A Riddle Of Two.

Loki stunned at the revelation, didn't realise when the Arithmancy class ended. He only moved from his place when someone near him accidentally elbowed due to his illusion hovering slightly below his head.

'*sigh* I guess there's only one way to find out what's going on.'

Loki walked out of the class and searched for Hermione, but he couldn't find her anywhere near the crowd that had just left the Arithmancy classroom.

So he did the next best thing he could think of and pulled out the Marauder's map and located her using that instead.

But he soon noticed a discrepancy, while there was a Hermione Granger in a classroom close to him, there was another Hermione Granger in the North Tower.

'Huh? How did she reach the North Tower so soon?'

'Who is this new Hermione?'

'And isn't that the Divination classroom?'

Loki quickly disillusioned himself and followed the location of the Hermione closer to him and when he walked into the classroom she was in, he found her finishing her homework and doing nothing else.

Although puzzled, Loki quickly followed the other Hermione on the map who was in the North Tower and made sure he'd cross paths with her.

Soon, Hermione came into view once again, she was with Harry and Ron this time walking out on the steps that led to the Divination classroom.

'How did she attend the Divination class if she was in Arithamancy just now?' Loki wondered.

'Polyjuice potion?'

'But wouldn't the map have revealed their real name? Or can it be fooled easily?'

Without letting Harry and Ron notice, Hermione walked away from them and went into an empty classroom where after looking around herself to make sure there was no one else apart from her, she pulled out the chain that was around her neck.

Giving Loki a clear view of the hourglass casually hanging from its centre.

It had golden sand trapped inside it and was very small, about a centimetre or two in length but looked professionally made and emitted a glowing aura that felt in tune with how much Loki's instincts valued the object at.

It felt like it was priceless.

'What is that?' Loki asked himself.

And as he looked closely at Hermione he suddenly felt something tickle the back of his mind.

'Why does she look so similar to Hermione when I first met her outside the Great Hall?'

'Her hair's all a mess.'

'Wasn't she setting her hair when I met her?'

'Perhaps…' A crazy idea sprouted in Loki's mind, an idea he wasn't sure was possible, but he was still tempted to believe.

Acting purely on instinct he slipped the cigarette box that he had picked up from the corridor outside the great hall into Hermione's pocket after sealing it in a wall of spirituality so that it wouldn't be noticed easily.

'What's going to happen now?' Loki thought and waited patiently, wondering what Hermione was about to do next.

But the next moment as soon as Loki stepped back from Hermione, she spun the golden hourglass in the centre of her chain, then, she vanished.

Within the blink of an eye, Hermione vanished from the spot she was just standing on while Loki was just left standing there with his mouth hanging open.

'She vanished?'

Loki immediately pulled out the Marauder's map and to his surprise, there was only a single Hermione on the map once again.

'Where did she go?'

'What happened to her?'

Loki became confused as he started believing the absurd theory in his head a little more.

'No, no. I need to make sure that what I am thinking is actually happening.'

'No way they let a student just use such a thing to attend classes randomly!'

Loki attended the rest of his classes during the day and began to keep an eye out on the Marauder's map throughout all of them.

At the end of the day, after dinner, Loki walked to the library and began to look through various enchantment item books to find out what the object he had seen on Hermione was.

But unfortunately, not even the book titled, 'One Thousand and One Legendary Magical Items' had one of those. However, Loki did learn that wizards had their own version of the lawn mower and toasters.

Impatient to find out more, Loki sat down and wrote a simple letter to Randolph with a drawing enclosed to ask him whatever he knew about the object.

Loki hoped he would know about it if it was a highly regulated item.

But Randolph hadn't responded to him immediately and sent Rowley back empty-handed, so Loki assumed Randolph needed to figure out what the object was himself and needed a bit of time.

Waiting for the response granted Loki a week and so with nothing else to do, Loki spent his time doing two things, keeping an eye out on the Marauder's map to see exactly what was happening with Hermione and secondly figuring out all the possible solutions to the riddle Salazar Slytherin had left for him.

Loki had also paid attention to Hermione herself, more than the girl realised and Loki began to notice certain discrepancies in her which she hadn't noticed in herself.

Hermione pretended to be very forgetful these days, sometimes she'd pretend to know exactly what was going to happen, like a prophet and other times she'd act oblivious to a conversation you had with her a few hours prior.

It was a mess. But it was a mess that was confirming Loki's suspicion about what was going on, more and more.

At the end of the week, during the evening, Loki saw a large grey-horned owl flying down from the portal to the spirit world in the skies, landing right on the large tree he was sitting under beside the Great Lake.

It dropped an envelope that it was carrying in its beak, allowing Loki to take and open it.

'Loki!'

'How nice of you to contact me.'

'I've been a bit busy with the Firebolt's launch and hence forgive me for writing a letter as short as this one to you.'

'Everything is alright with me and Mr. Fawley. We are doing fine if not at our best due to the stress of replicating the beautiful patterns you made for the Firebolt onto other brooms.'

'I hadn't recognised the object you sent to me in the form of a drawing, but worry not since Mr. Fawley immediately did.'

'He told me that those are what are known as Time-Turners.'

'They are strictly regulated by the Unspeakables, people who work in a department in the Ministery that deals with Beyonder matters and secrets, and are hard to come across naturally.'

'Time-Turners are objects that can mess with time and according to what Mr. Fawley has heard, allow its wearer to travel through time. (Though if you wanted my two knuts on the situation, I don't think that's possible.)'

'Take care of yourself Loki and hope you're having fun at Hogwarts, let me know if you need any help!'

'Hope to see you again next summer.'

'With warm regards,'

'Randolph Spudmore.'

Loki closed the letter and immediately burned it with a simple Incendio charm and scattered the ashes into the wind so that no one else would ever learn of the letter without using Beyonder means.

All the while there was only one thought in his mind, 'Time travel.'

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