After some deliberation, Loki decided to stop by his rooms, then visit the library at the other end of the castle. He opened a small, arched doorway just in time to witness a large, floppy-eared owl burst through the window, an envelope tied to its leg. Loki eyed it in bemusement before shrugging and cutting the envelope off. He conjured it a mouse for its service and retreated back toward the rooms. The chambers he had been assigned were surprisingly good quality for what he had seen on Midgard. When he had walked into the room, the soft furnishings- hangings, sheets, and cushions, had changed from gray to silver and green. Loki wasn't sure if the scheme corresponded to his attire or his mood, but it felt right. Not that he planned on using the room much anyway. He had little need for sleep.
He'd just torn through the official-looking seal when a knock sounded on the door.
"Yes?" Loki asked, which was apparently all the invitation Black needed to come barging in.
"Hey Loki, I just wanted to invite you to— is that a letter?" he asked.
Loki rolled his eyes. This Black was worse than Thor, he thought, suppressing the violent, hungry feeling that always accompanied thoughts of his brother.
"It is a letter! And from the Ministry, too!" Black said, snatching it off the table and affecting a pompous voice. "Dear Mr. Loki— huh, that's funny. I thought Loki was your first name."
"Your point?" Loki said, piqued.
"Alright, hang on. 'The Ministry cordially requests your presence at our coming Eclipse Party, Wednesday February fourth, which will meet in the Ministry Reception Room.' They'll probably portkey to Australia or something for the actual event. Lucky for you, Loki!" He dodged Loki's inkwell, returning to his pompous voice. "Formal dress. RSVP by owl. Sincerely, M. Bagnold, Minister of Magic."
"Thank you for clearing up those doubts about your literacy, Black," Loki said, picking the letter back up to confirm the missive. The invitation boded well. He needed to learn all he could about the realm to confirm its source of power, and where better than this "ministry of magic" itself?
Black laughed. "You've never been to the Ministry before, have you?" he asked. "Do you even have dress robes?"
"My formal attire shall suffice," Loki said imperiously.
"If you say so," Black shrugged. "Anyway, in less formal mode, Lil— I wanted to invite you over for dinner sometime as thanks for saving those Muggles."
"No problem," Loki said smoothly, wondering what a Muggle was meant to be.
"You've never been there before, so you can't apparate, but the address is 36 Tottenham drive and I'll owl you the details, okay?"
"Of course," Loki said.
Black turned to go, then paused. "Keep your guard up at the ministry," he said. "Something strange happened about a week ago— an Unspeakable died and another went missing. Most think it's Voldemort, but Dumbledore doesn't think so."
"I'll be fine," Loki said.
Over the next few days, Loki became abruptly immersed in the chaos of Midgardian wizardry. First, there was Hogwarts. Whenever he was not bogged down with the experience of teaching, he would accustom himself to the castle's many floors, feeling the swirl of loose magic rub up against him, sinking into his skin and animating his clothes. The sheer abundance of it was such that Loki had never seen in an inhabited place and he wondered that it didn't turn the children wild. Certainly, the building itself had taken on something of a forestlike aspect, with steps that moved and vanished irrationally, the little bits of walls and doors infused with wills of their own. On his second morning in, Loki had witnessed a teacher step halfway into the second-floor stair. Apparently wizarding Midgardians were totally blind to the architectural overlay. That these so-called "wizards" used magic without seeing it had shocked Loki until he had noticed their methodologies. Apparently, all wizards, young and old, skilled and otherwise, casted with the aid of a conductor like Loki had seen in the death eater raid, and an (often inexplicable) code word.
Which brought that to his current predicament.
"Cast that again for me please, Mr. Shacklebolt," Loki said, ignoring the sighs of the yellow and blue marked students— Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, he now knew.
"Lumos," Shacklebolt said again, with impressive forbearance.
Ridiculous. What did saying "Lumos" have to do with creating light? Did these children even know what they were doing? When he was a child, Loki had studied light in different forms— sunlight, moonlight, candlelight, reflected light, phosphorescence. He had learned about energy and wavelengths as it traveled through the ether, and at last, when his schoolmaster had deemed him ready, he had Called a ray of sunlight to his hand. He didn't even know what these students were using to illuminate their wand tips; it was always the same, eerily identical glow.
Some of the students were shifting impatiently, forcing Loki's attentions back to class. "Thank you, Mr. Shacklebolt," he said, spelling the chandelier's candles back to life.
"Tell me," he said, watching the children's wary faces as Shacklebolt took his seat. "As English wizards, what is the one defense you are never, ever without? You?"
"Magic, sir?" a blond, blue-badged boy volunteered.
"And if they take your wands?" Loki asked. Yesterday, Loki had 'borrowed' a wand off a younger student and been reluctantly impressed. Apparently, Midgardians had engineered their conductors so as to preserve every possible bit of their fleeting lifespans. From what he had seen, a wand took only exactly what energy it needed to execute a spell. More frustratingly, he had not been able to make the device work for him at all.
"Accidental magic," the boy said.
"If it's accidental, how can you rely on it?" Loki asked rhetorically.
The boy fell silent, uncertain. Loki created the illusion of an hourglass.
"The Slytherin class answered this question in less than one minute," he prodded. He was quickly developing favorites as to the class combinations at Hogwarts. Slytherin and Ravenclaw was the best; Slytherin and Gryffindor, the worst, though thankfully only had only happened twice. This combination was mediocre.
One of the Ravenclaws answered. "Lying," she said with a smirk.
"Good," Loki answered. "Five points to Ravenclaw." He didn't understand the whole reward and punishment system here, but so long as it worked, he was happy to play along.
"But I was only joking. You can't lie under Veritaserum," the girl who had answered protested.
"Correct," Loki said. "Can you think of other exceptions?"
He paused to scan the room. This question hadn't failed to unearth new information yet, though the source was running dry as he worked his way down the years. Here, no one volunteered.
"There is no potion, spell, or mind-art capable of overcoming completely your own free will," he explained. This was something he knew from his own experiments. Legillimancy, like several of the Midgardian mind arts, touched on things he had only ever encountered as theory. He had heard of a Mind Stone that would let a sorcerer read and control others' minds, but that was a unique artifact, lost somewhere in the reaches of the galaxy. Loki knew, he'd looked. Theoretic or not, the laws of magic were incontrovertible. A person's will could be dominated with power, but never extinguished, which made loopholes paramount.
The students were looking skeptical, so Loki summoned a bottle of clear liquid.
"This is Veritaserum," he said. "A single drop will make you speak the truth. Who wants to try it?"
The students still looked reluctant, so Loki added, "You will all sample it today, so whoever volunteers to demonstrate will only earn points for what he would otherwise be doing."
That got their attention. A few glanced towards the Hufflepuff who had volunteered the illumination spell.
"I'll do it," Shacklebolt said, looking resigned.
"Excellent," Loki said. "I am going to ask you today's date, and you will attempt to deceive me. You may have a moment or two to prepare."
He reset the hourglass and let it trickle down for forty-five seconds before saying, "Time's up." He conjured a muggle eyedropper and filled it with the potion, handing it over to Shacklebolt to take.
The teen looked bemused, but obligingly squeezed a drop onto his tongue. His flat affect showed the potion had done its job.
"What day is it, Mr. Shacklebolt?" Loki asked.
"Ethan's birthday," Kingsley responded immediately.
Loki grinned. Most of his volunteers hadn't managed even a prepared deception. "Note that the best solution is to think your answers through to ensure they will be at the ready when the potion compels you to speak. What year is it?" he asked.
"My fifth year at Hogwarts," the boy responded.
"And the date?" he asked.
Shacklebolt paused for the briefest second before the potion forced his tongue. "The first," he answered.
"An acceptable attempt. Five points to Hufflepuff," Loki said, taking note of the child as a potential resource. "Now, line up. You are about to be as deceptive as possible in a conversation with your partner. Since you will both be under Veritaserum, I recommend you choose a friend."
A few minutes later, his once quiet class was reduced to utter chaos. Most of the Hufflepuffs were giggling hysterically, one of the boys was sobbing, and the two nearest Ravenclaws were just, under magical restraints, prevented from erupting into an outright brawl.
Loki felt a little tingly, leaning back on his chair and juggling seven active spells. He laughed openly. And he'd imagined teaching to be a bore!
One of the students levitated a wad of paper and Loki incinerated it midflight. He was beginning to think he was wrong about the power on Midgard. He had expected something powerful, some resource to be mined or plucked from the bowels of the earth, but the more he learned, the less he was convinced. Midgard had power- potions, trinkets, nonsense spells and whimsy, but they were all just things, the products of their makers. And their makers were, Norns help him, these ludicrously Gifted mortals.
"What am I going to do with you?" he murmured, prompting a Ravenclaw girl in the front row to open her mouth inquiringly.
"Homework!" he said, just as the bell rang and the students began packing up. "Practice deception in conversations with your friends. Expect to be quizzed over the next few classes..."
Finding his way to the ministry that Wednesday had been more difficult than Loki had anticipated. Once he'd realized that jumping into a fireplace was the optimal method, there'd been the matter of floo powder to attend to. He'd pawned a galleon off an unwitting student to see if he could replicate it, but discovered a complicated mess of spells that would prove difficult, if not impossible, to reverse-engineer. Luckily, floo powder went for seven sickles a pouch in the nearby "Hog's Head," and careful probing of the innkeeper revealed that though Hogwarts was not connected to the main network for security reasons, use of the inn's fireplace was one copper coin, or free with the purchase of a drink.
After that, it was simple enough to walk back down to the village and confidently proclaim "Ministry of Magic," before stepping into the green flames. A table of placecards had been set out, with some quite august-looking titles quilled in gold. Loki's own just said "Loki," with traces of magic along the edges that made Loki suspect Black was right about the portkey aspect. Not particularly eager to throw up on arrival, Loki paused before the table, frowning. He couldn't stop the inertia, but perhaps…
Loki cleared his mind, letting the wide room around him fade away as he cast the most detailed illusion he could manage— on his own senses. The illusion was a perfect replica of the room around him, but the casting had frozen it in time. He couldn't see himself pick up the card. He could barely even feel it. He still felt a faint pull as he changed locations, but he was surprised at how well the trick worked. He couldn't keep a smug smile from his face as he walked into the viewing room.
The room itself seemed designed to impress. Though open to the heavens like the Great Hall of Hogwarts, it was built on a smaller scale, with white gilt paneling and marble floors. Waiters flitted between standing tables with drinks and refreshments, and Midgardians stood in clusters, adorned in flowing, varicolored robes. From his reading, Loki recognized Millicent Bagnold, Minister of Magic, chuckling, a glass of red liquid in-hand. None of them seemed to have noticed his entry, other than the blond man beside her, who was giving Loki an assessing gaze. After a moment, the circle around her burst into polite laughter, and Loki wrote them off as sycophants. A couple of other social circles rested nearby, including quite a few faces Loki had seen in the papers that week. The rich and influential rubbing elbows. That was something Loki had seen often enough in Asgard.
At the far corner, by contrast, was a pair that didn't seem to be having fun at all. The man, gaunt and graying, seemed to be leveling a glare at the whole room. The square-jawed woman stood stiffly beside him, a few sparks of magic only Loki could see jumping off her clenched hands.
He walked over, curious.
"Have you something against eclipses?" he asked, glancing heavenward. The moon had taken its first bite into the sun.
"I have better things to do with my time than to sit staring at the sky," the man said harshly.
"Surely it can't be that bad," Loki prodded, amused. "It's just a party."
"Just a party?! Just our defense budget being frittered away on tea and cakes!" the man snapped, drawing a couple of eyes, including the blond man's.
Loki was tempted to act obtuse to see how much attention the man would draw to himself, but the woman interrupted, stepping forward with a cursory grimace.
"I'm Amelia Bones, Deputy Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement," she said. "This is Mr. Crouch, the DMLE head. I'm afraid we haven't made your acquaintance…?"
"Loki," Loki said, shaking her hand as seemed to be the custom here.
Bones' gaze shot to his face and her surliness vanished. "Indeed? We were very impressed by your work Monday night. How did you come to be fighting death eaters?"
"I saw a need," Loki said, donning that expression that had always led Thor and his friends back into his plans, knowing he had fooled them dozens of times before... And how did that work out? A voice in his head murmured, and then the image rose of another golden room, mottled blue flesh, a horrified face... Forcefully Loki narrowed his eyes and yanked his mind back into the present. Revenge, right. He would have revenge.
"...best-intentioned vigilantes often find themselves on the wrong side of the law," Bones was saying. To Loki's relief, she seemed not to have noticed his mental lapse. "But if you were to work within the government..."
"How kind of you to offer," Loki said, his tongue, as always, a few steps ahead of his brain. "But I'm afraid I've just taken a job."
"You have?" Bones asked, looking surprised.
"With Dumbledore, no doubt," Crouch said haughtily. "I don't know what he's playing at, diverting our manpower like that."
"I've taken a teaching job," Loki clarified, smiling now. Now this he could work with. "Defense Against the Dark Arts. I'm no mercenary."
Crouch snorted, plucking a clear drink from a nearby table.
Loki glanced across the room, and Bones followed his gaze. The minister was still gripping the empty wineglass, her head thrown back with laughter and a hint of desperation in her eyes.
"Magical Britain's safety is very important to me," he said, inflecting his voice with sincerity. "I would never shirk defense."
Bones raised her eyebrows, and he knew his implication was clear. Loki nodded, and walked back toward the crowd with his hands in his pockets.
He wanted Bones, he decided. Crouch was the worst kind of dross, and Dumbledore might be too clever for his own good, but Bones was someone with a head on her shoulders.
After that, Loki left to chat with the Minister, who nearly bubbled over in thanks for his victory against "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's" followers, smiling as her circle of sycophants honed in on him. Loki accepted the attention graciously, shaking hands, committing names to memory, tucking his smugness away for later. Several invitations to other such gatherings were offered, which Loki promised to think over. All the while, Bagnold smiled, face flushed with wine and happiness at her side's small victory, naively trusting in Loki's support. He almost had to pity her. The idea of parties as a morale-boosting gesture was not a bad one, if one had the force of personality to act as if all was well. Bagnold was as transparent as a bowl of glass. It was no wonder her supporters were ready for change.
As if called by his thoughts, the last of the circle approached, a young gray-eyed man with a face like marble.
"Lucius Malfoy," the man said with a trace of haughtiness, his tone almost familiar.
They shook hands, and Loki noticed a blot of magic lurking around the man's forearm, visible through the cloth to his magic sight. The memory flashed back to him, a hood askew, blond hair flowing beneath the mask, fingers pressed to a forearm, a dark and heavy presence. Loki's grin sharpened.
"Why the sudden formality, Lord Malfoy?" he asked, his eyes merry. "We know each other already, do we not?"
Lucius Malfoy had learned from the best. It would take near super-human ability to see the slight tensing of the nerves in his face, the tiny beads of sweat gathering on his temples. Fortunately, Loki wasn't human and was thus perfectly able to appreciate his opponent's distress.
But with just the briefest of pauses, Lord Malfoy responded. "Can anyone truly know our world's rising hero?" he asked. "Even I have never heard you utter your surname."
Loki raised an eyebrow, surprised that Malfoy had managed to worm out of his verbal trap. Pick a name? He didn't know enough, other than that to do so would be to enter the sticky mess of blood factionalism that categorized this realm. Stay nameless? Even worse, in some ways. The Midgardians were too purity-fixated to let the question rest. Now that the question had been raised, it needed to be addressed, or it would become a political millstone.
Loki turned back to Malfoy, eyes innocent with all his supposed youth. "It's no secret," he said, as if it wasn't news to all present. "My parents died when I was a baby. I never knew my last name."
And now to turn the focus back, he added, "As for our prior dealings, well, it never came up."
In his haste to get back at Loki, Malfoy had verified their association. While keeping up the fiction might be a risk to Loki's reputation, it was definitely a liability for Malfoy's relationship with Lord Voldemort, who would no doubt suspect his servant of keeping secrets. At the same time, it was an opportunity for Lord Malfoy to latch onto Loki's own rising reputation.
"Well, whatever your origins, you are a man of great wisdom to defeat those fiends," Malfoy said, and Loki noticed a couple of people nod in agreement. Apparently, Lord Malfoy was as influential as he was rich. "I've heard tell that you plan to defeat the Dark Lord yourself."
Loki met the man's eyes, letting the man see the truth there. "He'll be dead within the year."
Around the room, he heard people gasp, but he ignored them in favor of Malfoy's reaction. The blond man's eyes widened, and he bent his head ever so slightly. A nod, an almost-bow.
"Of course, help is always welcome," Loki added lightly, and a few people laughed, breaking the stunned silence.
After that, Loki did not stay long. He didn't want the Midgardians to get too used to his presence, and he had accomplished what he'd needed to and more tonight. Now, it was back to the books, and, perish the thought, to teaching.
He portkeyed back with another self-illusion, frustrated anew that he couldn't connect to this realm's network. The Midgardians apparently had no problem appearing and disappearing off the lines, and if he didn't feign it occasionally, it was only a matter of time before someone caught on to his inability. There were ways of linking to a planet's magic, weren't there? Odin must have done it to him for Asgard. As Loki drew out his floo powder and spoke his destination, he added apparition to his list of things to look up, which was growing ever more formidable. Not to mention the rolls of papers in his office, piled higher than possible by any natural means. Next time, he promised himself. The next time he had a few paltry minutes to string together, he was going to the library.
A/N: Hi guys, thanks for reading, and thanks to those of you who favorited and reviewed. For any of you wondering where Harry is in all this, he will appear eventually! In the meantime, I hope you enjoy and would love to hear your thoughts. And, though I'm pretty sure the fandom's fear of lawsuits is more superstition than anything, I'll throw my hat in and confess I'm not Rowling. All legal persons are free to haunt someone else's story. Leave a review if you want to make my day. Peace out!