The rest of dinner was peppered with questions about magic before they moved on to the tour of the rest of the house which alternated between talks about magic in general and what they were seeing. The tour ended in Harry's room. It wasn't quite late enough for bed yet, but it had been a long day for them both so they sat down on Harry's loveseat to relax and chat for a while first. Loki wrapped an arm around his son and pulled him to his side, hoping that he wouldn't deem himself too old to cuddle, and was glad when he wasn't. At least not yet. He'd probably missed such things enough that he would do it anyway for a while regardless, so Loki would cherish it while it lasted.

Harry relaxed against his father's side, reveling in what he was sure was one of his last chances for this before it ended. Once he went to bed and then woke up again, the dream would be over and he'd be back in his cupboard. Maybe he could have this dream again sometimes though. That would be nice. "Can you tell me some more about you and mum?"

"Absolutely," Loki agreed and launched into story after story about their school years and some afterwards as well until he noticed Harry dozing off. He smiled and picked him up and carried him to bed, tucked him in, and kissed his forehead. "Goodnight, Harry. I love you."

"Night Dad. Love you too," he mumbled sleepily with a smile.

Loki stepped out into the hallway and called Mopsy. "Keep a watch on him and let me know if he wakes up in the night and doesn't go right back to sleep." He wasn't sure if Harry would wake him up or not if he was needed so he would feel better with the extra eyes on it.

"Mopsy do," she nodded emphatically.

Loki's next call was to Tippy. "Can you find me copies of all the Daily Prophets since that Halloween night? Get me what you can in the next ten minutes and the rest whenever you manage. I'll read them over in my sitting room."

Loki then went into his rooms for the first time. These rooms had been his parents' last time he was here. He took a look around and made sure that he at least had enough to get him through a few days. He noticed that the photo albums that were kept at Godric's Hollow were already in his room, but he still called Wimsy and asked her to find any other albums and bring them as well. By the time his perusal was done, he found that Tippy had gone above and beyond. That or the Prophet deliveries had continued in their absence and the elves had been storing them, which was actually rather likely. There were ten stacks. One for each year apparently. He started with the shortest one, confirming that the one on top was December 31st 1981. He waved his wand and flipped the stack upside down and picked up the paper for November first of that year.

As he read through it didn't take him long at all to be seething. How could everything have gone so wrong? He'd been wondering if he needed to add a dog to his vengeance list along with a rat, but learning what had happened to Sirius redirected that anger. He didn't believe for a second that Sirius killed thirteen people. He /might/ have believed that he killed Peter in a fit of rage and grief after what happened, but no matter how messed up he was, he would never have killed all those innocent bystanders. The whole thing reeked of setup. He highly doubted that Peter was dead for one thing, but even without that, the number of people who would have to collude in the conspiracy to keep him in prison without a trial meant that fixing it wasn't going to be as simple as pointing out the lack of a trial or even that Sirius wasn't the secret keeper. No, there were too many people who stood to fall if it came out that Sirius was innocent. That meant that nothing less than delivering Peter trussed up would do. And even then, he would have to deliver him to the correct people lest he just disappear.

Loki did feel a bit bad for thinking the worst of Padfoot all day after learning that he'd essentially abandoned his son. He didn't think anything of Moony. Those wards would never have let a werewolf through, good intentions or not. He didn't have a choice. Padfoot could have gotten through though if he wasn't in prison. Frank and Alice would have been expected to check in on him too, but it had only been a few days before the worst had happened to them as well and he was sure that Augusta had her hands full dealing with that and little Neville. Not only that, but she likely wouldn't have been able to find him anyway. She didn't have the benefit of the godparent bond that Sirius and Alice would have. He would have to contact Augusta soon.

As much as Loki wanted to keep his son all to himself for the last almost six weeks before Hogwarts, it would be better for Harry to have a friend there already. That led to him considering his public story. It wasn't like he could tell anyone the truth about where he'd been. First though he needed to get some sleep. Even speed reading all those newspapers had taken five hours and it was well after midnight. He laid awake for a while though due to so much on his mind. He did get the public story decided on before he fell asleep though. After the first fight in the living room, he left a golem behind, intending to take his family and leave the country, faking their deaths. There was a second fight in the nursery and when he fell, his emergency portkey took him to a private healer on the continent and he'd been in a healing coma since. It was close enough to the truth as far as this world was concerned.

Loki only got to sleep for about two hours before Mopsy was waking him up. "Master said to wake him up if little master was up. Little master awake and crying."

"Thank you Mopsy," Loki said as he grabbed his robe and put it on over his pajamas and rushed to Harry's room. He stepped in and saw him sitting up in the bed with his arms wrapped around his knees crying. Loki went over and sat on the bed next to him, wrapping him in a hug and kissing the top of his head. He didn't say anything, waiting for Harry to tell him what was wrong. Pushing wouldn't help any.

"I-I thought it was a dream," Harry sniffled after a few minutes, leaning against his father's side. "I-I thought I would wake up a-and be back in my cupboard and..."

"Oh my sweet boy," Loki said soothingly, pulling Harry into his lap and rocking him gently. "You will never be in a cupboard again. I promise you. You're home now and I'm never letting you go again."

"Wh-why didn't they like me? What did I do wrong?" he asked in almost a whisper.

"You did nothing wrong, my sweet child. And even if you did, no matter what you did, treating a child like that is /never/ okay. There is /nothing/ you could have done to deserve that. Nothing."

"Wh-what if...if you..." he couldn't finish the question.

"I don't care what you do, Harry, I will never hurt you. No matter what you do, I will always love you. Even when I get mad at you, which I'm sure I will sometimes, I will still love you. And no punishment ever will involve hurting you, locking you in a cupboard or any other small space, or withholding meals. Those are things that you /never/ do to a child. For any reason." Normally he had nothing against a few swats to the behind when it was warranted, but he never would to Harry. Not after what he suspected about his previous life. He was almost too old for that kind of punishment anyway.

Loki sat there for quite a while comforting his son while the boy was hopefully thinking over what he said and starting to believe it. When no more conversation was forthcoming, Loki was free to think over the things he read and how they would affect Harry. What kind of morons hold a child up as a savior? And there were mentions of book series that he would need to look into, but if they were as bad as he suspected it made it even worse. His baby boy was going to have to deal with that kind of fame. If only he'd been around from the start, he would have put a stop to it. He would have kept it from getting this far. He considered the idea of running from it. Taking Harry and leaving the country like he'd planned to so long ago, but this made it both more tempting and more difficult. People would never stop looking for him. The stories would get even more out of hand if he disappeared. No, it needed to be faced head on. He could go to Hogwarts for one year. See how it worked out. Get the curiosity out of people's system. Let them see there was nothing to hide. Then they could discuss their options and see if Harry wanted to transfer to somewhere that he wasn't as well known.

He wondered if this deification of Harry had anything to do with the fates of his godparents. If all the plots were connected somehow. Or maybe he was just being paranoid. Either way, their talk in the morning would mean discussing his fame with him as well. And Loki decided that he would stay secret for now. At least as far as the public was concerned. He still planned to contact Augusta Longbottom, but otherwise they would remain in hiding for the rest of the summer while he taught his son how to deal with the fame that would be thrust upon him. Once he saw Harry safely off on the train, he could put the rest of his plans into motion. As badly as he felt for leaving Padfoot there for longer, he knew the old dog would agree that the pup came first. It had been almost a decade. Another month delay wouldn't make that much difference. When Harry started nodding off again, Loki tucked him back in, wiped his tears, and pressed another kiss to his head before going back to his own bed.