October 31th, 1981, Saturday
They rarely admitted it, but the brothers of the British Isles all loved each other. Yes, they had trouble with acting civil towards each other for a longer period of time and they were most likely one of the most dysfunctional families among all of the nations, but it still didn't change the fact they cared for each other. Fights broke out all the time if they spent too much time together in the same room, but despite this the fights were rarely serious nowadays, and in a weird way it had more or less became their own way to communicate with each other. However this also meant that when the fights turned serious it could quickly turn ugly, and right now it was obvious to anyone who dared to look Scotland was furious. He walked in great strides through the hallway, went through the door to their kitchen and then slammed the door closed before he continued to stomp forwards to North Ireland.
"Ye' were supposed to keep an eye on him!" he shouted barely centimeters from North Ireland's face.
"I did!" North Ireland shouted back in protest just as furiously at the same time as he pushed Scotland away from him.
"Clearly not enough!"
"I don't want to hear that from the one who didn't show up until two hours after Ireland!"
"Don't drag me into your mess," Ireland growled in a warning tone from where he sat at the table behind North Ireland.
"Unlike someone I used my head and went to cover up our arses!" Scotland continued to yell as if Ireland hadn't said a word.
"I made sure none of those Death Eaters survived to tell the tale about a man who was hit square in the chest by three killing curses in a row, only to turn into a screaming and still very much alive baby!"
North Ireland opened his mouth to come with another angry retort, but was interrupted when Wales opened the door and entered the kitchen from the hallway.
"That's enough," he said with a voice which somehow managed to sound very calm, cold and angry at the same time.
Scotland, who previously had his back to Wales, quickly turned to face him while Wales in turn went to stand on Scotland's left side.
"How is he?" Scotland asked in a voice which he in the future would loudly deny sounded even the slightly bit worried.
"England is sleeping right now, but only because I put him under a sleeping spell. He's still not back to normal."
A tense silence followed as they all took in what Wales had told them.
"Why?" Ireland broke the silence after around a minute. "Shouldn't he have turned back to normal by himself already?"
Wales turned his eyes to Ireland, who by now had stood up from the chair and walked over to stand on North Ireland's right side.
"Normally he probably would have, however nations have never turned into babies after being hit by killing curses before. Something we don't know about yet must have happened at the same time."
"Why was he even attacked in the first place?" Scotland asked Wales with a scowl.
"Voldemort doesn't know of us nations, or else he would have made sure to attack England himself."
"England joined the battle, didn't he? He ignored what we told him and tried to interfere in the magical humans' affairs," Ireland guessed with badly hidden anger.
"Yes," Wales confirmed, now in a somewhat bitter voice. "He used his alias Merlin Kirkland to join a resistance group in their fight against Voldemort. If I remember correctly it's called the 'Order of the Phoenix' and is led by a man named Albus Dumbledore."
"That idiot," North Ireland hissed in rage towards their younger brother.
"So what exactly happened?" Ireland questioned, ignoring his slightly other brother.
"We don't know all the details yet, but my guess is he drew too much attention to himself when he took down Death Eater after Death Eater like they were bothersome mosquitoes rather than magical murderers," Wales explained with a sigh.
"Voldemort decided 'Merlin Kirkland' was a threat and sent over 100 Death Eaters after him. They ambushed England on his way home from a meeting."
Ireland swore loudly at this and North Ireland still looked like he was about to murder somebody, but Scotland remained oddly quiet with a grim look on his face.
"England sent his patronus to me, so I went to save his sorry arse." Wales continued. "Scotland was visiting me at the time, so he came with me. Together we arrived at the same time as North, only to see three killing curses hit England in the chest at the same time as he sent off some kind of explosive spell which took down the last ten Death Eaters who were still able to stand."
"He screamed," Scotland added almost in a whisper and shuddered as he recalled it. "England screamed in agony as if the devil himself set his insides on fire before he fell to the ground, and then a bright, white light suddenly surrounded him and the scream was cut off. When the light was gone England was turned into a wailing baby."
"I haven't heard him scream like that since the bombing of London," Wales agreed grimly before he continued. "People from the order then began to show up with some of the still loyal aurors, so North and I ran forward and apparated away with England before they had the time to realise what happened."
Wales now turned fully towards Scotland.
"I'm sorry we left you alone to take care of the aftermath of the attack. How many of the Death Eaters were still alive?"
"None of them," Scotland commented with a tinge of pride in his voice. "I couldn't find his wand either, so he must have fought them off with wandless magic."
Wales raised an eyebrow. "That's impressive. He must have improved since the last time he fought wandless then."
"You two are getting of track," Ireland scolded in annoyance. "Why hasn't England turned back to normal yet?"
"I would like to know that too actually," North commented with a frown. "Why hasn't he? He was just hit by a few killing curses."
Wales met his brothers' gazes with a glare.
"I don't know since all of you began to yell down here when I was about to examine him, so if you want to know I suggest you follow me to England's bedroom."
With those words Wales spun around and walked out from the kitchen, and his younger brothers quickly followed him without another word. They took the stairs up to the second floor, walked down the corridor and then found themselves in England's bedroom. They gathered around the bed, and there, in the middle of the king sized bed, was the baby-version of England sleeping peacefully with a pillow on either side of him to make sure he didn't accidentally roll off the bed. If England had been a human Scotland guessed England would only be a little older than a year old. Meanwhile Wales looked almost bored while the rest of them stared at the sight before them.
"I forgot he actually looked somewhat cute when he was younger," Scotland mumbled to himself.
North Ireland nodded once in agreement.
"He isn't that cute," Ireland muttered, annoyed, but his eyes and voice seemed to have become softer while he watched his baby-brother.
"Are you three done staring now? I want to examine him," Wales sighed in annoyance.
"Aye, go ahead," Scotland replied and took a step back to give Wales more room.
Wales rolled his eyes, but took another step forward towards the bed and bent over England to place a hand on the small baby-England's chest. Closing his eyes Wales then quietly began to chant something under his breath, and his hand on England's chest began to glow slightly in a light, blue colour. This continued for a while, but all of sudden Wales began to frown deeply and the glow around his hand became an alarming red colour.
"Oi, what's wrong?" Scotland asked with a frown, but was interrupted by a red flash when Wales suddenly flew backwards with a yelp, straight into the wall behind them.
"What the-!?"
England woke up with a cry, but Scotland quickly rushed forward and picked him up, almost as if an old instinct had woken to life again. Meanwhile North Ireland ran forward to help Wales up again, and with only a small wince from Wales they then walked back to the bed where Scotland now tried to calm down England. It took a while, but eventually England quieted down and began to nuzzle Scotland's chest instead. Scotland caught sight of his brothers' amused smirks and gave them all a deadly glare.
"Not a word to anyone."
Ireland shrugged, but didn't drop his smirk until he turned around to face Wales. "What happened?"
Wales gritted his teeth as if he still was in pain. Now when they thought about it he probably also was, but since it would be healed soon anyway the rest of the brothers weren't too concerned.
"The little bastard's magic has somehow managed to seal the part of him which makes him a nation," Wales hissed angrily, clearly annoyed.
"Ye' got to be kidding," Scotland growled. "How is that even possible and why would it do that?"
"You ask me as if you think I've seen this happen before. I haven't," Wales growled back and massaged his head. This was going to give him a headache for sure.
Scotland sighed and carefully laid down baby-England, who was now sleeping, between the pillows on the bed again.
"Can you break it? Ye' are the best one of us when it comes to dealing with seals," Scotland grudgingly asked with a frown.
It was obvious Scotland didn't like to admit Wales was better than him at something.
"Hopefully, but I'll need some time to research this to make sure I don't end up killing him."
The room fell into tense silence for a minute while they thought about this.
"Alright," Scotland eventually sighed. "Wales will begin to research for a way to break the seal, I contact what's left of the Ministry of Magic to find out some information and to come up with a cover story for us. Until England is back to normal we'll leave you to take care of the normal government work, North."
"We will need a name for England until he's back to normal," North Ireland pointed out. "If anyone asks we can just say he's our half-brother, so the big age difference between us makes sense, but he still needs a name."
"He's Arthur then. It's one of his old aliases, so it should be fine to use it again," Dylan decided.
Scotland and North Ireland nodded in agreement – they didn't have any better ideas anyway - but instead of listening Ireland turned around and began to make his way out of the room. Scotland was the first to react and managed to grab his arm harshly before Ireland could walk out.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Ireland frowned. "This has nothing to do with me. I'm not in the UK anymore, remember?"
"Bastard, he's still your brother!" Scotland shouted furiously and let go of Ireland's arm only to almost lift him up by the collar of his uniform.
"Besides, this is a magical incident and you still share the Ministry of Magic with us," Wales pointed out with an edge to his voice, but unlike Scotland still managed to keep his calm.
"Fine," Ireland snarled back and wrenched himself free from Scotland's hold. "What do you suggest I do then? You pretty much already have everything covered."
"Take care of England while we're gone," North cut in before the others had the time to answer.
"Like you said the rest is already covered, but we can't exactly leave England by himself like this."
Ireland glared daggers at his younger brother.
"Fine, I'll babysit England. I hope you three realise I will need to go back to my own country in a few days though. Someone else will need to babysit him if he's not back to normal by then."
"We'll take care of that if it comes to down to it. Let's go and take care of this now," Scotland grumbled and pushed past Ireland towards the door.
"Wait," North Ireland began. "Shouldn't we tell the other nations about this?"
Scotland, who was already almost out of the room, stopped and turned around to face North Ireland.
"Why should we? It's none of their business," Scotland commented grumpily.
"We might be forced to though," Wales pointed out. "They will find out sooner or later if we're not able to fix this quickly anyway."
"Alright, how about this then," North Ireland suggested. "There is a meeting with the commonwealth in two weeks – if we haven't managed to change England back to normal by then we'll tell them."
"Do what ye' want – I will go and fix information and a cover story now," Scotland grumpily replied and left.
Wales sighed. "We will most likely need to tell them at some point then."
North Ireland and Wales also left the room, which left Ireland alone to take care of his now literally baby-brother.
"Great," Ireland muttered angrily and sat down on the edge of the bed. "Happy freaking Halloween."
Ireland's eyes only softened when they once again fell on the still sleeping baby between the pillows.
"You really like to give me trouble, don't you?" Ireland mumbled and gently stroked a finger over little England's cheek.
"I suppose it's payback for all the trouble we caused you after our mother's death, but we will be even when this is over."
Little England seemed to believe this was his cue to slowly wake up, because he yawned loudly and blinked his eyes open to stare straight at Ireland.
Ireland did not move away his hand in (almost! almost!) panic when he thought England was going to cry, and the small baby-hands which instead tried to grab Ireland's fingers were absolutely not adorable. Really. However maybe, and just maybe, this wouldn't be so bad, Ireland thought with a small smile as little England finally managed to grab one of Ireland's fingers and watched it closely in curiosity. It could have been worse.
The brothers of the British Isles all loved each other, even if they rarely admitted it – however they had no way of knowing just how much that love would come to be tested in the future. This is the beginning of a story about the boy who, because of his magic, at the moment was no longer a nation, but at same time neither was a human. This is the story about Arthur Kirkland, the sealed boy.