Sirius Black carefully levitated five plates over to the table of his flat. Ever since he'd hooked up his little apartment to the floo, he'd been having guests at all available opportunities, which wasn't easy when one's best friend was hiding from the most evil wizard in existence. Even if Loki hadn't saved Lily's hapless relatives, Sirius had been planning this meeting for weeks, as a Marauder get-together. It was only because Wormtail hadn't been able to make it that he could even accommodate Loki in his tiny flat, since extension charms were out of the question in a muggle residence. Sirius frowned, sending the assorted debris gathered in his main room into his closet. The plump man had been very busy as of late. He seemed to have less and less time for his friends. Between that and James' forced inaccessibility, it was hard not to feel like the Marauders were drifting apart.
Just as he'd finished transfiguring the foldout chairs to something comfortable, a knock sounded at the door and James stepped in, followed by plaintive wailing.
"Padfoot!" he said, smiling brightly and handing Sirius a covered basket.
"Nevermind you, where's Prongslet?" Sirius demanded, just as Lily walked in, bouncing Harry on her hip and shushing him.
"Hush, hush. It's okay! We're done apparating!" she exclaimed, yielding Harry to Sirius's eager grasp.
"Hey pup, look!" Sirius said, conjuring a stuffed bone toy in the hand that wasn't full of baby. Harry stopped crying, grabbing the toy with sticky fingers and trying to fit it into his mouth.
"See? He takes after me," Sirius said.
"Can James transfigure a crib?" Lily asked anxiously. "It's well past his bedtime."
"Already ahead of you," Sirius said, opening the door to his bedroom with a crib standing where his bed had once rested. Transfigurations usually took months to revert, but if something went wrong, it was better that the original item provide a safe surface.
Gently, he lowered baby Harry into the crib, then walked back out, shutting the door and wincing as the tears returned in full force.
"Wait it out," Lily advised, looking a bit weary.
"You know," James was saying as he regarded Sirius's banner-covered wall, "I don't think there's nearly enough Gryffindor pride here."
"You dare impugn my house's honor?!" Sirius said, with mock outrage.
"This table, for instance, is a dull and uninspired shade of brown most unbefitting of a true Gryffindor," James said, tapping it with his wand and turning it fire engine red. "Not to mention these plates…"
With another tap of his wand, the plates' plain black and white design became Gryffindor lions.
"Hands off my plates, you loon!" Sirius said, shooting red and gold color change spells at James' robes and hair, which James laughingly returned. "No one wants to eat off a plate that looks like it's eating them!"
The floo flared green and Moony stepped out, blinking sharply as he glanced around.
James and Sirius turned to each other.
"You know…" Sirius started.
"Our Moony's looking awfully grey," James finished, as a hailstorm of color-change spells shot out from their wands, pinging off odd stones of the fireplace, the lampshade, and Moony's robes, but impressively for his dodging abilities, not his tawny hair.
"Boys, enough!" Lily said, before Sirius and James could resume their barrage. "I know you're happy to see each other, but your non-Marauder guest will be here soon. Behave."
"Yes, Lily dear," James said meekly, lowering his wand and seating himself down to the right of the table head. "So what did you make?" he asked.
"Wait and see," Sirius said, mostly to annoy James.
Remus had taken the seat next to him on the other side, which meant Loki would be across from Lily and next to the werewolf, which was probably for the best.
As the clock struck seven, a knock sounded at the door, and Sirius rose to get it.
"Punctual fellow, isn't he?" James said, hurriedly shushed by Lily.
The door opened and the man who'd scared Voldemort away stepped in, the man who, if auror-department rumors were to be believed, was angling for Bagnold's seat. Loki had fought like no one Sirius had seen, flashing around the battlefield without a sound, hurling knives with deadly accuracy, at alternate times laughing and deadly serious. Now he just looked faintly bemused.
"Pardon the decor," Sirius said, pushing a strand of red hair out of his eyes. "James went a bit crazy before you showed up."
Loki's eyes found the golden-haired James, who was smiling guilelessly back at him.
"Have a seat," Sirius said, falling into the position of a host with practiced ease. "You've already met Remus here. This is James Potter and his wife, Lily."
"We're very thankful for your actions last Tuesday," Lily was saying.
As Sirius rose to get the soup, he could see that Loki looked pleased by the compliment.
When he returned, levitating a large tray with his wand, James and Remus were attempting, quite loudly and with frequent interruptions, to catch Loki up on a lifetime of pranking stories. To Sirius's surprise, Loki seemed to enjoy the tall-tales. He wouldn't have expected it from the man.
James seemed to be thinking along those lines. "Let me guess," he said, stealing one of Lily's breadsticks for his soup. "Straight-O student, adored by professors and parents alike."
"No," Loki said, his voice suddenly dangerous and somehow brittle. "My brother was more for adoration than I."
There was something in that that Sirius recognized; a familiar resentment. Before he could comment, Loki continued, the darkness falling off his face like a bad mask. "But I did attract my fair share of trouble," he added. "The gardeners and cooks were told to avoid us at all costs, and we were constantly banned from the shops."
He grinned, lost in some remembered incident.
"Re-ally," James said, stretching out the word consideringly. "What was your best prank?"
Loki's face went blank for a moment, then he grinned, launching into a story of covering an entire palace- ceiling, floor, and occupants, in spiderwebs in the night.
"You might've given us a run for our galleons," James said with new respect, as Sirius started clearing soup plates.
"Here, I'll help," Remus said, scooping up Loki's bowl before following Sirius out.
Loki watched him go, feeding a thread of magic into the tracking charm he had affixed to Lupin's arm so he could hear what would be said in the kitchen. He was so focused that it took a second for him to realize Lily Potter had addressed him.
"Run that by me again?" Loki said, flashing a smile.
"I just was wondering how much you know about obscure magic," Lily said. "That web trick isn't something you see every day."
"It was somewhat complicated to engineer," Loki admitted, half an ear toward his tracking spell. "Why do you ask?"
"There's something I'm working on," Lily said, pulling a plastic writing implement out of her pocket. "Sort of a shield; it looks like this."
"That's a Muggle pen," James explained for Loki, smiling fondly as Lily began to sketch in precise, elegant strokes.
A basic body, crisscrossed with lines like woven wire. Loki recognized some magical intent in the patterning, denser at physical weak points and looser where ambient magic tended to aggregate. He conjured an illusion of the diagram in three dimensions to float above the table, a blank white mortal form surrounded by golden lines of magic.
"Bloody hell— is that…" James started.
"Is this how it would look?" he asked.
"Almost!" Lily said, her eyes light. "But you don't have to overlap the weave where the lines cross- they blend together."
"They blend?" Loki asked, frowning. "But then— this is all one thread."
"Do you know how much power it would take to complete every independent line and then overlay them?" Lily asked incredulously. "I— well, the idea is to start the whole structure at once, and slowly feed the power in in the correct patterns until they are permanent."
"It will be more vulnerable this way," Loki said. "Especially the starting point."
"Just one point," Lily said, though she looked somewhat disheartened.
"Hey, you did a great job, Lily," James said, rubbing her hand. "And anything's better than no protection."
"Who is this for?" Loki asked. Lily and James exchanged glances, and in a second, he knew. "Of course," he said flatly. "Your son."
He had been told Frigga had done something similar for him, all those decades ago, sacrificing a drop of her magic so he might have his own. Had she known then, what he was? How could she not? And yet…
Loki thrust aside those distracting thoughts, redoubling his focus on the diagram.
"The structure is well done," he admitted. Especially for a mortal. Who would have thought there were some capable of such ingenuity? Of course, there was at least one glaring issue.
"Why do you want to hamper the flow of magic through your son's left hand?"
"What do you mean?" Lily asked, tucking a strand of red hair behind her ear and surveying the diagram with a frown.
"The lines here are as tight as in the rest of the body," Loki said. "A sure impediment to wandless magic."
"Most magic is done with a wand here," Lily said, though she looked troubled.
"But not all," Loki said. "It's much better to loop the lines between his fingers like on his right."
"Thanks," Lily said. "I'll adjust it."
The input from his tracking spell suddenly increased in volume, but Loki ignored it, fixated on the diagram.
"How are you initiating the transfer?" he asked. "Do you have a conductor?"
"Blood," Lily said. "Donated over several weeks."
A permanent transfer then. Did she realize she might be left without magic herself if she accomplished what she intended? Loki opened his mouth to ask, but his eyes were drawn to the window, or rather, the magic slipping past it like a dropped curtain. The next moment, the kitchen door burst open.
A/N: Shorter chapter today, but I have the second part of this coming up soon. Let me know what worked or what didn't by dropping a review!