*BANG*

Sitting on the lone chair in the library of the Black house Loki read about a topic he had been postponing learning about for a while.

This avenue of magic had opened up after he'd become a Sequence 8: Swindler.

And yesterday's incident where he witnessed someone's memories being altered right in front of him had left Loki a little rattled.

Overall Loki felt he should've started on this avenue earlier but, 'Better late than never.'

Closing his eyes, Loki tried doing what was written in the book with a focused expression.

He closed his eyes and did his best to feel his own body of heart and mind. Since he'd already felt Sunny's body fo heart and mind, it was not very difficult this time to feel his own special layer.

With a clear mind, Loki moved his focus towards cogitation and once he entered the zone he slowly shifted his focus deeper within himself.

At some point after when Loki felt his heart beating, his blood flowing and his lungs expanding and contracting his focus suddenly shifted to something deeper. It felt like his skin was feeling something, but no longer on the outside, but something on the inside.

It felt like he had all of a sudden adapted to a body that was within his own, like a dwarf that was living inside his shell of skin.

Loki opened his eyes, figuratively, and he 'saw' everything around him. It was empty, remarkably so.

'This is my Body of Heart and Mind?'

Seeing everything so neat, clean and tidy, Loki got the feeling of looking at the first page of a new notebook, something that one would like to do their best on so that it would look dignified.

All of a sudden however the space was blasted with all sorts of pictures, videos, sounds, static and everything he could ever remember all at once.

'I better come back here when I know what I'm doing.'

With but a thought, Loki was back to controlling his physical body.

And sitting on the chair, Loki flipped the first page of the book that dealt with coming in contact with his Body of Heart and Mind and moved on to the more exciting contents on the next pages.

'How to protect your mind.' Loki read.

[To protect your mind one must first learn the ability to keep the mind clear and devoid of all distractions. This is essential so that during a mental invasion you can focus better on the runes you draw to protect your mind and not on the invasion itself which would accomplish nothing.]

[To pass this stage, you must first spend a hundred minutes in your mental space without allowing any disturbances to form in it and keep it in the most pristine condition possible.]

'Huh. Seems easy.' Loki thought and closed his eyes to visit his body of Heart and Mind once again, appearing in the area that seemed like a blank canvas ready to be painted on.

The first few seconds, like the last time, were clear.

The trouble started only after those first few seconds.

'Why is there a bus in my mindscape?'

'The Knight bus?'

'Damn it! Now there's even Stan Shunpike! And why's there Professor Snape? Woah!!! Is that Amon!?' Loki thought with a worried look as he imagined a man wearing a monocle appearing in his mindscape.

'Wait! Why am I getting distracted? I need to imagine a clear mind! Like the fresh pages of a new notebook!'

'Huh? Why is there a notebook here now?' Loki thought looking at the book floating in front of his face.

'Damn. I can't even imagine how I want my mindscape to look like, because even that is just an imagination.'

'This is going to take a long time, isn't it?'

Time passed and Loki continued to spend a bit of his time every day working on clearing his mind but he remained largely unsuccessful, leading him to conclude it was going to take him all year to develop any of his mental defences.

Until then Kreacher's necklace had to do.

Soon Loki spent all of the second month spending time experimenting with his newly gained proficiency in runes along with building his mental shields.

He occasionally corresponded with Hermione who discussed with him the syllabus for the next year and once also with Dominic, who said he got a job in the Auror office from where he expected to be promoted to the unspeakable's department in another few years.

This was a task that Kreacher had done for Loki using the Black Family resources. According to him, it was not all that difficult to get Dominic a job that would lead into the Unspeakables since he was from one of the twenty-eight nobles of Britain and was a Slytherin while also being a Head Boy.

During this time, Loki also sent several letters to Professor Snape to help him deal with what he was going to be doing this year at Hogwarts.

Snape seemed to be a little apprehensive at first, but when Loki explained to him that this would take his time so Snape wouldn't have to make him attend detention every day, he relented a little bit.

'Aww…It seems like Professor Snape hates my detentions and here I was looking forward to spending more time with him this year to ask him doubts about potions.'

Eventually, as the end of the month approached and Loki got confirmation of his plans from Snape, he sent an invitation letter to Hermione so that she could join his plans since what he was planning was not possible to achieve alone, at least he didn't think so.

"Huh. Now that I know what I'm going to be doing this year at school, I should see if it'll be safe enough for my business venture."

Going above the grey fog, Loki sat down on his chair and summoned the Topaz pendulum to himself.

'There will be trouble at Hogwarts this year that is life-threatening.'

'There will be trouble at Hogwarts this year that is life-threatening.'

'There will be trouble at Hogwarts this year that is life-threatening.'

…

'There will be trouble at Hogwarts this year that is life-threatening.'

Loki opened his eyes and rested them listlessly on the pendulum that was spinning clockwise with great speed.

'*sigh* another stupid story from 'Adam'?'

'What is he doing anyway? Trying to advance to Sequence 0 by completing the required ritual?'

He tried divining about it but couldn't gain much insight into it.

Loki thought about the happenings of the last year and concluded and few things.

'Last year, I probably played exactly as he wanted me to. Although there weren't any coincidences that involved me. There were about the people around me. Hermione coincidentally fell sick. Harry coincidentally came to look for me even though we didn't know each other well.'

'I'll make sure the same doesn't happen this year.'

'But not like I can do much about it…unless I just reject whatever Harry his red-headed pet wants to do that involves me?'

Soon the day to board the Hogwart's Express arrived and Loki was escorted to the platform by Kreacher.

"Goodbye Master.", Kreacher said with a short bow.

Loki left him with a nod and Kreacher vanished with a soft *pop*.

Loki was already late since he'd gotten up late in the morning after spending a rather embarrassing amount of time trying to figure out Dominic's spell-casting trick of weaving one spell into another last night.

He still hadn't learnt how to do it easily, especially since he still couldn't fluidly control his spirituality outside his body, it was a jittery mess and usually resulted in both the spells colliding together and blowing up in his face.

'It seems like Professor Flitwick was right, it might be a little dangerous to experiment with magic on my own.'

'Well, at least I avoided the worst of it by using Arithmancy to predict some of the disastrous combinations.'

Loki had used Arithmancy to predict which two spells he could use to try the experiment with, without suffering disastrous consequences. He'd ended up with the levitation charm and the Engorgement charm, two very harmless charms that didn't have much firepower.

Although a little explosive, trying this out also helped improve his control over his spirituality outside his body and it substituted for an exercise instead of trying to burn pages with his spirituality.

Looking around, Loki finally walked up to the barrier between platforms 9 and 10 and pushed through.

*BANG* *HOOT*

"OUCH!! That hurt!!! What the heck!!?" Loki cursed as he rubbed his forehead and his nose.

His trunk along with Rowley in his cage and his cart had all turned upside down along with him as he sat there on the ground as a stream of muggles moved around him while sending troubled glances his way.

'Why is the barrier closed already?'

Loki looked at the station clock and there were still five minutes before closing time.

'Damn you 'Adam'! This school and its irresponsible staff will be the end of me!'

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