Godward

AnnaDruvez's prompt: I've seen Harry is Loki, and Harry befriends Loki. But, how about HarryPotter, adherent/worshipper of Loki? Must have him comment at some point that the Marauders were amateurs when compared to his true inspiration. May or may not have met the Marvel Loki. May or may not enter a prank war with Sirius in order to prove the inherent superiority of any follower of the God of Mischief. Bonus points if he pranks Voldie to death.

(Oh, Marvel. Here are a few things to keep in mind; in Norse myth Laufey or Nál was mother to Loki. The or implying that they were thought to be two different deities, it is highly likely that only Loki's father Fárbauti was Jötun; meaning his mother was a Vanir or Aesir goddess.

As Marvel uses Laufey as the name of Loki's father, I use Nál for his mother. There have been a few cases in the comics where Fárbauti was hinted to be the mother of Loki, in that case I say – yes- but Nál was another name she was known by – Fárbauti being the Jötun equivalent as Norse gods and goddesses had many names by which they were known for.)

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'Hello, god, it's me Harry.' A prayer alone probably won't get him out of this mess, Harry Potter reflects, but it's a good way to start. It's a sort of a mental, "hey, how are you - guess what?"… Harry feels his god's amusement like a shadow crossing over his skin on a hot summer day.

Then he feels the alarm, and knows it isn't his own because that is not what Harry's feeling, what Harry feels starts and ends with pain.

They kept him in darkness, and shackled with wrists held behind his back, the chain not more than enough to let him sit down or get up from the cold stone floor. It was to be expected. There was plenty of pain, but he was not yet bloodied.

His blood, they had to know, was his greatest strength –and the lack of it being spilled was now his weakness. Harry stared steadily into that darkness, as if he could see his captors. He was without wand, and his mouth was gagged shut by a bar, so his mouth tasted of iron. They'd broken his glasses and taken his robes from him, so all he had on was a shirt and jeans.

All he could do was pray, so he did, and knew his god heard him – and was probably going to save him sometime today, or tonight.

'Right, god?' Harry hopes and gets a soothing wash of absolute fury.

When Harry Potter had been dragged to church at age five, upon crossing the threshold he didn't burst into flames like Aunt Petunia had half hoped would happen to a wizard – instead he had sat silent and still upon the pew, and when everyone bowed their heads and prayed, he had prayed too.

Harry didn't know what god others prayed to, and if they were ever answered it was not anything like how it worked for Harry. Harry had spoken to god in prayer, and god had spoken back to him. Harry just wasn't sure which god, because there were a lot of them – and goddesses too, in cultures world wide – and his god didn't name himself, but simply made sure Harry knew he was his god.

This was what happened when Harry Potter, Boy Who Lived, made a living target of himself on a dare from Sirius Black's lips, and Death Eater's took advantage – as they were meant to. Only something had gone badly wrong, and Harry found himself waiting for help that might never come on time. Oh, he didn't doubt that they'd look and eventually find him; it was that 'on time' bit that was the key, because they might – just might – find him dead, first.

Harry wasn't sure how much of the darkness he saw was actually the dark, or if something was wrong with his vision beyond being blurred.

There was a burst of light, green and vivid gold, and a figure was crouched in front of him protectively. He had horns, and Harry had the sickening feeling that maybe what he thought was his god was a demon and Aunt Petunia had been right that he should have been burnt for being a wizard.

'God?' Harry asked, and the horned head turned, ice blue eyes and inky black hair, not bad looking for a god – or demon. The horns were golden and upon a helmet. Not a demon, probably, but a god - an old one. There were runes Harry recognized upon his staff.

'Call me Loki.' A smile curled across those lips. The eyes remained worried, studying him, and only Harry saw the movement in the darkness, the shadow moving toward them.

'Behind you!' Harry called out, groaning around his gag to give some kind of sound to his warning. Loki looked, and held up a hand, as if in surprise to defend himself – and when the shadow formed a shape Harry recognized all too well as that of the Dark Lord, who sent a flare of a familiar green curse upon Loki with a muttered word, Harry wondered if gods could die.

Only, the curse came close to Loki but than it bounced off his hands, and hit the Dark Lord – who hit the cold floor, dead. Harry felt a little like laughing, he must have bled those feelings onto Loki, who melted the chains – so Harry moved his cuffed hands onto his lap and removed the gag, gently, from his mouth. Harry worked his mouth open and closed, his jaw aching, feeling sore and too wide.

"You're in shock." Loki noted, tilting his head this way and that with careful slender fingers, studying his eyes with his own blue ones narrowed. Harry felt as if he was being measured and weighed in whole worth. Harry wondered how he added up, and felt Loki's protectiveness in answer.

"You just did what I've been trying to do for years, in a minute." Harry admitted, with no small amount of admiration. Loki was pleased at that, but also sort of guilty.

"I didn't mean to take the victory from you, it was small of me, but I did not think of your feelings at the time." Harry's laugh felt painful and rusty, and he tried to think of things to say that would show his relief and that saving his life was something he knew to be grateful about.

"I'd much rather met you, Loki – than have killed him, or been killed by him." Harry could admit that freely. That prophesy he'd heard had after all, never promised that Harry would live, or that the Dark Lord would die. Harry felt Loki's alarm slam into him as the god's fingers, at touching the corners of his eyes, came away bloody.

"What is happening to you?" Loki demanded – as if Harry would know, the pain speared into him and he couldn't choke out an answer. There was something in his head, his heart, hurting him. He didn't know how and all he could hear was the squalling of a baby. Harry cringed and flung himself to the cold floor, flinching and writhing as if he could get away from what was inside his body.

Loki pinned him easily to the floor, straddling Harry's body and putting hands to either side of his head and meeting his eyes uneasily, bowed his head to Harry's own, brow meeting brow, and muttered a word Harry couldn't quite hear over his – or the baby's? – screaming.

Loki slipped into Harry's mind, into his consciousness and the shape of his soul and the warmth of his heart. It felt right and familiar and Loki felt guilty that this felt good. This was meant to be mercy, meant to find a wrong and right it. It wasn't supposed to be as natural to him as magic was to both Harry and he. It was perhaps the magic that made it feel familiar, rather than any perversion on Loki's part. He clung to that as he slipped into the wizard's world, and saw his world as he did.

It was a house, one in which the pictures moved, and the staircases never quite behaved as they should. There was a fireplace where a man held a woman and there was a dog and a wolf at their feet. Loki saw the woman with her red hair and green eyes, and knew her for Harry's mother – and knew her too, for his own. He felt his heart hammering in his chest as she looked up from the fire and raised her brows, but she looked like she'd been expecting him.

"So - my son, you've found him have you, your brother?" Lily, she'd been called here, but Loki knew the name of Laufey's Aesir wife as Nál, she'd taken the name of Laufey and made mockery of it by naming herself Lily.

Just as Laufey had wed and bed her and named her his wife, and set her aside and sent her away at the birth of Loki, mocking her – humiliating her in the realms of Asgard, Vanaheimr, and Jötunheimr alike.

He'd thought his little Aesir queen would return to Asgard, but she had not – no one knew where Nál had gone – or if she lived, and when Luafey had sent his people to look… Asgard, outraged against Laufey for the insult to Odin's sister, had sent armies against them – driving them to their world and chasing them down upon it until they'd taken Loki and the Casket of Ancient Winters.

All this Loki had not known – that his mother was Nál and his father was Luafey – he knew now, in the space of one breath and the next.

"What's his name?" Loki demands, for Harry Potter is not the name of a Aesir, and whatever Midgard's wizards and witches thought his name was and called him by- Nál would name him true, and it was that name Loki knew he needed to save his brother's life.

"Býleist." His mother answered, with a small contented smile. This was her echo, a piece of her that was inside all her sons – it wasn't the real Nál. Yet it spoke true, for the whole house shivered and fell away like rain, washed away, leaving a station in which Harry – no, his brother Býleist – sat on a bench and waited by the train tracks.

Loki came closer, reaching out to touch him, to wake him and shake him from this – but something stilled him. There was a baby in his lap; the baby had his brother's green eyes. The head of his brother twisted at an unnatural angle to see him, there was no scar – and the eyes were red, red like blood.

Loki hissed at the sight. He finished the gesture, gripping that familiar skull with its red eyes, and snarled into that face that was – and wasn't – his brother's,

"Be naught." Is the meaning of the old words he used, sending this silver of essence into the Ginnungagap, the Yawning Void, where it would not find its way back. From that gap all life came from – and to it all live would return. In time, but Loki had sped up that time for this threat. The red eyes faded to a dead black, the baby – like mist, faded – and those eyes blinked and were familiar green that Loki could breathe easily at the sight of.

Harry Potter opened his eyes, knowing much more about himself than he had upon closing them. He also knew he was squished.

"Get off!" Harry demanded, with a grunt and a shove. He's half Aesir, he knows, but Loki is half that and Jotun besides – it gives his older brother an unfair advantage. Loki simply laughs at his struggles and rolls off him to rest on the cold ground beside him.

"Ah, god, you're going to get me killed." Harry says, knowing his name and tasting it like lightning upon his tongue, bright and binding – Býleist. He worries how Loki will treat him now, all his life he's strived to be like his god, or what like Loki let him know he was like.

He'd liked the Marauder's map, he had liked Sirius and Remus – had contempt to rival Harry's own for Peter – but he'd also striven to challenge Sirius, to be better than a Marauder. He'd argued against being called one, feeling the possessiveness and jealousy of Loki – his god, his brother – and when Sirius had told him that in order to prove he was better off alone than as a Marauder he'd have to play a game like muggle truth or dare, Harry hadn't argued.

Yet that had gotten him this – and Harry wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing.

"I most certainly will keep you alive, brother. Trust me in that much truth." Loki is careful of him, Harry knows – careful in a way he hadn't been before, in a way that Harry doesn't like. Harry realizes what's always been there, is their blood, that links them – by their mother's blood, they can feel what the other does, and follow the other's thoughts – and Harry had known all along that it wasn't one-way, what Loki can do, Harry can to – Loki has simply had much longer to practice.

Loki is, after all, much older. Harry feels Loki's amusement at that, almost like preening. Harry thinks that's better than the distance.

"I do. No wonder I didn't want to be a Marauder, they are all amateur's compared to you, Loki." Loki smirks, pleased that what Harry learned of the lore of gods and goddesses included him and his own dealings. It's only a part of them, Harry is sure – there is more to both of them than what they do, and what other's remember them for.

"You'll learn from the best than, won't you?" Loki holds out his hand for Harry to take, and Harry knows Loki means to take them to Asgard, to see the healing goddess Eir and to speak with the father who had raised him and the brother who he knew was his nephew. They were his family, on his mother's side. It was a relief to know he had Harry – and that he was not simply only Jotun.

"Do you think she's alive?" Harry asks, softly in the shadows – he does not take Loki's hand, his hesitance born of a dreadful fear that Odin and Thor and all their family will not think nearly so much as Loki does. He speaks of their mother, who has been absent from both of their lives – and Loki looks down at the palm of his hand as if it is a strangers.

"I do not know, Harry." Yet, now, Loki knows to look for her.

"Call me Býleist." His brother takes his hand, and Loki never calls him by other than that name in Asgard.

(I've always thought that if Loki had found out in a different way that he wasn't Odin's son, and was not Thor's brother, he would have perhaps been more calm about it; so here you have Loki finding out that no he isn't Odin's son, he's Nál's son - she being the sister of Odin; and they are still his family, and look, Loki you have a little brother and a missing mother! So he doesn't quite go crazy.)