29: A Fallen God By Hostiel (Hp x Avengers)

Fic type:Crossover

Loki in Harry's head. It doesn't have all that dumbledore dark lord crap.

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A Fallen God

By: Hostiel

When Loki fell from the Bifrost he was expecting the cool embrace of oblivion, not to become a spirit and then be ripped apart and forced into the mind of a six-year-old named Harry Potter. With no physical form, he must keep the boy alive if he seeks to keep existing, and everyone knows that the best way to ensure continued survival is to simply become greater than everyone else.

Rated: Fiction T - English - Adventure/Humor - Harry P., Loki - Chapters: 45 - Words: 102,718 - Reviews: 2,764 - Favs: 6,341 - Follows: 7,407 - Updated: Dec 13, 2018 - Published: Aug 15, 2015 - id: 11447653

Link:https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11447653/1/A-Fallen-God

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Chapter 1

Loki released his grip and let himself fall. Thor's screams of anguish rang in his ears, yet Odin's silence was somehow ten times more deafening. As he turned towards the blue vortex below him, he felt his eyes began to water.

That was only because the light was too bright, of course. Not because of the fact that this was the end for him. It also wasn't because of Odin's disappointment. No, he cared about Odin as much as Odin cared about him: not at all. Or a bit less than that, perhaps.

He wasn't exactly sure how it was possible to care for someone less than not at all, but he was good at beating impossible odds. Except when he wasn't. Like now, for example, as he found himself failing in his plan to destroy Jotunheim. Then again, those odds hadn't exactly been impossible.

The chance of surviving this, however, was impossibly low. Logic dictated that Loki would, therefore, survive.

Loki smiled as the swirling abyss of oblivion enveloped him.

If he had been conscious, Loki would have been screaming—if the pain hadn't already torn his mind apart, that was. In fact, more than that was happening now. Splinters of his very being were lashed off by the power assaulting him. Each shard of Loki was sent in a different direction, and subsequently destroyed by corporeal and spiritual energies alike.

All but one.

A fragment of Loki, slightly bigger than the rest managed to cling to its former body until the very last moment. Any physical part of it was destroyed as it re-entered the universe, but the spirit–the soul, the tiny piece of one, at least–remained. The energies of the broken Bifrost picked it up like a tornado and sent it spinning through space and time, and in a matter of massive coincidence, it happened to land on Midgard.

The fragment was a being of animalistic instinct, and all animals desired to eat. This entity needed to feed upon magic–not much, but it would need to latch itself to a source. In its extremely weak state, the source would need to be vulnerable. It scanned across the Earth, omnipresent and yet without form, looking for something to consume.

And there it was. A being much like it. An entity that was less than a hundredth of a human's soul that had connected itself to a host in an attempt at survival. Unfortunately for the said piece of human soul, a hundredth of an Asgardian soul was far more powerful than even a whole human soul—and it most certainly was not a full human skull.

Whilst the fragment of Loki was far too small to measure, it had little trouble ripping the despicable creature into shreds and banishing it from its host's mind so that he could replace it.

If the six-year-old Harry Potter had been awake, he would have seen a cloud of writhing blackness burst from his scar, letting out an eldritch screech before a bright white light consumed it and forced its own way in. In fact, he did awake at this point, but by this time the light show had vanished.

With a small frown, he attributed the light he had seen to his imagination–there were no windows in his cupboard, after all–and went back to sleep.

For what seemed like an eternity to him, Loki could do naught but observe and think. Thinking. He had certainly been doing a lot of that. The first matter he had decided to contemplate was the simple subject of whether or not he was actually Loki. He had retained partial memory of his time as an untethered spirit, his supernatural intelligence the only thing that stopped his mind from being driven insane as he perceived the concept of nigh-on omnipresence.

He knew that he had been a part of Loki, and that with the fact that the "real" Loki was most likely dead, he decided that he was now Loki–even if he didn't have a physical form and was confined to the mind of a child. How he had fallen.

Whilst he had never paid much attention to the affairs of the great majority of mortal kind, he had occasionally interfered with wizards, spreading chaos among them and teaching them spells that would further their strife between themselves. He happened to now inhabit the mind of one of them, and an apparently powerful one if his estimations were correct. Well, not powerful now seeing as though he was a six-year-old, but he would be when he was an adult—if he managed to make it to adulthood.

Loki would have been happier with the power levels of his host if not for the fact he couldn't figure out how to take over the boy's mind. For mortal months he had recharged his strength, leeching off the boy's soul until he was once again full. By all logic, he should have been able to dominate the child's mind with the slightest effort. Unfortunately, logic had abandoned him.

He supposed the reason he was not able to was that he was essentially composed of the boy's magic, having fed off of it to reconstruct his mind. Being a master of magic, Loki of all people knew that some types of magic refused to strike against itself. It was just his luck that he managed to come up against it in this child.

For what must've been the hundredth time, Loki found himself wishing that he had ended up in the mind of an adult. For one, they would be a lot more powerful. There was also that Loki was not exactly a patient god, and although he had fathered–and mothered–children of his own, he did not think he had the kindness to cooperate with a child's immaturity.

He sighed. Yes, an adult would be much easier to cooperate with. As evidenced by the fact that Loki had been a mother, he was not adverse to changing forms to obtain his goals—well, he hadn't been back then when he hadn't known how badly it would damage his mind—and an adult or a hormonal teenager was considerably easier to seduce.

What would lure a bloody six-year-old into doing his bidding?! Candy?! Loki himself had not been a child for centuries upon centuries, so he didn't have much recollection of his own childhood other than sadness at never being good enough to make his father proud.

On that note, he had noticed that there were many similarities between him and the boy, Harry, whose name he had only learnt when the boy's guardians had finally decided to call him something over than "boy."

They were both orphans, though the circumstances were slightly different, Loki having killed his biological father whilst Harry's had been murdered, or at least that's what he assumed from the flashes of green light that plagued the boy's dreams. Those flashes were easily recognisable as those of the Killing Curse, which Loki was quite impressed the humans had managed to learn.

Perhaps not all humans were hairless apes, just the vast majority.

They had also both been adopted by people who cared more for their other child, though the Dursleys were slightly more blatant in showing this, what with their locking in a cupboard, rather than just disapprovingly glaring at him with one eye.

Both of them were outcasts.

All of these combined with their slightly similar appearance would probably make it easier for Loki to manipulate Harry into seeing him as a father or elder brother figure.

If he had been in his physical form, Loki would have frowned. What exactly was his objective anyway? To return to Asgard? World domination? To rule Asgard? Universal domination?

For now, he would just have to wait for the boy to grow more powerful, an easier task than he had first expected. Loki could already feel his soul having an extremely slight impact upon the boy, his personality and physiology alike. He supposed that one day, with a bit of influence from him, Harry would be completely Asgardian, or–gods forbid–Jotun instead of human. This was if Loki's soul continued to change and warp him for years, and Loki hoped it would have a similar effect upon his personality. It wouldn't do to share a body with someone squeamish about killing.

He supposed he would have to start changing the boy at an early age, just as soon as he had enough power to actually talk to him.

Harry let out a growl of annoyance as a yell filtered through his cupboard door, awakening him from a sleep for once uninterrupted by nightmares. Nevertheless, he still opened the door of his cupboard and moved towards the kitchen, preparing to cook breakfast for his relatives.

He despised them, but what else could he really do? From what they had told him, this was better than an orphanage, but then again, they could be lying. Still, he was fairly sure that if anyone found him they would just call the police and send him back here. That would only make Vernon even more angry than usual, and that was not a situation Harry wanted to be in.

School was the only way to get away from Vernon and Petunia, and even there they would know everything he did, and Dudley made sure to always impart their wrath upon him for when they couldn't. Finishing his breakfast, Harry sighed as he made his way towards the garden, preparing to begin a weekend of chores.

"I guess I'll be here forever," he murmured as he exited the backdoor.

"Or perhaps not, Harry," an unfamiliar voice said in response and he shot around, looking for the source.

He was greeted by the sight of a tall, slim, and undeniably handsome man with black hair and green eyes slightly similar to his own. What drew his attention, however, was not the man's face. It was his rather odd choice in clothing. He appeared to be wearing golden armour with a flowing green cape.

Being a six-year-old, Harry blurted out the first question to come to mind. "Are you my dad?"

For a moment, the man looked stunned, but then his expression transitioned into annoyance. "No! What would prompt you to think that?!" the man asked incredulously, any traces of his previous coolness gone.

Harry frowned. "Well, we look kind of similar, and the Dursleys always said my parents were weird..."

"Weird?!" the man demanded. "I am not weird!"

"Well," Harry sniggered. "You're wearing a cape..."

The man looked appalled to the point where Harry had to stop himself from bursting out laughing. "This is no mere cape; it is the pinnacle of Asgardian finery!"

Harry's brow wrinkled in confusion. "Pinnacle? Asgardian?"

As if he was going to explain, the man opened his mouth before abruptly closing it again and sighing. "Your education can come later, for now, I must explain more crucial matters to you." He paused dramatically. "I am Loki Odinson, god of mischief, among other things."

Whilst there were other titles the mortals had bestowed upon him, he didn't exactly know which ones were correct, and were from actual oracles rather than false ones. He had thought the mortals to be wrong about everything, but with his recent realisation that he was, in fact, a son of Laufey and that they had known this millennia before he himself had, he didn't know what to think anymore.

Harry blinked. "A god? Then why are you here?"

Loki had been expecting slightly more surprise than that, but decided to go with it anyway. "To be perfectly honest, I fell from the Bifrost—"

"Bifrost?" Harry interrupted.

Loki sighed again; explaining things to this boy was already annoying him. "A big rainbow bridge," he simplified. "Anyway, as I was saying before I was interrupted"–he looked pointedly at Harry–"I fell from the Bifrost and found myself stripped of my physical form. As a spirit, I, of course, needed a host if I sought to remain tethered to the physical world. Luckily for me, I happened to find a mortal with a spirit – one weaker than me – inhabiting their head. You."

Harry gaped in horror. "There was something in my head?!"

"There is no need to thank me for ridding you of it. I now reside within you instead, and you are the only one who can see and communicate with me, thus why I am talking to you."

"There's a god living inside my head?" asked Harry, not looking any less horrified.

Loki frowned, slightly offended. Whilst that was greatly overly-simplified, it was essentially the truth. "Yes. Oh, you also happen to be a wizard."

"Magic is real?!"

Loki raised a single eyebrow. "You so easily believe in the gods, yet magic is infeasible to you?"

"Well, Vernon and Petunia say—" began Harry, but he was promptly interrupted.

"Vernon and Petunia? The same aunt and uncle who hate you?" Loki said, and Harry recoiled in surprise. "I live inside your head, Harry, I see the world through your eyes, and I know hatred when I see it. I have faced it many a time before."

Harry frowned. "But you're a god."

Loki's expression saddened an almost unperceivable amount. "Even gods have families, Harry." His eyes glinted as a smirk broke upon his face. "On that note, you must soon begin to learn magic if we are to leave this place, and I think your family would make simply excellent test subjects."

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Chapter 2

Harry let himself drift away from reality, concentrating on nothing but Loki's telepathic instructions and his target, Dudley. The sounds of the school playground faded into numb static as Loki's voice became the only noise perceptible to him.

"Look at Dudley, then look beyond him. Stare upon his form in both body and spirit, and then push yourself forward," Loki whispered.

He had told Harry that whilst there were many ways to invade someone's mind, this would be the easiest by far with him helping, also simplified by the fact he was only trying to intrude upon a weak-minded child who had no innate magic to fight off invasion. It was not a mortal method, but it was one Loki himself had been quite adept at using when he himself had been young.

It had taken him quite a while to learn as a child, but he could dramatically speed the process for Harry by doing the heavy lifting himself. There was also the matter of how much weaker a mortal mind was than that of an Asgardian.

Harry followed Loki's advice to the letter, piggybacking off the Asgardian's soul to perceive more than any human could, and when he moved forward, his body did not. A portion of his mind merged with Loki's lashed towards Dudley at amazing speed, colliding with his mind.

With Loki focusing on enhancing Harry's perception rather than instructing him, Harry might have had a difficult time trying to dominate Dudley's will. Luckily for him, he only needed to influence his mind.

Gathering all the hate he had for the boy, Harry manifested it into existence, imparting upon the Dudley the first thing that came to mind. This method was in no way delicate, relying on emotion, but it could work well in some instances.

Satisfaction flared within Harry as Dudley let out a scream of terror, no doubt a result of the wave of spiders he was currently imagining flood across his vision. All of Dudley's friends laughed at the fat boy, who was still screaming even though the weak illusion had undoubtedly dispersed by this point.

Later, when the excitement had died down, Dudley glared at the Harry, who promptly swallowed. If Dudley suspected his freakishness to be at hand, Harry would be in trouble with Vernon and Petunia, evidence or not.

'Well,' began Loki, speaking directly into Harry's mind. 'I suppose my next lesson should be self-defence.' He paused. 'I believe that my being torn apart may have limited my ability to plan things. Being torn apart does tend to have that effect.'

Harry was a quick learner, no doubt. Projecting your mind forward like that was no small feat for a human. From the ease with which Loki had managed to help Harry do it and see the world on a supernatural level, he thought that he might have already merged with the boy at least partially, making Harry's magic slightly Asgardian in nature. Now there was no chance of separation, not that there had been to begin with.

Whilst the magic of Asgard flowed through Harry, Loki suspected that his power levels were nowhere near that of an Asgardian if the fact that he had been exhausted by that small illusion was to say anything. Loki might be able to fix that in the future, though he really had no idea. It was completely unheard of for a being of his complexity to live within a mortal's mind.

He had hoped he would be able to channel his whole power through the boy, but it was apparently not to be. He could push his mental force into helping Harry perform a spell, but not his magical strength; that part was down to Harry. With him guiding Harry's magical, mental, and physical development, however, he was sure that he could make some changes for the better—like, for example, making him into an inhuman and immoral and preferably not completely insane psychopath.

If he wanted to ensure that the boy— and thus he—didn't die, the first area he would need to work on would be his personality. It would not take much of a push to turn an abused and neglected child into a cold-blooded and ruthless killer, and Loki spoke that from experience.

Dudley knowing the illusion had something to do with Harry had been an unpredicted gift. The boy would fear approaching Harry, being the coward he was, and would instead run to his parents, giving Harry a good amount of time to recharge. Physical magic tended to expend less energy than mental magic, and Loki was sure that with his guidance, Harry would have enough to kill the Dursleys.

The only thing stopping Harry from trembling in fear as he entered number four Privet Drive were the reassuring words of Loki echoing through his head. He attempted to close the door quietly, but Vernon had the ears of a bat where Harry's "mischief" was concerned and was already marching up to him.

'Don't let him touch you,' Loki mentally reminded Harry. 'You are in danger. Remember how he normally reacts to your magic? Well, though he is borderline retarded, even a blind pig—which would be much like him, now that I think about it—could've figured out that you were doing it on his son. And, much like the blind pig, he will be angry.'

"Boy!" Vernon screamed, spittle flying from his mouth. "Do you know what Dudley has just told me?!"

"No, sir," Harry said meekly.

"Why you lit—" Vernon began, but got no further as he moved his hand to grab Harry by the shoulder.

'Now,' Loki whispered. When Harry saw the obese man move, he was preparing himself to strike, gathering his anger and negative emotion towards Vernon. As his uncle's hand touched his shoulder, Harry rammed his hand towards him, holding it only a few inches from the man's stomach.

For a moment, magic coursed through Harry, and then he let out a scream as burning coldness scorched at his palm, but then it was gone and a burst of bright light lit up his vision. When his sight returned, Harry found himself staring upon his uncle slumped against the wall with his clothing slightly frosted over at the front.

Harry had released a blast of concussive magic that only worked for a short range. From what Loki had told him, the ice must have been a result of him performing the magic imperfectly, the leakage manifesting as coldness. He frowned. Loki had said it was normally heat.

'From the damage on the wall behind him and the blood leaking from his nose, I'm going to say he's most likely dead,' Loki said, no remorse in his tone as he interrupted Harry's thought. 'Well done—oh, I mean "oops."'

'Wh-what?' Harry asked, also speaking telepathically as he stared at the apparent corpse in horror.

A sigh echoed through Harry's mind. 'He. Is. Dead.'

'But I didn't mean to kill him!'

'In the wilderness a blind pig such as he was always going to be eaten by a greater predator, no matter how angry it was.' He paused. 'Perhaps we should stop using this analogy, unless you are particularly hungry.'

'No!'

'No, you're not going to eat him, or no, you don't want the analogy to stop? You humans are so confusing,' he said. 'Anyway, you hated him; he hated you. You were enemies, and you're meant to kill your enemies. It is not a bad thing to do, especially if you are merely a child acting in self-defence.' Loki sighed. 'I guess you're going to have to kill the others as well...'

'What?' demanded Harry. Killing one relative was bad enough.

'Pay attention to your surroundings, Petunia has already come in whilst we've been talking. Oh, now I can hear her sneaking up behind you. I would suggest defending yourself.'

Harry spun, magic already flaring within him as he caught sight of his aunt wielding a kitchen knife, but he wasn't quite fast enough, and his world became pain as the blade nicked at his shoulder.

This blast of magic was unintentionally more powerful, fuelled by Harry's panic, distress, and agony. The slightly longer range dispersed it, however, so that it hit with about the same impact as it had hit Vernon, but Petunia had lunged forward and was caught under the chin.

Harry could only watch in horror as his aunt's neck was snapped and she fell to the floor limply. Suddenly fatigue hit him like a brick and both Harry and Loki knew that one more attack would leave him collapsed.

'Pick up the knife,' urged Loki. At Harry's hesitance, the god's tone grew more desperate. 'Pick up the knife, Harry! Leaving any witnesses will be extremely bad for both us! You feared an orphanage, but you would rather spend the rest of your life in a jail cell!'

At this, conflict raged within Harry. He knew it was selfish, but there was no going back now. He had already accidentally killed his aunt and uncle. If he didn't kill Dudley as well, he might be responsible for not only his own death, but Loki's as well. He didn't want to let down the only person who had ever taught him anything. The only person who had ever shown him an ounce of kindness. Despite Loki's occasional impatience and constant apathy, he had helped Harry, and he liked him.

Loki's words echoing through his mind, Harry dropped to his knees and picked up the kitchen knife. It looked like a sword in his small hands. In that moment, Dudley came around the corner and froze. For a few seconds, Harry thought the boy would run away; instead, he seemed to instantly process his dead parents and charge at the one responsible.

And whilst he might've been smart enough to figure out what Harry had done, he was not smart enough to realise it was not a smart move to run into the pointy end of a knife.

Loki was stunned. 'He…he literally ran into your knife. Like some kind of blind pig. As many times as I've used that excuse, I've never seen it actually happen.' He paused. 'I suppose it is a bit more plausible when they only run into the knife once, rather than a dozen times in a row.'

Tears now streaming down his face as a barrier broke inside him, Harry fled the house without a final look back, clutching at his wound.

For a moment, Loki felt guilty. Even he had not been that young when he had killed his first man. He brushed any emotion away. In the end, this was all for Harry's own good.

Now the first part of his plan had been completed, Loki knew that his next objective was to train Harry to become more powerful, but what would come after that? With a combination of his time observing the world through Harry's eyes and further recalling his memories of being a spirit, he had noticed that he had been the victim of a temporal fracture, or, in other words, he had travelled through time.

Loki had lived for millennia, but time-travel was still something he was extremely careful to avoid, especially with amounts of time as large as this. Anything could go wrong, and for he knew a single paradox could collapse the universe—well, he hypothesised that it could, but couldn't know for sure, since the universe was yet to end.

This meant that until he got to a point beyond the time he had fallen from the Bifrost, Loki could not allow himself to be revealed to Asgard, the mortal world, or the previous version of himself.

Not having checked a calendar the last time he was here, Loki had no idea how long he would have to wait, but guessed that it would be under a decade. It shouldn't have been too much of an issue. By that point, Harry wouldn't have reached the end of puberty and thus would not be able to access his full potential. Being as wise as he was, Loki wouldn't have allowed his host to enter the world of gods for a few more years after that at least.

It was also at this point where if a physical form of him existed, he would find out. Loki pondered the ramifications of there being two of him at the same time who were actually capable of interacting with each other. He would have frowned if he wasn't only a spirit. In all honesty, he would most likely hate himself. After all, both of them couldn't rule.

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