AN: I apologize profusely for not getting this in sooner, there were multiple mix ups with my editor and I finally decided to just say **** it and publish what I had. Your reviews . . . I didn't know I as capable of feeling such joy. So thank you so much, all of you. There isn't enough chocolate in the world to thank you enough! So instead of droning on and on, I'll just respond to the reviews.
I've got a challenge for you mythology buffs! Try to guess which god Olivander is and . . . I don't really have a prize, so the satisfaction of being right will have to enough.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Not even my ideas, they own me, which can be inconvenient when I want to do things they don't want to do (working).
Harry and Loki giggled, legs swinging back and forth from the thick oak branch they were sitting on. Just a few more seconds and chaos would reign. The two had, earlier that summer started their largest multi-continent pranking spree to date as a celebration of Harry's upcoming ventures into the magical education system. Sticking to the theme they hit schools of all kinds, from preschool to college.
They finished today at Stanford, determined to go out with a bang, literally. Which meant bringing out the big guns: glitter. Mountains of glitter were spread liberally throughout every air vent. Fake blood was put in the back of toilets, one flush and the waters turned red. Eighteen farm animals were set loose all around campus labeled 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20.
Harry nearly fell off the tree laughing once chaos began to spread. The trickster snapped his fingers, transporting the two to an abandoned overgrown park just outside Little Whinging, Surrey.
They collapsed against each other, laughing and fell onto the patchy grass and weeds that littered the ground. Once they were able to force their roaring laughter into giggles and chuckles they stood, sides aching from laughter, brushing dead grass and from their clothes.
"That" Loki snorted "was a fantastic idea kiddo."
"The lion in . . ." Harry giggled
The trickster puffed up his chest "one of my finer achievements, if I do say so myself. You did pretty good yourself."
They both snickered a moment before Loki adopted a more somber, guilty expression running a hand through his hair. It was a habit he had picked up millennia ago to replace gripping his wing feathers, which was more than a bit suspicious on god that didn't have wings.
"It's cool Ki" Harry "I know you have to go. It's only every ten years. You know Odin will send a retrieval party and remember? We don't want anyone to know about me. Well, anyone else."
"Yeah" the ex-archangel (not that Harry knew that) whined "but I don't wanna. Your first official venture into the wizarding world is just around the bend. We don't even know which schools will send invitations with everywhere we've travelled. It's just a stupid meeting!"
Harry gave his friend a Look "What if I promise not to do anything too fun without you?"
Loki pouted, but there was a grin there too. It was an odd expression, but one that looked at home on the tricksters face.
"Fine" Loki wrinkled his nose "don't do anything I wouldn't do."
They shared an evil grin "of course not" Harry smirked.
"Sorry you have to stay here." The trickster grimaced.
"Ki, I told you! It's fine. I get it. When you get back we can have a ward breaking party when you get back." The young boy huffed.
Harry's eleventh birthday had been a much anticipated date. It was the date the blood wards around Number 4 Privet Drive weakened just enough for Loki to shatter them. The two figured that this was because Harry's eleventh year was the year he attended magical schooling and the wards couldn't keep him in the town all the time.
They had tried everything inhumanly possible to get Harry out of that house. In the end, they had settled for leaving a construct Loki had created with Harry's blood. They had to replenish The blood every other day. Thankfully it was just a few drops needed. Unfortunately . . .
"You know where you're gonna stay?" Loki asked
"We've gone over this Ki" Harry smiled indulgently "I can set up a little tent on the Dursley's roof. The wards keep me close without you replacing the blood but that doesn't mean I have to stay in the house."
"And you're sure-" the trickster started
"Yes Ki, I remember the invisibility magic. I've been practicing for years. We knew this was coming. I'm prepared. Just get going okay, you know you're stalling." Harry groaned, tossing his hands in the air.
"Fine, fine, I'm going kiddo." Loki reached down to ruffle Harry's hair, much to the boy's disgust.
"Don't forget to get me some Asguardian chocolate!" Harry cried as Loki snapped away with a burst of sparkling confetti.
"Drama queen" Harry muttered, brushing the confetti out of his hair as he set off towards the Dursley's.
He approached the house silently, trying to keep out of sight but unwilling to use his magic, wanting to save it for turing the tent he planned to put up on the roof invisible. The fake Harry was in the garden working. Harry, the real one, took a minute to observe his double. The Harry working in the garden was much skinnier, with cracked glasses that the real Harry had discarded years ago, replacing them with a pair of neat, oval glasses framed in bronze wire.
Harry was actually very proud very proud of his glasses. Loki, while a fantastic older brother knew next to nothing about child care. Harry had gotten new clothes on his eighth birthday but they had both forgotten about getting him new glasses until, a little over half a year since they had met, the trickster god had taken him to meet Hephestus. The god had become one of Harry's favorites immediately, gruff and kind with booming belly laughter and a stern frown.
The blacksmith had pitched a fit when he had seen the little boy's glasses and demanded to make him a new pair. Though embarrassed, Harry had agreed. He now had glasses that changed their prescription, and grew and shrunk with him. Plus, his favorite part, if you looked closely they were carvings of ancient greek heroes and battles carved into the dark bronze frames. Even as a little kid, Harry had loved them.
Without warning the dirty shabbily dressed Harry in the garden turned to look around, eyes landing on the real version. With a solemn nod, the fake vanished in a cloud of purplish mist.
"Shite" Harry swore, biting down on the pad of his left thumb and using the magic and blood to quickly change his appearance to that of the vanished Harry as he raced to the place the fake stood a moment before. This was not the plan.
The fake had orders to disperse the minute he saw the real Harry. He should have remembered that. Arriving at where the other Harry had stood, the original gaze down at the potted begonias that the other Harry seemed to be planting in the ground. Rushing to complete the chore, Harry was glad he hadn't forgotten how to do all the chores he had done when he had lived at the Dursley's. He had to be here when the letter showed up. Whoever had set the wards would be suspicious if he wasn't here. This was going to suck.
~)0(~
Two days filled with grueling labor and one really nasty rumor spread about Petunia, the first letter arrived. Sadly he wasn't able to hide it away fast enough. The letters increased exponentially every day after that. It ended on Sunday with an explosion of letters that, if Harry hadn't known better, he would have sworn was Loki's fault.
As soon as the avalanche of letters ended the Dursleys split, rushing into Vernon's overpriced silver car with hastily packed bags, nearly forgetting Harry in their rush, which would have suited him just fine. The four sat in the car for hours cramped and sweaty and miserable and with the constant soundtrack of Dudley's whining. They arrived at a sea shore, a craggy island just peeking from above the constantly shifting horizon. Vernon got out of the car in a huff and rented the island and the house that sat atop it (and a small boat) for the night, seemingly confident the letters wouldn't find them there.
The house on the island seemed one gust of strong wind from falling apart, even though the owner assured them otherwise. Well, it looked like they would get to test out that theory, there was a storm on the way and, from what Harry could tell, it looked to be a bad one. Vernon practically shoved Harry inside, Petunia and Dudley huddling close behind. It was almost nighttime, the sun just dipping into the crashing waves.
The adults took the bed (though it could barely be called that) while Dudley curled up on the rickety couch. Thick, warm blankets and pajamas were pulled out for the Dursleys. Harry was left with a holey and salt-laced blanket that somebody had found in the house's cupboard to ward off the cold. Thin, tent sized clothes he had on were all he had to protect him from the hard, splintery floor to sleep on. Luckily, for once, Dudley didn't complain, apparently too tired to do anything but flop down on the couch and snore.
Harry, were he any other boy, would have hated the sleeping arrangement he landed with. Luckily, thanks to Loki, he would probably get the best sleep of all of them. When he had started to show signs of accidental magic, the Norse god checked to see if he was magical. The answer had obviously been a yes.
Over the years his friend had taught him how to utilize his core, not with spells exactly, more like using accidental magic on purpose. Confusing right?
It might have taken a while but now he could do quite a lot with a trickle of magic and a few drops of blood, Though, honestly, it was as much the blood as giving the magic a cut in his body to leak from. It didn't hurt that a few of the other pagan gods he'd met had given him tricks to use with his not-so-accidental magic in exchange for keeping Loki far, far away from them. Or to have him set up one of their own pranks for the trickster god.
One particularly desperate god had given his core a boost, apparently Loki and the unfortunate soul hadn't always gotten along. Something was mumbled about horses but Harry never got the story to that one, just a pat on the head and a promise to tell him when he was older. Harry thought it was an even and fair trade. It wasn't their fault they never mentioned anything to stop him from messing with them, no, wait, it was. Oh well, fun's fun.
So, Harry set about making both his blanket and the floor soft and warm until he felt like he was in a cocoon, then layered a slight glamour over it so it would look the same as before. It used a little more blood than he had thought it would but not enough to start worrying.
Normally, since it was the night before his birthday he would stay up with Loki eating as much cake as possible until midnight, when they would celebrate briefly then crash and sleep until the sun was high in the sky and celebrate for the few days afterwards. This time, however, Loki was gone and they had celebrated the day before their last prank, so Harry felt content to just curl up and sleep.
Harry awoke as the door crashed open and fell forward, hitting the floor with an even louder clap that eliminated all chances that the other occupants of the house were still asleep. This was proven true as the two adult Dursleys scurried into the room, Vernon pointing a shotgun at the massive figure in the doorway. Dudley was frozen in his place on the bed, wide eyed and cowering like an injured mouse from a hungry cat.
"Sorry 'bout that." The figure stepped through the doorway, allowing the occupants of the room to see him more clearly.
He was built like a house with a beard to match and wore a long, heavily pocketed coat. The man bent down and picked up the door, propping it against the door way with a triumphant smile.
"Leave!" Vernon commanded in a voice that betrayed his terror "your kind aren't welcome here!"
The giant man turned to look at Harry's uncle, his expression of confusion quickly tuning into one of annoyance and anger. He clomped forward until he was standing little more than a foot away from the gun, bending it upwards as the cowardly man fired, his uncle whimpering at the display of strength.
"Put this useless thing away, stupid muggle." The last part was muttered but Harry heard it all the same and grinned sadistically at the look of fear in his bully of an uncle's eyes before schooling his face into naïve innocence and confusion with the skill of many years practice.
"Excuse me sir" he started, the stranger turning his way once he began to speak "but what's a muggle?"
The giant man seemed confused but stated "non-magic folk of course."
"Magic? Magic's not real." Harry stated in the same tone, though this time he added a bit of incredulous disbelief as well.
"'course magic's real. You're a wizard Harry." The large man started to riffle through his many pockets as he spoke.
"A-a wizard? I can't be. I mean, wizards aren't real, they can't be. I'm j-just Harry." oh, this was so much more fun than he thought it would be.
"Well then 'jus' Harry' I suppose nothings ever happened, things you couldn't explain when-aha!" he pulled a white box out of his coat and handed it to the boy in front of him "might'a sat on it, so it may be a bit squished but it should taste fine all the same. Made it meself, words and all." He seemed proud of this accomplishment.
Harry opened the box. It was a cake proudly proclaiming "HAPPY BIRTHDAY HARRY" in tan icing. He pinched a small chunk off the edge of the cake, making sure not to disturb the writing and popped it in his mouth, almost moaning at how good it was. Yup, this was a spectacular cake, he'd have to ask for the recipe later. Harry had never stopped coking, even once he left the Dursleys. Gardening was the same way, he loved doing it when he wasn't forced to do it for the Dursley's. He had Gabriel put in a kitchen and a greenhouse at their home once he worked up the courage to ask.
Closing the box and placing the cake on a small side table on one side of the couch he watched as the man pulled out a pink umbrella and lit the stack of logs in the fireplace with a few blasts of flame from the ratty looking object before flopping onto the couch. Harry swore he heard the thing croak in protest.
"Now, as I was sayin', did anythin' ever happen that you couldn't explain, prob'ly when you were mad 'r sad 'r scared?" Harry allowed an understanding look cross over his face at those words.
"Excuse me, but who are you?" Harry asked, voice changing to a defensive tone.
"Oh!" the man blushed, which looked odd on a man his size "Sorry 'bout tha'. I'm Rubeus Hagrid, keeper of grounds and keys at Hogwarts."
"Hogwarts?" Harry asked, his mind drifting from the conversation as he thought about the school, absentmindedly keeping up his façade.
Hogwarts was a good school, maybe not his first choice, but still very good. It had a great campus too, which was always a bonus. He smirked internally at the idea of what chaos he could cause in a castle that old and magical. Plus with the house system . . . he took it back, the potential for chaos made the school perfect.
He continued to mostly tune out the conversation, reacting with his predetermined personality. That was, until Dudley decided to steal and stuff his face with his cake. Anybody who knew Harry, or Loki for that matter, knew it was practically a death sentence to mess with his sweets. Harry was milliseconds away from abandoning all pretenses and had posed his fingers to snap, the pad of his thumb still bleeding sluggishly from when he had made his bed more comfortable earlier in the night, when Hagrid pointed his umbrella at the pudgy boy. Twitching the pink monstrosity and muttering under his breath, Hagrid and Harry watched as the disgusting boy sprout a pig's tail.
Oh that was fantastic! Not that he was satisfied with so small a payback, but it was a start, and a very good one at that. Plus it almost immediately gave Hagrid a seat in his good books, anyone with enough of a sense of humor to do that to his cousin was alright with him. They shared a laugh as the Dursleys fell into frightened chaos.
Fortunately, for Hagrid and probably the rest of the wizarding world, Harry decided he liked the man to be at least a little truthful with him.
Which meant the minute the Dursleys left the room for his aunt and uncles 'bedroom', he dropped his act. Harry's posture went from nervous and stiff to a confident slouch in less than a second. He slipped one hand into his oversized pockets and the other he lifted and snapped, making sure his index finger pulled on the not yet scabbed over cut on his thumb enough to make it bead with blood. Changing his rag-like clothes to his favorite pair of worn in jeans and an olive green t-shirt covered in part by a black canvas jacket, one that looked suspiciously like one his best friend favored, Harry gave the much larger man in front of him an easy grin. Hagrid raised his eyebrows at the change and the display of magic. Harry just shrugged.
"It's not like they would take well to me being able to do this" he gestured to himself "plus I've been told I resemble a friend of mine a bit too closely. Doing the whole magic thing just makes it worse."
Hagrid accepted the answer at face value and shrugged.
"Nice one with the pig tail. It looked like a good cake too" Harry pouted "you'll have to give me the recipe some time."
Hagrid smiled "mind not tellin' anyone 'bout that by the way? Technically 'm not supposed to be doin' magic."
"'Course not." Harry smirked, stage whispering, followed closely by a mischievous wink "and, technically, I'm not supposed to have this solid a grasp of magic either but, hey it's not like I'm using it for anything particularly malicious so, what the hell."
They smiled at each other, Hagrid letting out a hearty laugh.
"Soooo" Harry began causally, rocking back on his heels "Do we have anywhere to be or…"
Hargrid's head snapped up at that "Oh! We've gottta get going, gettin your school supplies and all."
"You know, I've gotta get a little payback for being treated like a servant by them for all these years, now that I'm going off to school." Harry started causally "what do you think of tie dye maid uniforms and cherry red houses?"
Hagrid let out a bellowing laugh as they started towards London on a boat whose condition could be compared quite accurately to the cabin.
"Yeah" Harry waved a hand "I think cherry red is too cool for them too, maybe glow in the dark neon yellow though . . . or maybe orange or purple?"
"Why not all of 'em?" Hagrid smiled down at the young boy, eyes twinkling with glee.
"I think we'll get along just fine." Harry smirked, plotting all the ways he could make their lives miserable in the month before school started.
