The halls of Camelot had long since fallen into … well, not quite disrepair, but something close to it. Or however close you can get to 'disrepair' while all the walls are still intact but every bit of furniture is covered in a visible layer of dust and no one has spoken within the city gates since the Norman invasion.
When an entire kingdom is only inhabited by one man for century upon century, that tends to happen. Not that that's necessarily a rule, seeing as 'rules' tend to require more than one example to be logically sound or scientifically proven or whatever you'd like to call it, but it was a rule insofar as it applied to Camelot.
The Fall of Camelot wasn't one great thing, it wasn't one final battle that a historian can point to and say 'there, that was it,' it wasn't some dramatic finale that perfectly wrapped up some cinematic legend. It was a series of events, some smaller than others, some that may have fit the bill of the aforementioned cinematic legend. There were betrayals, great and mundane, there was fear and fate and those little things that, when one has (truly) nothing but time to think back on how that once great kingdom could've possibly fallen, clearly predicted the dreaded end.
But, really, Camelot didn't fall.
Not in the sense that the walls were breached and some incredible force laid siege to a legendary empire.
It simply faded from the public eye; it's influence only still present in folktales passed from generation to generation and stories referenced in history books.
The city itself still stands. The palace, wrapped in a truly astounding number of protective charms woven into ward stones that have stood the test of time, remains as impressive as the day it was built.
Yet, the place is a ghost town, a relic of ages past, a living tomb for its last remaining charge.
But now, with warmth spreading from that hard earned sigil dripping like honey through his veins, thawing the icy cage he'd long since built around his heart, he realizes that this Camelot is no place to raise a King.
And, as much as he'd like to, he can't necessarily swoop into the home of some unsuspecting family and announce that their hours old child has awoken a blood line long thought dead and then spirit him away to some fantasy land with no semblance of a plan. All this to say, he has time to fix this place up. And, more than that, he finally, finally has the motivation.
* * *
Saturday, 31 October 1981
It'd been nearly a year and a half since the blood of kings once more flowed into the world, a year and a half of the warmth of purpose and fealty chipping away at the years of ice built around his heart, a year and a half of feeding magic back into a kingdom long since left in ages past and Merlin Emrys, sorcerer of legend, was laying like a starfish in the middle of the freshly warded duelling room, staring up at the ceiling and pondering his (finally dwindling) to do list when the sigil inked across his shoulder lit up like a fresh brand.
Images flashed across his closed eyelids in quick succession; a figure in a dark cloak, a cozy looking cottage, a flash of green light, and the greenest eyes he'd ever seen, filled with fear and lined with unshed tears, flashing gold for just a moment before a bolt of lightning etched itself across the right half of a tiny, perfect face.
Merlin took off at a sprint, crashing through the newly dust-free halls of the castle, out the heavy wooden doors, and down the hill toward the outer gates. He couldn't apparate out of the castle grounds without tearing a massive hole through the (honestly, absurdly) complex ward scheme and in his panic to rush to this child's aid, he realized he hadn't the foggiest clue where that cottage was. He had a clear image in his mind, but absolutely no direction for his intent.
He paused right outside the gates, leaning back against the medieval stones, and took a deep breath, pulling every seemingly minor tidbit of information he had to the forefront of his brain. Breathing in through his nose and holding the air in his lungs he heard the name Harrisonrattle about in his mind, breathing out he searched for any mention of a surname in the whispers of magic. It took another second for the name Potter to announce itself.
He'd known a Potter once, hundreds of years ago when he was still kicking around Hogwarts pretending to be useful.
A young man named Hardwin. Messy brown hair and mischief-filled hazel eyes. Last he'd heard, Hardwin had married a woman named Iolanthe, the last of the Peverells if he remembered right.
He took a moment to thank whoever was listening that he'd been granted an eidetic memory alongside his immorality otherwise the centuries of waiting around would've been entirely useless.
He paused and took another breath, forcing himself to get back on track. Magical families had a habit of settling in one place and staying there forever so if he could just remember where the Potters or even the Peverells had lived he'd have some sort of direction.
It took a minute but then he remembered a sheet of parchment addressed in green ink. Acceptance letters and yearly notices were automatically addressed by a charm connected to the Book of Admissions but those professors who chose to take on apprentices had written their letters by hand, and he'd spent three years sending letters to a Mr. Hardwin L. Potter, The Heir's Suite, Griffin's Keep, Godric's Hollow.
He didn't take the time to consider the odds that the family still lived in the same town, nor did he take the time to consider the fact that Godric's Hollow may not even exist after all these years, he simply turned on his heel and disappeared with a distinct *crack*, reappearing in front of a simple white church near the gates to a slightly ancient looking graveyard.
He paused, taking another breath before scanning the horizon. He almost missed it, mistaking the smoke for something as inconsequential as a chimney, but then he felt it. Magic. Darker than he'd felt in years and filling the very air he breathed. He took off again, uncaring of how insane he might look, dressed in a tunic woven some time before the Tudors claimed the English throne and running like a bat out of hell. He skidded to a stop outside that cottage he'd seen in his vision.
It didn't look so cozy anymore.
The second story had been almost entirely demolished and there was so much malignant magic in the air that he wasn't sure the land would ever be habitable again. But, more concerningly, it was quiet.
With another breath, he let his magic stretch out, feeling for that distinct bond of family and felt nothing. Somehow, he was too late.
Not even an hour had passed since his sigil had alerted him to the danger and someone had already swooped in.
If he were a younger man, less accustomed to the machinations of mere mortals who thought brute force and measurable power meant they were allowed to thread the strings of fate, he might've assumed it was simply a family member or some other equally concerned party who'd stepped in and taken the child somewhere safe. But he wasn't a younger man and he'd spent his entire life surrounded by people who couldn't even begin to fathom that they didn't dictate which way the Earth turned.
It only took a matter of seconds for him to realize he'd just stepped into a complex and likely utterly idiotic plot, and a couple more seconds to decide it was now officially his life's mission to stop it before it ended in disaster.
And, while he maybe hadn't done a great job of keeping up with the news over the last couple of centuries, he did know where to start looking when a clusterfuck of this magnitude was afoot.
With another deep breath and a whispered prayer to the gods for patience, he turned on his heel and spun off toward Hogwarts.
* * *
In the minutes it took him to walk from Hogsmeade up to the castle gates, he came to the realization that he couldn't just burst into the castle, announce himself as the Great Merlin Emrys, and kidnap a child in the name of fealty to a long dead King. He had to play this smart. Oh, how his old friends would laugh if they'd heard him say that. Merlin was known for a great many things, but amongst his dearest friends he was most well-known for diving headfirst into chaos without so much as a second thought.
This had to be different, though.
This child was the both the end of an old legend and the beginning of a new one.
The Once and Future King.
In those early years after Arthur had died, Merlin had assumed (read: hoped) that the legend meant that Arthur himself would one day return and that they would usher in a new era of peace together but as the years passed and the magic stirred, he started to wonder if the legend meant that one day a descendent of Arthur would rise. A child so far removed from the rule of Camelot and the height of Avalon that they'd need someone who'd lived it to guide them.
He could only hope that once his duty was fulfilled he'd be allowed to greet Death and reunite with his friend.
With that thought on his mind, he took a breath and transformed into a Holly Blue butterfly. The only way anyone would be able to tell he wasn't one of the butterflies that called the ivy-covered walls of Hogwarts home was if they looked close enough to identify the golden flecks along his hind wings. He needed information before he decided how to act and he'd never get it if he relied on listening charms or what the portraits might have overheard.
He'd trained Godric from childhood as a favour to his dear friend Gwaine and they'd later met young Salazar, a descendent of his own father who carried the gift of serpent speak, something like a cousin to his own ability to speak with dragons. It was a few more years before their little trio met Helga and Rowena and began to dream of Hogwarts. He'd coached them through building the school, developing the curriculum, and weaving the wards.
Hogwarts was the first true home he'd known since leaving Camelot and even after all these years it was still happy to welcome him.
Pushing thoughts of his first students to the furthest recesses of his mind, he found an open window and followed the song of familiar magic up to the hospital wing where he wasn't the least bit surprised to find Albus Dumbledore at the centre of yet another harebrained scheme.
He wanted nothing more than to tune him out and direct every bit of his attention on the tiny bundle of messy brown hair and green, green eyes in the curtained off bed but he needed to know what he was working with so he forced himself to focus on the adults.
"They're his only remaining blood relatives," Dumbledore explained to a visibly pissed off Minerva McGonagall, a fierce witch who certainly lived up to the name of Ross, her mother's family, descendants of Sir Bedivere.
"That's not even sort of true," she said, her Scottish brogue tangibly thicker with the weight of her ire. "James' mother was a Black and there are several members of that family who'd be more suitable to raise this child than Petunia Dursley," spitting the name like it was poison.
"You may be right but the protections on the boy come from his mother's sacrifice and, as such, are connected to his mother's blood," Dumbledore explained in a rather hilarious misinterpretation of blood-tied wards and intent-based magic. Anyone who'd so much as cracked open a book on the subject would know that it wasn't DNA that mattered, but love itself and if the way Minerva had spit Petunia's name was anything to go by, love would be in short order in the Dursley home.
Minerva looked how Merlin felt but seemingly didn't want to make it known that she had even a base-line understanding of blood and wards tied to the oldest of magics. Merlin was left wondering what had changed since he'd last interacted with society if she was so adverse to making this knowledge known that she wouldn't speak it in support of a child she so obviously cared for.
"Very well," she acquiesced, looking like it was the very last thing she wanted to do, "but if we're leaving him there you must promise to put protective measures into place, we cannot leave this darling boy to their whims entirely unmonitored."
"I vow it," Dumbledore said and Merlin wanted to scream. That had been the vaguest promise he could've possibly made. Simply placing a monitoring charm on the boy would fulfil his vow, something he was likely planning to do anyways. It was becoming increasingly clear that his entire plan was to abandon this child, the heralded saviour of the wizarding world and (unbeknownst to them) the prophesized King of Camelot, to a Muggle family known for hating magic for the next decade.
If Merlin weren't so focused on gathering information to build his own plan he would've revealed himself to punch this idiot in his already crooked nose. The biggest issue with Albus Dumbledore, as Merlin had realized during the conflict with Grindewald and over the years of this war with Voldemort, was that he genuinely believed that everything he did was for the betterment of society. He was so blinded by his own perceived genius that he couldn't even begin to consider the fact that his way may not be the best way, he was unwilling to take suggestion and feared that which he didn't know, leaving him vulnerable to enemies and even more vulnerable to creating the most idiotic plans to ever be uttered in modern history.
Quite literally the only person Merlin would trust less with this child was Uther.
Morgana would've raised him to be the next Dark Lord, but she'd at least have taught him magic.
It's certainly a sad day when the Paragon of the Light is less trustworthy than Morgana Le Fay.
Shaking his tiny insect head, Merlin forced himself to get back on track. He needed to know where this house was that they'd be dropping Harrison off at so he could formulate the next steps of his plan.
A plan that currently consisted of two steps. Step One: kidnap a toddler. Step Two: come up with a real plan.
Minerva and Dumbledore agreed to meet on a street called Privet Drive in a small suburb called Surrey in two days' time. He watched as Minerva approached Harrison, gently ran her thumb along his cheek, muttered a heartfelt promise to always protect him, and then stormed out of the hospital wing in a barely controlled whirlwind of fury.
In the now quiet hall, Dumbledore approached the sleeping child and pull out a wand that Merlin would've recognized anywhere.
What in Circe's great name was this absolute dunce doing with the Elder Wand?
In his best grandfatherly voice, Dumbledore explained to young Harrison that he'd be placing a binding on his power to help control a soul piece that had been left behind, obviously believing he was doing the child some great service. It was now taking every ounce of Merlin's rather frayed willpower to not murder this absolute dumbass where he stood.
This was officially priority number one after saving Harrison from wherever and whatever the fuck 'Surrey' was. The Goblin Nation was sure to have a way to deal with whatever malignant magic had been left behind and, in the off chance they didn't, he'd find a solution himself in the libraries of Camelot and if even that failed, he'd scour the Earth until he found an option that wasn't binding the core of a child.
After placing the bind, he then wove a series of monitoring and tracking charms, finishing off his symphony of stupid with a 'light' compulsion to trust the great Albus Dumbledore without question.
Merlin wanted to bang his head against the nearest solid surface but feared for the durability of his butterfly brain so he'd put that one off until he was human once more.
Then, Albus left the hall. Leaving a traumatized 15-month-old child alone with only the lightest of privacy wards around his bed and a simple Colloportus on the hospital wing door. This man was either stupid or negligent and Merlin wasn't sure which option was preferable.
He flew the permitter of the wing twice to make sure they were truly alone before landing on Harrison's bed and transforming back into a human. As he landed, he watched the child shift in his sleep, his face scrunching up and his fists clenching in a clear sign that he was in the midst of a nightmare.
"Hello, little one," Merlin whispered, running his fingers through dark brown curls, awed as he watched those perfect green eyes blink open, searching for the source of comfort and softening when they landed on Merlin. "You're safe now. No harm will come to you while I am here, I swear it rí beag, my little king."
A tiny smile took over his face as if he'd understood every word and Merlin watched in no small amount of awe as an achingly familiar shade of blue wrapped its way around the outer ring of Harrison's eyes and his hair shifted to an equally familiar shade of light brown the moment he was acknowledged as King. Merlin watched in real time as the Pendragon blood rose to the surface, combining seamlessly with the Gryffindor features that had carried through the Peverell and Potter lines.
With a slightly hysterical laugh and tears in his eyes he watched as this child turned into a near perfect combination of his two dearest friends.
Gwaine's unruly curls with Arthur's light brown colouring that he just knew would lighten like spun gold in the summer sun, Arthur's smile and sun kissed skin with Gwaine's cheeks and jaw. But there were parts of him that weren't immediately recognizable that must've come from his mother's blood; that particular shade of green that was still prominent in his eyes, the perfect button nose dusted with freckles even in the midst of fall, the slight red tint to his hair that had never been present in either Arthur or Gwaine or any of the Potters or Peverells he'd had the pleasure of meeting.
This boy was something all his own.
The blood of legends ran through his veins, yet he wasn't them.
He wasn't Arthur or Gwaine or Godric, he wasn't Hardwin or Ignotus, he wasn't even James or Lily; he was Harrison and that was more than enough.
After another minute of just staring at this beautiful child, Merlin realized that the change would be questioned. It could be explained as simple aging and time spent in the sun when they saw him again when he entered these halls as a student, but it couldn't be explained as anything other than magic if they saw him like this in the morning so, with an annoyed huff and a promise to both himself and his new charge that this was only temporary, only until they were within the walls of Camelot, he laid his hand over Harrison's sternum and let his magic flood out, weaving an undetectable glamour that made his eyes bright green and his hair dark brown.
"Sleep now, rí beag," Merlin whispered, "I will watch over you."
With a slight nod and the sweetest yawn, Harrison let his eyes flutter shut and slipped back into the land of dreams.
Merlin settled back against the headboard and threaded his fingers through downy soft curls and started to ponder his next steps.
In the quiet of the night, with the assurance that Harrison was safe by his side, his mind calmed enough to be analytical. He'd stay here until they moved Harrison to Surrey, of that he was sure. He wasn't about to abandon this child now that he'd found him. So many of his plans for the future relied on knowledge that he simply didn't have, knowledge that he wouldn't be able to gather if he wanted to stay next to Harrison, but he needed to prioritize this child's safety, so the information gathering was going to have to wait.
He'd travel with them to Surrey, find something to transfer the tracking and monitoring charms onto, establish his own tracking and monitoring charms to he'd have time to weave an illusion or drop Harrison into the garden if, by some insane turn of events, Dumbledore decided to visit Privet Drive sometime between now and 1991. Then he'd take Harrison to the goblins to see what could be done about whatever magic was trapped within his scar, while there he'd name him the Emrys Heir and seal every vault he was tied to except for the Potter Heir vault, assuming that Dumbledore might have some sort of access to that vault and not wanting to do anything that would tip the man to the fact that his plan wasn't playing out exactly as he wanted.
He'd ask if James or Lily left a will and do what he could to carry out their wishes without alerting Dumbledore and then he'd take the child to Camelot where he'd have to come up with some balance between allowing him to have a childhood and preparing him to bear the weight of prophecy. Speaking of which, he'd have to figure out why, exactly, Voldemort had decided to target this child. There's no way it was because he knew that Harrison was the future King of Camelot, no one except Merlin himself was privy to that information just yet and if he had anything to say about it, they wouldn't be privy until Harrison was ready to take the throne. So, there must've been some other reason … and centuries on this Earth had taught Merlin many things, chief among them the fact that when something insane is happening it's almost always because someone tried to control Fate.
He had more of a plan for this than he'd ever had for anything before; light kidnapping, begging the goblins for help, abiding by estate law, and then fleeing to Camelot. He didn't feel the need to get any more specific, he'd discovered long ago that the best laid plans left room for hijinks.