Notes: In which we begin to untangle matters. My apologies if my timelines feel shaky, this is the busiest time of year at my work and I'm not up to taking apart all the details of the latter stages of the Second Wizarding War. Let's just say it's unlikely Odin would have been inside the Ministry by the last year or so.

Warnings: Infamous Talking Chapter ahoy! And it won't be the last of them!

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Mum recovered first.

"Loki, what do you mean?" she asked, her voice unsteady.

Loki closed his eyes, heard his own high thin voice piping away in his ears. "I, I... I heard Dad talking. Last summer. To Mr. Shacklebolt. The day I went to, to buy my things for school. I came home, and I was going upstairs, and I heard you." (Sneak.) "I, I didn't mean to eavesdrop, I just... you were talking about the Campbell-Hardwickes, and he said, Mr. Shacklebolt said, they're in Azkaban where they belong, but at least you were able to adopt the boy." He could hear Mr. Shacklebolt's deep quiet voice in his head. He would probably be able to hear it forever.

Dad spoke up now. "And you've been worrying about this since last summer?" Loki opened his eyes, but he didn't look up from his hands as he nodded.

A second later he was scooped up and flying in the air, to land, astonishingly, in Dad's lap. He was too surprised to do more than squeak, and then he was wrapped in Dad's arms, and Dad's chin was resting on the top of his head. It should have made him feel stupid and babyish, but instead he just felt safe.

"All right," Dad said, and his voice came out as a funny kind of rumble, the way Loki's head was resting against his chest. "Tell us what you've been thinking about, all this time."

It hadn't occurred to Loki that he would say any more about this. He'd expected, after he made his statement, that he would, would... that he would just listen, while his parents talked and explained and told him about everything- what they had done, what he was supposed to feel about it. In spite of the way they had listened to him at Christmas, he still hadn't expected that anyone would ask him to talk, to say things, to explain what he had been thinking since that day last summer.

It was a frightening thought.

But it maybe wasn't quite so bad this way, leaning against Dad. Loki's eyes were closed again, the woven wool of Dad's robes scratching gently against his cheek and his words a little muffled as he spoke.

"I just thought... you always do the right thing. You and Mum. Even if it's hard, or, or you don't want to. And, and I thought... after you arrested the Campbell-Hardwickes, you couldn't just send a baby to Azkaban no matter who their parents were, how bad their parents were, so I thought maybe you took me so you, so you could watch me. In case I went Dark. So you could see it happening and then, and then do something." The arms around him went tighter, and Loki found himself burrowing into his father's chest.

"And I was Dark, sometimes. I am, even though I try not to be. I did, I did bad things, even though I mostly didn't mean to. I, I sent a lot of rocks flying at Thor and his friends, one day last summer, when they caught me spying on them and I got scared. I didn't mean to do that," he added urgently. "It just happened. I didn't do it on purpose. But I thought, I thought that meant I really would go Dark, because that was what my magic did when I didn't have control of it. And then I just worried about it, all summer, because I was afraid I might do something else Dark and not be able to help it, and, and I used to dream I was... that they took me to Azkaban and my, my parents were waiting for me and they told me I was just like them and... " He was starting to cry, breath hitching, but the words kept spilling out of him: "I thought I'd get to Hogwarts and they'd put me in Slytherin, and then I thought Slytherin wouldn't want me either, because I was, I was evil, and nobody would ever want me, or like me, and maybe the reason they never had before was because they could tell."

Dad was patting his back now, a bit awkwardly but with affection. It helped. Loki kept talking:

"But I got here, and the Hat- I asked it to put me in Gryffindor, because I thought, maybe if it would do that, if I went in Gryffindor, maybe Thor would like me after all, and you would, you'd think I, I mattered, that I belonged after all- " It had been months since Loki had thought like that, but now he felt a sudden surge of memory, of his hopeless longing for Gryffindor. "I knew I didn't belong there, not really, I knew I wasn't brave or, or any of those things, but the Hat asked me what I wanted, not houses but really really wanted, and then it put me in Hufflepuff. And, and they like me in Hufflepuff, even when I got mad at Thor and told myself stories about hurting him and making him feel bad, too. Professor Sprout told me that everyone has to work to be good, so I thought... maybe I just had to work harder than most people. Because of, of who my parents are. So I... I tried to, to do that, and then everyone... gave me another chance and, and they all started to like me again."

Mum spoke again, carefully. "Loki, do you still feel like you have to work harder than everyone else to be a good person? That there's something about you that will make you turn toward Darkness, even if you don't mean to?"

Loki started to give the obvious answer- of course he did, because of course nothing had changed, he was still the secret child of Death Eaters. But then he really thought about the question, and about what he had learned from talking to Professor Sprout that time, and from everything that had happened since last summer.

"N-no," he said, finally. "I don't think..." He thought some more about Mum's question, and then, hesitantly, he started trying to arrange his thoughts and put them into words:

"I, I think... I think it doesn't matter as much as I thought it did, at first. I mean... Annie, my friend Annie- and George and Mitchell, too- they're good because, because their parents are good people, and taught them to be good people. And maybe... maybe it's the teaching that does it. Not, you know, the being born good part. I think you can decide to be good, and… Because Mitchell's dad was a thief and a crook, and he has friends who ended up in Azkaban, but when really bad things started happening he decided to do the right thing. He did some bad things before then, but he wasn't bad.

"And then Barney- Barney's mother and father were heroes, and he was still, I mean, he really was pretty awful. Even when he was trying to protect us all, he was scary, like he couldn't think of any other way to act. And his parents must have been good people." Loki thought about Thor, too, who could be so kind and also so nasty, but he didn't say so. He went on, "And... there must be kids here right now- " (Bruce?) - "whose parents were on the Dark side, but they're growing up with people who are teaching them to be good people, so they're, they're good too." That had to be true, because his friends were right, there had to be Death Eaters' children at Hogwarts even if Bruce wasn't one, and yet most kids at Hogwarts were quite nice. Certainly not evil, anyway.

Loki went on, "That time I talked to Professor Sprout, she told me when the wars were going on, there were a lot of, of really nasty kids in Slytherin, because their parents followed Voldemort and taught them to believe all the things they did. So those kids, they were bad because their parents taught them to be that way, but if their parents had taught them differently, they'd have been all right.

"So... I mean, I know I'm sneaky, and, and a crybaby, but I'm, I'm not evil. And, and I'm not going to be. I, I belong in Hufflepuff and I'm not evil, I'm not. And, and maybe you took me in the first place to make sure I didn't turn Dark, but I know you do love me, now."

"Loki, we didn't- " Dad began, and then fell silent as Mum spoke up:

"We do love you. We always have, and we're glad you know it now." There was something painful in her voice as she asked, "What changed, so you know it now?"

Loki finally opened his eyes- now that he'd said everything he needed to, he could look at his family again- and explained, "Professor Sprout said she'd write to you, about… me. And when I came home for Christmas you… you acted like you wanted to change things. Like I… like I mattered to you. So I thought maybe I did all along, and you just didn't… show it before." The thought came to him: "Maybe you thought I already knew?"

"Yes," Mum said quietly. "We thought you… And we should have told you that you were adopted. We should have told you a long time ago."

Loki leaned against Dad and thought about that. Maybe they should have. But… they hadn't known he was unhappy, and lonely, and felt like he didn't matter, all that time. If he'd known all those years that he wasn't even theirs (and hadn't that been his first thought?) he would have just assumed that was the reason they didn't care very much about him. His parents would have gone on thinking he understood things he didn't, and knew things he didn't, and he would have gone on pretending he was all right because he was afraid of what might happen if he admitted that he wasn't.

"I don't know," he said finally. "Maybe this is better."

"It's not better," Thor burst out suddenly. Loki had almost forgotten about Thor. He looked at his brother, whose eyes were blank and shiny even though his face was twisted in… not anger, exactly, but something.

Oh. He'd forgotten, actually forgotten, that Thor knew already. That Thor, for a little while at least, thought it meant they weren't brothers at all.

"You should have told us both," Thor went on accusingly, and now tears were starting to spill out of his eyes. This made no sense, he knew- Thor turned to Loki and said urgently, "If I had known- if I knew it was true, I never would have said… what I did. I know it was awful of me, but I never… I never dreamed it was really true. I was just angry, and… and Volstagg was giving me a hard time about being nice to Clint and mean to you when you were my little brother, and I just… said it."

"Said what, Thor?" Dad spoke up ominously.

"It doesn't matter," Loki said quickly. "Not right now. Something we can talk about another time." Something was strange here, and they were going to have to get to the bottom of it, but for right now Loki wanted his parents to keep talking, to tell him. Whatever Thor said before, he had acted like Loki's brother when it mattered, and that was enough for now.

Thor opened his mouth- and then he looked at Loki for a moment, and closed it.

And then he asked, "Why didn't you tell us? Or, I mean, why didn't you at least tell Loki?"

Dad sighed. "Because, I suppose, we didn't know how."

"We knew we had to," Mum admitted. "And we had every intention... We wanted very badly to have children, your father and I. And for a long time we thought we never would. We were so thrilled when you were born, Thor. It almost seemed like a miracle. We knew there was very little chance of our having another child, but... Both of us had been only children, and we thought it would be lovely... " She smiled a little at the boys.

"We wanted very much to adopt a second child," Dad spoke up now. "The problem, of course, is that the wizarding world is so small, and so close-knit. Before the second war, it was almost unheard-of for children to be in need of adoption: if something happened to the parents, there would always be family or friends to take the child in. So there seemed... very little chance for us."

"It would have been different if we were Muggles," Mum added. "It's a much larger world. You hear of children who need families, especially older children, and we would have been glad to... I actually thought about a Muggle child, you know. Talked about it to your father. It wouldn't have worked, of course, I knew that- we made a great many mistakes with you boys, but even we could see the impossibility of bringing a non-magical child into our world and showing them things they could never truly participate in. Of making the child feel he wasn't part of either world. It's hard enough for squibs, we couldn't justify doing it on purpose. So... we had one child, and we were grateful for you, Thor, and we tried to accept the ideas there was no chance of a brother or sister for you.

"And then, Loki, there you were."

"After Dad... arrested my parents," Loki said softly. "After he stopped them, I... needed someone. And you decided that would be you. Is that what happened?"

"Not exactly," Dad said gently. "You have that part wrong. The Campbell-Hardwickes aren't your parents, Loki. They killed your parents. Your parents were Muggles."

It took a moment for Loki to understand what he had just heard.

"They were what?" he asked, his voice shrill and very far away.

"Muggles," Mum repeated, looking at him carefully. It crossed Loki's mind that she was worried he was upset by this news.

Nothing could have been farther from the truth. He actually felt weak all over- with surprise, with relief, with the light-headed feeling that he must be dreaming. This felt like another of those wishes he used to have, stories he used to tell himself, a much-wanted something that couldn't possibly be true. Not that he had ever specifically wished to be a Muggle- except when he was very lonely at his primary school- but if his other choice was to be related to murderous Death Eaters, there was no contest at all.

It seemed to Loki that, lately, more and more of his most deeply held wishes seemed to be coming true.

"Muggles?" Loki repeated stupidly. "Like… George's mother and father? And the kids at my old school? And… and the Beatles?"

Mum and Dad, to say nothing of Thor, were looking at Loki as if he had lost his mind. Probably he had forgotten to tell them about the Beatles. Still, they did at least seem to realize he wasn't upset about learning he was Muggle-born.

"Wow," he said. "I'm... What happened?"

"Well," Mum said, still looking closely at Loki. "The fact is... you know your friend Mitchell's father and I worked together, during the war."

Loki nodded. "Yes. You helped Muggle-borns and their families get out of Britain into Ireland, until the Death Eaters nearly caught him and he had to take Mitchell and Mrs. Mitchell and escape."

"Exactly," Mum agreed, and then went on gently: "The family they were trying to rescue that time... it was yours." She shivered. "If you had been with them when the Campbell-Hardwickes attacked..." Loki looked at her out of wide eyes, and his mother explained, "You were just a baby when you showed that you had magic. When you were born, the situation was extremely dangerous. Nobody knew who they could trust after Voldemort's forces took the Ministry. Your father and I had layers of wards on our house so we could stay in London- quite a few witches and wizards came to us at different times, for sanctuary- but we still sent Thor to France with an old friend of mine." She looked grim. "It was a terrible time.

"It was incredibly dangerous for Muggles whose babies were born with magic, of course, because they had no idea what was happening, or that there was anything to fear. They were completely defenseless. You know the Ministry can tell when magic is being used in a household, and if a single magic user suddenly appears somewhere, it usually means a child with magical abilities has been born into a Muggle family. Douglas Barton- Clint and Barney are his sons- had a network of loyalists who tried to track down those newborns before Voldemort's people could. St. Mungo's was still safe, mostly, so they would notify the hospital. We would get to the families and warn them, advise them to get out of the country.

"I was sent to visit your parents at their flat," Mum went on. "They were a lovely young couple, about the same age as Declan Mitchell and his wife. Your father was Irish- you have his colouring, Loki, although I think you look more like your mother- and I'm afraid he was rather distrustful of me, claimed not to believe my tales of hocus pocus, although he knew there was... something... about you."

Loki swallowed. "He thought I was... " (weird freak monster)

"They both knew you were different from most Muggle babies. It began when you started teething- that's not uncommon, if babies show their magic early it's normally when they're distressed. Thor showed his when he was a toddler, at tantrum age- " she smiled at Thor, patted him- "and you did when your teeth were bothering you, turning lights on and off and moving things around. Your parents were puzzled and a little frightened because they didn't understand it- your mother told me they were thinking of asking their priest for advice, and I think she was relieved to have an explanation."

"But my... my father wasn't," Loki said, feeling a trickle of sour disappointment at displeasing his birth father. It was ridiculous, he had never known this father, but-

"Honestly, I think your father was mostly suspicious of me," Mum admitted. "I speak like a rich lady who lives in a big house- well, I am a rich lady who lives in a big house- and I think that made it hard for him to trust me. I had to ask Declan to pay a second visit, with Moira and their little boy, to talk to them. Your father loved you, and I think he was afraid I was going to try to steal you, or something.

"And I could hardly blame him for that, since you really were one of the most beautiful babies I had ever seen. Your mother brought you to see me, and you were very taken with a jeweled clasp I wore on my cloak. You kept catching at it, and laughing. You were so beautiful, and I could tell your mother and father adored you.

"As I say, Declan and Moira paid a second visit, and they were able to convince your father to take our warnings seriously. But that wasted time."

"I really regretted the edict of secrecy in those days," Dad spoke up. "It was very hard to convince a lot of Muggle parents that magic was real, and they were in the midst of a war that was largely invisible to them. We wasted a lot of time, and people died because of it."

"Like my parents?" Loki asked. He should have said birth parents, made it clear he knew whose son he was now. That much hadn't changed.

Except of course it had, a little. Loki had already decided the Campbell-Hardwickes had no claim on him, but these Muggle parents were different. He had imagined what kind of person he would have been, if he had grown up as the Campbell-Hardwickes' son, and the idea disgusted and terrified him. His Muggle parents, though, had only wanted to bring up their son, and live their lives, and probably never hurt anybody.

"Like your parents," Dad agreed. He glanced at Mum and when she nodded, he went on, "I was no longer inside the Ministry, but I had my contacts, who tried to warn us of planned attacks on Muggles. Your mother- Mummy- arranged false papers for your, your family, for the Ahearns. Declan Mitchell was organizing their escape. But your mother- "

"Tracy," Mum spoke up, glancing at Loki. "Her name was Tracy."

"Yes," Dad said. "Tracy wouldn't leave without her own parents, who lived near the New Forest. They were all the family either of them had. By then, we were quite sure the Death Eaters were onto them- Voldemort was punishing Muggle-borns for 'stealing' magic, and that went for the parents, too, especially of young children. But they- Tracy and Ned- insisted. And, of course, given the actions of the Death Eaters at the time, it wasn't so far-fetched to believe they might also target the grandparents of Muggle-born wizard children, trying to wipe out the whole bloodline. Which made very little sense, considering practically all wizard families- even most of the so-called purebloods- have Muggle ancestors somewhere, but no one ever accused Voldemort and his party of reasonable thinking."

"We knew it was a risk, but they were willing to take it," Mum picked up the story. "They weren't so willing to risk you. And, of course, your magic, if you cast it, would be a way for the Death Eaters to track you. So we all decided together that it was safest for them to leave you behind, somewhere safe, while they went to fetch Tracy's parents. The safest place I could think of was the children's ward in St. Mungo's. Where better to hide a magical child, than among a lot of other magical children? So I took you to St. Mungo's, while they made their journey.

"Your grandparents, naturally, took as much convincing as your parents had, and that wasted time. Declan was afraid of the delay, and of the possibility the Ahearns' change in routine would draw attention from the Death Eaters. By that time, any unusual travel was treated with suspicion by Voldemort's forces, because quite a lot of Muggle-borns and their families had already escaped the country. It was no longer enough for them to simply go, it wasn't safe to travel openly, and of course most Muggles had no idea even what to be wary of. At first Declan would simply brief them on ways to avoid notice. Later he would escort them to safety, part of a network of travelers who knew how to get Muggles and Muggle-borns past the Snatchers and Death Eaters.

"I was to bring you to the Mitchells', where several Muggle families were gathering to make the trip with Declan. As clever as he and Moira were, we suspected their movements were beginning to be watched, and we all knew this couldn't go on much longer.

"I was with you at the hospital, waiting for word your parents had arrived at the Mitchells'. Instead, Moira's face suddenly appeared in the fireplace of my office, telling me they had been discovered and that I was not to come. Of course, your father- Dad- and Professor Fury went to the house as soon as I could get word to them, but it was too late. The Mitchells had fled with the surviving Muggles, although we didn't know that until later- there wasn't much left of their house, or the ones on either side, and I thought at first they must have perished inside.

"Your parents and grandparents were walking up to the door when the Campbell-Hardwickes arrived. It was very quick," Mum said gently.

"The cover story was a gas explosion," Dad went on. "Nick Fury and Phil Coulson and I went to work to track down the killers- I have no idea why Coulson chose a border collie as his animal form, when he's such a bloodhound on the trail. I caught up to the Campbell-Hardwickes myself." He smiled grimly. "I think they expected me to offer them a fair fight, as if not being Dark meant I was soft or stupid as well. I took great pleasure in delivering those two to Azkaban."

"And in the meantime," Mum said, "there you were, still at St. Mungo's, waiting for your mother and father to come for you." She wiped quickly at her eyes with the side of her hand. "We went to the Muggle authorities to see if you had other relatives anywhere, anyone who would have been notified of your parents' deaths, who would be worrying about and wanting you. Your parents had said there was no one aside from your grandparents, and sure enough there wasn't. I had gotten to love you, while you were in hospital and I was the person who felt most responsible for you, so of course we wanted to adopt you."

Dad spoke up. "It took a while for that to be formalized, but in the meantime we wanted you, no one else had a better claim on you, and there were levels of Muggle government who knew enough about our war to allow us to take you to France, for safety, with Thor. When the war ended and we brought you home, we were finally able to adopt you legally." He sighed. "And then, we just didn't know how to tell you all this. How much we should tell you, or when- how old you should be, how much it would upset you. We actually decided... after you were home at Christmas, Mum and I decided to tell you this summer. You seemed so much happier, more sure of yourself. We thought you'd be old enough to hear what happened to your parents without being as... troubled by it as you would have been a few years ago.

"We never dreamed that you already knew we adopted you. And we didn't dream for a second that you thought your parents were that pair of maniacs. I'm so sorry, Loki."

Dad's arms tightened around him. Loki leaned against his father, and after a moment his mother reached out to take his hand. She put her other arm around Thor, who leaned gratefully against her.

And they sat together quietly for a little while.