This takes place after season 3 of the show. Arthur is still prince with his trusted knights by his side, Gwaine, Lancelot, Leon, Percival, and Elyan. This will be after Arthur takes over the king's duties and prior to Agravaine coming to Camelot.
Chapter 1
Merlin was cleaning Arthur's room, making sure it was spotless. He knew the prince was under a lot of stress since taking Camelot back from Morgana and Merlin was determined to make things as easy as he could for the royal prat. He had already washed all of the prince's clothes and polished his armor. The bed was made and the floors were scrubbed. He had organized the papers that Arthur was taking responsibility for now that Uther had fallen ill.
Arthur was going to become a great king one day, Merlin truly believed that. He believed it not because of what the great dragon had told him but rather because he could see it for himself. After Morgana attacked Camelot and reviled her magic to Uther he had been crushed. Uther had never recovered from his stay in the dungeon and it became clear to Arthur within days that his father would never be the same again. Arthur immediately began acting in the king's stead. Arthur was now the one in charge of the kingdom, Uther was king only in name.
Merlin was just about to leave, proud of the work he had done, when he noticed something under Arthur's bed. Worried that someone may have tried to curse or enchant the young prince, Merlin went to investigate. Under the bed Merlin found a small black book, the kind he had seen women have to hold their personal thoughts. Being as curious as he was Merlin had to read it.
When Merlin opened the book and started reading it made little since to him at first. He almost thought that Arthur, it was clearly Arthur's handwriting, had been writing in some kind of code. There was dates written on page after page. Some dates had been crossed out and a name written beside it. The names are what told Merlin what the dates had meant. The first name he came across was that of Nimueh. Each and every date was a time magic had been used in the kingdom and the dates crossed off were the times a culprit had been found. Merlin relised, to his horror, that most of the date that were left were times he had used his magic, times he thought he had gotten away unnoticed, he had clearly been wrong.
Merlin became more and more scared as he read through the pages until he got to the very last entry. There was no date there, no act of magic mentioned, just three words that chilled Merlin to the bone and made him run from Arthur's chambers.
"Merlin has Magic"
A/N I hope you all enjoy this story. I have most of it already written so I will be able to post quickly and regularly. Please let me know what you think.