I wrote this entire chapter this morning and it went a little off-track.

Harry jumps at Loki as soon as he reappears back with them for real. Loki looks very proud of himself and gives Harry one of the Loki toys that can turn into many Lokis and disappear.

The toy Loki tells Harry to find him and vanishes from his hand.

Harry keeps looking at the real Loki. "Teach me how! Pleeeease?! That was so cool! You're so cool!"

"You hear that, Thor?" Loki grins a bit too wide. "He likes me more."

"You're probably going to have an army of fangirls," Mr. Stark wags a finger. "Now, don't be getting any ideas. At least not any I wouldn't have."

Thor laughs and pulls Loki into a big hug. "I'm proud of you, brother."

Loki's smile twists a bit. "Proud of me for using tricks?!"

Thor stops hugging Loki but keeps his hand on Loki's shoulder.

"Aye, brother. I was too foolish to see it before. Midgardians fight in many ways, and each is mighty. I believe it was the Professor who rendered Magneto unconscious?"

"Unfortunately, it was a necessity." Harry's Grandpa'fessor rolls back into the room instead of popping in like Loki had.

"Where is Magneto?" Harry looks around. He only saw Magneto on the hologram telly from Mr. Stark's phone. Is he not really real? He's not here for real.

Grandpa'fessor says something about a cell under the pentagon.

"That's a shape with five sides." Harry holds up five fingers. He learned that during his lessons with Dad and Jarvis, when the bigger kids are in theirs. "I want another grandpa!"

"Well, Magneto's a bad choice," Mr. Stark shakes his head. "He'd mess up your dad's arm."

"And try to kill us," Jubilee huffs.

Harry knows that, except hadn't they said Loki was bad too?

"Steve can be your grandpa." Mr. Stark laughs. "He's old enough,"

Harry glances between them and tells Mr. Stark "You look older. Are you really a grandpa? 'Cos you say you're not my other other dad."

Mr. Stark acts cross at that, telling Harry he won't buy him anything, but Harry knows that's not true. And even if he was really angry, Mr. Stark would never ever hurt him.

Steve gives Mr. Stark a tired look before going to shake Loki's hand and tell him he did a good job. "You even cleaned up Magneto's mess."

Loki tilts his head at Thor. "I can't recall you ever cleaning up after a battle. Or ever."

"I helped dry dishes this morning," Thor folds his arms. "And unlike you, I cannot simply magic them dry."

"Thor helped clean up the city after the big battle," Harry points out.

Steve turns to Loki again. "I wouldn't be surprised if you were offered a spot on the team,"

Loki lifts an eyebrow. "After everything I've done?"

"We've all done something, bub." Logan growls.

Harry still hasn't gotten an answer because the grownups keep interrupting. He tugs on Loki's sleeve. "Will you teach me how to do that stuff you did?"

"I can do all that," Sirius grumbles. "And I can turn into a dog."

Sirius shifts into Snuffles, but Harry's too busy begging Loki to teach him.

Loki looks down before finally crouching down so he's not so high up. "Very well. During lessons tomorrow."

Harry almost wishes today was a school day, until Dad reminds him of all the new games they got from the mall before Magneto attacked.

Mr. Stark picks one called Mousetrap which has a big machine with ramps and kicking boots and a guy diving into a bathtub that's on a pole.

"It's a Rube Goldberg machine," Mr. Stark explains as he helps Harry set it up. "It uses chain reactions to do something simple, like lowering the cage, in a lot more steps."

Harry laughs. He could just push the cage down, but watching this is fun.

Loki's mouse scurries away from the cage as it falls. Harry stares at his own mouse until his eyes hurt, but his mouse doesn't move at all.

Later in the game, Loki turns the mice into a mini Magneto that controls the game's small metal ball. Loki summons the toy of himself to trap Mini Magneto.

Mr. Stark shows a video of a Rube Goldberg machine that fills an entire room. Harry wants to make one like that. He gathers supplies from the craft box and toys, but it's a lot harder to make one in the house than it is to make the one in the game. Even with Mr. Stark's help it takes too long and is way more tricky than building with LEGOs.

Sirius tries teaching Harry how to play Exploding Snap, but that's even trickier to build. Cards don't stack very well, and even when Sirius helps, they keep blowing up.

Ms. Grey is the best at building the card towers. "Did I play this with my Mummy?" Harry asks.

"You were too little, but you liked watching," Sirius smiles at Harry. "Once you put one of the cards in your mouth. Lily just about blew her own top off."

Some of the bigger kids look at Harry's other new games.

"Lucky Ducks?" Rogue smiles, holding a box. "This one was my favorite when I was your age."

Rogue's favorite game has ducks that swim around in a circle pond and dive under the water. Rogue watches a bit sadly. "This must be the magic version. The one I had just had a spinning blue track and plastic ducks."

Rogue says they have to pick up the ducks because there are shapes on their bottoms and they have to match the shapes.

Even though it's her favorite game, Rogue won't touch the ducks and keeps her hands in her pockets. "I don't want to hurt them,"

"But you have gloves," Harry says. Rogue always wears gloves and long sleeves because people get hurt if she touches them.

Harry grabs for a duck, but it quacks and swims away from his hand. Every duck he tries to pick up either swims, dives or flies away. Harry snatches one duck out of the air, just like a Seeker catching the Golden Snitch, and Sirius applauds.

"They made this game harder for no reason." Rogue says, watching the ducks go everywhere.

Sirius pulls out his wand and mutters Immobulus. The ducks freeze where they are, like statues. Sirius smiles at Harry, but Harry scowls.

He'd frozen them, just like Dad had been frozen at Hogwarts. Harry chants "Move, move, move, move," as he pokes the ducks. He'd used his own magic to free Dad in Hogwarts' Hospital.

Sirius waves his wand again, and the ducks start moving. Harry doesn't know if it was Sirius or himself who freed the ducks. He yells at Sirius and then stomps upstairs. Dad or Jarvis haven't even put him in time-out, but he doesn't want to be near Sirius anyway.

Dad finds Harry and says that Sirius didn't mean any harm by freezing the ducks.

"But he could freeze you."

"He could," Dad said. "And I could shoot him."

Dad closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "Steve or I could break his jaw with one punch. But we don't, because we're family. Part of that is not hurting someone, even though you could."

Harry thinks about that. Families hurt each other, too. "Thor and Loki fight lots. And Cooper pushed Lila."

"Yes, and being a family means saying you're sorry."

"Like how you said sorry to Mr. Stark?" Harry wishes he hadn't asked that, because Dad looks like he did something really bad and needs the longest time-out ever. Like jail. Harry doesn't want Dad to ever go to jail.

"I'm going to get Loki to teach me how to unfreeze stuff so you're never, ever stuck again. Okay, Dad?"

Dad smiles and pulls Harry in for a hug. "My hero,"

"You said you don't want me to be a hero," Harry points out.

"I said you can be a hero in other ways," Dad corrects. "Doctors are heroes. Most are. I had a lot of bad doctors."

Dad shivers slightly, like he's freezing, and Harry snuggles extra close.

Snuffles slinks into the room with a whine, his head hung low and his tail between his legs.

Harry's about to tell him off and send Snuffles to time out when Dad grits out "It's not him. Flashback."

"Don't eat the ducks." Harry tells Snuffles sternly.

Snuffles turns into Sirius, who says he's sorry for freezing them.

"Loki's going to teach me to unfreeze them," Harry grins.

Sirius tells Harry not to get his hopes up about magic lessons, because Loki's magic seems different from the magic wizards and witches learn at Hogwarts.

"I want to learn Loki's magic." Harry insists.

Sirius says Harry is like a muggleborn first-year at Hogwarts, which is silly. "My first year was with my Mummy and first James dad. Not Hogwarts!" Sirius had spent even more time looking at Harry's photo book than Harry had, and none of Harry's baby pictures are at Hogwarts.

Sirius nods slowly. "Of course. You wanted me to make real sweets in Candy Land, didn't you?"

Magic people have all sorts of sweets that even Dudley never got, like Ice Mice. Harry thinks they should use those in their next game of Mousetrap. And there are chocolate frogs, and beans that taste like anything and cakes that look like cauldrons.

"He's not going to sleep tonight," Dad frowns at Sirius.

"I don't sleep a lot of nights," Harry shrugs. That's why they have hot cocoa and game time. They'll probably get to play these games tonight too.

Dad's right. Harry can hardly sleep that night, but it's not even because of nightmares. He can't stop wondering what lessons with Loki will be like. Probably lots of fun, like Loki.

Pretty soon, Harry will be able to unfreeze people and make pillow forts bigger on the inside too.

I was planning on having Loki try to teach Harry in this chapter but then this chapter happened.