You're Not a Horse, Harry!

Number 22

“You want in on the next round?” Bucky called from where he sat on the couch, playing Mario Kart with Steve, Sam and Thor.

“Sure,” Harry said and he got up from his seat at the dining table in the communal living room.

“We can team up, kid,” Clint said, leaning back in his chair on the other side of the table, tipping it backwards as far as he could without falling over.

“All right,” Harry said with an easy shrug. He’d happily team up with Clint, since the man was much better at Mario Kart than Harry was. Harry had just been finishing up his diary that Agatha had requested he start keeping, as a way for him to work through things that happened to him on a day to day basis, but also to try to help him describe some of the more traumatic events of his life that Harry usually still had trouble putting into spoken words.

Agatha had also arranged with Tony that she would videocall Harry on his phone once a week so they could continue their sessions while Harry was at Hogwarts. Harry didn’t mind, not really. Yes, the sessions with Agatha always left him feeling raw and vulnerable and sometimes almost irrationally angry, but they also gave him a great sense of liberation. Somehow sharing all your troubles, big and small, with a neutral third party who didn’t judge you and just wanted to help you process all of it was really quite helpful, even if it didn’t always seem like that.

It was the day before New Year’s and the holiday was slowly but surely coming to an end, much to Harry’s disappointment. Loki had hinted several times, and downright asked once, for Harry to stay with them in New York, but Harry really did want to go back to Hogwarts. He loved the castle and his friends and the student life he had there, even if he knew he would miss his family and friends in New York more and more the better he got to know them every time he spent time in Avengers Tower.

Of course, there was one person who apparently didn’t even believe in holidays of any sort for his students, and that was Snape. Naturally, he’d assigned them all homework, the only professor to do so for the winter holidays.

Harry sighed. His potions grades were mediocre at best so he really couldn’t afford to mess up the essay he was expected to write. He’d best make sure he’d finished it properly and hadn’t forgotten anything. Shuffling through his pile of paperwork, Harry picked up his dad’s hammer to move it, since Thor had the habit of putting it on the first surface he could find without a care in the world whenever he entered a room, no matter that happened to be right on top of his son’s homework.

There was a loud crash from across the dining table as Clint fell backwards, chair and all.

“What the fuck!” Clint yelled as he quickly jumped to his feet. “Harry!”

Harry stood frozen, hammer in one hand, potions essay in the other, unsure if he’d done something wrong.

Of course, Clint’s loud response had drawn the attention of everyone in the room, because there came a loud and overly enthused “Son!” from the living room area not soon after.

Thor was at Harry’s side in an instant, a bright smile lighting up his whole face as he stared down at Harry with obvious pride written across every inch of him. “Son!”

“Dad,” Harry replied with a dubious smile, still not sure what was happening. “Could you maybe not leave your hammer on my potions essays again? If it smudges the ink, Snape will deduct points. Well, more points than usual.”

“Son!” Thor said again, now beaming at Harry in a way that Harry had never seen before, and then he wrapped his huge arms around Harry, hammer and essay and all.

The elevator opened to release a dishevelled looking Tony and a pale, disbelieving Loki. “Jarvis said something had happened,” Tony said, quickly glancing around the room to figure out what it could possibly be.

“Loki, look!” Thor stepped back to reveal a very confused Harry, who looked up at his mother with pleading eyes, hoping that someone might explain what on earth was happening.

“I’ll be damned,” Tony said with a crooked grin as he crossed his arms and stepped up to Clint. “It’s got to be the DNA, right?”

“They do share DNA, yeah,” Clint said, as if he hadn’t thought of that before. “That might be it.”

“Whut?” Harry managed to croak, while he looked between Tony and Clint with wide eyes.

“Nice hammer you got there. Been lifting it often?” Tony asked with a tilt of his head, grin still firmly in place.

“Whenever Dad leaves it lying about and I need to move it,” Harry said, unsure why anyone would be interested in this topic.

“Jarvis, you sly dog,” Tony said, winking up at the ceiling. “You’ve been keeping secrets from us.”

“I merely didn’t want to ruin the surprise,” Jarvis said without a hint of remorse.

Loki, much to Harry’s added confusion, didn’t seem all that excited about whatever was happening. Loki sniffed and straightened himself up to his full height while giving Thor a look of utmost supremacy. Or perhaps it was merely a murderous look. It was hard to tell with Loki sometimes.

“Obviously Haraldr can lift your hammer,” Loki said in a tone that suggested he found the topic utterly droll. “He is your son.”

Something came over Thor, something soft and understanding, and he all but lifted Harry up as he closed the space between them and Loki, so he could pull his brother in a tight hug. “You forget, Loki,” Thor whispered as he held them both as close as he could. “That Haraldr is half yours. And yet he can still raise Mjolnir. That can’t all be me.”

Loki stilled in Thor’s arms before he released a shuddering sigh and relaxed against his brother, head leaning on Thor’s shoulder. And Harry stood between his parents, hammer clutched in his hand, his potions essay a crumbled mess, and he wondered if his parents had suddenly gone utterly insane.

“Can someone please explain what is going on?” Bucky yelled from the couch. “I’m so confused.”

That made two of them, Harry thought, even if he did enjoy the impromptu family hug.