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Chapter Text

“You’ve been back over a month,” Florean Fortescue chided as he straightened his violet pinstripe waistcoat. He took a moment to pull out a silver pocket watch, inspected it a moment, and then returned it to his trouser pocket. “I want your things put away by the time I close the shop.”

The boy who stood before him had changed drastically since the year previous. The growth spurt had hit, and though he had been tall before, now Merlin stood to catch up and perhaps even pass Florean within the next year. His pyjamas had already been magically extended to fit twice, and there was no doubt that he would need new school robes. Florean had been unable to stop himself from remarking more than once, oh how fast do they grow, received by an almost painfully typical representation of the teenage eye roll.

Merlin swallowed the urge to grumble, his inky black hair still had sleep lingering on the messy strands. Florean gave him a look that quite clearly said, how many times do I have to ask, and headed down the stairs to the ice cream parlour.

Merlin just didn’t see the point of completely unpacking his trunk. He would be heading back to Hogwarts in about a month and a half. Still, his groan turning into a yawn, he turned on the ball of his foot and headed over to his bedroom.

Well, the bedroom he shared with Silas.

But the kid wasn’t in the room when Merlin entered—he could hear the sound of the tap in the washroom down the hall. He had shoved his trunk into the corner next to the closet, where it sat half-open, a mess of clothes hanging over the edges and books in a disorganized jumble. And there, getting black hair all over his Slytherin tie was Khoshekh.

The kneazle had matured while he was away at Hogwarts. Her dappled black fur had thickened, her charcoal rosettes just visible. Around her neck, the fur had grown long and silky, a mane that gave her a distinctly regal look. Her large ears had tufts of black on the end, as did the end of her large tail—looking, in Merlin’s opinion, like a midnight lion. She blinked her silver eyes up at him, and she purred as he sighed.

“Florean wants me to unpack,” he explained, kneeling down and scratching one of her large ears. “I hate to kick you out of your bed, but…” and he shrugged. The kneazle yawned, revealing her royal purple mouth. Then, she stretched, and stepped out of the trunk, batting her side against Merlin’s knee. He chuckled, running his hand along her back, and then she was out of the room.

Silas hadn’t even gotten his letter yet, and already he planned to bring her to Hogwarts with him.

He started throwing clothes—including that tie—into the hamper for the wash. His Hogwarts robes he held up and frowned slightly. They had been getting small for him even before the term ended. He threw them on his bed for now and started organizing the books.

The end of term had come quickly, after the terror of the Chamber of Secrets had subsided. The mandrakes matured and were made into a potion to revive the petrified students. Merlin had wondered what they were going to do about their education, considering they had been frozen in the Hospital Wing for most of the year. According to Hermione—who had been concerned about it and asked Professor McGonagall—they had an intense summer program to look forward too.

Hermione had been distinctly aggrieved when told she could not, in fact, join this program.

“You’ll be busy enough,” Merlin had promised her. True to his intention, he had begun to teach them to manipulate druidic magic, though with little success. He had expected that. It was unlike anything they had studied before. But it was still somewhat disheartening to have made no progress by the end of the term.

“It is not wandless magic,” Merlin had told them all at their final Circle of Darach meeting. “Right now we are not trying to manipulate anything about the world around us, that will come later. I want you all to focus on meditation this summer.” He handed them each a small rough-hewn rock. “Now, I transfigured these using druidic magic,” he had taken to calling it that, as the Old Religion was antiquated and too long to say. “I want you all to hold them in your hands while you meditate, and try to feel the magical energy it gives off. This is the type of magic you are reaching for.”

“Are we supposed to transfigure it into something?” Ginny asked.

“You can’t do magic outside school!” Hermione replied instantly and Merlin smiled.

“No. You are not transfiguring it into anything. However, I suspect the ministry is unable to regulate or even sense druidic magic.”

“Does that mean—” Fred began, his eyes lighting up, “If we were to master this…”

“We could do magic outside of school and not get caught?” his twin finished.

“Yes.”

“Wicked.”

“Now,” Merlin went on. “You have a long way to go before you even attempt that. These stones are designed to help you attune to the magic of the earth, to external magic. This means pushing your own magic out from you, allowing it to interact with other auras. It can be exhausting for new students—”

“You don’t say,” Draco grumbled.

“—so don’t force it.” Merlin shot his fellow Slytherin a meaningful glance. “It’s not asking you to do anything,” and he glanced over at Hermione now. “Clear your mind of everything, breathe in and out, and allow yourself to feel your surroundings. Once you have reached a state of calm, you will notice the aura radiating from your rock.”

“How do we know if we’re actually reading the rock, though?” Ginny asked with a frown.

“Because it will start to emit light when it senses your magic back.” Merlin had looked around at them all. “It takes time and practice. Any questions?”

Hermione’s hand shifted as if she wanted to raise it, but she held it down. “Can we write to you with questions?” she asked a tinge of worry in her tone. She seemed to be having particular difficulty with druidic magic—and not just because there were no textbooks for it.

“I would—refrain from being too detailed. Just in case.” He didn’t know what the chances of the letter being intercepted were, but he didn’t intend to test it. “That said, you all know I live in Diagon Alley. Feel free to stop by anytime.”

Of course, no one had stopped by yet but Merlin hadn’t expected them too. He set the final book on the short bookcase in the room and decided he might as well put away his extra parchment and writing supplies while he was at it. His friends had taken the news of his identity relatively well, though he could see them struggling. Draco in particular had difficulty with the information. In the last few months of school, he had flip-flopped between awkward formality and forced nonchalance. It didn’t matter how many times Merlin told him to treat him normally.

It wasn’t easy finding out your best friend was an ancient and powerful warlock.

Merlin knew he just needed time—including time apart. Hopefully by the time term started again a sense of normalcy would return.

Hermione did what Hermione does when confronted with something confusing and earth-shattering—she went to the library. Within a week after he had told them, she appeared with a three-foot roll of parchment full of questions she had gathered during her research session. He had spent an entire afternoon with her, patiently answering as much as he could. As far as he could tell, she seemed more upset by the clear lack of accurate information regarding his life.

“If history is this wrong, what else have I learned that is just false?” she exclaimed with a miserable glance at the pile of history books on the library table.

Learning that Hogwarts, A History wasn’t the authority she had imagined, hit Hermione harder than his identity.

The others had taken it better. The twins had known for two years now so they were thrilled to learn the details at last. Merlin suspected they were partly the reason Ginny remained unfazed. Then again, she had spent a large portion of the previous year possessed by Tom Riddle. After that, he wouldn’t be surprised if she remained open and coldly cynical for the rest of her life. Just one conversation with the—could he even call Tom Riddle a person? —had riled his insides.

Merlin shut the now-empty trunk and flipped the latch. There, now Florean would be satisfied. Down the hall, he heard the washroom door open and Silas giggle Khoshekh’s name.

He hadn’t told Silas about the Circle of Darach yet. He planned to, of course, he’d just been waiting for the right time. He watched as the kid came around the corner, mousy brown hair slightly damp, and the black kneazle bobbing around his legs with a purr he could hear from the other side of the room.

“I see you finally caved,” Silas said with a laugh as he saw the trunk.

Merlin ran his hand through his hair. “It was bound to happen eventually.” He strode over to his bed to appraise the school robes he had thrown there. “You want to see if these fit you? I’m going to need new ones this year.”

Any time Merlin even alluded to the fact that Silas was coming to Hogwarts, the kid’s hazel eyes sparkled with a joy he hadn’t seen in a long time. “Really?” Silas said, grabbing the robes from the bed and holding them up against him.

“I mean, yeah—we can just ask Florean to nullify the sleeve extension charms on it. If you want, I mean—”

Silas had thrown the robes on over his clothes before Merlin had even finished speaking. The sleeves were only an inch too long for him and he beamed, rolling them up. “Course I want them!” he laughed and ran to stand in front of the mirror that hung next to the closet. “How do I look?”

“Like a Hogwarts student.”

Silas beamed. “By the way,” he said, shrugging off the cloak and hanging it on his side of the closet, “What did you want to do for your birthday?”

His birthday was in two weeks and he honestly hadn’t given it a single thought. “I dunno, probably same thing as last time?” he said, thinking of the ice cream party Florean had put on for him. “Why, got an idea?”

Silas gave an offhand shrug. “Maybe. I’ll keep it a surprise though, in case it doesn’t work out. Are you inviting all the same people as last time?”

“Pretty much,” Merlin said. He paused, “I’d also like to invite Ginny this time though.”

“Who’s that?”

“Fred and George’s younger sister.”

“Oh, the one who was part of the Chamber of Secrets thing, right?”

Merlin nodded. He hadn’t told Silas everything that had happened down in the Chamber. And, predictably—

“Are you ever going to fill me in on the rest of that? You have to be dramatic, yes I know,” Silas said with a wink and Merlin spluttered. Khoshekh gave a mew, and she batted her head against Merlin’s shin. “Look, even Khoshekh agrees.”

“I’m not—”

“You are the most dramatic person I know Merlin,” Silas interrupted, raising his eyebrow.

Merlin opened his mouth, couldn’t think of a good enough rebuttal, and closed it again. Last time he hadn’t wanted to explain everything because Florean had been in the house, and he could never be certain how much he overheard. He wasn’t in the house today.

“Okay,” he said, running his hands through his hair again. He wasn’t ready for this conversation that was the real truth. He didn’t know what to say, how to say it, how Silas would react. He had a bunch of ideas but nothing that gave him peace of mind. He had hoped, somehow, that this conversation could wait until they got to Hogwarts, until he took Silas into the Chamber of Secrets and showed him the mosaic and the round stone table. If controlling every part of the reveal made him dramatic—

Oh, he was dramatic, wasn’t he?

“Okay,” he said again. “After Breakfast.”

“Yeah?” Silas said, regarding him carefully.

“Yeah.” Khoshekh mewed again, and he bent to scratch her ears. “I don’t have a good enough reason to keep it hidden from you, I mean I was always intending to tell you it’s just—”

“Complicated.”

Merlin nodded and Silas rolled his eyes. “What isn’t with you these days?” but his tone was teasing. He punched Merlin’s arm. “C’mon, let’s go eat then.”

 Merlin used to cook a lot. Arthur had always put him in charge of dinner when they travelled. While Silas set the table and filled their glasses with orange juice, Merlin scrambled some eggs and put on the toast. He dished it up onto their plates and sat down, willing the coils of his stomach to unwind.

The arrival of the post provided some welcome distraction. Through the open second-story window came two owls, the first was a Great Horned Owl who came by every day with a copy of the Daily Prophet. As Silas deposited a few bronze knuts into the pouch on his leg, a barn owl swooped over his head and dropped two letters over the table before swooping back out again. The letters had landed on the toast.

Merlin grimaced and picked up the envelopes, brushing off the breadcrumbs. Familiar emerald ink caught his eye and he read the address:

Mr S Meadowes

 The West Bedroom

 Florean Fortescue’s Ice-cream Parlour

 Versal Plaza, Diagon Alley

Merlin turned over the letter and saw the Hogwarts emblem on the back in red wax and broke into a wide grin. The second letter bore an additional weight to it, but it had his name written across the header. He held up the letter addressed to Silas and looked over at his brother, who was gazing down at the Daily Prophet in his hands.

“Well, look what flew in!” Merlin said, dangling the envelope from his fingers.

Silas did not lookup.

“Silas—” Merlin started to say, but he cut off as the person in question finally looked up at him. He didn’t even see the letter held outstretched in Merlin’s hands. He looked back down at the Daily Prophet and before Merlin could ask what had shown him the front page.

In large accusatory letters was the headline, DISGRACED LOCKHART SENTENCED TO SIX MONTHS IN AZKABAN. Accompanying the article was a large photograph. Merlin stared back at the terrified face of Gilderoy, suspended between two Auror’s as they dragged him down a stone corridor, cell bars on either side. He kept shaking his head vigorously, looking back at the camera.

“Okay—?” Merlin said, frowning down at the article. They had kept up to date with the case since Lockhart had been arrested. This wasn’t so much of a surprise but rather the final conclusion. Wondering how this could possibly be more interesting than their Hogwarts Letters, Merlin began to read the article. He had gotten only a few words in when Silas pointed to the photograph.

“Do you see this man?”

Merlin stared at him. He was pointing to the half-visible image of one of the prisoners. He was sitting with his face right up against the bars. His eyes were sunken, a hollow of a man with a tangle of long hair. He had the look of someone locked up for a long time. And yet, despite everything, merlin could see a youthful smile lurking beneath his patchy beard.

“What about him?”

Silas took a deep rattling breath. Merlin had never seen him knocked so off-balance. The paper trembled beneath his fingers. The blood had drained from his face.

“I thought he was dead.”

Merlin stood up, the Hogwarts letters forgotten on the table. “Who was dead?” he repeated, now snatching the Daily Prophet out of Silas’s fingers to more closely examine.

“My brother, Bryon.

DISGRACED LOCKHART SENTENCED TO SIX MONTHS IN AZKABAN

The deliberations are over and Gilderoy Lockhart has made a deal with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, writes Special Correspondent Rita Skeeter.

Before the end of last term, the Headmaster had dismissed Gilderoy Lockhart from his position as Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, citing student endangerment and false credentials. It was later revealed he had wiped his own memory of any wrongdoing, a fact that had delayed proceedings.

Lockhart sympathizers sent hundreds of letters in protest. “How can you judge him if he can’t even remember doing it?” said Jennifer Litcott, self-described President of the Gilderoy Lockhart Fanclub and Legal Activist. “He can’t confess!”

The Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Amelia Bones, had this to say in rebuttal: “I’ve heard these apologists, and I am appalled they try to call what they do justice. Mr Lockhart has destroyed the lives of people, a fact that has been proven within the court of law. The simple fact that he cannot remember his actions does not change the damage he has caused.”

Although the full details of the proceedings are confidential, the Daily Prophet can exclusively reveal that Gilderoy Lockhart was formally charged for attempting to tamper the memory of two students, as well as fraudulently presenting himself, obtaining employment under false pretence, and numerous counts of memory tampering and copyright infringement.

In exchange for full cooperation in contacting every person he has ever tampered with, Gilderoy Lockhart received a shortened sentence of only six months in Azkaban as well as intensive memory rehabilitation with a certified St. Mungo’s healer. Lockhart was also fined 8,000 Galleons and has been further ordered to return royalty advances. The Publisher, Hoppity Press has been ordered to pull all Gilderoy Lockhart works from the shelves.

“This entire case has caused very bad press for us,” complained Hoppity Press CEO, François Durand. “Lockhart books were very popular, we’re looking at significant loses.” Durand also revealed they had sunk an enormous chunk of gold into the promotion of Gilderoy Lockhart’s newest book, Magical Me, an autobiography. It hit the shelves of Flourish and Blotts last August. “Normally we make back three times what we spend promoting one of Lockhart’s books, but now I don’t know what we’re going to do.”

Hoppity Press announced at a Press Conference last night that they intend to sue Lockhart following a massive drop in stock. Of course, this comes just two days after the DMLE announced an investigation into the publisher against claims that Hoppity Press had been aware of Lockhart’s crimes.

“I can assure you that no one at Hoppity Press was aware of what Lockhart was doing,” Durand said. “This investigation is a waste of time.”

So, exactly how much was fact and fiction in Voyages with Vampires? The Daily Prophet sent yours truly to find out. I began by tracing Gilderoy Lockhart’s steps as he details them in his redacted book. Read the full details in our new special series: Lying with Lockhart, more on page 5. Hoppity Press Investigation continues page 3. Gilderoy Lockhart Rebuttal page 8.

Gilderoy Lockhart led by Ministry Aurors to his cell in Azkaban; Photo Credit: DeliberatingDoodles

“Your brother?”

Silas had mentioned him only a few times, never lingering on the subject. Merlin stared at the young man in the photograph, at the smile around his eyes. The fine details of his face, however, were indeterminate, his straggle of facial hair hiding his features.

“Are you sure?”

“I know it’s him, Merlin.” Silas took back the Daily Prophet and surveyed the photo again.

Merlin couldn’t decide which question to ask first. He opened his mouth, closed it again, and then settled on: “So, he’s a wizard.” It had seemed odd how quickly Silas had accepted his magic. The kid looked up at last. Resolve hardened his hazel eyes. Silas set the Daily Prophet article on the table and sat back down.

“He never said he was. But things would happen, you know? I wanted to believe.” He ran his hands through his hair. “I saw him clean the dishes with magic once. When I asked him about it he pretended it didn’t happen—and then when he went out that night, he never came back.”

A nervous tremor reverberated over Silas’s frame. Merlin remembered how the kid had hugged him after witnessing Merlin’s magic for the first time. He had mentioned his brother then, he realized.

“I looked for him,” Silas went on. “I had no idea what was going on. I just remember being in that empty house, waiting.” He shook his head.

“You don’t have to talk about it,” Merlin whispered.

“I—I want to.” Silas wiped his eyes on his sleeve. There came a mew next to him and Silas turned to see Khoshekh jump onto the table and start pressing her face against his. He began to laugh, small choking sobs before he smiled and pulled the midnight kneazle into his lap. He met Merlin’s glittering blue gaze.

“I want to find out what happened to him,” Silas said. “Why didn’t he come back?”

“Why is he in Azkaban,” Merlin added and Silas nodded, a shimmer of water in his eyes. Merlin grabbed a piece of toast and leaned back in his chair, nibbling as he considered. Byron had not been credited on the photo, but if he was a member of the wizarding world—

“I promise, we’ll find out. If he’s in Azkaban there had to be a trial at some point.”

Silas nodded, scratching a purring Khoshekh under her chin. His hazel eyes were still somewhat red and he kept shooting glances back at the photograph, chewing on his bottom lip. The third time this happened, Merlin had made up his mind.

“Eat,” he said taking the plate of bread and setting it intentionally down on top of the Daily Prophet. “And I’ll tell you about what really happened in the Chamber of Secrets.”

“Okay,” Silas said taking a piece of toast.

“Now—” Merlin started, hesitation in his tone. “Well. Silas, just because you happened to be at the same orphanage as me doesn’t mean you have to be apart of this,” Merlin said. Silas was eleven. He deserved a normal Hogwarts experience, not one of fear and worry. “If I tell you everything it’ll put you in danger. You don’t have to risk your life as I do.”

Silas frowned at him. “What are you talking about?” he said, looking at Merlin as if he were insane. “I’ve always known what you’re doing is dangerous. I mean, the troll?” He spotted his Hogwarts letter on the table and snatched it, holding it up in Merlin’s face. “See this? Now I get to meet Korrizahar and you can’t stop me.”

Merlin snorted with laughter. “Okay, okay, but there are a few ground rules. Namely, no one else knows about the dragons, so please keep that to yourself for now.” Silas eagerly nodded to this so Merlin continued, “And secondly, I need you sworn to secrecy.”

“I won’t tell anyone,” Silas replied promptly.

“Magically, just in case they try to use a truth potion or something,” Merlin said, raising his eyebrow.

Silas gave a soft, ah. “That’s why you wanted to wait.”

“Yes.”

Silas cringed slightly. “Sorry,” but Merlin didn’t want his apology. He wanted to tell Silas the truth. The secrets buried inside for so long to vanish into sweet relief. Their eggs had long gone cold and with a wave of his fingers and a glitter of his eyes, they steamed with fresh heat.

“But, you said—” Silas said, watching him with wide eyes.

“They can’t detect my magic,” Merlin explained with a smile. “Now stop asking me questions for a second,” and as Silas chuckled he finished his breakfast.

After they had finished and put away the washed pans, they retreated to their room. Merlin directed Silas to sit on a pillow in the middle of the floor, Khoshekh instantly retaking her spot on his lap, while Merlin warded the room. A stream of archaic language fell from his lips, his hand outstretched to the walls. When he had finished, he had created a barrier.

“Remind me to remove the barrier before Florean returns home,” Merlin said. He withdrew a broken piece of emerald mosaic from his pocket and held it out to Silas. “This is from the Chamber of Secrets, where the enchantment is anchored. You need to hold onto it while I explain. You won’t be able to repeat anything you hear to anyone else, intentionally or not. It also means you can’t ask me about it without holding onto that emerald even after we’re done here. Does that make sense?”

Silas took hold of the emerald, thumbing the smooth edges. “It means that I can only talk to you about the Chamber of Secrets while I hold this, right?”

“Yes, or within the chamber itself. Otherwise, you can’t speak of it at all.”

“What if we have something important we need to tell you that can’t wait for the Chamber?”

Merlin pointed at the piece of emerald mosaic. “That’s why I’ll be carrying that. Now, shall I?”

With an eager nod from Silas, Merlin began. This time, Merlin told him in detail about the mosaic located within the Chamber of Secrets. Silas did not interrupt him as Merlin explained how the mosaic of Salazar Slytherin knew him. The kid’s hazel eyes grew wide as he spoke of controlling the Basilisk Ríognach.

“S—so you’re Merlin?” he looked slightly nervous. “Like, actual Merlin.”

“Yes.”

“But—” Silas stared blankly at him. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, that’s a really long story,” Merlin said with a laugh. “But basically, I’m here to stop the Dark Lord.”

Silas didn’t look surprised by this. And then he broke eye contact. “I’m sorry,” he said, out of nowhere. “Here I am worried about Byron when he’s probably in prison for a good reason, and you’re stuck with some kid—”

“I have never thought of you as, some kid,” Merlin interrupted gently. “I promised I would help find out what happened to your brother, and I intend to see it through.”

Silas took a slow shaky breath. Khoshekh mewed again from his lap, her paw rising to bat at his nose for attention. “Oy—!” he giggled and hugged her tightly until she gave a small squeak and he let go again. Merlin let him get his emotions under control before he spoke again.

“Now, at the end of last term, I revealed my identity to a select few others—”

“What?” Silas interrupted. “I’m not the first?”

“Uh—” Merlin didn’t know what to say. “I decided to tell Hermione and Draco after what happened with the Chamber of Secrets. And its, well, it’s something I had to do in person.”

“It’s been over a month since you got back!” Silas protested, folding his arms now. “Who else knows?”

“Okay, the twins know but—”

“The Weasley twins found out before me?”

“They found out before everyone, Silas,” Merlin groaned. Figures, Silas would be upset he wasn’t told first. “They saw my name on some magical map of theirs and have known since I started Hogwarts.”

“Oh. But I’m the only one who knows about the dragons, right?”

“Yes, Silas,” Merlin said pinching the bridge of his nose. Perhaps he was spending a little too much time with the Potion’s Master. “Do you want me to induct you to a secret organization, or not?”

“Right! Sorry,” and Silas fell silent again.

Merlin explained to him as much as he could about the Circle of Darach. He told him about their first meeting—“Ginny Weasley knows too?!”—and how he wanted to teach them all how to do druidic magic. Silas was lost in thought when Merlin had finished, turning over the mosaic piece in his hand.

“Are you going to tell them?” he asked. At Merlin’s blank expression he elaborated, “Are you going to tell the other circle members about my brother?”

“Should I?” Merlin asked, confused.

Silas bit his lip. “I’m not ashamed.”

“I never thought you were.”

“I just—I don’t want to tell them until we know for certain.”

Merlin didn’t point out how certain Silas had seemed half an hour ago. Instead, he regarded the messy brown hair kid before him. “It’s your decision. I won’t tell them.”

“Okay.” Silas ran his hand through his hair. “Or Florean,” he added quickly.

“If we want to find out what happened, we’re going to have to tell someone eventually,” Merlin pointed out.

“I know! Just—not yet,” Silas finished somewhat deflated.

“Silas, I promise I will leave the sharing of this secret to your sole discretion, as I hope you will with mine.”

“Yeah, of course,” Silas said shoulders sagging with relief. His fist closed over the mosaic piece. “Maybe Byron also went to Hogwarts,” he said softly.

“If he’s a wizard, that’s a distinct possibility.” Merlin checked his watch. “Okay, what else do you want to know before I take down this barrier?”

Later that night, Silas stared at the ceiling long after he heard Merlin’s breathing even out. He pulled out the photo from the Daily Prophet clipping, fingers tracing the image of Byron as he grinned up at the photographer. Well, his eyes grinned. Beneath his beard, it was hard to tell, but Silas had seen those eyes before. He knew those eyes.

Did this mean Byron hadn’t left him after all? For years he had agonized over the idea. He thought he had pushed him away somehow, that asking about magic had gotten Byron into trouble. Why hadn’t he ever mentioned the magical world? Why had he left Silas in the dark?

 Just more questions and no answers.

He peaked over the edge of his bed and saw Merlin on his side, sleeping. He had given the mosaic piece back before Florean came home, and they had pretended like nothing had happened. He had fallen instead into excitement, waving his Hogwarts letter around like a flag. It had kept his mind off everything else. Now, after the festivity died down and the night waned, it all came back and Silas did not know what to do.

Merlin’s identity. The Circle of Darach. His brother. He had long dreamed of finding out what happened to Byron. Dreamed of finding him somewhere and continuing the life they’d had. He had dreamed of finding out he’d died a hero in some street crime, a forgotten John Doe. But imprisoned—

Merlin had told him about the Azkaban guards. He had never seen a dementor before, but the way he explained it, they stole every happy feeling. A smile in Azkaban felt out of place, impossible. Silas rolled over and held the photograph up to catch the streetlamp glow through the window. Byron winked at him, and Silas had never been more certain. That man was his brother.

It was almost amusing how much more transfixed he was by this than by Merlin’s bombshell. If he was honest though, he had suspected something like this ever since he had met the kid. Merlin was strange and unique and always managed to find the eye of the hurricane when it came to trouble. He still had a hard time seeing the Merlin he knew as the aged man with the long silver beard handing Arthur Excalibur.

Maybe that was on purpose.

Silas shoved the picture back into his pyjama pocket and rolled over. Merlin was right; it wasn’t smart to dwell on it like this. It hurt too much. The thought of having a legendary figure sleeping in the bunk bellow sent Silas smiling into his pillow. He had always felt safe with Merlin, and now he knew why. If anyone could help him find Byron, Merlin could.

Chapter Text

Merlin had no idea how to find someone in this century. He had barely managed to find people in his century. But they already knew Byron was in Azkaban—so finding him, strictly speaking, wasn’t his job.

Finding out about him, on the other hand, proved to be a challenge.

He knew theoretically that if Azkaban was a prison, there had to be a record of prison inmates, a record of the trial and sentencing proceedings, and therefore a file somewhere on a Mr. Byron Meadowes. But it existed in a cabinet in the Ministry of Magic or the Daily Prophet archives or some nondescript clerical office that blended into the muggle world, and Silas flittered with anxiety any time Merlin prompted him on what he wanted to do next. So Merlin left him to think it over and, three days later, just after lunch, Silas poked his arm and pulled him into their room.

He took a deep steadying breath. “I have a hard enough time figuring out how I…how I feel about my brother to worry about how Florean or anyone else might react. There—there has to be a way for us to look into this without involving him, isn’t there?”

Merlin regarded him for a long moment. He knew it would be easy to influence Silas to tell Florean—He doubted the Ministry would hand over records to kids anyway—but pressuring someone into a decision before they were ready seldom ended well. And he wanted Silas to decide this himself. So instead, Merlin asked “What happens if we find out Byron is getting released from Azkaban in two weeks? Do you think the Ministry of Magic would force you to live with him since you’re family?”

Silas gaped at him. “They can’t do that!”

“What if Byron wants to though? You know he’ll ask you.”

“He’s in Azkaban!”

“I said, what if he gets out? What if he’s innocent? What if he’s a murderer who may try to hurt you? There are many things that you will be unable to control.”

Silas folded his arms, a frown tugging on his lip. “I know that,” he said, resentful. He opened his mouth, hesitated, and closed it again, avoiding his eyes.

Merlin sighed and dropped to sit on the floor. The action startled Silas but at least he was looking at him again. “You cannot hope to predict a situation if you are ignorant of the finer details, and these questions deserve answering. And, more to the point, once you find him, he also finds you. Are you keeping this close to your chest to protect those around you or to protect yourself?”

Silas bit his lip. “Both,” he answered finally. “I hope, but, ah—” he ran his fingers through his hair.

“Protecting against what?” Merlin prompted and Silas took a deep shuddering breath.

“I don’t want to make Florean sad because I want to see Byron again, and—and I don’t want to insult him by looking for someone else. Florean really cares about us and I like being here with him, he's like family now and—" he trailed off with a helpless shrug.

“And?”

Silas bit his lip then— “What if Florean decides he doesn’t want us anymore?”

“He could decide that tomorrow and we’d be powerless to stop him,” Merlin pointed out gently. “Do you really think Florean would do something like that?”

“I—well no—but…” Silas winced and Merlin noticed the kid had started picking at the skin around his thumbs. “It’s the possibility, isn’t it?”

“There is also the possibility that some reporter will notice it when Merlin Evans, the student involved with two different Defense Professor’s getting sent to Azkaban, starts asking questions about the prison. And then Florean will wonder why you didn’t come to him first.”

Silas gave a little, “Oh,” of dawning realization. “Right.”

“You know,” Merlin said with a reassuring smile, “You don’t need to make a decision yet. It’s a lot to process all at once, you’re brother isn’t dead and then there’s me.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Why don’t we start small? I’m sure there are some books about Azkaban at Flourish and Blots and although they may not have any information about your brother, they’ll at least tell us about the prison. Maybe they have visiting hours.”

At that, Silas choked with laughter, swallowing a well of emotion in his throat. “Okay,” he agreed, hastily wiping at the corner of his eyes. He then slapped his cheeks with his hands. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

Living in Diagon Alley sure had its advantages, Merlin thought as he and Silas dipped into Flourish and Blotts. The Hogwarts Library was massive and filled to the brim with dusty volumes, the sweet scent of parchment glue, and the musk of decomposing leather. Merlin supposed Madam Pince’s job was as much about the constant repair of centuries-old volumes as it was about organization. Magic kept the pages together when glue failed.

But Flourish and Blotts had new books. Fresh publications sat on a broad bookcase near the entry, Best Sellers highlighted right at the top. Merlin thought it looked sparser now that the Lockhart books had been removed. One of the Best Seller stands had been left vacant, where Magical Me had once stood, waiting for another to take its place. But looking around the rest of the store, it would have been hard to notice the missing Lockhart books. Every crook and cranny was filled with assorted volumes, arrows, and signs for various sections at the end of the shelves.

Merlin had always thought Flourish and Blotts had a good organization system. That is until he and Silas tried to find a book on Azkaban. They didn't find it alphabetically. They didn't find it in government or politics. After nearly twenty minutes, the assistant showed up.

"Can I help you kids find something?" Merlin thought he recognized her face from a crowd of seventh year Ravenclaw girls but he couldn't be sure. He saw her eyes widen briefly as she recognized him but to his surprise, she chose not to comment and turned her attention to Silas.

“Um,” Silas glanced at Merlin and then went on in a whisper, “We’re trying to find a book about Azkaban.”

“Azkaban?” The assistant repeated staring at the two of them. She frowned. “Uh, trust me, you want to wait a few more years before you read that book, kid.”

“I don’t.”

She had sharp brown eyes, like polished wood. They flew to his face at his words, a cautious regard to them. And then, to Merlin’s surprise, she gave a slow dry chuckle.

“All right then, hey, maybe if you say something about it they’ll finally pay attention.” She glanced once behind her and then nodded for them to follow her as she headed up the stairs.

“What do you mean?” Silas whispered behind her.

“If you really want to know, then you’re gonna have to read it for yourselves. As far as I’m concerned, I never ran into you and you got in here on your own.”

They followed her through the entire length of the floor, to the back of the building where she led them down a second stairwell half-hidden behind a towering stack of books. But this stairwell didn’t lead back down to the main floor of the shop. The stairs continued behind the wall, the sound of patrons vibrating the boards around them, until the space opened into what looked like an old cellar, crammed with several more shelves, many of which were coated in dust.

“The Azkaban books are on this first shelf. If a book with vaguely Egyptian-but-not-quite hieroglyphs catches your eye, do not open it. That back door there opens into Knockturn Alley but we keep it locked during the day so don’t try to go out that way. If you need to hide, stay out of the necromancy section—the bindings will whisper and give you away. I’m closing this evening so you should be left alone here until I kick you out, sound good?”

“Course it does,” Merlin said staring at her. “Why are you—?”

"Maybe I just like traumatizing nosey kids. I am a Ravenclaw," she said with a wink. And then she was gone, and Merlin was left realizing he had never gotten her name. He made a point to ask when she returned and nudged Silas over to the Azkaban books.

Just a cursory glance at the titles had a knot forming in the pit of Merlin’s stomach. Most of them were thin memoirs by or about Azkaban prisoners, with titles like In the Dark and Never The Same and Open Wound about witches and wizards who described life after the experience. A few of them were leather hand-bound journals with notes by publishers describing the prison cell they had been found in.

A larger volume called The Ongoing Pureblood Purge had the author's name burned out and on impulse, Merlin picked up the book to find scribbled conversations up and down the margins in different coloured ink which scrambled into incomprehensible assortments as he looked at them. He perused the introduction:

Following the disappearance of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the Ministry of Magic began a series of swift and devastating incarcerations, many of which were and still are detained in Azkaban without a sentencing trial. A large proportion of the arrests were among members of the Slytherin pureblood community, quickly leading the public to assume the muggle hostility of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was a trait that all Slytherins or indeed even all pureblooded individuals share. The overzealous attempt to smoother the movement seems to instead have renewed animosity and further pushed young purebloods toward radicalism…

For the next several hours, neither Merlin nor Silas said a word.

Merlin discovered a lot of the books mentioned Azkaban or talked about things that had happened there, but few were actually about the prison itself. He was hopeful when he started Dead Inside by Tristan Wellesley, a memoir by some journalist who spent a month inside Azkaban in order to document the conditions, but the book started a year after he returned and was only about his experience in St. Mungo's afterwards.

Some days I didn’t know what to feel, staring blankly at the wall opposite me. I’ll catch myself even now, dissociating until I feel less like myself and more like the paper shell of a man that’s crumbling into the sea. In truth, it’s not about what you remember; it’s about what you feel.

He found a section in Accursed Beginnings by Maddie Pottermore with a brief reference about an abandoned fortress on some remote island haunted by the souls of hundreds of muggle sailors.

It is believed the old wizard Ekrzdis built the original fortress. According to renowned historian Bathilda Bagshot, Ekrzdis had lured muggles to the island where they were tortured and killed; however, some critics have contested the claim. The first ministry officials to investigate the island refused to describe the exact conditions of the fortress, except to say it was a cursed place, infested with dementors.

Of Ancient and Moste Evile Ekrzdis by Ol Greg expanded and greatly embellished the origin story of Azkaban prison until it read like a horrifying folk tale. Merlin decided not to let Silas read it after he stumbled across a particularly gruesome chapter describing various muggle-torture devices supposed to have been used by Ekrzdis based on the time period. Silas didn’t fight him on it.

And then Merlin found The Rowle Solution by Josie Keller.

Damocles Rowle was a proud pureblood and vocal proponent of anti-muggle ideology who rose to power and became Minister of Magic, and it is he who established Azkaban Prison in 1718.

Discussions regarding the establishment of a proper wizarding prison had been in circulation long before Rowle arrived on the scene. Once in office, however, he refused suggestions to build the prison on a remote Hebridean island and instead demanded the Ministry begin using Azkaban.

Rowle expressed his justification for the location in a proclamation to the Wizengamot: "Azkaban is the prime candidate for an efficient and economical wizarding prison, precisely because we can use the existing Dementors as a method of prisoner control. A particularly motivated wizard can break out of even the best cage, but if we keep the morale of the population low we could leave the front doors open and not a single prisoner would have the strength to walk out."

The arrangement provided the added benefit of keeping the Dementors away from the general populace; however, many argued against the decision, calling it inhumane and dangerous—not to mention reckless to intentionally drive criminals into insanity. Disregarding these concerns, Rowle established Azkaban and the Ministry of Magic has used the prison to great effect.

However, some psychologists argue that very few individuals, if any, ever recover after their experience, quoting shortened life expectancy among both incarcerated prisoners and those who have finished their sentences. In spite of this, general opinion remains largely in favour of continuing to use Azkaban, in light of the fact that no one has ever escaped the island.

“This Azkaban is starting to sound positively medieval, in my opinion,” Merlin grumbled, glancing up to find Silas with one hand over his mouth as he read his book. He looked up with a little start at the sound of Merlin's voice.  

“We have to get him out of there.”

“We—what?”

“Byron. We can’t just leave him in this place.” Silas turned the book around for him to read, and pointed at a passage. “It’s this Minister, Eldritch Diggory, his account of what the conditions of Azkaban were like when he went to visit.”

"For the first time, I understood what it meant to have the eyes like the dead. The stench was so awful, putrid with a heady combination of sewage, blood, and rotting flesh that I dared not enter without a charm of fresh air. It did not look like anyone had bothered to renovate the fortress into a prison. The prisoners had been unceremoniously banished to the island and left to fend for themselves. The few of them that were still alive had been driven utterly mad. At one point, I came upon a horrific scene of three inmates thin as skeletons gathered around a corpse, one of them just barely producing enough fire with their fingertips to cook a dismembered forearm. They looked up at me with dull soulless eyes and began to cackle—”

Merlin grimaced and glanced up at Silas. "There's no way it's still like this." Silas reached over and flipped to a different page.

It was obvious that only the very bare minimum had been set up on the island in terms of facilities, the Rowle administration assuming possession of an abandoned fortress inside of which was the largest known Dementor colony in the world. Some scholars have argued that the Dementors predate the fortress and that the location is, in fact, the homeland of all Dementors. Whatever the case, their presence has permeated the very walls with a helpless sense of despair.

Over the years the conditions at the prison have improved only marginally, mostly as a result of expansion projects and the construction of different wings for temporary incarcerations versus life-timers. Prisoners are, at the very least, now provided with plumbing, two meals, and their own rooms but the awful miasma of despair is still so palpable that the Ministry has left the control of the prison solely in the hands of the Dementors, with the only visitations being to collect or drop off prisoners.

Those who have been to the island for brief sentences have said that as long as they stayed in their wing, they were free to move through Azkaban however they wished. But, prisoners tended to keep to their cells unless they were out on work detail, digging graves, working in the prison kitchen, or doing other assorted janitorial and maintenance tasks. As a result of the prison being entirely staffed by its own inmates, in addition to not a single escapee in three hundred years, there have been no riots by the prisoners despite the high number of deaths from despair.

"How can they leave people in a place like this?" Silas asked after Merlin looked up. "In another section, they talk more about how many people die before they even finish their sentence. How terrible does a place have to be that they would rather let themselves starve to death? Because that's what it says here—"

“Silas—”

Silas ignored him and grabbed another book from the pile they had accumulated on the floor between them. “It says in here that most prisoners die of despair. They lose the will to live and stop eating meals until they are too weak to even get out of bed. And then they die. That’s what “death of despair” means. And I don’t even want to know what this bit about, “In the end, some prisoners just let the Dementors kiss them,” means, but apparently, it's irreversible and so far every single person who has kissed a Dementor eventually died of despair."

The idea of kissing one of those horrible creatures sent a shiver of Goosebumps cascading down his arms. Merlin had only briefly met the Azkaban guards and as the incident had reactivated a debilitating curse upon his mind, his memory was one of sharp lightning bolts of pain and the echoing lack of hope, as if nothing he had done in his life made the least bit of difference to anything or anyone.

An enormous lie, of course—but for a moment there—

“Seems a tad excessive, doesn’t it?”

Silas stared at him like he had missed the mark completely. “A tad? This is barbaric!” he snapped. “Most people don’t survive inside longer than a year!”

A creak sounded behind them and they both jumped, turning to see the shop assistant come down the stairs. She took in the books still propped open on their laps and their varying expressions of horror and disgust. She broke into a smile. “I take it you’ve learned all about the Ministry’s dirty little secret.”

“How can you smile about that?” Silas shot at her.

“What else am I supposed to do about it?” She gestured to her tag and Merlin saw the name Audrey pinned there. “I’m working in a shop. I barely got a say in the matter, don't I?" They gaped at her as she started to reshelve the scattered books.

“But—” Merlin stood up, helping her. “If people knew—”

“Oh kid, everyone knows.” Audrey tapped her nose and sighed. “But no one is interested in tackling it because the prison has a flawless record. As they say, don’t fix what isn’t broke.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you went to Azkaban,” Silas grumbled, his hands balled into fists. He was staring down at the book they had been last reading from, a shine in his eyes.

Audrey visibly softened at the sight. “You’re probably right. Denial is a powerful drug.” She paused, running a hand through her hair with a nervous twitch. “But,” she went on, “I’d say Azkaban is pretty broken, wouldn’t you agree?”

Silas sniffed and nodded, hastily turning to dab at his eyes with his shirt collar. Merlin glanced down at The Rowle Solution, still held in his hand.

“Hey, Audrey, which of these books would you recommend we purchase this evening?”

By the time they left Flourish and Blotts, Merlin had shrunk Azkaban: The Unabridged Story by Kazak Kaminski and The Azkaban Problem, another book by Josie Keller to fit into his pockets. Audrey hadn’t even charged them, saying these books had been returned to the shop years ago and had been collecting dust ever since. “Someone might as well read them,” and then she had pushed them out the door and locked it behind them.

The entire way back, Silas didn’t say a word. He kept his eyes on the cobblestoned ground, a thundercloud in his eyes. Around them, the lanterns flickered into light along the empty Diagon Alley streets and Merlin resisted the urge to break the silence.

The windows to the Florean’s Ice Cream Parlour were shuttered when they got there. Silas came to an abrupt stop, staring at it. “Do you think Florean locked us out?”

Merlin reached for the door handle instead of answering. It opened and he glanced back with a shrug. He had just stepped inside the Parlour however when a shout made them both jump.

“BOYS!”

Florean looked harassed, a flush in his cheeks, and he crossed from the stairwell leading up into their flat to stand before them in a whirl of agitated magic. And then, before either Merlin or Silas could speak, Florean pulled them both a tight hug. Merlin could feel the man trembling and his heart sank.

"You had me so worried! I thought—" Florean couldn't finish and Merlin didn't have to be a genius to guess what his imagination had supplied in their absence. "I didn't see you leave and by the time I realized you were gone, I didn't know for how long, and why didn’t you leave a note!? What were you thinking? I didn’t know if—”

“I’m so sorry,” Silas buried his face into Florean’s waistcoat.

“We—we forgot about the time,” Merlin managed.

Florean took a deep breath and pulled back, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “Now I don’t believe in curfews but I can’t have you disappearing on me like that. The mood on the streets is changing. Things aren’t like they used to be. I’d never even heard of a Hogwarts professor getting kicked out, and now we’ve had two who’ve attacked you, Merlin, two years in a row—”

Merlin didn't know how to reassure him. He could feel the tight outline of the books from Flourish and Blotts in his pocket and knew it would be easy to tell him where they had gone. But Florean would want to know why and it would worry him even more to know. It was like Audrey had said; Azkaban wasn’t a topic for kids. Merlin found himself apologizing anyway, mumbled words that meant very little. Florean eventually told them to not do it again and had let the conversation flow to more cheerful topics. But Merlin still thought the hug Florean gave them as he wished them good night was tighter than the hugs he used to give.

That night, as Merlin lied awake in bed, his insides squirmed. Azkaban haunted his thoughts. He thought of Gilderoy Lockhart and wondered if he deserved it. Silas had said most prisoners didn’t make it past the first year—had Quirrell? He rolled over, got his legs tangled in the sheets, and rolled over again.

Did anyone really deserve to die of despair?

“What do you think Audrey meant?” Silas whispered suddenly into the quiet. Merlin heard him shift in bed.

“I dunno, I don’t see why anyone would care what a couple of kids think.”

Silas didn’t reply for so long, Merlin began to wonder if the kid had fallen asleep. Then, “But they might listen to you.”

“What—?”

“Listen,” Silas interrupted and he sat up in his bed, leaning over to look at Merlin. “You’ve basically sent two people to Azkaban, right?”

Merlin flinched, avoiding his eyes. “Look, Silas, if I had known it was like that—” but then what could he have done? In the end, it had never been up to him what became of either Quirrell or Lockhart once they had been arrested. He had trusted the Ministry would handle it…

“No, I mean—you’re the victim, right? If anyone would want them in Azkaban, it’s you.”

Merlin sat up in bed too. He had a feeling he knew where Silas was going with this. “And if I were to kick up a fuss about the conditions…”

“Maybe something would change.”

They stared at each other for a moment.

"It won't get us any close to Byron," Merlin said slowly, "but it's a start."

Chapter Text

The following week, Merlin did his best to stay within Florean’s line of sight whenever possible, not because the man had asked him too but because Merlin wanted to apologize for worrying him. In any case, he and Silas had several new books to read and neither felt much inclined to stray far from home the further they delved into the nature of Azkaban.

Merlin didn’t like the images his mind conjured as he read Kazak Kaminski in Azkaban: The Unabridged Story describe an imposing fortress of black stone permeated with human despair. He could remember the bone-chill of sitting atop stone scattered with straw, the waiting in a damp cell, hungry—to add a Dementor seemed like a cruel joke.

And yet, Damocles Rowle had established the prison, and the following Minister of Magic Perseus Parkinson—an old relative of Pansy, Merlin suspected—continued the project. It wasn’t until Eldritch Diggory visited the prison himself that anyone mentioned the inhumanity of it all. He died before he could implement any change, and championing a stellar record, no Minister tried to shut down the prison again. Instead, they placated public opinion by affording inmates the basic necessities. Which, some had pointed out, did nothing to stop the deaths of despair even among temporary incarcerations.

The book seemed to combine most of the scattered information that he and Silas had discovered during the reading session in Flourish and Blotts. But though he had been promised an unabridged account, Merlin frowned when he reached the final page and realized no one knew exactly how many prisoners had died while in custody or why everyone refused to close the prison now.

Not for the first time, Merlin wondered whether the Department of Magical Law Enforcement was withholding the records and his faith in the system crumbled a little further.

However, his other book, The Azkaban Problem by Josie Keller, clarified the situation. Merlin shivered despite the warm July sun streaming through the upper windows of the flat. Beside him, Silas held a purring Khoshekh in his lap, fingers running absently through her pitch-black fur as he read over Merlin’s shoulder.

At the time of its discovery, Azkaban presented an unorthodox solution to the issue of wizarding incarceration. The most violent witches and wizards stop at nothing to accomplish their destructive goals, and even your average warlock can wreak chaos if inspiration strikes. As such, Azkaban served and continues to serve as a deterrent and the remote location is able to effectively detain individuals who pose a threat to magical society. In nearly three hundred years, not a single prisoner has escaped.

But supposing Azkaban was to cave in on its magic or crumble eventually into the sea—or as some humane activists desire, were we to simply shut down the institution entirely—what would happen to the hoard of Dementors that call it home?

As creatures of maleficence, the Dementors subsist off a diet of despair and emotional torment. Their exact origins are unknown though some allege that Azkaban itself birthed the monsters from the prevalent fog the surrounded the island. Initial attempts by ministry officials to combat the creatures were dismal, and to this day there is no known way to kill or destroy them. The only defense shown to work is the Patronus Charm, a very difficult spell that requires the caster to focus on a Happy memory or feeling. However, this only repels the Dementors, leaving many to fear a mass migration if the prison were shut down and their main source of food taken away.

“They need not devour our souls, not if we provide them with a steady turnover of prisoners,” remarked Minister of Magic Perseus Parkinson in 1727, when questioned by the press about his decision to double-down on the use of Azkaban as a prison and continuing the work of his predecessor Rowle. “Wizards who threaten the exposure of our world—after all the work we’ve done to make the muggles forget—deserve the greatest punishment.”

This influx of authoritarian leadership was largely due in part to muggle persecution and a series of Muggle Witchcraft Acts that legally allowed the punishment and execution of anyone associated with witchcraft and magic. As a result, hostilities between the two groups necessitated the establishment of the Statute of Secrecy in 1692—

Silas yawned next to him, and Merlin decided to skip ahead having heard about the Statute of Secrecy in History of Magic class.

Handing problematic individuals over to the Dementors provided a ghastly solution to rampant wizard-on-muggle violence. And with Azkaban acting as a deterrent, violent crime in the wizarding community dropped and allowed time for the muggle world to forget magic had ever existed outside of stories. And with the success of the prison, latter Ministers of Magic expanded the fortress to include a refurbished wing for prisoners serving brief sentences, and shut down every other wizarding prison still operating in the United Kingdom.

The result? A well-behaved magical populace, and the emergence of a Dark Lord amassing supporters to take on the Ministry, often with no regard for the Statute of Secrecy.

The most recent of these was the Dark Lord He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named who rose to power in the 1950s and terrorized from 1971—1981, representing a rebuke against allowing muggleborns entry to the magical world, and against allowing muggles to command stewardship of the earth. In order to curtail such ideological movements, Azkaban proved invaluable.

Following the sudden disappearance of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in October of 1981, the Ministry scrambled to contain their win before one of the inner circle Death Eaters could assume the role of Dark Lord. Over half of the pureblooded Slytherin community was arrested overnight and sent to Azkaban to await trial. Those revealed to possess the Dark Mark were given life-sentences unless they switched sides and aided in the effort to capture others.

Some of the worst atrocities committed by the Death Eaters occurred in the months following Lord Voldemort’s fall, in the name of returning their master to his former power. As a result, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement suspended trials in the name of Wartime Law and slapped long savage sentences on anyone remotely connected to the Death Eater movement.

Over time, the number of incarcerations plummeted, and the Ministry has come under pressure on how to keep the dementors on their island. House-arrest sentences have largely vanished except in special circumstances and non-violent crimes are given massive fines designed to push defendants into plea-bargaining for a short stint in Azkaban instead. But, in every case, the defendants are sent to await trial in the prison itself regardless of verdict.

 

“Merlin? Do you think he—Byron, I mean—do you think he could be a Death Eater?” Silas whispered, a touch of nervous tension in his voice.

Merlin closed the book and looked at him. “You said you were about six or seven when he disappeared, right? So, at most he was imprisoned four maybe five years ago?”

Silas nodded. He held the midnight Kneazle a little tighter and she began to purr, eyes closed in a soft smile as she lifted her neck for him to scratch.

“It’s hard to say. If he is, he managed to avoid the Ministry for years while taking care of you, and since it sounds like they started sending everyone to Azkaban—” He trailed off pointedly and Silas nodded again, looking relieved.

“Yeah, it doesn’t sound like him either.” He was silent for a long moment and then, he sat up so abruptly that Khoshekh mewed at him in protest. “What day is it today?”

“Uh,” Merlin shrugged. “Thursday, I think?”

Silas swore and Merlin stared at him, perplexed. Before he could ask what, Silas had kissed Khoshekh on the forehead and the both of them got to their feet. "I forgot to talk to Florean about something."

“Now—?”

“I’ll catch up on the reading tonight!” and before Merlin could say anything else he had dashed from the room, the midnight feline hot on his heels.

Suspecting that this may have something to do with his approaching birthday, Merlin chuckled to himself and returned to his book. But now that Silas was gone, his mind kept drifting, and after a fruitless fifteen minutes gave up and returned the book to their room. While he felt that the reading had given him a better grasp on the situation, the issue of how to "make a fuss,” eluded him.

He could write a long angry letter to the Daily Prophet and entice Rita Skeeter to report on the inhumanity of Azkaban, but what good would it do without a solution to the Dementor problem? Was it his job to find a solution? He frowned and began to pace aimlessly about the flat, hoping movement might spur his thoughts to action. Regardless of who he really was, at thirteen and two defense professors down, the magical world had begun to take him more seriously, he knew.

But what would happen to everyone still incarcerated? Azkaban was full of people driven insane by their long imprisonment, violent offenders, and others who could not simply be released back into the wild.

“If all I can do is improve the internal conditions, that’s enough,” Merlin spoke aloud to himself, coming to pause in the doorway to the kitchen.

“That’s all any of us can hope,” replied a dozing Boris in his painting, causing Merlin to jump at the unexpected sound before mentally chiding himself for being so nervous. Maybe it was time to take a break from Azkaban, at least until after his birthday.

The next day had both Florean and Silas evading questions and pushing Merlin to hang out downstairs in the ice cream shop or out in Diagon Alley, leading Merlin to laugh that it wasn’t much of a surprise since he knew it was coming. His birthday was tomorrow, after all. Still, he pretended not to notice when Silas returned from his shopping trip, trying to hide something under his shirt, scuttling down the hall with an incoherent shout that Merlin assumed to be some kind of greeting. Khoshekh bounced along behind him, her tufted tail high in the air, curling in friendly affection and she chirped at Merlin before chasing after Silas.

That night during dinner, over a delicious array of basmati rice and chicken Tikki Masala, Florean and Silas kept trading meaningful expressions until Merlin decided he couldn't take it anymore.

“You both are just horrible, you know that right?”

Florean gave a chuckle that elongated to a sigh. “It’s more of a complication,” he said, and he pulled out a daily prophet clipping from his waistcoat pocket. “I suppose you haven’t seen this yet?”

Merlin was pleasantly surprised when he read the title:

MINISTRY OF MAGIC EMPLOYEE SCOOPS GRAND PRIZE

“The Weasleys won the 700 galleon prize and are going to spend it on a month-long visit to Egypt?” Merlin said as he scanned the article. The picture showed all nine of the Weasleys, grinning broadly, and waving in front of a pyramid. He recognized Bill in the middle, who winked at him. The eldest Weasley child had broken his memory curse the previous Christmas.

The longer he stared at the article the more confused he became. “How is this a complication?” he asked, frowning.

“Well, unfortunately, none of them will be attending tomorrow.”

“Ah, well, I suppose that makes sense,” Merlin said as he set the article onto the table.

“I know you were hoping to have the twins and, uh, Miss Weasley, come celebrate it with you,” Florean went on gently.

Merlin shrugged, wondering why he was making such a big deal out of it. “I mean sure, but I get it. They deserve a family holiday. Draco and Hermione are still coming though, right?”

“Oh, yes, of course,” Florean hesitated a moment and then went on, “but I also need to run a rather important errand in the morning, so I won’t be here when you wake up. I’ll be back soon as I can.”

He wore such an apologetic expression that Merlin had an impulse to hug the man, were there not a table between them. "That's okay!" and he glanced between him and Silas. "Really, now, I'm not nearly that easy to upset," and he began to laugh. "I'd be happy if all we did was a family dinner, to be honest."

“In that case…” Florean said trading another glance with Silas, but this time there was an unmistakable glint of mischief in his eyes. “Silas, you’re in charge tomorrow until I get back.”

And judging from the grin that spread across his foster brother’s face, Merlin knew tomorrow would be a good day.

He was awoken in the morning by a loud rumbling purr directly next to his ear. Merlin smiled into his pillow and turned over to see Khoshekh sitting there and looking supremely satisfied about something. She blinked her silver eyes slowly up at him.

"Morning to you too," he said, and he began to scratch her neck through her thick silky mane. After a few minutes, she got to her feet, stretched, and hopped down from his bed. She looked back at him, her tufted tail flicking.

“Okay,” he grumbled, stretching too, “I’m getting up.”

The flat was oddly quiet. A glance at the bunk above him told him Silas was indeed up, but he didn't run into him on his way to the bathroom. So, Merlin took his time getting ready, falling into the calm of the morning. When at last he emerged, showered and dressed, into the main room he was taken aback to find it empty.

Khoshekh appeared at his ankles, her tail hooking around his leg as she passed with a purposeful stride down the stairs and toward the door to the Ice Cream Parlour. When she reached it, she looked back at him and mewed.

“He left?” Merlin frowned. Where would he have gone? Still, he wasn’t about to argue with the kneazle and threw on his shoes.

Merlin had scarcely pulled open the door when he was blown back by the crack of a firecracker. Streamers of colorful confetti burst before his eyes, the soft heat of a temporary enchantment against his skin.

“Oh shit, not right at him!” came Draco’s voice and Merlin heard a distinct gasp of panic that he recognized as Hermione.

Merlin blinked. For a moment all he saw were discolored splotches as if he had looked directly at the sun, and then it faded and Hermione Granger stood before him with her hands over her mouth.

“I’m so sorry!” she said her words muffled. She lowered her hands. “Are you okay?”

“I feel okay.” Merlin ruffled his hair and confetti fell before his eyes, the tiny multicolored pieces in the shape of stars.

“Oh no.”

But though Hermione still looked worried, Draco took on the grimace of someone trying hard not to laugh. Silas appeared behind them and began to laugh.

“Do a hair flip,” Silas said.

“A what?”

“You know,” he whipped his neck so that the bangs swung slightly on his forehead.

It looked ridiculous.

Merlin did it at once. A burst of color streaked through the air like a pastel rainbow and all of them fell to the floor howling with laughter.

The enchantment clung to his hair for most of the day, and Merlin quickly fell in love with the hilarity of whipping his bangs at inappropriate moments, egged on by Silas and Draco. Silas led them in an adventure around Diagon Alley, Khoshekh striding ahead with her tufted tail high in the air. For lunch they went to the Leaky Cauldron and what with Draco tripping over himself to set the stage and Hermione’s increasing exasperation, Merlin had too much fun watching their waiter process the sight of confetti falling from his hair while a chorus of Happy Birthday rang through the small pub.

They returned to the ice cream parlor in the afternoon. Florean had returned, and he whisked them all upstairs where the table had been set with such decadent sundaes that Hermione began to grumble about teeth and dentists. That is, until Draco snidely remarked, “Does the lion need a tooth strengthening potion?” and she finished every spoonful in defiance.

Florean replaced the empty ice cream dishes with tea and snacks— “Really, we just ate!” Merlin laughed—and Silas appeared suddenly with an armful of presents that he laid out on the table. He handed Merlin a rather heavy gift in tropical print. “This one’s from—Hermione!”

“Oh, uh, if you don’t mind,” Florean stepped forward, glancing down at the gift Merlin held in his hands. “Would you permit me the first honor?”

“Course!” Merlin said, setting the gift back onto the table. “You don’t mind—” he began, glancing back at Hermione and she hurriedly shook her head.

“No! Not at all.”

Florean beamed. He fiddled with a button on his waistcoat, and then motioned for them all to follow him, "Oh and—" he withdrew his wand from an inner pocket and levitated the tablecloth along with everything upon it, "Silas if you could just keep an eye out that I don't knock that teapot against anything?"

“Got it!”

“Thanks, kiddo,” and Florean led them down the hallway until they stood underneath the ceiling light. Here, he turned around and pressed a finger against his lips. Merlin and Draco met eyes, a fraction of a second, and yet the ripple of excited silence was tangible. Florean reached up and grabbed the neck of the light revealing a rope cord and the trap door swung open. A rope ladder unfurled and with a swish of his wand, Florean sent the table setting ahead of them.

“After you,” he said, and Merlin scaled the ladder in a shower of confetti.

Merlin had never been up in the attic before, but the space had the look of a recent overhaul and he could just taste the lingering traces of an expansion charm. There was a low coffee table in the center, the tablecloth from downstairs sitting upon it. An array of large burgundy and purple beanbags were scattered around the table. At the far corner was a brick fireplace, tall as a person, with a clay pot hanging from the wall beside it.

Silas climbed up behind him and squeaked in excitement as he jumped into one of the beanbags. "No way!"

He heard Hermione give a soft oh, and turned to see her captivated by an overflowing bookcase on the opposite wall. She turned away from it with great effort, shaking her head and Merlin heard her mutter, “later,” to herself before rushing over to join Silas on one of the beanbags.

"Quaint," came Draco's drawl, looking quite unimpressed by comparison, but he was trying to cover it up by being polite. "Very secret clubhouse chic." He took his time looking around, shrugging into the space as Florean pulled himself up.

"I set up the fireplace with the Floo Network this morning," Florean said, and he held out a small package wrapped in glossy blue paper. Merlin took it and ripped the paper with his fingers, and pulled out a thin chain connected to a teardrop vial. It looked like it was filled with— “It’s floo powder, enough for one or two trips.”

Florean took a deep breath, the shaky sound flush with emotion. He reached across and Merlin let him take the vial from his fingers, holding the chain up. “I’ve wanted to give you something like this ever since the Quirrell sentencing, but I worried it would encourage you to take unnecessary risks. When they told me you had disappeared into the Chamber of Secrets I feared the worst. And, I know I’m not your father—I don’t pretend I can stop you from doing what you feel you need to but I want you to know that no matter what happens, you will always find a home here.”

He slipped the vial around Merlin’s neck, and Merlin hugged him, “Thank you,” he said.

“Happy Birthday,” and Florean gave a soft squeeze before letting go and looking around at Merlin’s friends. “Also, I have permission from your parents, in writing," he added as Draco opened his mouth, "granting approval for you to stay the night!" He waved his wand and in the space in front of the fireplace appeared a pillow fort, with four sleeping bags.

"Ah! Thank you, Mr. Fortescue!" Hermione said, jumping to her feet. Merlin saw Hermione's eyes fly to the bookcase with renewed excitement and began to laugh.

“Go on, I don’t even know what books are there.”

Hermione shot him a grateful look as she rushed over to peruse the titles.

Florean shot him a wink and then bowed, “Come to the kitchen whenever you get hungry!” he said, and he left, closing the trap door behind him.

Merlin turned to find all eyes on him.

An unnatural stillness filled the space, from Silas peaking out from the pillow fort to Hermione staring at him with an open book in her hands, to Draco who straightened his shoulders and stepped forward, too formal, too stiff and Merlin had to fight to the swallow the lump in his throat. Without Florean there, the birthday cheer fizzled and Merlin was halfway through the enchantment before he even brought his fingers against the trap door.

“Uh, Merlin,” Draco sounded much so like his father in that instant that Merlin looked at him and Draco faltered as their eyes connected. Instead, Draco quite pointedly shifted his gaze toward Silas, raising an eyebrow.

Merlin returned to his enchantment, his eyes shimmering gold, and then straightened up. From his pocket, he withdrew the shard of green mosaic from the Chamber of Secrets and strode over to the fireplace. He set the stone on the mantelpiece and stepped back as the ward slid into place.

“You told your kid foster brother?”

“Ah excellent, it works,” Merlin mused, and he crossed to take a seat in one of the purple beanbags. When Draco didn’t continue, he looked up at him and gestured. “By all means, go on.”

“Yeah, I know everything,” Silas said, frowning over at Draco. “Probably know more than you,” he went on with a mumble and Draco whirled around.

“What’d you say you little—”

“Draco!” admonished Hermione, though she also looked stricken by the news.

“I can’t believe this!” Draco threw up his hands. “You told him everything?!”

Merlin kept his voice calm and even. “He had my confidence long before I had yours, and he was forced to patiently wait until I came back to hear about what happened.”

Draco rolled his eyes and fell back dramatically into a beanbag, “I hope you’re right, for your sake.”

“Hey! I can keep a secret!” Silas shot at him.

“Well, what with the enchantment, it doesn’t really matter now does it?” Hermione said quickly, taking the beanbag on Draco’s other side. “So, how old are you turning really, Merlin?”

Merlin opened his mouth, closed it again, and then frowned, “I dunno, I guess technically it’s over a hundred.”

“You don’t know?”

“Well—uh—do you remember that memory curse?”

Hermione blinked and then shook her head. “Oh, right. So it hasn’t all come back then?”

“Not entirely, though talking to that mosaic helped to fill in some of the gaps after the fact. But you know, isn’t age just a culmination of our life experience?”

“Oh really?” Draco scoffed. “Merlin as an impulsive kid, what the bloody hell did I sign up for?” He took a deep breath, sitting up and pressed his hands together until they formed a steeple before his face. “Merlin? Can you please at least warn me before you decide to tell anyone else?”

“Why’s he gotta tell you?" Silas interrupted, and he vacated the pillow fort to be closer to the conversation. He fell into the burgundy beanbag on Merlin's other side and folded his arms. "He's Merlin!”

“This is exactly why—look, Silas, I don’t know how you or frankly,” and Draco hesitated slightly before pushing on, “how you, Merlin, think politics work these days. Things have changed since the medieval era, and you've been very upfront about how you're not exactly the father of modern magical society."

“I was simply an advisor to a King, yes. Most of what you call modern magical society is just a bunch of small laws made by the ruling government over time that I had absolutely nothing to do with.”

Draco ran his hands through his blonde hair. He seemed to be practicing some type of calming exercise.

“You’re also afflicted by constantly selling yourself short,” Hermione said with an exasperated shake of her head. “You’re a genius at Charms and if anyone can stop He—Who—”

“Oh, I can’t stand that phrase,” Draco interrupted. “Call him the Dark Lord.”

“He’s no lord of mine,” Silas said scoffing.

“Can’t we just call him by his name?” Merlin asked, groaning, only for Draco to stamp his foot down.

“No! He’s got a curse on the name that tells him where you are if you say it!”

Hermione gasped. “It does?”

Draco gave the solemn nod of someone unwilling or unable to say more.

“Does he have a curse on Tom Riddle too?” Merlin asked quietly.

“I—don’t know. He tried to keep that name quiet though, I know that.” Draco hesitated, scratching the back of his neck. “Hermione, you were saying?”

“It’s just that Merlin isn’t trying to go into a career of politics, are you?”

Merlin considered it. "I may need politics to defeat him, is the thing."

Hermione frowned, “What? You’re a kid—I mean you look like a kid—you know what I mean. Besides, it’s not as if some law by the Ministry of Magic is going to stop him.”

“Not that kind of politics,” Merlin said with a little laugh. “I’m not planning to run for office or anything.”

“Ever?” Draco asked, narrowing his eyes.

“One step at a time, please,” Merlin said. “If I try to tackle the universe I’ll never get anything done.” He sighed, “But, and correct me here if I’m wrong Draco, many Death Eaters used to hold or now hold political office in order to sway public opinion, yes?”

Draco nodded, his jaw taut.

“However,” Merlin continued, “it’s not like Tom Riddle ever had much success as a politician,” to which Draco seemed to think about before shrugging in agreement, “he was the leader of a movement, and to inspire people is a type of politics that’s a tight-rope act in the best of cases.”

“So, what’s your grand plan to get this movement going, huh?” Draco asked.

“I propose we improve the conditions at Azkaban.”

“Ooh,” Hermione said, “I was wondering about that the other day. Do you think the Dementors will affect Lockhart without his memories?”

“They affected me well enough,” Merlin grimaced.

“Hang on,” Draco said laughing now. “You’re worried about Lockhart? After everything he’s done? Who knows what else he erased when he obliviated all those people. He should’ve been stopped a long time ago, and definitely never should have been let near children. Besides, six months in Azkaban? He got off easy if you ask me."

“Stop it,” Silas said.

“What? You know he only got six months because he could afford to pay the fine!”

“Uh, Draco—” Hermione began, but he ignored her and went on, growing angry now.

“Improve the conditions in Azkaban, you’re hilarious. My Aunt’s been there near twelve years, for torturing some couple into insanity.” Hermione gasped and Draco shot her a withering look, “yeah, you don’t want her out on the streets, trust me. She’s better off in there.”

“Why don’t you just kill her?”

“What?” Draco turned to look at Silas. The kid had risen to his feet, a tremor wracking his shoulders.

“If your Aunt is so dangerous and you hate her so much,” Silas said, tears in his eyes. “Why don’t they just execute her, huh? It’s faster than waiting for her to die!”

Draco didn’t reply immediately. He stared at the kid, the anger from before gone. “Yeah, well,” he said dropping into a low nonchalant drawl, “I’m not the one who locked her up, am I?”

“Not that it matters.” Merlin reached across the coffee table and took the gift wrapped in shiny tropical-looking print. He pulled back the wrapping to find an uncommonly wide book, the title The World As You’ve Never Seen written across the front in tall gold lettering.

He opened the first page to read the inscription.

To Merlin—

I thought you might like to see all the things we’ve discovered.

From Hermione

He began to flip through the pages and realized that this wasn’t a wizarding book at all. The large artful photographs of nature did not move. An eagle caught in the middle of flight among snowy mountains, canyons of layered color and vibrancy as such that he had never seen before.

“I wasn’t sure what to say,” came Hermione’s voice nervously. “I mean, every time I went to write I couldn’t—and well—”

He flipped from an image of a tropical island in shallow water and palm trees to one of black basalt rock and flowing lava, as crystal clear as if he were standing right before it.

“This is incredible! Thank you, Hermione,” Merlin said, marveling at the pictures. “These are real places? They exist out in the world?”

“Yes! And I’ve actually been to this one—”

And then Silas slammed his hand down on the coffee table, making them all jump. “I—Oh, sorry Hermione—But, I don’t think anyone should go to Azkaban,” he said. “Ever.”

“Really now?” Draco said, laughing. He leaned back and folded his arms. “You want them to shut down Azkaban.”

“I don’t care how difficult or inconvenient that is,” Silas ground out, “Using Dementors to torture people is inhumane.”

Draco glanced over at Merlin. “You seriously want to add anti-Azkaban to your platform?” he asked, disbelieving.

“Yes, I do.”

Draco swore and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I had no idea Azkaban was so horrible,” Hermione said pursing her lips slightly. “They glaze over the details in most of the texts that I read.”

“I’ll lend you the books we got last week,” Merlin promised.

“Bet you got them from the Knockturn side of Flourish and Blots,” Draco said, and then he chuckled darkly, “You’re corrupting this kid fast, Merlin—” to which there was an indignant outcry from both Hermione, who resented that information could be corrupting, and Silas who thought much the same thing. “But I digress. My Father has never been particularly supportive of Azkaban,” he looked uncomfortable for a moment but continued, “and the position has the added benefit of being shared by Dumbledore.”

“Really? But he was directly involved in getting Quirrell sent to Azkaban.” Hermione said.

“My Father says he’s not a fan of the Dementors, which, fair.” He regarded Merlin for a long moment. “So, what? You want to get the discussion going again?” He shifted his arms, weighing the chances. “I suppose you are in a unique position, they’ll hear you out at least. And the Death Eaters won’t hate you for making it easier for them to escape.”

Merlin grimaced. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Get used to it, that’s the argument you’re going up against.” Draco sighed, “But why, why Azkaban? And don’t tell me it’s because you feel guilty about Lockhart.”

Merlin hesitated, and then before he could come up with a reply, Silas interrupted. “It’s because I asked him to!”

If anything, this served to only confuse Draco further, and he whipped his neck over to Silas and frowned. "Why'd you do that?" He sneered at him "You got an Aunt in there too, have you? Want to find a way to get them released, huh?"

“Stop it.”

“You even know what they got in for?” He clicked his tongue, and read his face of furious silence for what it was. “I thought not.”

“Draco,” Merlin said, with a hint of warning. “You know perfectly well that Azkaban is the equivalent of a medieval dungeon. They were unsightly even back in my day, and they’re bloody horrifying now. I don’t need a better reason than that.”

Draco turned away from Silas, unwinding as if he had been a coiled snake about to strike. “Good enough. Now, Silas, why don’t you share with the class?”

“Don’t put him on the spot!” Hermione said. “It’s none of our—”

“It most certainly is my business because if this snot-nosed kid and medieval Merlin over there want to succeed in whatever scheme they clearly have planned they’re going to need the help of a Malfoy.”

When neither Merlin nor Silas jumped to reply, he rolled his eyes and leaned toward Hermione. “You see I had an epiphany about a week after I got back home. Merlin here, while being a certifiable ace in the deck, is crippled by his physical age and lack of modern education.”

Hermione narrowed her eyes. “Are you still upset because I asked you about mathematics?”

"Hermione, what you told me about what muggles have discovered of the universe is perhaps more upsetting than learning Merlin was such a bloody scaredy-cat. We still use candles and ink bottle pens for f—"

“Oh, you learned about electricity, huh,” said Silas, collapsing back into his beanbag. “Yeah, Florean couldn’t look at me in the eye for a week.”

“The lights?” Merlin said, and they all looked at him, and he was taken aback by a sudden feeling of foreboding. “You mean that’s not common knowledge?”

“It’s honestly shocking what wizards think about muggles,” said Hermione. “The twins told me their dad works in the misuse of muggle artifacts office,” she shook her head, “the ideas those two have about how muggles live amazed me.”

“The point!” Draco interrupted before they could get too sidetracked, “If the kid wants in to the super-secret club,” he said providing sarcastic air quotes, “then I deserve the right to know his motives, especially if he wants a chance at success.”

Silas did not reply. And he didn’t have to.

“It is my super-secret club, Draco. He’ll tell you in his own time,” Merlin said with an edge of finality. “It is a personal favor I have granted him.”

And then, because it was his birthday and this dreary conversation had gone on far enough, he flipped his hair for added effect and Draco snorted with laughter as confetti rained all over the coffee table. “Now do you want me to unwrap your present or not?”