Well, hello everyone, this is the first chapter of Arthur Pendragon: Lost and Found, and it is also my first AU fic :)

Some background stuff: Basically, it's set in an old fashioned boarding school in England, called Camelot boarding school for boys. England is very much like Camelot in the series: pretty medieval, and magic is not well liked by the king, Ethan Pangdrone, or many of his subjects.
Uther is the headmaster of Camelot school and his wife, Igraine, is still alive.

Please keep in mind that this is kind of a tester chapter: a prologue and I'm not sure if I should continue, so feedback would be awesome *hint-hint*

Thank you :D

Prologue: Through the Ages

Arthur turned two and his father, Uther, was turned out of his house, his face red from a recent argument with his brother. His breath came in gasps and his eyes were filled with tears. He took the hands of his pregnant wife and his son, and then they left to start a new life, never looking back. Arthur would not remember this day.

Arthur was eleven years old and his mother was kissing him goodbye. She was crying, and his father had a hand curled around her shoulder. The hand was cold and hard.

"He could just carry on going to school here, Uther," Arthur's mother tried one last time.

"Igraine," he said, sternly, "how can I claim to run a good school if my own son doesn't go there?"

"But... but a boarding school, Uther! He's just a boy, the older children will bully him!"

"No they won't, mother," Arthur piped up, trying to console his parent. She gave him a thin, watery smile, which failed to conceal her doubt. Suddenly, into the room, burst a little girl, who was beautiful even at such a young age.

"Bye Arty," she squealed, battling her big brother with a hug, which he returned, tightly.

"Bye Morgana," he whispered.

Arthur was then steered from the room. He and Uther got into a cart waiting for them outside, and drove off, to Camelot boarding school for boys.

It was Arthur's twelfth birthday and he was having a midnight feast in his dorm with the other boys. He had forced them all to buy him presents, under threat of sending them to his father, and so they had complied, spending the money sent to them from parents on chocolate, cake and toy soldiers. Arthur repaid them by letting them share the food but, when the school caretaker caught them, he would not own up and say that the lads were there because of him. He was too scared of his father: he would have liked to admit it, but he wasn't loyal enough to his friends for that. Poor Arthur barely knew what a friend was.

The card from his sister lay under his pillow:

Dear Arty,

I miss you lots and lots and I love you very much. Make sure you take care of yourself at that big school. Happy Birthday!

Love from your favourite sister, Morgana

The childish words and handwriting pleased him more than anything else.

Arthur was fourteen and he had gone home for the summer holidays. He sat alone in his bedroom, listening to his mother and father, arguing downstairs. Their voices travelled up through the floorboards:

"Uther, can't you see what that school is turning our son into? He has no friends, he is miserable and he's cruel! When I sent him away, three years ago, I was scared he would be bullied. I didn't think he would become the bully!"

"That's what boys do, Igraine," Uther shouted, "it's good for him: he's becoming a man at Camelot, while a tutor would just turn him into a pansy." There was a silence, and then a low murmuring, which Arthur knew was his mother talking quietly, but threateningly. What she said, although he couldn't hear, was:

"If being a man means pushing a twelve year old into a lake, then I'd rather have Arthur be a 'pansy' or, even, I'd rather have had a girl!" Uther's face grew dark and he did not respond for a moment. Then he yelled (he was not at good at controlling his voice as his wife),

"The boy was using magic! It is strictly banned, and not just in Camelot but in all schools and some towns as well! If Arthur hadn't done it he would have been punished some other way."

"With something worse than pneumonia? Don't look at me like that, Uther, the child almost died, and I don't care whether he was magic or not. I DON'T CARE!"

Arthur covered his head with his pillow, wishing they would stop.

When Arthur was fifteen, his English teacher beat him, viciously, in front of his class. He had never been any good at English and his spelling was atrocious. Arthur's anger and humiliation had got the better of him when the teacher, Professor Carlton, asked him to spell a series of words at the front of the class. Every time he got one wrong, the man would prod him with his cane, right in his stomach. Finally, after five minutes of this treatment, Arthur had snapped and screamed:

"You stupid hypocrite! You ugly old man! Saying I can't spell when I heard you admit to Professor Gaden that you couldn't do seven times thirteen!" no sooner were the words out of his mouth than Professor Carlton was striking him with the cane. Thirteen strokes for his rudeness and for being an incompetent speller. He told Arthur he was lucky he didn't multiply them by seven.

It wasn't the first time Arthur had been beaten, but it was the first time he didn't go running to his father. He was determined to take it on the chin.

By the time Arthur was sixteen he still had few real friends, apart from his sister... but even she had grown distant over the last few years and, as she got older, took every opportunity to annoy him. But, he was generally well liked by the upper school and had people who admired him, and would trail him around, following his example of terrorising younger students getting countless people into trouble, whilst somehow managing to avoid the blame themselves. You could hardly say that they and Arthur were close, however: both sides kept their secrets heavily guarded.

It was when Arthur was sixteen that King Ethan Pangdrone passed the law that magic was not only to be banned in schools, major cities and workplaces, but in the whole of England.

And it was when Arthur was sixteen that a boy, with messy black hair, pale skin and strikingly blue eyes arrived at the gates of Camelot school. The boy's name was Merlin.

So, what do you think? Should I continue this? I have a few different plot ideas about where this story could be heading (for instance, I intend to put the lines in the summery for this fic in a future chapter), but I'd like to know what you think before I write it all up :) THANKYOUSOMUCH FOR READING :D