Notes: In which Loki's dad's name (and mine's) comes in for a little teasing. Also, I'm afraid this chapter is a little random and largely here to work in some stuff we need in place for later.

Warnings: None needed.

Chapter Twelve

"I think I'd like to learn how to cook," George announced, as he measured his essay for History of Magic, trying to get it finished before the Halloween feast that night. He made a grumbling noise when he found it still short of the assigned length, and picked up his quill again. A moment later, he looked up as Mitchell poked him. "What?"

"You can't just say something like that with no explanation and expect us not to notice," Mitchell complained. "Why do you want to learn how to cook?"

George frowned, as if his reasoning was so obvious that Mitchell must be confused on purpose. And then he glanced around and found Annie and Loki giving him the same look, and explained,

"For Potions. Annie, you know how to cook, and you're really good in Potions- "

"Well, maybe I'm just really good in Potions," Annie pointed out.

"Sure, probably, but maybe knowing how to cook is helpful," George said. "And I need all the help I can get."

Loki and Mitchell glanced at each other. It was true that George was not exactly top of the class, but he wasn't alone. Loki was doing quite well in the subject, but that was mostly because he had neglected almost all his other classes for several weeks. Now that he was spending appropriate amounts of time on his other homework, he would probably slip back again. As for Mitchell, his practical results were often so bad that anyone except optimistic Professor Slughorn might have started to think he was doing it on purpose.

Annie chewed her bottom lip. "I think you're probably right," she told George. "Especially baking, where you have to follow recipes pretty closely. Maybe that kind of practice is good training for Potions."

"It's certainly worth trying," Mitchell said, perking up. "And besides, it's not like I could get any worse. Let's try it- over the holidays, let's all learn to cook something, and see if it helps us after Christmas."

"All right," Loki agreed. He hoped Bindi wouldn't mind him asking her for help.

"Great," George said happily, returning to his essay. "I'll ask my dad, he likes to make scones and things."

"How about your dad, Loki?" Mitchell asked, in a gently needling tone. "Does he bake?"

Loki tried to imagine his father wearing an apron, with flour on his nose, and had to clamp his hands over his mouth so he wouldn't laugh right out loud in the library. "No."

"No? Odin Odinson is not a famous baker?" Mitchell continued. Loki crossed his eyes at Mitchell, which made him giggle quietly but not change the subject. "Seriously, Loki- Odin Odinson? How did that even happen?"

"It was a tradition," Loki explained patiently. "From, you know, a long time ago, when that was how family names worked."

"I know that," Mitchell said. "That's how we get… Johnsons. But John Johnson would be funny, too. Like Donald MacDonald, or Patrick Fitzpatrick. Or Gibbon Fitzgibbon."

"That last one isn't a real name," Annie told him.

"That's what you think. And it isn't any funnier than- " Mitchell began, but George poked him, hard, and said,

"I think that's probably just about enough."

Mitchell looked at George, puzzled, and then at Loki. His eyes widened and he exclaimed, "Oh. Oh gosh. I didn't mean to… I don't mean- " Mitchell did not splutter very often, but he could hardly finish a sentence. Loki decided he probably needed some help.

"It's okay, I know you weren't really making fun of my dad," Loki said.

"I wasn't," Mitchell promised. "Well, I mean… I guess I was, but I wasn't really-"

Loki waved at him to be quiet, and explained, "Okay, back a long time ago, when our family- " he didn't even flinch when he said it, he'd heard this story so many times he could just tell it again without thinking about what was different this time- "quit naming themselves after their fathers, we stopped on Odinson. But someone- some kind of great-great-something grandfather- decided that Odin should still be used as a given name, and for a long time the first boy in any generation in our family was called that."

"So your dad isn't the first Odin Odinson," Mitchell said, his curiosity- and his sense of humour- getting the better of his wish not to be rude. "I bet you're glad you weren't the first one. But- okay, your brother is Thor, so does that mean you have an older cousin called Odin Odinson running around somewhere?"

Loki shook his head. "No, we don't have any cousins. Dad says that when Thor was born he just didn't have the heart to give him such a stupid name, that he'd gotten teased enough at school for all of us." Suddenly remembering, he added, "He also told us once that when he was at school he tried to get all his friends to call him Clarence, and if Thor or I ever had a son we wanted to name after him, we should either call him Clarence or lie down quietly until the feeling passed."

"Clarence?" George asked. "Is that really an improvement?"

"Over Odin Odinson?" Mitchell said. George considered, and then made a face of agreement. Mitchell turned back to Loki and said, "You know, it's a good thing your dad was in Gryffindor- a Hufflepuff would never have lived that name down."

"I never thought of that," Loki admitted.

"Isn't he an Auror, though? Maybe that's why," Mitchell went on, his face brightening as the story took shape for him. "Maybe he got so tough, beating up people who teased him about his name, that he just- "

"If you wish to hold a conversation," Madame Pince, the librarian, said from behind them, "I suggest you leave the library." Loki and his friends made apologetic faces and returned to their homework. That lasted about five minutes.

"Did anyone in the family get mad, when your brother was named Thor?" Mitchell whispered.

"I don't think so. Dad doesn't have a lot of close relatives," Loki said. "And anyway, I don't think it would have mattered. When Dad decides something is the right thing to do, he's kind of hard to stop."

If Dad decided he should do something to help Clint and Barney, he would just do it. It wouldn't matter to Dad that Barney was scary and Clint hated him.

Loki squirmed guiltily, even though he hadn't even thought of anything he could do anyway. He dipped his quill in his ink bottle and tried to concentrate on his essay. As he did, though, Annie put down her quill and whispered, "Do any of you have your copy of A History of Magic with you?"

"Are you crazy?" George whispered back. The book was so heavy that Professor Binns only assigned it to the first-years as homework, so they wouldn't have to carry it around the castle with them.

"Rats," Annie muttered. "I can't remember who was represented at the first Wizards' Council."

"They must have a copy here, in the history section," Loki suggested. "Or another book that has the same information."

Mitchell eagerly put down his quill. "I'll help you find one."

"Me, too," Loki offered, and George let his parchment roll itself up with a look of gratitude on his face.

Annie smirked. "I have such good friends. Especially when you're bored."

"And also when I have cramp in my hand," George said, wiggling his fingers as they walked toward the shelves where the history books were kept. The four began a search for a book that covered the time period their essay was about.

"Speaking of names," Loki said suddenly, as it occurred to him, "why are you called Mitchell, if your name is John?"

Annie and George stifled laughter, and Mitchell explained, "There were five of us in my class at the Muggle school: John, Johnny, Jack, JR... and Mitchell. I suppose your dad had the advantage of being the only Odin in his class."

"As far as I know," replied Loki, who had always been the only Loki, and started taking books off the shelves.

He was sitting on the floor, paging through a big leather-bound history book, when from the other side of the book case he heard Annie whisper, "Oh, cool!" and then, "Come look at this!" He put his book back on the shelf and went over to the other side to see what Annie had found.

"Wow," Mitchell was saying, and George budged over so Loki could also see the books Annie was referring to: a set of big leather-bound volumes, four of them, with gold lettering: Who Was Who In the Wizarding Wars. Annie had already pulled out the third one and was flipping eagerly through it.

"What is it?" Loki asked, leaning over George to try and read the pages Annie was turning.

"It's about the people who fought in the Wizarding Wars- what they did and what happened to them," Annie whispered. "I'm looking for- there he is!" She dumped the book into Mitchell's lap, making him oof in surprise. "It's your dad!"

Loki and George scrambled closer so they could see, too. Annie was pointing to a name halfway down a page, next to a picture of a dark-haired wizard who was smiling and making faces at them. He looked so much like Mitchell that Loki probably wouldn't have needed to be told whose dad he was. There was a short section of text that went with the picture, explaining that Mitchell, Declan, had been responsible for sneaking more than two dozen Muggle-born witches and wizards and their families out of Britain to the relative safety of Ireland. Near the end of the war, one of these rescues had gone bad and the Mitchell family had been forced to escape, themselves.

"It sounds so neat and tidy, the way they say it here," Mitchell remarked, staring at the page. George and Annie did, too, and Loki remembered their conversation on the train: if it hadn't been for Mitchell's parents, they probably all would have been caught by the Death Eaters, and maybe they would have been killed. He hugged himself and tried not to think about who those Death Eaters might have been.

"Is your mum in here, too?" Annie whispered, turning the page to find Mitchell, Moira.

"How about Loki's mum and dad?" Mitchell asked, once they had read the entry on his mother, which was almost identical to the one about his dad. The names beginning with O were in the same volume, so Annie quickly paged ahead to find them. Loki's dad got quite a long section, while his mother's was shorter but mentioned the false documents Mitchell had said his dad talked about. Loki wondered again whether she had made up false documents for him, so no one would know who he used to be.

"That's your dad, Loki?" George asked, looking at the picture glaring up at them from the page- Dad really, really hated to have his picture taken. "Mitchell, do you still want to make fun of his name?"

"Um, no," Mitchell decided. "And I probably wouldn't call him Clarence, either."

Loki reached over Annie and pulled out the first volume of the series, letting it fall open to the middle. He found himself looking at names beginning with D, and started flipping backwards.

"What are you looking for?" George asked.

Loki shrugged awkwardly. "I'm… just curious," he said, as he reached Campbell and scanned for his parents' name. He didn't see it. Moving on before anyone could ask more questions, he whispered, "Do you suppose Clint's family is in here?" Turning pages over quickly, he found the B's, and looked for names he recognized.

There were four entries for people named Barton. One of them was a black man and two were women, but Barton, Douglas, looked like Barney around the eyes, except he was somehow mousey instead of ratty. There was a black border around his entry. Loki had noticed a lot of those as he turned the pages, but he hadn't wondered what they meant until now.

"Huh," George murmured, "I didn't think he'd be here."

"What do you mean?" Loki asked, looking closer.

"Well, it looks like these books only include people on the good side, and the way Barney acts… "

"I never thought of that," Loki admitted. He had just assumed Clint's parents were good.

And they were. The four friends read the entry, which said Douglas Barton had been a clerk in the office of Magical Education, and had manipulated and falsified records to hide the whereabouts of underage Muggle-borns to give their families time to get to safety. It wasn't exciting the way wizard duels were, but it had saved a lot of people. The Death Eaters had eventually figured out what Mr. Barton was doing, and he and his wife were both murdered. They were survived by their two young sons.

"I don't understand that," Mitchell said, frowning at the page. "I mean, why would Barney hate Muggle-borns, if his parents tried to help them?"

Loki had been wondering the same thing, but Annie looked at Mitchell in disbelief. "You're kidding, aren't you?" she asked. "How would you feel, if your parents hadn't been quite as quick and as lucky as they were?" Mitchell opened his mouth, and then closed it without saying anything.

George shifted uneasily. "Let's see if there's an entry about Professor Sprout," he suggested.

~oOo~

The library closed early that night because of the Halloween Feast, but Loki and his friends really hadn't gotten much work done after they found the books about the war anyway. As they walked back to the Hufflepuff basement to put away their school bags, Loki was lost in thought, while his friends chattered about the people they knew who they had just read about.

He kept thinking about sad, shabby Clint, and his angry big brother. Clint and Barney's parents were heroes- shouldn't that mean their sons deserved to be looked after better? If his mum and dad had died protecting other people, they certainly would have hoped someone would take good care of Thor and Loki-

And then he remembered that his mum and dad- the ones he had then, the ones he was born to- weren't the same ones he had now. And that mother and father probably hadn't thought twice about what would happen to him after they were arrested. He wondered if they ever thought of him at all, in Azkaban. He found himself hoping they didn't.

He was so busy mulling all that over, he hardly noticed where he was until the four Hufflepuffs rounded a corner and Loki walked right into someone much bigger than he was. He bounced off, stumbled backward, and looked up. His apology died on his lips as he looked up at Volstagg looking down at him. Thor was to Volstagg's left, and the rest of their friends just behind them.

Thor took a step forward, his right hand up, reaching toward him. "Loki- "

Mitchell moved first. "'Scuse us," he blurted, grabbing Loki by the shoulders and pulling him backward, out of Thor's reach. "We were just- "

"- common room," George contributed, catching at Loki's sleeve, as Loki continued to swallow hard and stare up at his brother.

"Goodbye," Annie added, as all four Hufflepuffs backed up a couple of steps as a group, and then bolted away down a corridor.

They kept running even after they realized no one was chasing them, finally puffing to a halt by the pile of barrels. Annie turned to Loki. "Are you okay?" she asked, as soon as she could speak.

Mitchell and George looked sheepish. Mitchell said, "Sorry about… dragging you away like that. We just thought... after what happened last time, and since Professor Sprout asked you to- "

Loki nodded. "It's fine. I'm fine." His friends looked doubtful, and Loki insisted, "Really. We should go get ready for the feast, I'm all over dust from those books."

Annie tapped "hel-ga huf-fle-puff" on the correct barrel, and the four crawled into the common room, then split up and went to their dormitories.

As he put his books away on a shelf in his wardrobe, Loki thought about what he had told his friends. He realized that he actually felt better than fine, despite the jolt of panic he'd felt when he and Thor were suddenly face to face and Thor had started toward him. That really had scared him, but nothing bad had happened this time.

And, for the first time since... well, since he couldn't remember when, Loki had known what to do when faced with his brother. Professor Sprout had asked him to not to be around Thor unless there was a teacher present, and Loki had promised. He realized now there was relief in that: he didn't have to wonder whether he should approach Thor, or screw up his courage to try to speak to him. Or wonder if he would feel his hopes come crashing down under him again when Thor ignored him or chased him away- or worse.

No. He had been asked to stay away from Thor for now, and that meant he knew what to do, and didn't have to worry about it, or hope this time would be different, would be one of the times his brother actually wanted him. It made a weight roll right off his shoulders.

Loki changed into a clean robe and went to wash his face and hands, feeling lighter than he had for ages.

~oOo~

The Halloween Feast was held on a Thursday, so the following weekend was the first one in November.

The Saturday after that was the first Quidditch match of the season, Gryffindor against Slytherin. The Quidditch season was six games long. The matches were spread over the entire school year, with each house playing all the others, and the final standings based on wins and also total points scored.

Mitchell and George- who had been to a lot of matches with Mitchell's family- were trying to explain the game to Pippa as they all walked to the pitch together.

"You score ten points by putting the quaffle through one of the hoops," Mitchell said. "And a hundred and fifty if your seeker catches the snitch, which also ends the game."

"So the team that catches the snitch wins," Pippa said.

"Most of the time," Mitchell said. "But it's a tricky thing, sometimes it's released at the beginning of the game and just disappears for a long time. In the meantime, one team might have scored a whole lot of goals. If your team was behind by a hundred and sixty points, catching the snitch would just make sure you lost."

Pippa and Dennis looked disbelieving. "How could a team possibly get behind by a hundred and sixty points?" Pippa demanded.

Mitchell laughed. "You've never seen the Chudleigh Cannons play, have you?"

It turned out not to be necessary to go to Chudleigh to see such a game. The day he tested his broomstick, Stark had mentioned that, except for himself, Slytherin's team was all fifth-year and below this year. It turned out that what he meant was, last year's very accomplished and cohesive Slytherin team had been almost entirely composed of seventh-year players who'd been together for years, and of course all of them had left school at the same time. The new keeper was a fifth-year, but the chasers and beaters were all in second- or third-year. They were promising players, but there was no way around it: this was, without a doubt, the weakest team Slytherin had fielded in fifty years.

Up against an experienced Gryffindor squad- Sif, at seeker, was the only new player, as well as the youngest- the Slytherins were badly overmatched. Ordinarily, Hufflepuff and Gryffindor were friendly with each other, but fifteen minutes into the game the score was ninety to nothing, and the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw spectators were beginning to shout encouragement every time a Slytherin player touched the quaffle.

Which, unfortunately, tended to fluster them so much that they dropped it.

Even with the house rivalry as fierce as it was, Loki had the impression the Gryffindors, especially the players, weren't enjoying the game any more than the Slytherins- at one point, Volstagg swiped a bludger at a Slytherin chaser half his size, and then looked relieved when it missed.

The bludger then came back around at Thor, who was busy directing the second bludger away from Rhodes, and hit him squarely in the back. Loki let out a squeak of dismay, but fortunately Thor managed to keep his grip on his broom and was only knocked off course, not knocked out entirely. Volstagg flew past him making grimaces of apology as Thor tried to catch his breath and rejoin the play.

In almost any Muggle sport Loki and Bindi had ever heard of, a team as far ahead as Gryffindor was would have eased up a little and tried not to completely humiliate their opponent. That almost never happened in Quidditch, for the reason Mitchell had explained to Pippa: unless you were up by a hundred and fifty points or more, you would still lose the game if the opposing team's seeker caught the snitch.

Gryffindor was ahead a hundred and fifty to ten (the Slytherin chaser who scored their lone goal had looked more surprised than anyone) when there was a shout from the Gryffindor stands. A second later, the tiny sparkling golden snitch came zipping into view. Sif was facing it and leaned forward to urge her broom into motion, which was when Loki realized she was flying Thor's Lightning Bolt, while Thor was using her older, slower Comet.

The snitch had appeared behind Stark, but the moment Sif cued her broomstick toward him he rolled his over and zoomed off ahead of her, so her momentary advantage was lost. The snitch shot straight up into the air, both seekers in pursuit, and then reversed and came plummeting back down. Sif leveled out her broomstick and plunged after it.

She was still slower than Stark who, when he saw the snitch change direction, reversed his own course by pulling his broomstick over backwards, saving himself a couple of seconds and causing most of the spectators to shriek in excitement or alarm or both.

The red- and green-clad seekers and the tiny golden snitch all went diving toward the ground at such a rate that it seemed impossible for them to level out before the impact. Annie covered her eyes. Loki couldn't tear his away. Pippa's mouth was open in a silent, awestruck O.

It might have been the fact she was riding a borrowed broom, or it might have been that she was less experienced, but Sif blinked first, pulling up at what seemed like the last second to zoom across the grass. Meanwhile, Stark pulled up at the actual last second, just as the snitch did, reached out and snatched it in his gloved hand.

And then just barely avoided a collision with the section of the stands containing most of the Ravenclaw spectators. He dodged the stands, flying out of bounds so he could let his broom decelerate safely, and then flew back holding the snitch over his head, to the joy of the Slytherin supporters and the frank, sheepish, disbelief of his own team.

Loki, who had thought for a second Stark was going to pancake himself into the grass, cheered along with everyone else in his section- in relief as much as anything. But then he glanced at Sif, flying disconsolately over to her team mates. Thor reached over to pat her on the shoulder, and Loki suddenly didn't feel like celebrating the Slytherin victory anymore.

Rhodes flew over to say something to Sif- his expression was kind, but she didn't look at all comforted- and then to congratulate Stark and his team. The rest of the Gryffindor team followed, looking pretty unhappy but trying to be good sports. Madame Hooch flew over to shake both captains' hands as the spectators began to disperse.

It took quite a while for Loki and his classmates to get down from the stands. In the first place, there was a single stairwell on either side of each section of stands, steep and narrow and made to slow down the exiting spectators.

In the second place, Pippa was so thrilled she just wanted to sit in her seat and talk over every second of the game.

"Can second years try out for the team?" she asked. "Do you think I could learn to fly well enough by next year? Did you see Stark go over backward like that? That was amazing."

The stands were mostly empty by the time the first-year Hufflepuffs were ready to come down. Mitchell and George were telling Pippa stories about matches they had seen, Loki and Annie turning back to listen. They took such a long time that by the time they got to the bottom of the stands, the Gryffindor team was emerging from the locker room.

"Stop beating yourself up," Rhodes was calmly telling Sif.

"I had one job," she said bitterly. "One. And I couldn't get it done."

"Well, Stark had one job, too," Rhodes pointed out. "And he's one of the best flyers I've ever seen, so good on you for even keeping up with him. And thanks for letting her borrow your broom, Odinson. That helped a lot."

"Glad to," Thor sighed.

"We only lost by ten points, we can make it up easily if we do well against Hufflepuff in March," Rhodes was saying. "And if Slytherin loses to Ravenclaw- "

"What are you doing here?" Thor said suddenly, as he spotted Loki and his friends. His tone wasn't angry- yet- but it made Loki stop in his tracks. At the same time, he also felt a little flutter of anger: he was allowed to be here. Just because Thor was at Hogwarts first, just because he was on the Quidditch team, that didn't mean Loki couldn't come to the school, and go places and do things. Hogwarts wasn't all Thor's.

"We came to watch the game," Loki spoke up. And he nearly said he was sorry Gryffindor had lost, and he was glad Thor hadn't really been knocked off his broom, but then he didn't know how Thor would react to any of that. He edged away a little, in case Thor made a grab at him.

"We're just leaving," Annie added quickly.

Thor took a step forward. "I didn't mean- just wait a minute- " he began. Loki and his friends scuttled backwards.

Rhodes held out a hand, and Thor stopped moving. "Knock it off, Odinson. You promised Professor Coulson."

Thor turned to the Quidditch captain. He looked frustrated, and also something else Loki couldn't figure out. "But I just want to- "

Rhodes shook his head. "Only with a teacher present, remember?" He turned to the Hufflepuffs. "I hope our next game is a little more exciting for you to watch. Now scoot."

Loki and his friends gratefully scooted, heading for the owlery instead of the castle to put as much distance as possible between themselves and Thor. About halfway there, Pippa started talking about the game again, and Loki was grateful.

But he did wonder, a little, what his brother had just wanted to- .