Surprise.

Looking at the map with the help of the Lumos charm Loki focused his attention on the Defense Against Dark Arts classroom.

Specifically how it was currently empty even when it was closer to midnight.

'Professor Lupin is in the Hospital Wing?'

'What is he doing there? He seemed to be fine this morning, well fine except he looked really tired, a little more than everyone else in the castle.'

'Well, not my problem for now.'

Stepping out of his room, Loki began to walk under the blanketing cover of darkness that had invaded the entire castle while also using his illusions to keep him covered for good measure.

It wasn't long after that Loki reached the Defense Against Dark Arts Classroom, but he couldn't get inside right away.

'A lock to prevent someone from opening the door with magic?'

Loki pulled out a random coin that was lying in his pocket and tapped his wand on it. He transfigured the coin into the most appropriate tools for the situation by transfusing a little bit of spirituality into it.

A pair of lockpicking items, one rake to pick the pins and one flimsy torsion wrench for applying tension to turn the lock.

Inserting the items an orange spark shot out of the keyhole causing Loki to recoil his hands in shock.

'He charmed it against lockpicking too!?'

'Why would you even do that!?'

Loki quickly pulled out his map to see if the wards on the lock had alerted Professor Lupin. Matching his expectations, Loki found Professor Lupin had gotten up from his bed and was now speaking to Madam Pomfrey.

'Damn. It did warn him.'

'I've got seven minutes if I want to do anything.' Loki thought thinking of the approximate time it would take one to reach this office from the Hospital Wing.

Looking down at the lock Loki *sighed* and after spinning his shoulders a little he decided on his next course of action.

'Let's break it.'

'I haven't been reading about wards for no reason after all.'

'The damn thing better help me now.'

Spreading his spirituality over the lock Loki stared at the complex array of runes that came into view.

The runes were all arranged in a strong formation, orbiting the handle.

'Alright, there appear to be three sections.'

'The first one sends a warning.'

'The second one prevents the use of a spell to unlock the door.'

'And the third one prevents physically forcing the lock open.'

Loki studied the pattern of the runes floating and immediately used his eloquence to spot all the flaws in the structure and began to make a plan to break into the office room.

'I won't need to be stealthy in my attempt since I've already alerted him.'

'I just don't need to leave behind any evidence that it was me.'

Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Loki pulled out his wand and began to work his magic.

Well although it seemed like a delicate task, Loki was brute forcing his spirituality through the ward.

All he had to do was apply enough pressure at the flawed points in the ward and everything about it would collapse like a house of cards.

His spirituality slowly escaped from the tip of the wand, forming the outline of a thin sharp needle that slowly began to fill and become hard. When he was done making the needle, Loki pushed forth with all his strength, attacking the runes that meant union and link and were holding up the entire array.

This was the weak spot Loki had found. A weak link because while it linked two different sections of the runes, it was weak itself, meaning Loki could pry it off with enough leverage.

As soon as Loki's spiritual needle weakened the array, however, there was a setback. The structure broken by weakening the link would magnetically set itself back into formation with everything else and become whole again.

It was acting like water. Loki's attacks created splashes but they were only temporary before the water's surface stilled once again.

A fourth layer emerged from within the core of the array.

'A self-healing layer?'

Loki became frustrated because the way the fourth layer was made, clearly indicated it wasn't to heal the array structure but to delay for time so that Lupin himself could arrive at the scene, which was why it was hidden from view until the array was attacked.

It was meant to only delay and not stop the attacks because it ran on spirituality that Lupin had prefilled into a battery-like container hidden inside the structure.

So once the battery would become depleted, the structure would fall apart under Loki's attack.

Loki immediately changed his strategy and launched a relentless attack on the lock, triggering it in every way possible, causing the ward to have to heal itself continuously.

And within a few minutes, Loki was done and a satisfying *click* was his reward.

Loki pushed open the door and walked into the office and instead of looking around, Loki immediately rushed towards the window at the back of the office.

Looking out the window, Loki stared at the infinitely black lake and calmed himself, before performing the short ritual he'd come up with.

He focused on the riddle that Salazar Slytherin had given him and spun his wand to make a positive circle in the air while looking at the Black Lake.

With each circle of his wand, Loki grew more and more anxious. His heart beat faster rate while sweat appeared on his brows, but Loki remained focused.

Except when the third circle finished nothing magical happened, no, nothing happened at all.

The Black Lake did not part, the air did not grow colder or warmer and not even the window creaked. Absolutely nothing was different from a few seconds earlier except the Earth having spun a little.

Loki instantly felt disheartened.

'*sigh* I guess you don't win at everything all the time.'

Loki stepped back and turned around but as soon as he did his blood chilled.

The person in front of him looked like a wizard too.

He wore leather boots, had a robe on his back that reached his ankles and wore a large pointed leather hat on his head.

Except that was not the thing that Loki was most focused on.

It was the golden circle ring with a glass in it, a monocle, that was on his right eye that grabbed all of Loki's attention.

"We meet at last. I've been waiting for you." The man nudged his monocle a little before giving Loki a warm friendly smile as he spoke calmly. "You don't know yet, but I've already parasitised you. I'm only here because you've gone rouge."

Loki's body started to tremble simply because of his presence as words refused to escape his lips.

The only thing that Loki was able to speak was the word, "Amon."

"The one and only, in the flesh.", Amon said doing a polite bow while tipping off his hat at Loki.

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