You're Not a Horse, Harry!

Number 9

Number 9

Loki took one look at Harry’s wand and said, “This is a little crutch for children. You will not need it to perform magic.”

Some part of Harry wanted to object, since he loved his wand. It genuinely felt like a part of him. But Harry had seen his mother perform magic without a wand. Loki performed all this magic, big and small, without any obvious tools, so Harry’s curiosity was piqued, especially because it would give him a real edge against Voldemort. Harry hadn’t forgotten how their wands had connected in the graveyard. If Harry could strike at Voldemort without a wand, and thus taking him completely by surprise, Harry might have a chance against him.

Of course, Harry told none of that to his mother or his father.

Loki was a strict but caring teacher. Loki understood magic on levels that went way over Harry’s head. To Loki, magic was like breathing, something he could do without even thinking about it.

And therein lay the problem. To Harry, so far, the magic that Loki was trying to teach him did not come naturally. Harry had to concentrate with all he had and even then he couldn’t do a simple spell to produce a ball of light in his hand.

For days Loki kept mentioning a tree in space and how everything was connected and all Harry had to do was walk the tree, which made no fucking sense at all.

“Ugh.” Harry buried his face in his hands after his hundredth failed attempt.

“Haraldr,” Thor said as he crouched before Harry while Loki stood to the side with tightly crossed arms, frustration written clearly across his face. “Remember when you told me about this game you like to play, where you fly on a broomstick and catch a little ball?”

“Quidditch,” Harry supplied while glancing at his father through his fingers.

“Performing magic is like that,” Thor said, and he waved his hand through the air as though to point some invisible thing out. “The magic is already there. All you have to do is catch it. When you play your game, do you have to make the ball from scratch, or do you only have to close your hand around it?”

Harry slowly lowered his hands and stared at his father in amazement. That actually made sense!

“The magic is right here.” Thor slowly straightened with a knowing smile on his face. “Go catch it.”

“That is the most absurd explanation of magic I have ever heard,” Loki said while smacking Thor on the arm. “Now I have to start over again to explain the world tree to our son.”

But Harry barely paid them any attention. He closed his eyes, imagined the magic around him (maybe shaped like a tree in space, who knew?), but there for him to catch, just like a snitch. Harry quietly whispered the spell and held out his hand and caught the magic that flowed around him.

Opening his eyes, Harry saw a perfect ball of light floating above the palm of his hand. Harry looked up at his parents with a huge smile, which Thor answered with a wide grin and Loki with an absolutely gobsmacked expression.

“Just because I am not a mage like you, Loki, doesn’t mean I never paid attention during Mother’s lessons,” Thor said with a satisfied smirk while he bumped his elbow against Loki’s stomach.

“Well, if there was any doubt about Thor having fathered the kid, I think we can put that behind us from now on,” Tony said from his position on the couch where he sat playing with his phone, pretending not to be interested in the magic lessons.

And Harry learned a very important lesson that day. While Loki could run circles around Thor when it came to general intelligence, Thor did occasionally have something wise to say that went straight over Loki’s head.