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Generally, Tony tended to think that he should have argued with the Sorting Hat more and insisted on being put into Ravenclaw. But from time to time, something happened that made him recall the Hat’s statement that ‘he certainly had the mind for it, but none of the personality’ and had to agree that, yes, the ancient thing had a point.
Ironically enough, it was most often when he was at odds with his housemates that he was most aware of his Gryffindor qualities.
Take right now, for example: he turned a corner and saw Thor bothering his younger brother, for the umpteenth time. There was, maybe, some small Ravenclaw part of his brain – it sounded a lot like Bruce, even though this was actually Rogers’ line – that was telling him he needed a plan of attack.
But the vast majority of his brain replied like he always did: “I have a plan – attack.”
With this in mind, he simply walked towards Thor and said: “I’m pretty sure I heard your lil’ bro say loud and clear he wanted you to leave him alone, Point Break.”
Thor scowled at him. “This doesn't concern you, Stark. It’s a family matter.”
Unfortunately for Thor, he didn’t know this was one sentence that was really never going to go well with Tony.
“Hmm,” he said. “And I guess you think family matters are private and no one should be allowed to interfere?” He asked.
“Exactly,” Thor said in a hard voice.
“Well, unfortunately for you, I have only one thing to say to people like that: fuck. you.”
Thor straightened to his full height, which was not negligible, and turned to him, ignoring Loki for the time being. “What did you just say?” He asked.
“I told you to fuck off, Thor, surely it’s not a difficult concept to parse-”
And there it went.
It was the thing about Thor: he was extremely powerful magically, but absolute shit at controlling his powers. While other students got over any trouble with control by their second or third year, here Thor was in his seventh and still throwing huge temper tantrums with lighting flying all around.
Tony ducked the predictable discharge, and immediately turned to his own, much better controlled speciality: fire.
It looked like they were going to be throwing down for quite a while, but then, of course, predictably – Steve appeared.
“Thor, Tony!” He shouted. “Stop it! Do you want to lose us all the points?”
When that got no reaction, he decided to interfere.
Now, Tony knew perfectly well he could take him, but he was less certain he could do so without doing any permanent damage. And in spite of everything, he didn’t want to do any permanent damage to these two idiots, so reluctantly, he withdrew, and let Steve deal with an angry Thor, drawing him away.
Once he was alone in the corridor with Loki, the younger boy turned to him and hissed: “I don’t need your help, Stark.”
Tony grinned at him. “I know you don’t, but honestly being able to tell Thor to fuck off is a chance I just could not let pass me by.”
At those words, Loki relaxed a little, and Tony waited for him to head out before he fell into step beside him.
“Why is Thor so insistent, anyway?” He asked. “This was like the third or fourth time I’ve seen him bothering you in spite of you clearly saying you wanted nothing to do with him.”
“You spent over six years in one dormitory with him and you still think Thor is a person who backs off when he is told to do so?”
“Fair point,” Tony had to admit. “Still, this seems a little overboard. True, I don’t have siblings, so...”
“Count yourself blessed,” Loki muttered.
“Trust me, I do,” Tony assured him. “Every day. Especially when I see Thor.”
Loki snorted. “No House loyalty, eh?” He asked.
“No,” Tony said plainly, “but I thought that was widely known about me?”
It wasn’t that Tony hated his house, exactly. He just hcouldn’t stand a large portion of the people in it. As it stood now, there were ten of them in the seventh year Gryffindor boy dormitory, and three of them were big personalities: Tony, Thor and Steve. Back in their first ear, they’d divided the rest of their dorm mates among themselves: Thor was friends with Volstagg, Hogun and Fandral, Steve with Bucky and Sam, and Tony with Rhodey and Happy. There was also the girl side of their house, rather slim in their year, but Steve had his precious Peggy there, and Thor had Sif.
On the face of it, it would seem Tony had the least allies, but he had something the other two lacked: the ability to make friends in the other Houses.
Well, to be entirely fair, Steve had plenty of acquaintances and admirers in Hufflepuff, but Tony had friends there too, and he had even more in Ravenclaw and Slytherin.
So in their first year, the three Gryffindor boys had divided their year between themselves, and as time progressed, they began to divide the whole school.
As it stood now, the entire Gryffindor was separated into three sections: the goody-two shoes, who loved Steve, the brainless jocks, who adored Thor, and those who actually loved fun and had a sense of adventure and mischief, who were associated with Tony.
He supposed they must keep the appearances for the outside relatively well, if Loki didn’t know, but on the inside, it was all but an intra-House war.
Thor had the most allies inside Gryffindor, but no one outside. Steve had many Hufflepuffs behind him, and somewhat mysteriously, Natasha from their year in Slytherin, something Tony never did quite figure out. Maybe she thought he was hot? But she didn’t seem the type to base her allegiance on that.
On the other hand, Tony knew perfectly well why Maximoff from Slytherin’s fifth year was allied with Steve, and it made him slightly sick.
At any rate, just in their year, Tony had Bruce – one of his best friends – in Ravenclaw, as well as Vision, Maya Hansen and Helen Cho, and he would have totally had Jane Foster if she hadn’t fallen in love with Thor of all people. He had Pepper in Hufflepuff, another very good friend, along with Mantis and Groot. In Slytherin there was Stephan Strange and his whole group of followers, plus Rocket, Gamora, Nebula and Hope.
And there were lots of younger kids, like Peter Quill and Drax in Gryffindor’s sixth, Peter Parker in fourth and Harley in third.
He wished he could claim Carol Danvers, but there were some people who just stood above all school hierarchies, and she was one of them. She was the third Gryffindor seventh year girl, so it would have been nicely symmetrical had she allied with him, but she instead declared the whole thing a macho bullshit show and focused on her Quidditch skills, which were leagues above anyone else in school.
Tony tried to tell himself he should just be glad she didn’t ally with Steve or Thor, even though the idea was pretty absurd. In spite of her Quidditch proficiency, she was far from a stupid jock, and while she was kind of a goody two shoes, she was from from that particular self-righteousness Rogers’ ilk boasted.
“It is true that you have many inter-house ties,” Loki interrupted his musings, “but that is simply a smart thing to do.”
“That already shows you I am naturally inclined to reach beyond Gryffindor,” Tony replied with a grin, and Loki chuckled.
“No house loyalty at all,” he repeated. “In that case...would you consider helping me out with a little prank?”
“Depends on the prank,” Tony said, instantly interested, but also cautious. Loki’s pranks were legendary, but they were also vicious, and though Tony was always amused by them, he had to concede that sometimes they probably did cross a line.
Perhaps the most amazing part about them, though, was that while everyone knew they were Loki’s job, guaranteed by the signature green glow that always appeared, Loki never got caught.
That instantly made any cooperation with him seem even more attractive, as long as Tony could be certain he would not end up as the patsy.
“Well, Christmas is approaching,” Loki pointed out. “It would be a shame to let such an opportunity go...”
“There’s hardly anyone staying at school over Christmas though,” Tony arguedt. “The audience would be much smaller.”
Loki shook his head. “I don’t mean to attack over the break,” he explained. “No, we can use the break to plan. You are staying at Hogwarts, right?”
“Sure,” Tony replied, surprised that Loki knew. Of course, all of Gryffindor knew that he never went home for any holidays and would stay over the summer if he could, but there was no particular reason why a Slytherin sixth year should be aware.
“It’s two weeks to prepare the most perfect come-back-to-school surprise,” Loki pointed out. “I want to make it count. And given your propensity for fire magic and explosions...I think you are just the person.”
Well, who could ever resist an invitation like that? “Count me in,” Tony said with a grin.
-
Two days later, Thor came to Tony in the middle of the common room, flanked by his four faithful from their year, as he tended to be. “What is your business with Loki?” He asked.
“None of yours,” Tony replied, not even raising his eyes from the Transfiguration books he was studying.
“You were seen with him repeatedly in the last few days,” Thor boomed. “He is my brother and I have the right-”
“Yeah, you already tried that argument once with me and you know how it went. You don’t wanna destroy the common room, do you?”
Thor’s scowl deepened. “I am warning you, Stark-”
“Yeah yeah. Scram. I’m not interested.”
Thor and his clique tried a few menacing poses, but when they didn’t work, they left, leaving Tony to exchange an eye roll with Rhodey.
It took two more days for Steve to come. “I’ve spoken to Natasha,” he said, which was never a good sign, “and Loki is up to something, Tony. Don’t trust him.”
“So I’m not supposed to trust Loki, but you being all buddy-buddy with the Black Widow is fine?” Tony couldn’t help but ask.
“You know those are just rumours, Tony,” Steve said with a disappointed frown he really should have patented.
“Even if they were,” Tony pointed out, “you know as well as I do it’s all true about Maximoff, and you’re friends with her too.”
“Those were accidents when she was still a kid!”
Most people’s accidental magic in fourth year didn’t expose others’ worst nightmares, but Tony kept that comment to himself. He knew it was pointless. “You only have rumours about Loki too,” he said instead.
“Natasha’s info is solid,” Steve argued.
“Yeah, right. Silly me, not to trust the Black Widow.”
Steve gave an irritated huff. “You’re impossible to talk to, Tony. Just remember that I did warn you, and that if we lose any points, it will come out of your hide.”
Tony gave him an incredulous look as he left.
Right. Why was he stuck in this house again?
Not that he didn’t feel for Natasha – the stories said she came from some crazy abusive orphanage and that she resorted to unsavoury methods to stay afloat there. Tony really thought it was damn impressive, but well. If she wanted to mess up his plans, she’d reap the rewards just like everyone else.
Both Thor and Steve and their various allies – including Natasha, which was frankly disturbing, as she resorted to some heavy-handed flirting in order to be more convincing – tried a few more times to get him to stop talking to Loki, and all in all, Tony was damn relieved when the Hogwarts Express finally took people back to their families for Christmas Break. It was usually a bittersweet moment for him – on one hand, all of his irritants disappeared from school, but on the other, a good chunk of his friends did as well – but given the bother people have been lately, and his plans for this break, he was thrilled.
As soon as he bid goodbye to Rhodey, Happy and others in the Entrance Hall and watched them exit the castle, he turned towards the Slytherin common room. Loki, to his non-existent surprise, did not come to see his brother off, but he did wait for Tony next to the entrance to the House, just as he had promised.
“Excellent, Stark,” he said. “Now let’s get to work.”
They did.
-
By the time Christmas Eve rolled around, Tony was already convinced this was going to be the best Christmas Break of his life.
It wasn’t just Loki. Bruce, Vision and Pepper were all staying at Hogwarts, too, and Tony used it to have a great session with Bruce in a private potions lab, to have lunch with Pepper at Hogsmeade – being of age was awesome – and to try and warn Vision that maybe dating Maximoff was not the best idea. The last was a complete failure so far, but Tony would not give up.
Quill and his sixth-year gang were also staying at school, as they had every year before now, and Tony had an epic snow battle with them after lunch on Christmas Eve. It was when they were returning to the castle from it that they came across Loki. “Stark,” he said the moment he spotted Tony, sounding impatient. “I’ve been looking for you all over the castle, come on.”
He turned around, clearly expecting to be followed. Tony could feel Gamora’s raised eyebrow.
“Are you sleeping with him?” Drax asked bluntly, and Tony almost choked.
“What?” He asked. “How did you figure that one out?”
“He’s right - you don’t usually let people talk to you like that unless they are good friends or there’s sex in it for you,” Quill pointed out in Drax’ defence.
“Also,” Gamora added, “Loki doesn’t usually admit he ran all over the school looking for someone, so there’s that.”
Loki turned around at her words and they exchanged a long look Tony could not for the life of him decipher, but which resulted in her backing off – something Tony might actually have been seeing for the first time in his life.
He looked at Nebula, curious about her reaction, as she was usually the person to look at for any Gamora clues – and he was even more astonished to see her giving her sister a look of mild disapproval.
Okay, something was definitely going on here that he did not understand.
Nebula did not give looks of mild disapproval, she challenged Gamora to duels to the death, or at least grievous bodily harm Madam Pomfrey would shake her head over.
At any rate, Tony wanted to be out of this situation, the sooner the better. He could think about it later. And so he walked to Loki with just a wave towards the Guardians, and indicated he was fully ready to continue their plotting.
They walked off without further trouble, but the problem was, though...now it was in his head.
Not the plotting, that was; the sex with Loki.
And his head liked it.
It wasn’t that he had never noticed Loki was hot before. Tony always noticed when someone was hot. But contrary to what people said about him, he didn’t always act on that realization.
Some people were just too unlikeable, or too young, or just too much trouble.
And then there were people like Loki, who Tony tended to believe would literally eviscerate him if he tried anything.
There weren’t that many on the list he considered that scary while still generally liking them, but there were a few: Gamora, Nebula, Natasha – creepy information gathering attempts notwithstanding, Stephan – and Loki.
So until now, Tony had managed to keep his thoughts corralled, but one sentence from Drax, combined with an afternoon with Loki, was enough to shoot his self-restraint to pieces.
He kept sneaking glances at Loki, all the while berating himself. He didn’t even know if Loki slept around at all, or if he was into guys at all. He guessed it was a yes on the second, at least that was what the rumour mill seemed to think, but still. Rumours were wrong often enough – cue the idea that he did actually sleep with everything that moved, not just...a lot of the things, er, people.
But even if Loki was into guys, there was no guarantee he’d be interested in Tony specifically. A lot of people were, but on the other hand, Loki had never talked to him properly before, so that lowered the chances, since Loki didn’t seem exactly shy.
Tony sneaked another glance, and exasperated, Loki asked: “What?”
“Nothing,” Tony blurted, like an amateur.
Loki rolled his eyes. “You’ve been staring at me all afternoon-”
In that moment, Tony decided that if the game was up anyway, he might as well try his luck and pray he survived it. He exhaled and inhaled, to get his cool back, and then asked in his most suave tone: “What, can’t a guy look?”
Loki’s expression immediately turned cold. “Stop,” he said.
Tony raised his eyebrows. “What?”
“I can do this without your help, so if you think this is funny-”
Now Tony was just confused. “What is funny?”
“Your friend makes his little clever remark-”
“Come on, you know how Drax is!” Tony protested, then realized: “All right, you probably don’t. Drax just...says what comes to his mind, with no filter. He doesn’t really...get social niceties. He doesn’t do it on purpose, or to embarrass anyone. And anyway,” he added, picking up his cool once again, “why should sleeping with me be embarrassing? If you ask me, that’s a reason to strut! I’ve never had any complaints, anyway.”
Loki gave him a completely disdainful look. “I know you know I am a Metamorphomagus,” he said then, “but if you were hoping I would turn into a nice big-breasted girl for you-”
“Whoa, whoa, what?” Tony interrupted, incredulous. “Who said anything about a girl? I’ll have you know I never had any more complaints from guys.”
It was Loki’s turn to stare. “What?”
Tony frowned. “What what? Oh come on, don’t tell me you didn’t know? Everyone knows I sleep with everything that moves, just ask Steve. Though I guess he wouldn’t phrase it that way.”
“I have better things to do than follow your sex life, Stark,” Loki said absently. He was still staring.
There was a long silence.
“Let’s head to the Great Hall,” Loki declared abruptly when it was becoming uncomfortable. “It’s dinnertime.”
It was a little before that still, actually, but nevertheless Tony followed, wanting to escape the situation and feeling dazed and thrown out of his loop.
-
The dinner was...not exactly awkward, but not exactly comfortable either.
There were only about twenty people total, but half of them were Tony’s friends, so he should have no shortage of people he could focus on – but he could not drag his mind away from Loki.
There was a tension between them now, and it wasn’t entirely the pleasant kind of sexual tension he would have preferred. It wasn’t entirely uncomfortable tension either, though. There was just the weight of something unvoiced, and given that Tony had ended up being pretty explicit in his wishes, he was unsure what it was.
He spent some time after dinner with Pepper and Bruce, retreating to Gryffindor just before curfew, and woke to a small pile of gifts at the bottom of his bed.
He ignored the biggest one, no doubt from his parents, some designer piece of clothing or another, and looked through the rest. Bruce gave him a book on cauldron-making, which was intriguing, Pepper gifted him with a charmed diary, because she never stopped trying to teach him time management, Quill’s group splurged on some amazing stuff from Zonko’s, Rhodey sent him dragon hide flying gloves, Happy a new wand holster, Helen, Maya, Vision and Hope arranged it between themselves to get him an expensive book on alchemy, Stephan found him a rare volume on magical theory, and Peter and Harvey sent him some sweets.
And then there was the gift in the emerald green wrapping paper.
Tony had a very good idea who it was from, and so he was a little uncertain as he opened it – the chances it was a prank were higher than high.
Actually, though, it wasn’t – or not in the sense that something would jump at him, at least.
Instead, Loki gave him a print of an article about reliability of long-term spells and how to improve them. Some sections were underlined or circled, generally those that said how it was impossible to make any long-term enchantment completely fail-safe, and at the end, it was scribbled in Loki’s handwriting and green ink: 100% customer satisfaction is impossible, Stark.
Did he just…?
Tony stared at the paper for a moment, then he laughed and jumped out of bed, rushing to get dressed and get down for breakfast.
Loki was already waiting for him, smirking and wearing Tony’s last minute gift to him: a badge that said, in bright green: “Of course your opinion matters. Just not to me.”
“So, I haven’t had the time to look over that article in detail yet,” Tony began, settling on the chair next to Loki. “But I already think I have a few comments on the applicability of that research on this particular case, though I do appreciate that you have, effectively, called me enchanting...”
“Yes, Stark, you are a charming lady,” Loki said drily in response, and Tony snorted.
“Stark is a lady?” Drax asked, confused, and Tony groaned a little.
They left breakfast with Loki to go plotting, and met up every following day of the holiday for the same reason.
And during all this time, Loki continued his...well.
Tony was reluctant to call it flirting at first – it was just that his comments sometimes brushed on the topic of sex these days, which they never had before.
It was just little things, like Loki including double entendres in his sardonic commentary from time to time, or one day when they met in the morning remarking that Tony looked rather ‘worn out’ in a suggestive tone, or on another morning bringing Tony coffee and claiming he would ‘take care of his every need’.
As days of the Christmas break passed, the frequency of these occurrences was growing, and it was slowly becoming more apparent that yes, Loki actually was flirting.
But, to Tony’s complete frustration, never actually took it anywhere.
When Tony flirted back, he would sometimes continue the game for a while, but then he always changed the topic in such a way to make it obvious any continuation would be unwelcome. To Tony’s leer after the coffee comment Loki had responded with such a dry “you wish” Tony was surprised his balls hadn’t actually shrivelled and died. When Tony started something, Loki sometimes responded, but sometimes he shut it down fast, sometimes just with a cold “focus on the job, Stark”. Tony was confused and disoriented, and quite frankly did not know what was going on.
Then it was New Year’s, and they were together atop the Astronomy Tower.
And, all right, Tony would normally consider this a pretty clear sign – after all, everyone else up there was a couple, and they were each standing as far away from others as possible to get some illusion of privacy. The expectation of a new year’s kiss was in the air. You couldn’t get much more romantic than that.
It was a testament to Loki’s masterful skill at confusion that Tony was still not sure.
But then, finally, the large castle clock chimed midnight, and as it did, Loki leaned down and pecked Tony on the lips.
It really was that, nothing more than a peck, and Tony just couldn’t help it – he whined as Loki moved away.
Loki, in return, chuckled, and his eyes gleamed. “Is there something you want, Stark?” He asked.
And yeah, that, right there, was too much. Tony was done being confused, and Loki was very clearly not opposed, so Tony just grabbed his robes and pulled him down again, this time for a proper kiss.
Once they broke apart, a considerable amount of time later, Loki smirked at him. “Well, not bad exactly,” he said, “but I would not say I was a hundred percent satisfied either.”
Which was how Tony almost threw Loki off the tower.
-
A few days later, when the rest of the school came back, they found the Great Hall decorated with a new set of banners. They were all green and red, and featured a lion and a serpent entwined in a sort of dance that was just not explicitly erotic enough that the teachers could not claim it was corrupting the children.
It was also, somehow, impossible to change it back, and the banners exploded into a very impressive fire show of some more lions and serpents, who were now writhing.
And yeah, okay, maybe taming Fiendfyre for a prank was going just a bit over the top, but well, that was Tony was known for.
And maybe it was just a little beyond what would generally be considered safe and sane, but that was what Loki was known for.
The exact form the prank ended up taking wasn’t precisely what Loki and Tony had originally planned, but when the time came to pull it off, they both agreed this was much, much better.
And the Fiendfyre stayed, after all, which was the important part.
That, and the way it felt when Tony grabbed Loki’s hand as they ran from the Slytherin prefect screeching after them and laughed.