Chapter Six: Trouble in Paradise

Harry took this revelation in the manner his dream-self—or he himself—would take a blow: he staggered back, and then tried to minimise attention paid to the afflicted area.

In this case, it meant trying to ignore his dreams, which was easier said than done, but increasingly necessary. You would think that the developments of the dream would change both princes' behaviour towards one another, with newfound respect for the other's love and dedication, or whatever. Instead, with agonising slowness, Thor's inability to stay out of trouble drove the two further apart—or at least, it increased Loki's resentment. Thor did not seem to notice.

His explanation for seeking out trouble had been that it was a way of proving himself a worthy warrior—worthy of the special weapon forged for him by the dwarves, the hammer Mjölnir. But, in reality, even his acquisition of said hammer changed little in his behaviour, and the hammer increasingly seemed an excuse.

And Harry—no, Loki—was always dragged along. And despite that, there remained a strong bond between them, one such as Harry had never known—or, if he had, it had been destroyed, sundered, long ago.

Unless it remained in his mother's bond with him. But did that even count, knowing what he now (sort of) knew about her?

For, as promised, she had returned at the end of March. The previous day had left him in sourer spirits than usual (another repeat of the dream of green light) and he had expected no reprieve. At the end of March, the dreams were already becoming more violent, harder to endure, more draining. He hadn't thought that tonight would be any different.

Yet, here he was. The cabin in the woods was surrounded by leafy trees. Flowers blossomed in the front yard, despite a complete lack of insects. Not one of them was wilted or dying. Even the best gardeners would envy the flowerboxes on the sills out front.

He threw open the door, and entered, mind still flooded with thoughts of his other set of dreams. Unlike last time, this time he welcomed the reprieve. He knew how to kill a variety of different beings, and for most of them, in a variety of different ways. He could fight as well as the princes with a blade, and knew several spells that would help in combat.

But none for healing. None for creation. None for peace. He might have mocked himself: Here, before you would have rejoiced just to know that magic was real; now you whine and whinge, that you know this, and not that.

That voice sounded a bit too much like Loki for Harry's liking. He ignored it, therefore, a bit resentful of the ingrate prince, who had a family who loved him, but that was not enough. Harry would give anything, even still, to have even that fracturing family.

These were not fitting thoughts for him to have when he was about to see his mother—Harry Potter's mother—again. This was her cabin, built to her dreams. She had told him as much last time. No other would dare to intrude upon this space.

And yet, he was unable to set the dreams aside. They haunted him in this one, perhaps more even than they did his waking hours, where there were pressing threats and issues to contend with.

Lily Evans, dressed in powder blue and violet, appeared at the bottom of the stairs. She wasted no time in rushing over to wrap her arms around him in a crushing hug.

"My son," she whispered, stroking back his hair from his face. "At last, we meet again. I have missed you, these two months." She smiled at him, such a gentle smile, and Harry wondered if this was how all mothers behaved—but, no, he knew that that was not the case. Aunt Petunia fretted and fussed over Dudley, but somehow...she didn't have the same presence, the same glow about her actions and person as Lily.

Perhaps because Aunt Petunia was still alive. He envied Dudley, who could see his mother, speak with her, with either of his parents, whenever he wished. Even this brief span of time—a single night, every couple of months (was that the rule?), did not seem quite real to Harry.

"As your mother, it is my responsibility to disapprove of your choices in fashion," she said, with a falsely stern air. She laid a hand upon his head—the touch too familiar, too known—, brushing the bangs forward, so that they fell into his eyes.

"Agh! Mum!" he protested, and she smiled, but the smile stayed far away from her eyes.

"I cannot bear to see that scar, that mark, that tells me that you nearly died, that I could no longer protect you. I did what I could, and you lived, but much was dependent upon chance. Too much. When I see that scar...I am reminded of the day that James and I died. The night I almost lost you, for all my effort and sacrifice. And there will be those who will stare at it, who will know your name because you bear that mark, and who will use you to their own ends. Keep it covered, my son, and you might find friends who will desire your company for your own merit, rather than judging you by rumour alone."

He could understand...at least a little, of that. Aunt Petunia had told him that he had received the scar in the car crash that had killed the rest of his family, but he hadn't thought that the sight would upset his mum thus.

"Sorry, Mum", he said. He made no attempt to brush the hair back again, mindful of her words, although it made it more difficult to see.

"I understand that you did not intend to cause me pain," she said, standing, and offering him a hand up. He thought of Frigga, and Loki, who was too proud to take the hand offered, and took her hand without giving himself time to think about it.

But would he spend the rest of this life comparing his actions to Loki's, and striving to be different?

Not a good way to go through life, he decided.

He let her lead him into the living room, nevertheless, to sit down, staring in silence at the fire, as suspicion of a different sort began to bubble up in him, given credence when she said,

"You will always be my most cherished son, Harry," smiling at him, as she glanced at him, just a tilt of the head, but so dignified. Perhaps too dignified, for Harry in his state of heightened paranoia.

"Do I have siblings, then?" he asked. He had no idea how old she had been when she'd died. He might have had an older sibling for all he knew. Women had been known to give children born before they could care for them to foster care. It was possible.

"After a fashion," she said. "You might say that you had two brothers, or one, or none at all, depending on how you thought of the question."

There was a faraway look in her eyes, as if she weren't in the moment at all.

"How can that be?" he demanded, crossing his arms, uncaring if that made him look childish. This was justified. It felt as if she were playing mind games, and that—

He cut off the thought before it could complete itself. How could he have two or one or none? Adoption, stillbirth, what? There was something he was missing, and perhaps the answer was in the visible radiance around his mother, her odd, halting way of speech, mannerisms so familiar they were etched deep into his memory.

He'd seen the similarity all along, but now...

"Yes, you did succeed more quickly than I expected! Well done, my son!" Frigga said, smiling benevolently at him. "You are very talented. Your father and I are quite proud of you."

"Oh? But magic is not an art fit for a prince of the realm. It is why Father dotes on Thor, and forgets—"

"He does not forget you, Loki," said Frigga, her voice firm, but not reproachful. A hint of the wisdom and age she possessed showed in her eyes, as she stepped closer. "And perhaps Thor is Odin's favourite; although a parent should never have favourites, it is often hard not to feel...more attuned with one child than another. And although your father avoids war, he recognises that it is inevitable, and that strength in combat is necessary to defend the Nine Realms. But—"

She leant forwards, towards him, as if sharing a secret. "If your father has a favourite son, perhaps I do, as well."

He said nothing. He didn't want to jump to conclusions as to what she meant. But, then, "Do you mean to say that Thor is also your favourite son? Is there no one who—?"

"No. Peace, my son. Do you wish to know why you would be my favourite child, then?" she asked. "If, as a mother, I were made to choose a favourite? It is because you are not like your brother. He may be the quintessential Asgardian youth: strong, and fierce in battle, but he lacks restraint, wisdom, judgement. He lacks your patience, and also...I appreciate having a child to whom I may pass on my knowledge of magic, who appreciates it even as I do. Loki, I would not change who you were, were it in my power. You are yourself. That is a good thing. And personally, I think Asgard has need of more such children."

He hadn't expected such a confession, even couched in hypothetical language, the gentle, subtle tilting of a scale. He had thought that everyone would think most highly of his brother. Who would look at the younger son, the one who specialised in magic, next to Asgard's "quintessential youth"?

Harry sprang to his feet, staring at the fire briefly before bolting for the kitchen. It was only a few meters (and a counter) away. He didn't know what he intended to do there, but cooking was a mindless task, the least back-breaking of the tasks the Dursleys set him to. Perhaps it would clear his mind, and help him to think.

He didn't want to think, though, did he? Suppose, his thoughts would inevitably say, it isn't mere happenstance? Suppose there is very good reason why your mother—Lily Evans, ostensibly—glows, and has a voice filled with inhuman warmth and resonance, and behaves in a way that reminds you too powerfully of a queen of a realm in another world?

"Harry? What ails you, my son?" He knew that sentence. He knew that sentence from somewhere, and he knew the somewhere, although he couldn't pinpoint the specifics anymore, amongst the years (decades? centuries?) of dreams he'd had thus far.

"...Mother?" he asked. Such a ridiculous question. Neither Lily nor Frigga had reason to sense the underlying second question embedded in this one, unless they were the originatrix of those dreams.

It was no use. He'd have to ask. He needed to know, now. One way or the other. Or it would eat away at him, dog his waking hours, consume his mind. It was a question that he could get an answer to, perhaps, and that now.

"What is it, my son?" she asked, and something flared, fierce and bright (and cold?), something unfamiliar, and twisted: a harbinger of the coming disasters, not yet remembered.

"You aren't my mother," he said, his voice cold and harsh. She staggered, flinched, stopped where she was approaching.

"Harry, what are—?"

"I know who you are: you're Frigga, Queen of Asgard. How dare you pretend to be my mother? Was there even a 'Lily Evans' at all? How could you? How could you lie to me?"

He spun to face her, fists clenched tight. He glared down at the floor. He would be justified in attacking her for her deception, he knew.

But he could not bring himself to do it. Frigga in the other dreams had been gentle and kind, the only one to protect Loki. Even as the family now strained, breaking apart, she strove to hold it together, to meld it back into a coherent unit. Perhaps that was the reason, or perhaps it was the lack of malice. Some part of him still understood the situation, could understand Frigga's actions. That part—the part that was perhaps Loki—could not bear to see her harmed.

That did nothing to quell the anger, burning cold, and glacially slow. Shame, pain, revenge. The three linked together, feeding off one another now the cycle was set in motion.

Frigga turned to face him, eyes wide, as they began to flood with tears. This couldn't be the reunion she had desired, but what right did she have, to impersonate a dead woman? Goddess or no, no one had such a right.

"How—how do you know that name?" she whispered, voice now brittle and frail as spun glass.

He didn't have to answer her. He stood there, clenching and unclenching his fists, burning holes in the floor with the strength of his glare.

"Well, it is no matter. You are wrong. I am your mother, Harry," the queen said, and there was an odd sense, a shift somewhere in Harry's sixth and seventh senses, as the glow fell off from around "Lily", and the resonance was gone from her voice, too, when next she spoke.

"Harry, honey, please. We only have such a short time together. Please, let's not fight." There was none of Frigga's quiet authority in her voice when she spoke, and Harry felt his fists relax, and didn't notice when they didn't clench again. Lily came to him, and pulled him into a bone-crushing hug, fiercer and more desperate than any of Frigga's, and if she'd lost the resonance and glow, nevertheless she made up for it with a strange, novel warmth, a passion, as if she put her whole soul into every action. Long red hair tickled his nose and bare arms.

"Oh, baby, I'm so sorry," she whispered, tucking his head under her chin. She'd crouched down to hug him, and pulled him down with her. That was about as much similarity to Frigga's usual hugs as Harry could sense. Was this, then, Lily Evans—his mother, after all?

She pulled back, and only then did he realise that she was crying, as hot tears splashed onto his shirt.

"Is this how it has to be then, Harry? Is this the only way that I can see you?"

The air around her shimmered, and Harry pushed her away—with a gentleness that surprised him, never mind her—as the glow returned.

"My precious son," Frigga whispered. "My own flesh-and-blood. Will you reject me, even now?"

"You mean to say that you are my mother? That I'm not just some—some changeling child?— this time?" Harry asked. He couldn't help the tone of bitterness, the sharpness in his voice.

"What gives you reason to believe—? Do you—do you remember?" She fixed him with a wide-eyed stare that Harry could almost trick himself into believing truly saw everything.

"I saw it in my dreams," he said, shrugging, as if it weren't important. "When you—when you said I might have two brothers, did you mean—?"

The princes in the dream. One which he (after a fashion) was. Two. Or one. Or none at all, if you counted only Lily Evans, who had no other children. Was that his mother's (she was, right?) mysterious math?

"You remember?" she asked, eyes downcast as the weight of her expression pulled them down. Something about his demeanour must have given him away (how could she read him with such ease?), for she continued, in a tremulous voice, "Loki?"

"Don't call me that," Harry snapped, recoiling as if from a physical blow. He hadn't meant to bring the other dreams here, but he had, albeit accidentally, and if there were any reality to either, now they were both interconnected. He hadn't meant to. Now it was too late to take it back. Her eyes widened, again, the glow dimmed, as if in some state of transition, in-between, ambi-valence,

"There is much of great importance concerning which we must speak, and yet—" she held out a hand for him again, perhaps now thinking of and remembering, too, the night when Thor had almost died. He hesitated, and then took her hand.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, knowing full well that that was insufficient for an apology. Words could not express the depths of his regret—not even just for this moment, but for events past, their memories not yet recalled. She smiled at him, but it was a sad smile.

"—I think there are other matters we must discuss first," she finished. Her sentence had probably been tending that way all along.

He let her lead him back to the living room, where it had begun. He stared at his knees, and for a moment, they sat in silence, his mother with unflagging patience, waiting, waiting, waiting. She could outwait him.

"Are you—are you truly my mother, Lily Evans?" he asked, unable to keep his voice from rising in pitch and volume. Unable to suppress that desire, longing, hope.

"Yes," she said, leaving no other interpretation to her words but just that which answered what he'd asked.

Another long pause. "But..." he trailed off, waiting to be interrupted. She waited, instead, and he forced himself to continue. "You're Frigga, Queen of Asgard. You're Loki and Thor's mother." And maybe Hel's, he added silently, where she couldn't hear.

She looked far too regal, sitting there, straight-backed, with her hands folded neatly in her lap.

"Yes," she said. "I was."

"But how?" he immediately continued, trusting in his haste to convey how important the question was. That and the great emphasis he put into the second word.

She sighed, looking down in her lap, where her hands lay clasped. The glow dimmed around her, and then died.

"I died," said Lily, in a voice without resonance—a simple, human woman's voice. She gave him a warm smile that he couldn't return. Dead. These memories, then, must all be in the distant past. Perhaps Ragnarök had come and gone, and taken the queen with it.

And it would be his—no, Loki's—fault.

"Oh," he said, unable to look at her.

"Asgard was under attack. An artefact of bygone days was brought by Thor, indirectly, to Asgard. He hoped that I could save the girl, but it was beyond my power. When the Dark Elves came, they killed me. I was reborn, in the past, as Lily Evans, an ordinary, human woman. I had no idea as to my true identity, until I died, and found refuge in your soul. Perhaps, it is because of my presence here that you remembered what should be hidden from your mind, for you must also be—"

He didn't want to hear it. Could he close his ears to her words? But perhaps it was all just a dream, after all. A way for his mind to take a break from the serious strain produced from his dreams of another world.

Lily Evans, mother of Harry Potter. Frigga, mother of Loki and Thor. And here, in this dream, they were one-and-the-same. That didn't mean it was true in the outside world. Humouring such thoughts must surely be the route to madness.

Hardly, scoffed the part of his mind that he had disavowed. He slammed the door on it, metaphorically speaking, and resolved anew to attempt to take things as they came.

Lily slung an arm around his shoulders—a very human gesture, and pulled him into her, to kiss the top of his head. He'd seen mothers do that on playgrounds, seen the exaggerated expressions of disgust, the sneers. There was no need for pretence here in his mind. He leant in, determined to savour every moment.

Lily Evans had done no wrong to him. She deserved for him to give her a chance.

No matter how it complicated things.