Loki didn't arrive so much as become present, the way autumn becomes present—you look up one day and realize it's been there for a while, you just hadn't noticed because you were paying attention to other things, like summer, or your own mortality.
The office was full of the particular darkness that happens after sunset but before proper night, when shadows haven't quite committed to being shadows and light hasn't entirely given up on being light. They're having negotiations, these things, working out boundaries and territories while you're not looking.
The fire was doing its best impression of something that used to be enthusiastic about burning but had since reconsidered its life choices.
Various silver instruments clicked and whirred with the self-importance of mechanisms that had been doing important work for so long they'd forgotten what that work was, exactly, but were certain it was terribly significant and should on no account be interrupted.
Dumbledore looked up from his desk.
He looked old in the way that has nothing to do with years and everything to do with accumulation—of disappointments, of failures, of promises made in good faith that had curdled into broken things that kept you awake at 3 a.m. having philosophical discussions with your ceiling about where, precisely, it had all gone wrong.
"Headmaster," Loki said, and his voice had that quality that made you uncertain whether he'd just arrived or had been standing there for hours watching you not notice him, which was a distinctly unsettling quality to have in one's voice. "You rang? And can I just say, what a *delightful* ringing. Really excellent acoustics on that bell. Carried through seventeen dimensions and three conceptual frameworks. I was in Vanaheim having a perfectly lovely argument with a dragon about whether epistemology was a valid field of study or just philosophy having pretensions, and I heard it clear as—well, not as day, obviously, since it's night here, but you understand the linguistic convention I'm employing."
He settled himself on the edge of Dumbledore's desk with the casual presumption of a cat who knows perfectly well it's not supposed to be on the counter but has calculated that the human is too tired to do anything about it.
"Also," he added, "I should mention that the dragon was winning the argument. Very frustrating. Dragons have this way of being technically correct while simultaneously being completely insufferable about it. It's a gift."
"Loki," Dumbledore said, and the name came out the way names do when they're carrying more weight than a simple identifier should reasonably be expected to bear.
"That's one of my names," Loki agreed affably. "I've got others. Several others. A frankly unreasonable number of names, when you think about it. Titles, epithets, insulting nicknames in languages that don't exist anymore... The list goes on. There was a whole culture that called me Flame-Hair, which was both inaccurate and suspiciously specific. But let's not get distracted by my many names and the various degrees of affection or terror with which they're spoken. You used the emergency bell."
He leaned forward slightly, and for just a moment, something very old and very alien looked out from behind eyes that appeared human only because that was the current aesthetic choice.
"The 'things have gone catastrophically sideways and I need help from entities that exist partially outside conventional reality' bell. So. Scale of one to ten. Where one is 'I've made a minor social faux pas and need advice on etiquette' and ten is 'reality is unraveling like a jumper when you pull the wrong thread, and we're all about to experience existence in ways that violate several fundamental laws of physics and one law of thermodynamics that doesn't even have a name yet.'"
"It's not precisely an emergency," Dumbledore began, with the careful tone of someone who knows they're about to say something that sounds absurd even to themselves.
"Oh, *wonderful*," Loki said to the office's ceiling, which had probably heard this sort of thing before, being the ceiling of Dumbledore's office. "He's hedging. That's always a promising start to conversations initiated via emergency bells that echo through the conceptual framework of reality itself. Very reassuring. Really inspires confidence."
From his portrait on the wall, Phineas Nigellus Black stirred with the particular rustle of someone who'd been pretending to sleep but had actually been eavesdropping.
"Is that one of Thor's lot?" he asked, with the tone of someone who'd been disappointed by most things and expected this to be no exception.
"I prefer to think of Thor as one of *my* lot, actually," Loki said, turning to address the portrait with the courtesy one might extend to a particularly opinionated ghost. "I'm Loki. God of stories, mischief, and several other portfolio items that tend to make people nervous when listed in their entirety. Also god of pointing out uncomfortable truths at socially inappropriate moments, though I don't think that one made it into the official mythology. You must be one of the previous Headmasters, judging by the expression that suggests you died disappointed in humanity as a concept."
"Phineas Nigellus Black," the portrait said. "And I wasn't disappointed in humanity. Just in most specific humans. Particularly this one." He gestured at Dumbledore with the air of someone making a very important point.
"Ah," Loki said, brightening visibly. "Shared grievances regarding Dumbledore. Excellent foundation for friendship. We should start a support group. 'People Disappointed by Albus Dumbledore.' We could meet monthly. Serve tea and pointed observations about his tendency to believe the best of people even when all available evidence suggests he shouldn't."
"I'm sitting right here," Dumbledore observed mildly, with the patience of someone who'd spent a very long time managing conversations that he wasn't technically part of but was definitely about.
"Yes," Loki agreed. "You are. We can see you. We're not talking *to* you, we're talking *about* you, which is a completely different social interaction with its own rules and conventions. We're establishing rapport through shared experience of your particular brand of well-intentioned failure. It's traditional."
He turned back to Dumbledore fully, and something in his face shifted—the humor was still there, but underneath it was something else. Something that had edges.
"Eight years," he said, and the words fell into the space between them like stones into water. "That's quite a long time in mortal terms. Practically geological. Entire governments rise and fall in eight years. Children grow up. Fashion changes. Mountains don't, obviously—mountains are very committed to staying put—but most other things do. And you've been here in this tower doing what, exactly? Besides watching everything we tried to build fall apart because your Ministry decided that corruption was more profitable than justice and significantly less work?"
"That's not entirely fair," Dumbledore said quietly, which was probably true but wasn't the point.
"Isn't it?" Loki tilted his head in that way that made you think of predatory birds considering something small and potentially edible. "Let me see if I remember the sequence of events correctly. We—by which I mean Asgard, acting in its official capacity as cosmic busybody—offered assurances to families fearing persecution. We said, 'Everything is fine with Britain's magical community, justice matters here, we'll protect you, we've got an arrangement with this wizard who seems very influential and also very tall, which is inspiring.' And then the Ministry, *your* Ministry, the one where you supposedly wield considerable influence, responded by reinstating every corrupt official we'd removed, pardoning war criminals through creative interpretations of legal technicalities, and generally demonstrating that they'd learned absolutely nothing except that divine oversight was inconvenient but ultimately temporary, like bad weather or an unpopular Minister."
"I protested," Dumbledore began.
"Oh, you *protested*," Loki said, and there was something almost gentle in his voice, which was somehow worse than if he'd been angry. "Yes. I'm sure that was tremendously comforting to Aldrif and the others when they were packing their things and leaving because the place that had promised them safety demonstrated that safety was negotiable depending on political convenience. 'Don't worry,' you probably said, in that grandfatherly way you have. 'I'm protesting very effectively. My protests are being noted. Recorded. Filed in the appropriate locations. There's *paperwork*. Nothing will actually *change*, obviously, but the documentation is very thorough.'"
Dumbledore was quiet for a moment.
"That is," he said finally, "a surprisingly accurate summary."
"I'm good at those," Loki said. "Accurate summaries of failures. Had a lot of practice. There was this one time I accidentally caused Ragnarok—well, not *caused* exactly, more *participated in*, it's complicated—and afterward I spent several centuries thinking about how I could have summarized that better for the people who had to live through it. Very educational, failure. Highly recommend it for personal growth, though the experience itself is thoroughly unpleasant."
He stood up, began to pace, which was probably unnecessary from a practical standpoint but served important dramatic functions.
"So," he said. "You've used the bell. After eight years of not using it, not contacting us, not asking for help while everything collapsed into exactly the sort of institutional corruption we tried to prevent. You've decided that whatever's happening now is important enough to risk having this conversation. This *deeply uncomfortable* conversation where we both have to acknowledge that you failed and we left and everything's rather awkward now. So what is it? What's the crisis? And please don't say 'it's not precisely an emergency' again, because you used an emergency bell and you can't walk that back through clever phrasing."
Dumbledore took a breath, gathering himself the way you gather yourself before jumping into cold water—knowing it's going to be unpleasant but that waiting won't make it any warmer.
"The Ministry," he said, "is reviving the Triwizard Tournament."
Loki stopped pacing.
Turned.
Stared at Dumbledore with the expression of someone trying to determine whether they'd heard correctly or whether they'd accidentally slipped into an alternate dimension where words meant different things.
"I'm sorry," he said carefully. "Could you repeat that? Because I think you just said something completely insane and I want to make absolutely certain I heard it correctly before I react. It's important to react to the right thing. Otherwise you look foolish, and I have a reputation to maintain."
"The Triwizard Tournament," Dumbledore repeated, with the careful enunciation of someone who knows they sound insane and wants to be very precise about it. "The Ministry is organizing it. Two years from now. Three schools—Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, Durmstrang. Students competing in tasks designed to test their magical abilities in dangerous situations. Historical mortality rates that would concern any reasonable person."
"Right," Loki said slowly. "And you're telling me this because...?"
"Because students will die," Dumbledore said flatly. "Or be traumatized. Or both, possibly in sequence. The tournament has a spectacular history of catastrophic failure, and the Ministry's response to this fact is to implement 'safety measures' that read like wishful thinking that someone wrote down and then declared official policy."
Loki continued to stare at him.
"Okay," he said. "So. To be clear. You're opposed to this tournament happening. You think it's dangerous. You believe students will be harmed or killed. And you've used your one and only emergency bell—the bell that calls across dimensional boundaries and can only be used once, the bell that says 'I need help from cosmic entities because I'm out of mortal options'—to tell me about a sporting event you don't like."
"Not exactly," Dumbledore said.
"Then what *exactly*?" Loki asked, with the patience of someone who's being very patient and would like credit for it.
"I want Asgard to participate in it," Dumbledore said.
The silence that followed had texture. Weight. The kind of silence that presses against your eardrums and makes you aware of your own breathing, your own heartbeat, the sound of your own existence ticking away one second at a time.
Around the room, the portraits that had been pretending to sleep gave up the pretense entirely.
Even the silver instruments seemed to pause in their whirring and clicking, as if they too were trying to process what had just been said.
Loki opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
Made a small sound that might have been a laugh or might have been existential confusion given vocal form.
"I'm sorry," he said finally. "Could you—could you just—" He made a gesture that encompassed the entire office, possibly the entire castle, possibly the entire concept of reality. "Say that again. Very slowly. Use small words. Because I'm fairly certain you just suggested that Asgard—the divine realm that left Britain's magical community because said community demonstrated an impressive commitment to institutional corruption—should participate in a tournament. A tournament organized by the Ministry that drove us away. Where students compete in dangerous tasks. You want us to send representatives to this."
"Yes," Dumbledore said simply.
"And you think this is a good idea," Loki said, "because...?"
"Because it would give them a reason to come back," Dumbledore said. "The families who left. A legitimate reason, wrapped in tradition and international cooperation and all the things the Ministry claims to value. A way to return that doesn't look like we failed—even though we did—but instead looks like renewed engagement with Britain's magical community through proper channels. The Ministry is *enthusiastic* about this tournament. They can hardly object to Asgard participating when they're the ones organizing an international magical competition."
Loki stared at him.
"That's—" he started. Stopped. "That's actually—" Stopped again. "I don't know whether that's brilliant or the single stupidest thing I've heard in my entire existence, and I once watched Thor try to resolve a diplomatic crisis by challenging everyone to single combat. Just. Everyone. The entire diplomatic corps. He had a list."
"Did it work?" Dumbledore asked, with what might have been genuine curiosity.
"Surprisingly, yes," Loki admitted. "Turns out most diplomatic crises are actually just people being too proud to admit they're wrong, and getting punched in the face by Thor provides excellent perspective on one's priorities. But that's not the point. The point is—" He paused. "Actually, what *is* the point? Are you trying to use this tournament as political cover to bring back the very divine oversight the Ministry spent eight years getting rid of? Because that's *devious*. That's genuinely cunning. I'm impressed. I'm also confused, because you don't usually do devious. You do 'earnest' and 'well-intentioned' and 'believing the best of people even when they're objectively terrible.' Devious is my area."
"Eight years of earnest well-intentioned belief," Dumbledore said dryly, "has taught me that earnest well-intentioned belief is no match for determined institutional corruption. So yes, I'm being devious. I'm exploiting the Ministry's own enthusiasm for international cooperation to bring back external oversight they can't object to without looking hypocritical. I'm using their pride against them. I'm learning from my failures."
"And what failures those were," Loki said, but there was something almost admiring in his tone. "Comprehensive. Thorough. You failed *so hard* that people are probably still discovering new ways you failed that haven't been catalogued yet."
"I'm aware," Dumbledore said.
"Are you?" Loki asked. He moved closer, and his presence seemed to expand, filling more space than his body should occupy—one of those things that happened when you were talking to beings who existed in more dimensions than the standard three. "Because here's what you're really asking for. You're asking us to come back. To reassert Asgardian presence in Britain's magical community. To be disruptive and memorable and all the things we are when we're not being carefully diplomatic. You're asking for divine intervention, and divine intervention doesn't come with volume control. We don't do subtle. Thor *especially* doesn't do subtle. Thor does 'visible from orbit.'"
"I understand," Dumbledore said.
"I don't think you do," Loki replied softly. "Not entirely. Because once this starts, you don't control it. You don't direct it. You don't get to moderate our response or suggest we tone it down for political palatability. You're ringing a bell you can't unring. You're inviting forces that operate on cosmic scales to participate in a *school tournament*. Do you understand how absurd that is? It's like inviting a hurricane to help with ventilation. Technically it would work, but the results might be more dramatic than you anticipated."
Dumbledore met his eyes steadily.
"I'm aware," he said. "And I'm also aware that the alternative is continuing to watch Britain's magical community slide further into the same corruption that enabled Voldemort in the first place. If the choice is between uncontrolled divine intervention and controlled institutional darkness, I'll choose the intervention. At least some people might get justice that way."
Loki studied him for a long moment, his head tilted in that bird-of-prey way again.
"You really have changed," he said finally. "Eight years ago you would have hedged that statement with seventeen caveats. Qualifications about working within systems, about respecting institutions, about gentle guidance and gradual reform. But you're not doing that now. You're just asking for help and accepting the consequences. I'm almost impressed."
"Almost?" Dumbledore asked, with the faintest hint of a smile.
"Well, you did wait eight years and let everything collapse first," Loki pointed out. "If you'd asked for this kind of help back then, we might have avoided considerable suffering. So I'm docking points for timing. But for finally recognizing your limitations and asking for assistance? Yes. That's impressive. In a 'better late than never' sort of way."
He moved toward the door—not the physical door that led to staircases and corridors, but the other one, the one that existed in spaces between spaces and led to places that shouldn't be accessible from Scottish towers but were anyway if you knew how reality worked and were willing to ask nicely.
"I'll take it to them," he said. "The family. Present your absurd proposal. Thor will be enthusiastic, because Thor is enthusiastic about most things that involve competition or the possibility of hitting something. Aldrif will have many pointed questions about why she should trust you not to fail again, and they will be uncomfortable questions that you probably deserve. Frigga will consider implications you haven't thought of, because Frigga considers implications professionally. And Odin—"
He paused, considering.
"Odin's reaction will be interesting," he said finally. "He's been watching Britain's magical community the way one watches an experiment one has started and wants to see how it develops without interference. Like a very large, very patient scientist observing bacteria in a petri dish, except the bacteria are people and the petri dish is your entire society."
"Will he approve?" Dumbledore asked.
Loki laughed, and it was the kind of laugh that suggested the question itself was missing the point.
"Odin doesn't approve or disapprove like some cosmic parent managing wayward children," he said. "He sets things in motion and observes what happens. But this—" He gestured vaguely at the office, at Dumbledore, at the entire concept they'd been discussing. "This isn't boring. And Odin values interesting considerably more than he values safe. So that's probably in your favor. Probably. With Odin it's always difficult to tell. He works on timescales that make geological processes look hasty."
He opened the door that wasn't quite there, and beyond it was somewhere that was definitely not Scotland.
"I'll send word," he said. "One way or another. But Dumbledore? If we do this—if Asgard agrees to participate in your tournament—you need to understand something. We're not doing it for you. We're doing it for the families who deserved better. For the children who needed protection you couldn't provide. For the principle that justice should matter more than political convenience. You're not the hero of this story. You're just the person who finally admitted he needed help and asked for it. Which is a much more honest role, really. More character development potential."
"I can accept that," Dumbledore said quietly.
"Good," Loki replied. "Because here's the other thing. If we do this and it goes wrong—if this tournament becomes the catastrophe you're worried about, if students die despite our presence, if everything catches fire both literally and metaphorically—that's on you. You rang the bell. You invited the intervention. You get responsibility for what happens next. Success and failure both. Very fair arrangement. Very honest about consequences."
"I understand," Dumbledore said.
"Excellent," Loki said. "Then we understand each other, and understanding is the foundation of all good working relationships. I'll be in touch. Try not to have any other emergencies in the meantime. The bell only works once, remember? You've used your cosmic telephone call. Next time you'll have to solve problems like a normal person, using committees and paperwork and all those mortal tools that work so slowly you can actually watch yourself aging while you use them."
"Loki?" Dumbledore said, as the god was halfway through the impossible door.
"Yes?"
"Thank you," Dumbledore said. "For answering. I wasn't certain you would."
Loki paused, and for just a moment, his expression softened into something that might have been affection mixed with exasperation, the way you might look at a particularly frustrating friend who keeps making the same mistakes but at least means well.
"Of course I answered," he said. "You asked for help. Actually asked, without qualifications or pride getting in the way. That deserves a response, even from people you've disappointed. *Especially* from people you've disappointed, because sometimes second chances are just everyone involved admitting they're capable of growth. Even when that growth is painful and takes eight years and requires swallowing considerable amounts of pride."
He stepped through the doorway, then paused and looked back.
"Oh," he said. "And Dumbledore? That thing you mentioned about the historical mortality rates?"
"Yes?"
"If we do this, if Asgard participates, those rates are going to change. Dramatically. Possibly in directions you haven't anticipated. Just thought you should know. For planning purposes."
"That's not particularly reassuring," Dumbledore observed.
"I know," Loki said cheerfully. "I'm not trying to reassure you. I'm trying to prepare you for the fact that you've invited forces that exist partially outside conventional reality to participate in a school tournament. It's going to be complicated. Possibly catastrophic. Definitely memorable. But it won't be boring, and boring is really the worst thing something can be. I'd rather experience interesting failure than boring success. Much better stories that way."
"I never thought it would be boring," Dumbledore said.
"Good," Loki replied. "Then we're aligned on expectations, which is about the best you can hope for in any relationship, divine-mortal or otherwise. I'll be in touch. Probably soon. Possibly very soon, depending on whether Thor has Opinions, which he usually does, delivered at considerable volume. The man doesn't have an inside voice. I don't think he knows what an inside voice is. Someone probably explained it to him once and he thought they were suggesting he whisper, which he then did so loudly that it defeated the entire purpose."
He grinned suddenly, and it was the grin of someone who was already thinking about how to tell this story later, who lived for these moments of complexity and absurdity and cosmic entities getting involved in mortal affairs for reasons that seemed like good ideas at the time.
"This is going to be *fun*," he said.
And then he was gone, and the door that wasn't quite there wasn't there at all anymore, and the office was silent again.
But it was a different kind of silence now. Not the heavy waiting silence from before, but something else. Something lighter.
Not quite hope, because hope was too simple a word for what Dumbledore was feeling.
Possibility, perhaps.
The sense that second chances were real things that could happen if you were willing to admit you needed them.
"Well," Phineas Nigellus said from his portrait, and he sounded almost pleased. "That was entertaining. I particularly enjoyed the part where he pointed out all your failures in excruciating detail. Very satisfying for those of us who've been saying the same things for years."
"Your support is, as always, deeply appreciated," Dumbledore said dryly.
"I'm not being supportive," Phineas replied. "I'm being honest, which is different and considerably more useful. But I will say this—that plan is either brilliant or catastrophically stupid, and I'm genuinely uncertain which. So that's exciting. We don't get enough genuine uncertainty in the afterlife. Everything's very predictable when you're painted."
From another portrait, Dilys Derwent spoke with the gentle wisdom of someone who'd seen many things and learned to be kind about most of them.
"He'll help," she said. "They'll help. The question is what it will cost."
"At this point," Dumbledore said quietly, "I'm prepared to pay almost anything. Pride, reputation, political standing—all of it seems less important than trying to make things right. Than giving those families the justice they deserved eight years ago."
"Then perhaps you've learned the most important lesson," Dilys said. "That being right matters less than doing right. Even when doing right requires admitting you were wrong. Especially then."
Dumbledore settled back in his chair, exhaustion pressing against him like physical weight—eight years of weight, accumulated one failed promise at a time.
The fire crackled.
The instruments whirred and clicked, having very important conversations with themselves about very important matters.
And outside, beyond the castle walls and the lake and the grounds, Britain's magical community continued on its way, unaware that their Headmaster had just invited divine intervention back into their lives.
The bell had been rung.
The message had been received.
Now came the waiting.
To see what Asgard would decide. What price they would demand. What changes they would force if they agreed to participate in a tournament that was about to become considerably more complicated than anyone currently anticipated.
But that was a future problem.
For now, there was just this moment—the relief of having asked for help, the uncertainty of not knowing what would come next, the strange peace that came from admitting failure and trying, finally, to do something about it.
"Eight years," Dumbledore said to the portraits and to himself. "Eight years of proper channels and political maneuvering and believing I could fix this from within. Perhaps it's time to try something improper instead."
"About bloody time," Phineas muttered. "Took you long enough to figure that out."
And in his office at Hogwarts, surrounded by portraits and instruments and the accumulated evidence of a long career spent trying to do good in a world that resisted goodness with depressing consistency, Albus Dumbledore waited.
The waiting had begun.
And somewhere in the spaces between realms, in places that existed outside conventional geography, Loki was already planning how to present this absurd proposal to his family in ways that would be simultaneously honest about its dangers and compelling about its possibilities.
It was going to be complicated.
It was going to be memorable.
It might even work.
And if it didn't—well, at least it would make an excellent story.
Which was really all you could ask for when dealing with gods and wizards and tournaments that had historical mortality rates that would concern any reasonable person.
But then, reasonable people rarely changed anything important.
Sometimes you needed to be a little bit unreasonable.
A little bit mad.
A little bit willing to ring bells that echoed across dimensions and invite chaos into carefully ordered systems.
Sometimes that was the only way forward.
The waiting continued.
—
Loki stepped back into Asgard and stood for a moment in the golden light that suffused everything here—the kind of light that didn't come from any particular sun but from the realm itself, like the entire place was gently luminous from the inside out, which was pretentious but also rather beautiful if you could get past the pretentiousness.
He should tell them immediately.
That was the sensible thing to do.
March straight to the family and announce, "Dumbledore has had an idea that's either brilliant or catastrophically stupid, and he'd like us to participate in a school tournament to use as political cover for returning to Britain's magical community, which we left in disgust eight years ago because they couldn't manage basic justice without divine supervision."
Simple. Direct. Honest.
All things Loki was perfectly capable of being when he wanted to be, which wasn't often, because where was the *art* in that?
The problem was Aldrif.
His elder sister. Who was currently in the training grounds, probably doing something violent and competent, because that's what Aldrif did when she wasn't doing something political and competent, and sometimes she managed both simultaneously, which was impressive in a terrifying sort of way.
Aldrif, who had personally assured the families in the first place.
Who had believed Dumbledore's promises about protection and justice and institutional reform.
Who had watched those promises curdle into broken things and had left with the quiet fury of someone who didn't shout when they were angry, they just *remembered*, which was considerably worse.
If Loki presented this wrong, she'd say no before he finished the sentence.
And then there was Odin.
Father. All-Father. The one-eyed orchestrator of cosmic events who worked on timescales that made glaciers look impulsive.
Odin, who had allowed the original intervention in Britain's magical community but hadn't prevented the families from leaving when it failed.
Who watched things unfold the way other people watched theater—with interest but without interference, because sometimes the point was to see what mortals would do when left to their own devices, even when their devices were terrible.
Odin would have *opinions*.
They would be complicated opinions delivered in that way he had of making you feel like you'd already made the decision he wanted while technically allowing you free will, which was frustrating but also rather brilliant.
Loki needed a strategy.
He couldn't just burst in and announce things. That would be Thor's approach—enthusiastic, direct, and utterly tactless.
No, this required finesse.
He needed to present it so Aldrif saw the justice angle before the political manipulation.
So Odin saw the interesting possibilities before the potential complications.
So everyone understood this wasn't about Dumbledore being right—because Dumbledore *wasn't* right, he'd failed comprehensively—but about the families deserving a second chance at the justice they'd been promised.
"Right," Loki said aloud to the golden light and the empty courtyard. "I need a presentation. An argument. A *pitch*."
He started walking toward the palace, already composing speeches in his head and discarding them.
*Too confrontational. Too apologetic. Too flippant. Too serious.*
This needed to be perfect.
Or at least perfect enough that no one said no before he finished explaining.
Which, given his family, was about the best he could hope for.
---
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