Cedric took one last look at the page of the book that Hermione had opened up and spoke softly-
"I believe that some version of the Finite Incantatem charm should work perfectly as a counter to this new magic…I don't believe the counter curse will be any simpler given the complexity of what I'm seeing...but it should be enough so that these spells aren't classified as unforgivables if we can develop such a charm before the spells eventually make their way out into the public."
There was a momentary joy in everyone's hearts before they all frowned with sadness at the same time.
And Cedric nodded in acknowledgement.
"Yes…I know how ridiculous that sounds…making a counter spell for the very god whose slaves we are…but I believe we can convince 'Him'. As long as 'His' aim is to let the word about him spread around for whatever reason, having a spell that has a known counter curse will cause more people to try and learn them."
If Loki wasn't among the group inside the Room of Requirements right now, he would've burst out laughing.
This was precisely his aim when he'd started his plan to conquer the world using his spells and gospel.
One of the reasons Loki hadn't spent time releasing a counter curse even though he had one, since he had already created one to effectively test the spell on his test subjects without harming them as he didn't have hundreds of willing test subjects just lying around the corner,-
-was because he wanted to give the world a little shock because of the new spell, so that 'important' people would start working on the counter curse which would give it a small boost in popularity since it would then be delegated the title of being a 'useful' spell instead of a 'dangerous' spell.
He was banking on the fact that most witches and wizards would love learning some spell that has some 'current historical' significance.
But there was another tremendously important reason. And this reason was also why Loki had spent several weeks preparing to launch the gospel bundled up together with the spells.
An anchor to a god didn't just sustain their humanity. But it also formed a corruption that allowed them to control the deity's 'personality'.
If Loki truly gave off the aura of an 'evil' and 'imposing' authoritarian, he would've been morphed to become it as long as he didn't advance quickly enough to make his own avatars his believers.
As such, Loki was aiming for a 'kind' and 'intelligent' disposition, one that was vague enough that it would allow for several interpretations while also leaving enough room for him to mold his personality as he saw it fit and not the other way around.
Of course, this would give him the constraint of 'appearing' kind to a small degree.
But it was rather that than risking losing his humanity entirely at any moment.
As such, Loki wanted to congratulate Cedric who had seen through his ploy well enough to have deduced the underlying foundation stones of his plan, but he couldn't do so directly so he instead decided to give Cedric a 'gift' when it was possible.
'Perhaps giving him a chance at making a small wish once he develops a counter curse for my spells would be a nice present since it would help in spreading the spell?'
As Loki was lost in thoughts, Cedric paused and looked at Luna with a slightly confused expression as he formulated his thoughts in a 'nice' way-
"Erm…Miss Lovegood…how did you know that this place was the residence of a True God?"
Everyone looked at Luna at that question.
Even Loki, since he'd become startled at this new information, wondering if Luna knew the secret answer to the question, which essentially asked about the true essence of what the Room of Requirements actually was. Especially even though he'd kept it hidden from her the first time he'd brought her to the room.
'Did Helena tell her?' Loki reasoned but quickly shook away the thought. 'No, she is not of the sort to go around babbling to people…'
But as his thoughts trailed to a conclusion, his mind pushed back with the simple scene nearly a year ago when Loki had seen Luna with Helena standing by the only window on the seventh floor.
'...are they close?'
'Wait a second…now that I think about it, assuming that they met each other around that time for the first time, Helena still didn't have her mother back…and Luna's mother too…'
'sigh how complicated.'
Suddenly Loki didn't feel very safe about his secrets anymore. He'd always made sure to keep people at an arm's length from himself.
He made sure to only show the sides of himself that were required in that particular situation.
And so while no single person could decode his entire mysterious persona, simply piecing the puzzle together by helping each other would reveal almost everything about him if he wasn't careful.
'How much did Helena tell Luna?'
'Did she tell her about the Founders and their crystals?'
'Or did she even tell her that I helped 'Them' come back?'
"Yeah…what did you even actually mean by that?" Hermione asked with a forbidding sense of curiosity as she looked at Luna with some intrigue.
With everyone's staring at her, Luna didn't disappoint-
"The wackspurts don't like to come to this room. They say they are afraid of being burdened by revelations."
Given that only Hermione, aside from Loki, knew that Luna's wackspurts weren't fairy tales, only she realised the given the creatures could carry thoughts away from people's minds, the simple creatures were afraid of coming in contact with knowledge that could lead to their corruption.
Something that one would only worry about if they were a High-Sequence Beyonder or a True God.
And the mystery of the person's identity wasn't left undisclosed, since the identity had taken the initiative to reveal it themself.
As Mr. Error had shown his ownership over the castle through his simple note, Hermione quickly realised that the wackspurts were likely avoiding 'Him'.
But everyone else just remained confused.
"Wackspurts?" Cedric asked, not particularly recalling the mention of such creatures in any books he'd read, at least until he faintly remembered the Quibbler mentioning them. "Those ethereal creatures that steal our thoughts and intentions? Ones that love gossip?"
Luna nodded.
Cedric's thoughts fired in a similar fashion to Hermione as he too concluded that Mr. Error was likely the reason that the creatures avoided this room.
Cedric wasn't sure that, if Mr. Error hadn't told them that he was only taking payment for them using his room, he'd even feel inclined to come back to this place after learning that Luna was right.
It was scary and frankly a little unsettling that the school that was a key pillar of what was essentially 'modern magic' was run on borrowed grounds.
It made him question his knowledge about the Founders and also any other great wizards that might've come along the way and passed through here.
But since it was all a bit too much to think about right now, Cedric put it on the back burner, opting to think about all of this sometime later when he could sink himself in the comfortable Head Boy private bath room during a bubble bath.