Author's Note: Sorry this chapter is so short compared to the other one. I've decided not to try to make all the chapters even, but instead just stop where I feel like the story has come to a good cut off point. Not all the chapters will be this short (but, hopefully, this is the shortest chapter you will see) and some will be even longer than the first chapter. It all just depends on what's happening in the story. Also, I will be switching point of view a lot. The next chapter will probably start out with Harry's point of view since I've down everyone else except him so far. And, yes, eventually I will tell you why Arthur feels so guilty about betraying Merlin and what he actually did. You'll have to wait a while for that though.
Chapter 2
Meet the Team
Draco sat facing the fire he had conjured the second they Apparated to this part of the forest just outside the castle walls. It wasn't far, but Revelin would be burdened by another person to Apparate with and they didn't want to strain any member of their party too early on. It really was a pity they couldn't have brought Granger along. He had heard she was talented at learning new spells and had at least a partial handle on those involving healing from the stories told of her exploits during the war. Alas, she and the Weasel were not allowed to follow them here. The dragon who had contacted them said he could only manage to bring three people back and no more than that.
He sighed, clenching one hand into a fist to keep from mimicking the Boy-Who-Lived sitting across from him and raking his fingers through his hair. The ground was uncomfortable, which attributed to his current annoyance, but he was more worried about the damage that would be done to his clothes from the dirt and other natural dangers inherent in sitting on the ground. Draco had already spread his cloak out beneath him, but that only helped so much. Really, would it have killed Revelin and Potter to pick a meeting place somewhere indoors?
"Stop fidgeting," an annoyed voice demanded from across the flames. "You look like a lovestruck schoolgirl."
Draco looked up and matched Potter glare for glare. "I will have you know, that these robes cost more than your entire wardrobe combined, Potter, and I have no intention of ruining them by sitting in dirt."
"You should have worn something less expensive then," Potter retorted.
"And look like a hermit?" Draco was appalled. "I would never disgrace myself by appearing as less than my best in public and in front of royalty, Potter."
"Even if that royalty is a Muggle? I thought you didn't care about Muggle government, Malfoy."
"This is different. This Muggle has had constant contact with our kind and was rumored to be quite sympathetic to out plight," Draco informed his companion.
Potter opened his mouth to reply when a nearby crack alerted them to Revelin's belated arrival. Draco turned to berate her for her tardiness only to find his wand suddenly in his hand and aimed at the third person standing with the two they were expecting. A glance out of the corner of his eye showed Potter wasn't the senseless idiot he seemed and was pointing his wand at the stranger as well.
Arthur was relieved to find stable ground beneath his feet once more but stiffened in the next moment when he came face to face with two of those stinging sticks. He reached for his sword, noticing with a tightening in his chest that Merlin immediately stepped between him and the two men threatening him. Surprisingly, Maia stepped between both groups with raised hands, staring down who must have been her companions from the courtyard.
"Lower your wands," she commanded, her tone one of assured authority. The men lowered their sticks, but did not put them away. Apparently they were only willing to follow her orders to a certain extent, but Maia seemed to be content with this and continued. "Of course, you already know Merlin, whom we rescued from the pyre. And this is Prince Arthur, who has decided to join our efforts of his own free will."
Arthur glared at the woman for a moment and opened his mouth to protest. "I did not agree to join any efforts at all. I don't even know what these 'efforts' of yours are. I only agreed to come along."
He received a withering glare from Maia in return. "By coming along, you have agreed to help us or we will be forced to erase your memory and send you back into the sympathetic arms of your king, who will no doubt demand an explanation for why you have not brought back Merlin and ourselves."
Merlin stepped closer to his side at these words, as if he were getting into position to protect him, but this didn't stop Arthur from blanching at the witch's words. He didn't know exactly what was involved in the erasing of his memories, but he was certain he wanted to keep them. And his father? Returning empty-handed would be disastrous in several ways, with the king's decision that Arthur was still ensorcelled the best of the choices.
"Very well, I agree to help with your efforts," he growled.
Maia smiled brilliantly and turned to wave her hand toward her companions. "Good. Now, to introduce you to the team that will help accomplish our mission. The sheepish-looking one with dark hair is Harry," she pointed to him and Arthur was stunned to notice that he did look a bit sheepish, refusing to meet his eyes as if he were embarrassed to have been caught threatening royalty. "The haughty one over there with the pale blond hair is Draco. I suggest never trying to order him about because he becomes dreadfully annoying every time."
The other man gave Maia an annoyed glare, but nodded his head to Arthur all the same. He reminded the prince of the young noblemen he was forced to interact with on a regular basis. Taking some comfort in this familiarity Arthur turned back to the witch and asked the first question he could think of when faced with so many new changes in such a short amount of time.
"Why did you call yourself a witch when you stood up to my father?"
Maia gave him a quizzical look and turned to take a seat around the fire between her two companions. Merlin joined their group, leaving enough room next to him for Arthur to take a place as well, should he choose to. He chose to remain standing for the moment, instead waiting for Maia to respond to his question.
"I called myself a witch because that is what I am," was her only answer. Arthur glared.
"I think what Arthur wants to know is: What is the difference between a witch and a sorcerer?" Merlin asked for him, glancing up to make sure he got the interpretation right. Arthur ignored him.
"That's the first question he asks?" The one called Draco taunted, his voice tinged with disbelief. "I thought he was supposed to be more intelligent than that."
"Malfoy..." The dark-haired man who, Arthur suddenly noticed, had a scar shaped like a lightning bolt on his forehead, muttered exasperatedly. "All knowledge has to come from somewhere. How is he supposed to know these things if he doesn't ask questions?"
"Oh, like you're an expert in knowledge, Potter. I seem to recall you earned abysmal grades in Potions," the blond sniped back.
"That's because Snape was a greasy git and was constantly favoring the Slytherins."
"Other students did alright in his class. It was just you and Longbottom who couldn't manage even a simple Calming Draught without melting a cauldron."
"I never melted any cauldrons!"
"Enough!" Came a ringing voice. Maia had finally grown annoyed with the men's bickering and had drawn her stick to brandish menacingly at them. "One more round of sniping from either of you and I'm putting a Silencing Charm on the both of you and letting you mime your conversations for the rest of the day." The others fell silent, glaring at each other through the flames, and Maia turned back to him. "In the future sorcerers are uncommon and usually refers to an extremely strong, possibly Dark, male magic-user. The last person to hold that title in our time was a man named Voldemort," Arthur noticed Draco flinch at the name, but Maia ignored it, "who was killed by Harry here. He was truly evil and difficult to defeat, but we won in the end."
Arthur looked the raven-haired man up and down, trying to imagine him fighting an evil sorcerer and cutting him down. It was difficult to believe as this man was very skinny and easily the shortest of the four men gathered there. He was about as tall as Maia, who, admittedly, was tall for a woman, but still. "Really?"
Maia nodded. "It took two wars and countless deaths of both our kind and those who don't use magic."
Arthur reflected that he wouldn't want to be called a sorcerer either if he had to deal with the memories of two wars fought to defeat the same person. He was jarred out of his musings by Merlin, who asked another question, probably because he hadn't been satisfied with the first answer.
"So, everyone in your time is called a witch, then?"
The dark-haired man blushed a bit, but the blond merely glared at Arthur's manservant. He felt a sudden urge to drag Merlin behind him and brandish his sword at Draco. Maia dispelled this reaction by laughing, the first time she had done so that he recalled, and only laughed harder when both of her companions turned their glares on her.
"No, no, not at all," she said, her voice full of mirth and amusement. "Male magic-users are called wizards and females are called witches."
"Only a Muggle would call one of the most powerful wizards in Britain a witch," the blond muttered.
"Don't get too full of yourself, Malfoy. Wouldn't want your head to swell up to big. It might make it harder to think up decent insults," Harry taunted and received only a glare for his trouble.
"Muggle?" Arthur asked, unfamiliar with the term and wondering if he should be insulted or not.
"Don't worry about it," Maia assured him. "It's just what wizards call people who can't use magic, like yourself."
"Can't or don't?" Merlin jumped in again. "Everyone here can learn magic if they want. The court physician used to practice magic, but promised the king he would stop when Uther banned magic throughout the kingdom."
This time Harry spoke up, answering the question with a haunting look of sadness in his eyes. "It doesn't quite work that way. Only special people can do magic, are born with the ability. Anyone who doesn't already have the ability to do magic cannot learn to control it. Either you're born with it or you're not."
"Like yourself, Merlin," Maia added, looking at Arthur's manservant with respect and admiration. "You were born with your magic, were you not?" Merlin nodded. "Yes, you are the first of our kind. Many wizards from our time consider you the father of modern magic. That's only stated in myths and legends of course, but believed all the same."
Merlin sat in stunned silence, marveling at the regard he apparently had in the future. If the woman was to be believed then he and Arthur were both subjects of legend, something he found oddly appealing if unbelievable.
No one spoke for several minutes and Merlin realized he was waiting for someone in particular to scoff at the idea that Merlin could be the father of anything. Looking around he saw Arthur regarding him with a look of subdued curiosity. In fact, his entire manner had been subdued since the sorcerer's arrest, like the prince was weighed down with so many contradictory emotions and didn't know which ones to allow the light of day and which ones to seal in the darkest dungeons of his heart.
The sorcerer opened his mouth to say something, but he was headed off by the blond wizard he thought had been introduced as Draco. "Shouldn't we be moving now?" He drawled, tone and face stiff with boredom and an air of indifference. "It would really ruin our plans if we were to be caught by the castle knights so soon."
Maia nodded and stood, brushing off her trousers with an absent motion. Her two companions followed suit, Draco bending back down to retrieve his cloak and shake it out before throwing it back over his shoulders with a grimace. Merlin noticed the dark-haired man smirk in amusement and wondered what he found so funny.
Merlin scrambled to his feet when he suddenly realized he was the last one sitting around the fire. He looked around for a nearby stream or bucket of water to douse the campfire, but couldn't see one. Instead he moved to begin kicking dirt over the flames, but was beaten to it when the dark-haired wizard, Harry, pulled out his wooden stick and held it over the flames, muttering a word that Merlin didn't recognize but that caused water to stream from the tip of the stick and douse the fire.
Arthur made an impressed, and slightly apprehensive sound, in the back of his throat judging by the direction the sound came from. Merlin, however, couldn't find words, or even sounds, to describe his own feelings on the ability and talent these strangers had so far displayed. Neither of Harry's companions found this performance at all unusual, so Merlin gathered it must be done a lot and they had grown used to it. He didn't have long to dwell on this theory before Maia once again had them traveling to an unknown location.
"We'd best start walking now if we're going to make it by dark," she commented, striding off into the forest and dragging her cloak's hood over her dark hair. Her two companions did the same, hiding their appearances as much as possible. Merlin spared a moment to wish for a cloak so he could do the same then decided it wouldn't be worth it to him in this stiflingly hot weather.
"Why didn't we think to bring brooms?" Draco commented, though his voice sounded closer to a whine.
"Because we wouldn't have been able to use them here, Malfoy," Harry retorted. "All these Muggles around here would be like a giant neon arrow pointing the king right for us. We'd be captured before we could say 'Quidditch'."
"It was a rhetorical question, Potter," the blond replied with a sneer.
Maia snapped at them to shut up and keep walking or she would hex them into next week. The two men subsided, occasionally muttering and glaring at each other. Merlin was more preoccupied with the term "Quidditch" and why Draco would want a broom anyway. Did he plan to sweep the floor of their next stop so he wouldn't have to sit on his cloak again? Not that it would have done much good if their next camp was outside, but he couldn't fathom these strangers sometimes. Instead of trying, he just followed them meekly, vaguely noticing Arthur trailing along behind the rest of the group, and wondered what exactly was going on here.
