Chapter 6

Narcissa walked out into the bright morning sun with a smile on her face. It felt like a lifetime ago that she'd felt relaxed enough to want to sit out in the gardens to eat breakfast. When she'd first moved into the Malfoy Manor as a young bride, she used to do it all the time and, when he had the time, Lucius would often join her.

Lucius would never join her again.

Narcissa pushed that thought away for the moment, not wishing to fall into melancholy just yet. The elves had set the outdoor polished marble-top table for several people, which made her softly snort in amusement. They evidently missed all the entertaining the family used to do before the Dark Lord returned. Or did they perhaps have reason to think someone was going to join her?

She looked up to the western tower, wondering whether Merlin was awake yet. She was certain Draco wasn't as she'd passed by his rooms on her way down. But Merlin... she knew very little about his habits other than his peculiarity for muggle clothing. She certainly wouldn't object to the young man joining her – assuming he was, indeed, a young man as she wasn't entirely convinced he wasn't in fact an older man, who'd used a spell to give himself the appearance of youth and gone a bit further than he'd intended.

Either way, the man was a puzzle and luckily she had plenty of time on her hands to occupy herself with solving it.

Narcissa sat down at the table and tapped her wand against the tea kettle. It immediately floated upwards and began to pour tea. Once it was poured, she added some milk to it and then brought it to her nose to revel in its scent. It was a special blend Severus had once mixed for her as a birthday present and she'd later begged him for the composition so she could give it to the house elves. It was the only tea she ever drank out in the gardens.

She sighed. Severus. There was another friend the war had taken away from her.

She took her first sip of tea as she thought of the man whose hand created it. One of the albino peacocks flew onto an empty chair and helped itself to a danish before flying off again. Narcissa smiled at its antics and reached out for a danish of her own. She looked over the gardens as she ate and wondered whether Merlin would allow her to change the back hedges the way she'd wanted to for some time.

She froze as she suddenly noticed slight movement just behind those very hedges. She frowned and put her tea down slowly as she stood, craning her head to see over top of the greenery. Suddenly, the tip of a white head and a horn appeared. Narcissa's eyes widened.

Quickly, she stepped away from the table, breakfast completely forgotten, and hurried through the garden. She easily found the gap the in the hedge and stepped out onto the lawn. And gasped.

"Mimsy!" she called softly so as not to startle their lawn's visitors.

There was a gentle 'pop' beside her as the house elf appeared.

"Yes, mistress?" it said.

"Go wake my son up and tell him to meet me here immediately."

"Mimsy goes right away, mistress!"

There was another 'pop' and the house elf was gone. Narcissa walked out onto the lawn, treading carefully. One of the unicorns lifted its head to look at her curiously, seemed to decide she wasn't a threat and went back to munching on the lush grass. Narcissa relaxed at that and slowly walked towards the herd.

She'd never seen a herd of unicorns before, but a herd was definitely what was making itself at home on the manor grounds. She looked around, counting roughly two dozen of them. They were beautiful, their coats so white they practically glowed under the morning sun. She could feel the magic in the air become purer, yet somehow more saturated, as she walked amongst them.

Several of them had gone to the lake to take a drink. One had headed to the willow tree and was peeking under the canopy of its branches. It nudged at something underneath. A hand came up and clumsily swatted at the unicorn's nose until the unicorn pushed back at it. Then the hand seemed to realize there was something there and patted around the unicorn's snout as though feeling it out. Finally it began to pet the unicorn up the front of its head to the horn.

The hand retreated and Merlin came into view as he sat up. His hair was dishevelled and there was dirt clumped in his hair along with a few leaves. He yawned widely and smiled sleepily at the unicorn. Then he cupped his hands in front of him and said something into them. He held an apple up for the unicorn, which it took with obvious delight.

Another unicorn joined them and Merlin laughed.

Narcissa couldn't help but smile at the scene despite her complete bewilderment. The man looked even younger than usual in that moment, happy and carefree as he conjured another apple for the second unicorn. If she wasn't watching it happen, she wouldn't have believed it. Unicorns weren't especially violent, unless provoked, but they were relatively shy creatures, not much given to approaching people of their own volition in the slightest.

"Mother!"

Narcissa winced as her son interrupted the tranquillity of the moment. She saw Merlin's head snap to her and his eyes widen in surprise. She smiled and waved at him in greeting.

"Good morning, Draco," she said as she turned to her son. "We seem to have some guests this morning."

"Y-yes, I saw them from my room..." Draco began before trailing off. He stood at the edge of the lawn, staring at the unicorns before him. "I thought I was seeing things."

"Well, you're clearly not."

Draco's eyes darted to her nervously, before they once again darted to the unicorns. He gulped, looking a little pale as he finally began to cautiously walk towards her. The unicorns paid him no mind and he slowly began to relax.

"Where in Merlin's name did they come from?!" he whispered in awe. "I didn't think such large herds existed anymore."

"They tend to sometimes wander away from each other and keep well-hidden," Merlin's voice answered him. "You'd be surprised how well a herd of unicorns can hide in a forest."

Narcissa and Draco turned to him. He was smiling widely and Narcissa noticed he'd attempted to brush most of the dirt and leaves out of his hair with his fingers.

"Good morning," he said.

"Good morning, Merlin," Narcissa answered with a smile of her own.

"Good morning," said Draco with a frown as he took in Merlin's appearance. "You realize you have an actual bed up in that tower of yours."

"Ah, yes." Merlin cringed, looking a bit sheepish. "I didn't mean to fall asleep out here. It just sort of, uh, happened."

"Like the unicorns you mean?"

"Er, well, in a way. I mean, it's not like anyone ever tells a unicorn what to do. They just sort of go where they want to. And, this morning, they apparently liked the look of the grass right here."

"But I would've thought there had been too much dark magic used on the grounds to attract unicorns," said Narcissa.

Merlin's smile turned a little sly. "Well, yes, there had been. But I took care of that."

Narcissa's eyes widened and she exchanged a bewildered look with her son. He took care of it? Narcissa would've called him a liar except for the obvious proof. The herd of unicorns currently making themselves comfortable on the manor grounds was not a lie.

"Any road, I'm actually rather famished at the moment," Merlin said into their silence. "Don't suppose the house elves have made breakfast yet?"

"Wha- oh, yes, in fact they have," Narcissa answered. "It's been served out in the garden."

"Assuming the birds haven't scavenged it yet, you mean," Draco muttered.

"I dare say the birds could help themselves to half of it and there would still be enough for the three of us."

"Four, actually," said Merlin. He ignored Narcissa and Draco's confused looks and looked over his shoulder. "You will be joining us for breakfast, won't you, Anhora?"

Suddenly, there was a tall man in a long, white robe, holding a tall wooden staff standing beside one of the unicorns. He stepped forward.

"I would be delighted to," he said with a slight bow to Merlin.

Merlin grinned at him. As the man approached them, Merlin made introductions.

"Anhora, this is Lady Narcissa Malfoy and her son, Draco. Narcissa, Draco, this is Anhora, Keeper of the Unicorns."

"Keeper of the Unicorns?" said Draco. "I've never heard of such a person."

"Of course not, young man," Anhora replied. "Your kind forgot the origins of magic long ago. You no longer follow the Old Religion and thus all of us, who remain, are unknown to you."

"The Old Religion?" Narcissa asked. "I remember there were books about it in my mother's old library, but I never bothered to read any of them."

"What's the Old Religion?" Draco asked with a frown.

"The Old Religion is many things," Anhora began as they made their way to the garden seating area.


When Charlie exited the fireplace, he was greeted with chaos. It was a familiar chaos, born of too many people in too small a space all trying to do things quickly and at the same time. One would think that it would get better as they all got older and were no longer underfoot, but he had a feeling it had actually gotten worse.

It seemed like everyone was at the Burrow today. He saw Fleur sitting in the armchair by the window, holding his little nephew. She'd looked up when he flooed in and he waved to her in greeting. She smiled and waved back. The baby in her arms tilted his head to look at what had caught his mother's attention and Charlie smiled at the big brown eyes that gazed curiously in his direction.

"Charlie, you're here!" he heard just before his father grabbed him and dragged him in the direction of the kitchen. "Molly, Charlie's here!"

"'lo mum!" Charlie called into the kitchen, where his mum turned away from the oven long enough to beam at him and call out a greeting before a stream of sparks flew out of one of the timers, which sent her back into a flurry of movement again.

Charlie backed out again and turned again to the packed living room. Then the fireplace roared to life and George stepped into the room. He took one look around before immediately bee-lining for the small huddle in the corner, where Harry sat swaddled in blankets in his mum's large red comfy armchair. He looked a bit pale and there were dark circles under his eyes, but mostly he looked embarrassed by all the attention he was getting.

Charlie chuckled and decided to add to the boy's embarrassment. It was what practically adopted big brothers were for, after all.

"Hello, everyone," he said loudly as he sidled in next to George. He grinned down at Harry. "Well, you look mildly better than death there, Harry. Must be glad to be out of St. Mungos, eh?"

Harry smiled in amusement.

"Hello, Charlie," he said. "I do feel a little bit better than death, yes. How are you liking the Welsh Reserve?"

Charlie shrugged, trying not to let his feelings of homesickness show. "It's smaller and quieter, although now we've just had a group of dragonets leave their mums' nests, so there's some excitement trying to keep them under control. They're a bit of a handful."

Well, they were a handful, some of the time. Four out of the six of the newly-independent dragons had, for some reason, developed a very real attachment to the old dragon living at the Welsh Reserve. He was called Grandfather Time, because as far back as any records indicated he'd simply always been there. Most of the handlers believed it was a sure sign that the records hadn't been maintained properly over time and thus there were records of deaths and births missing somewhere. They'd found indications of neglectful recordkeeping elsewhere in the books, so this was hardly unlikely.

If the dragon was going to keep the young dragonets mostly calm and settled part of the time, Charlie didn't really care how old he was. Baby dragons were lovely and wonderful, but they were more work than most of the adult dragons combined. Not that it was saying much in the Welsh Reserve, which lacked any of the more difficult and dangerous breeds Charlie had gotten used to working with in Romania.

He'd gotten a temporary transfer to Wales in order to be closer to his family after the war had taken its toll and he refused to be selfish and resent that choice, but he regretted having to leave. He missed Romania fiercely at times.

His thoughts were interrupted as his mum finally finished in the kitchen and lunch was served. Being closer to home did have one distinct advantage, Charlie thought as he dug into his steak and kidney pie. Idle chatter about the attack on Harry and what the Daily Prophet was making of it (which was a lot, considering the aurors still hadn't a clue who the woman was or how she'd done what she had) filled the room interspersed with his mum and Fleur's baby talk.

The conversation took a rather unexpected turn when Harry asked how the other businesses were faring after the attack.

"Oh, they're doing fine," said George. "Other than Quality Quidditch, obviously. Every else opened the next morning, though. As bad as it was, the fire didn't spread anywhere, so other than some wicked scorch marks on the street, everything else looks fine."

His eyes lit up.

"Which reminds me, you'll never believe, who walked into the store yesterday!"

"Who?"

"The new owner of Malfoy Manor."

The table descended into a stunned silence.

"New owner?" said Hermione. "When did that happen? I thought they were only starting to show it this week."

"The day after the attack," Bill answered. "I think it was the first day of the showings for the manor. They came to Gringotts and signed the paperwork that very same day. From what I've heard, the bank manager actually stayed and kept the bank open for them until nearly midnight."

"I've never heard of goblins being so accommodating," said Charlie's mum. "Not even to the ministry."

"They're not. It was the buyer they made the exception for."

"Really?"

"Hm, took everyone by surprise at the ministry," his dad chimed in. "I heard the head of the auror division was furious at Whitman for allowing it to happen. See, apparently, they weren't expecting anyone to actually buy the manor. They were going to go through the motions and then pay the Malfoys off and turn the Malfoy Manor into an auror training site."

"Oh, that would've been brilliant!" said Ron.

His dad shrugged. "Well s'not going to happen now. Whitman said he thought the young man was joking and would back out when they really got down to it. And then he didn't."

"Yeah, doesn't surprise me that he wasn't taken seriously," said George. "The bloke didn't look like the sort who could afford to buy a manor. He was wearing robes when he came to Wheezes, but Madame Malkin says he showed up at her shop wearing muggle clothes."

"Muggle clothes?!" Hermione exclaimed. Then she promptly burst into laughter. "You mean the Malfoy Manor was bought by a muggleborn?"

"A muggleborn with a sense of humour," said George with a twinkle in his eye. "He spent quite a bit of money at mine and gave me an idea for a new product. Though, I'm not sure how much Malfoy minds the muggleborn thing seeing as how he was with him in Diagon Alley."

Bill nodded at that.

"Yeah, he and the Malfoys made an agreement after he bought the manor," he said. "Both Narcissa and Draco Malfoy will live at the manor and taking care of it in exchange for Draco Malfoy remaining its rightful heir. And I think there's something else about him being Kingsman's secretary or something."

"Kingsman?" Ginny asked. "Is that the new owner's name?"

"Yes, Merlin Kingsman," their dad confirmed. "He's a complete mystery, it seems. Apparently, no one's heard of him before now."

"He told Madame Malkin he'd spent the war abroad in Asia," George interjected.

"Well, he obviously exists," said their mum with a frown on her face. "But honestly, Merlin? Who names their child Merlin? With a name like that he must be muggleborn." Her eyes widened as she realized what that must've sounded like and quickly turned to Hermione. "Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course. It's just that, well, no proper wizarding family would ever name their child Merlin. Merlin the wizard is such an icon, it's just not done."

"Not to mention how annoying it would be walking down the street and hearing everyone calling out your name for no reason," said Harry.

"Or calling for your beard," Charlie added with a grin. He turned to George. "He didn't have a beard, did he?"

George grinned and shook his head. "Nah, wasn't old enough for it. Can't be much older than you if he's a day and he's probably younger. And, no, according to Madame Malkin, he didn't go to Hogwarts or any magic school. Was homeschooled by an uncle of some sort, so he's not completely muggleborn."

"And, to add to the mystery," their father began, before pausing for suspense. "The attorney he called to help with the sale was a vampire."

"Great Merlin!" their mother gasped. "A vampire? How would a muggleborn get into cohorts with a vampire?"

"Voldemort did it," Harry pointed out.

The table went silent. Harry squirmed in his seat as everyone stared at him in horror.

"Mum," said Bill calmly. "I think it might be time to bring out your pudding. We clearly need to stuff Harry's mouth with something to keep him from saying things out loud."

Harry's ears turned beet red.

"Cheers, Bill," said Ron with a strained smile as he clasped his friend on the shoulder. "You obviously need a hobby other than looking for dark lords."

The rest of Harry's face turned red to match his ears. Snickers erupted around the table. Luckily for Harry, their attention was diverted away from him when Mrs. Weasley's puddings made it to the table shortly thereafter.


Covered by a powerful disillusionment charm, Morgana stood just outside the gates of Buckingham Palace, watching as aurors stood guard over wizards from the Department of Mysteries. Spell after spell was cast, but the sword they were examining showed no sign of giving in to the tampering.

A detection spell made it, the rock and two metres of surrounding ground light up with a bright blue light. And so the wizards stepped back to farthest point of the light and began to cast at its periphery. There were a few other wizards standing back and watching, one or two seemed to be taking notes. They weren't aurors and so Morgana assumed they were cursebreakers or charms experts of some sort.

She smirked. They were all fools. She could feel the magic surrounding the sword from where she stood. It was coming from the land itself. None of their pitiful little spells would break the sword's enchantment.

She looked down at the Elder Wand she clasped in her hand, resisting the urge to point it at the sword and blast the stone away. She could feel the power contained in the wand. This wand remembered the Old Religion, even if it wasn't a product of it. Which made it her perfect weapon. The Old Religion had abandoned her once; she'd been its priestess, yet it choose Emrys and Arthur over her. She would avenge that insult.

She glared at the sword – Excalibur, she recognized it – hatred burning in her veins.

But, no, if the sword was here, then it meant Arthur was nearby. And Emrys was certainly not far behind. This time, she would make him fight her with magic. She would prove she was the more powerful sorcerer.

Magic had hidden for long enough.

With one, final, sneer at the wizards examining the sword, she apparated away.


Draco couldn't believe it. Well, he couldn't believe several things about the situation, including the fact that he'd allowed Merlin to drag him into the muggle world. However, his main disbelief at the moment was with how little attention he was drawing despite wearing full wizard's robes. True, many people glanced curiously in his direction, but there was no panic, no shouting and no wanting to burn him alive or whatever it was muggles did to magic users.

Muggles were clearly idiots.

They turned the corner and walked by two muggles with their hair styled upwards into long spikes and dyed bright green in one case, black with yellow tips in the other. Their faces were covered in metal hoops and stones dangled from their ears while their clothes were adorned with heavy chains and several quite prominant rips.

Draco instantly came to the conclusion that perhaps he wasn't drawing attention simply because he wasn't the strangest-looking person walking the streets.

He looked back to Merlin to find him smirking at him. Draco scowled back.

"Oxford's a university town," Merlin said. "And university students are notoriously strange people. I imagine they all think you're going to some sort of function or theatre practice or doing a cosplay of some sort."

"Cosplay?"

"Hm, dressing up in costume for fun. I did some steampunk for a while a few years back. And my roommates in Tokyo dragged me to a convention or two while I was there."

Draco stared at him, realizing perhaps for the first time just how different the world he'd entered was from his own. Merlin noticed his stare and winced.

"Sorry, none of that made any sense to you, did it?" He sighed. "That's the problem with this enforced separation. Some things from the muggle world have transferred into the wizarding world, such as cars or the wireless network, but none of the culture has. It's the result of taking children away from their homes at such young ages. Most of them never truly integrate back properly, because they're too busy looking to the wizarding world as their future."

Draco frowned. "Are you saying that's a bad thing?"

"Hm, yes, in a way." Merlin's face turned serious and his eyes took on a faraway, thoughtful look. "The muggle world is catching up to you, you know. To the wizarding world, I mean. It might take another century or two, but soon you won't be able to hide anymore, because muggle technology will have surpassed wizarding magic."

"What? That's impossible! There is absolutely-"

"Yes, there is." Merlin stopped on the corner and turned to looked at him Draco looked above the street and, sure enough, there was one of those traffic lights Merlin had shown him earlier and it was shining red. "Muggle science and technology is expanding in leaps and bounds, but the wizarding world hasn't experienced any significant magical development in well over a century. As muggles understand the world around them more and more, they're coming closer to actually discovering magic for themselves. Magic is a big part of the world around us, an intrinsic part, but it's not everything there is to know about it."

The light turned green and they continued walking. Draco looked around him at the muggles hurrying about and suddenly noticed all the little things they had on them. A lot of them had those same little boxes Merlin had used earlier to send a message to a friend of his and many of them had little wires coming out of their ears and there was a group of people Draco's age sitting on the grass in front of a large, stone building looking at some sort of large book that was open the wrong way and they were touching one side of it.

"There are ten billion muggles out there, Draco," Merlin eventually continued. "And if they were to suddenly discover that they've been purposefully kept in the dark, had their memories tampered with and their lives unknowingly threatened, they wouldn't be happy. And fairly soon, if not already, magic won't be enough to stop them."

Draco's breath caught.

"Are you sure about that?" he breathed.

Merlin shrugged. "Well, no. We're talking about the future here and for all we know, they'll start a war next year and manage to destroy the world, thus making any worries null and void." He looked at Draco and smiled. "Don't worry too much, yeah? Don't forget that in end, they're just people. And there are both good people and bad people and everything in between no matter where you go."

They turned another corner and Merlin's face broke into a delighted grin.

"Elena!" he called out.

A blonde woman leaning against the side of a building looked up and returned his grin as she pushed away from the wall and strode towards them.

"Merlin!" she called back.

"Thanks for agreeing to help," he said.

"Oh, don't be silly, you're saving my sanity from ruin. A shopping trip is exactly what I needed about now. I can't wait for Senior Lecturer Kingsman to get back to work. To think next year they'll be expecting me to do this all myself."

Draco frowned. Senior Lecturer Kingsman? He looked at Merlin out of the corner of his eyes. Was that a relative of some sort? Perhaps he was the uncle who had taught Merlin magic, but if so why was he living and working in the muggle world?

"Draco, this is Elena," said Merlin. "Elena, this is my friend, Draco. He's from Wiltshire and grew up in a, uh, cult up there and I want to show him the regular world so I was hoping you'd help me get him some clothes so he doesn't look so out of place. Since they didn't really wear regular clothes in this cult of his..."

Draco was fairly certain that was a horrible excuse for his robes and by the look on Elena's face she agreed.

"A cult," she said with a raised eyebrow. "Funny, I've never heard of a cult in Wiltshire before."

"Er, well it's a secret cult, doesn't get any publicity."

"Right, of course... so, he's from a secret cult in Wiltshire that wears long robes." She brightened with a mocking grin. "Oh, so he's a druid then!"

She turned to Draco and held out her hand. "It's very nice to meet you Draco the Druid."

Draco blinked at her and then took her hand and shook it.

"The pleasure's all mine, Elena," he said with a smile. "And thank you in advance for your help. You mentioned a Senior Lecuterer Kingsman, who is that exactly?"

"Oh, sorry, you've probably heard of him as just Archie," she said. "Merlin's adopted brother, he's my Phd supervisor. I've taken his classes for the moment as he's in hospital with burns and a broken leg thanks to his taking the librarian's words 'guard those research materials with your life' bleeding seriously!"

Draco looked over to Merlin, whose face had gone blank, and smirked. He turned back to Elena and asked her what it was she was studying. Elena happily dove into the topic as they walked, which was thankfully historical in nature and dealt with something akin to the role of women in Medieval literature.

They hadn't been walking more than ten minutes when Elena steered him and Merlin into a shop sporting muggle clothings in its window displays. A clerk greeted them as soon as they entered. The tag pinned to her clothings read 'Liz'.

"Oh, hello," Elena immediately responded. "We're in a bit of a pickle here. See my friend Draco there-" She pointed to him and the clerk's eyebrows widened as she noticed the robes. "-well, he's just come down to visit us from Canada for a World of Warcraft meetup and decided that wouldn't it be fun if he travelled in costume for it. Which we thought was absolutely brilliant, of course, except for that would be the time the airline misplaced his luggage. So now his luggage is off to Bangladesh or some other terribly useless place and he's stuck looking like an evil wizard."

Draco froze at her words, but Liz broke into peals of delighted laughter.

"Oh bleeding 'ell, that's brilliant!" she said. "I've ne'er 'eard the likes. Bet you'll not do that again, eh luv?"

Draco shrugged, not having a clue what the proper response was.

"Suppose you'll want to make 'im look like a normal person, yeah?"

"That's the plan," said Elena.

The two girls took off into the depths of the store and Draco looked to Merlin.

"I think I actually mostly understood your explanation," he said. "But I take it hers was better?"

Merlin winced.

"Uh, yeah."