to the rocky shore and beyond, their desperate barks and shrill shrieks of terror loud enough to near-deafen him.

"Snorre, get to the shore, NOW!" Laufey barked the order over the chaos.

Loki hit the shoreline in record time, not stopping until he was on his hands and knees, panting harshly next to the small fishing camp. Hermione pulled out her spear, and Loki felt the rise and flare of her magic as she prepared to fling a spell at Snorre. He could feel that she was gathering far more power than she usually did, and he was reminded of how she teleported an entire village in a single night. He pressed his hand into hers, and his magic flowed and wove itself with hers, their twin markings glowing brightly.

But just as Hermione was preparing to release her spell, the great sea-wolf whale burst up through the ice, snapped its jaws ard Snorre and flung him bodily towards the beach. The whale roared as it slammed down as it pulled itself up on the shore using its disturbingly clawed pectoral fins. Its body tore into the ice, shattering it glass, spraying chunks and shards in all directions as clouds of steam rose up from the beast's blowhole. The beast used its rostrum to scrape the loose sand and rock from the shore, its rear flank slamming hard into the ground even as the flukes smashed into the water causing water to crash in a massive wave across the shore.

And then, the beast rose up, unnaturally, as if one would rise from the floor and pull off a covering, and the head of the beast seemed to deflate and pull back away from a gargantuan Jötunn female with hair as white as the pristine snows and an intricate crown of ice wreathing her head. Mist swirled around her body like a robe of gossamer silk.

"Snorre, son of Steinar, I have watched over you since the time of your birth. Your father died a hunter. Faithful. True. He was killed not by nature but by war, and so I have watched you, waiting for the time you would go on your own great hunt and say the prayers that your father did— and that your mother does. But you did not. You have killed your seals in secret, hidden, uncelebrated, that no one knows of your deepest shame— your selfishness. You gorge upon the hard work of others. You feed off of your mother's pity, and today— today, you would sabotage your fellow's hunt that their misery might be like your own," the Jötunn goddess' nose wrinkled in unmistakable disgust. "Since the seal was your first great kill, hidden in your gluttonous greed— foolishly wooed by your dead king's words that there were no gods— I shall give you flippers that you may drag yourself upon the ground but so you have a fighting chance to avoid the sea-wolf whale in the water. I shall also give you fur that you shall always be clothed. I will give you sharp teeth that you might hold on to a fish if you can catch it. But lastly, I give you my Mark, a mark of Shame that all hunters will know to avoid you, to not to hunt you and that all predators might easily see and chase you. This is my divine judgement. This is my will. This is your punishment, Snorre, son of Steinar."

"May none feel guilt for your sake, for your end is of your own making," the goddess commanded as Snorre cried out in agony as his body twisted and convulsed. Sharp canines sprouted up from his gums as his face pushed out into a muzzle. Long whiskers sprouted out from his face as his bulging eyes moved to the sides. His ears shrank as his arms compacted and grew into fore-flippers. Fur grew over his skin as he collapsed heavily onto the ground, his legs fusing together as his feet flattened and connected into hind flippers. A wailing bark came from his mouth as a bright, glowing, fluorescent pink sigil was emblazoned upon his head and back: a sigil in the shape of the great and mighty sea-wolf.

"Laufey, Hermione, do approach me," the goddess said, the fury in her blazing eyes having been replaced by calm.

Tentative but obedient they did as she bid, unknowing of what punishment they might endure for an act of disobedience or disgrace they had yet to be reminded of. Both knelt before the goddess, careful to look away from her face.

"You may look upon me without fear," the goddess said kindly, her fury now gone. You have kept love and prayers within your hearts even when life was darkest and most cruel. You, Hermione, found faith where none had dwelled before, and you chose me and my people to warm your heart and give you a home. I heard your prayers upon your first hunt, and I hear them still, with every hunt you give to me, every prayer upon your spear, every whisper for strength in the face of danger, every thanks no matter how small. I have seen your great compassion— rescuing a clutter of spiders drifting away on the ocean waves, tending a wounded Jötunheimr beast, moving a great encampment not for fame or glory, and forcing food down a grieving father's throat, refusing to leave him to die alone. I have seen your fury, righteous and grieving. And even when your grief was legion, you did not kill the enemy that had caused it. And even your punishments have a touch of my divine justice."

The goddess dipped her hand in the ocean, her fingers dripping with glimmering sea water. She traced a crown and sigil upon her forehead. "You are mine, Hermione, daughter of Sigrunn. I claim you as my priestess that you may always remind my people of my will, support them whenever they are troubled, and bring my justice to those who think themselves above any law they have not made themselves. You are bound to me eternally, as is the great sea-wolf whale. This is my will. This is my desire. Will you accept this duty— this calling?"

"Yes, my goddess," Hermione said, tears flowing down her face.

The goddess pressed her lips to Hermione's forehead. "None may take from you what I have given."

"Laufey," the goddess said. "A great many pains have come into your life. Your love for Farbauti was strong as the very permafrost. You have suffered more than most yet you continue on. You sit with the common man. You drink with the common person. You lead, you comfort, you defend. You are not perfect, but you do not pretend that you are, nor do you make excuses for it. You adopted a daughter into your heart, even when your gut told you to cast her into the ocean for being small and defenseless. I give you two things, Laufey, king. I give you my Mark that all may know that you are faithful, and I give you the peace in knowing that you shall not be alone forever. There will come a time when love will find you again, and it will not be a betrayal. It will be a celebration that life continues on, even for you."

The goddess drew her fingers across his head as her mark glowed from his skin, painted in the very pigment of his skin.

SQUICK!

Loki's spear thrust swiftly into a fat, panicked seal that had frantically attempted to flee back to the ocean and instead ran directly into Loki.

"My goddess," Loki said with a bow of his head, "I give to you the fattened seal of my first great hunt that give my thanks for the finding of my mate, the teachings of my people I never knew until now, for guiding my spear to the heart, that my prey need not suffer. This hunt is yours, Great Frost Mother, as am I."

The Jötunn goddess' lips turned up in amusement. She passed her hand over the carcass and pulled off the hide. It formed into a belt and the distinctive loincloth of the Jötunn people. She passed her hand over his body, and it appeared in place of his trousers, giving quite a flattering view of his assets, Jötunn style.

The rest of the seal she took and flung into the far seas.

VOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

The great sea-wolf whale breached where it had landed, and the carcass was quickly dragged into the depths of the freezing sea.

"Your offering is most acceptable, young Jötunn hunter," the goddess said kindly. "May your hunts be plentiful and your prayers often."

The goddess dipped her hand into the sea and pulled up a handful of spiky frost-urchins from the sea floor. "A gift for you, Hermione. You will crave them, soon enough."

Hermione's eyes widened, but she bowed her head respectfully. "Thank you, my goddess," she said.

"Do not feel guilty if you do not wish to share this time, Hermione," the goddess said with warm amusement. With that, the goddess stepped away, allowing the water to almost swallow her up as she pulled her whale "skin" back over her head. The great sea-wolf whale breached and her mighty tail slammed into the cracked ice running along the shoreline. The vaguely familiar-looking seal sporting a bright pink sea-wolf sigil went careening head-over-fins into the sea along with the tossed iceberg— and then went zooming off across the ocean surf in a panicked flee from the great sea-wolf whale.

A/N: Snorre deserved it.