Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters, locations or prior storylines associated with it. That is all the intellectual property of the wonderful JK Rowling. No copyright infringement is intended, nor am I making any money from this story. I am just playing in her world.

The Four Horsemen © The Sexy Muggle Librarian

Chapter 26: The Cave of Ice

Hermione, Draco and Harry turned at the voice that echoed through the frigid cave. Ginny stood about a metre away from them, dressed in her pyjamas.

"Ginny?" Harry asked as he quickly walked to where she stood shivering.

"Who else would I be?" Ginny shot back, her temper obviously frazzled. She quickly waved her wand and transformed her fuzzy green pyjamas into a pair of jeans and a warm jumper. "Where in the hell are we?"

Both Harry and Draco looked at Hermione. "Any ideas, love?" Draco asked.

"Why would I know? Contrary to popular belief, I don't know everything. I'm just very good at retaining anything I read," Hermione shot back as the hair on the back of her neck prickled, causing her to raise her wand and turn around. "I feel like I'm being watched."

"We should take a defensive stance," Harry advised as he and Ginny moved towards them again.

They agreed and in the centre of the room they put their backs together and each faced a different direction. Hermione faced north, Draco east, Harry south and Ginny west. They fell into an uneasy silence as they wondered what was going to happen to them. After a few moments (that seemed like hours) a musical laugh resounded through the cave. The group immediately raised their wands, looking for the source of the laugh.

"Interesting, my children," a woman said as she walked through a fissure in the ice. "Be at ease, I mean you no harm." She walked towards them, light shimmering from her snow white hair and ice blue dress.

"Wow," Ginny said in an undertone. "I want her designer."

Hermione fought back a laugh, but she knew what Ginny meant. The ice blue fabric shimmered as if embroidered with crystals and gave the impression of a waterfall as it draped over her long limbs. Her hair cascaded down her back, white as the snow around her.

Draco studied her. "What do you mean by interesting?" he queried.

The woman smiled serenely. "You are each facing your natural cardinal direction, my child."

Harry gripped is wand. "Who are you? Why have you abducted us?"

The woman chuckled, the sound reminiscent of water babbling of rocks. "Abducted? No, I did not abduct you. It is destiny which brought you here to my cave. I have been without visitors for more than a millennium." She smiled serenely as she gestured with her hand and an archway opened opposite of the one she walked through. "If you will follow me, I believe that I can help provide you the answers to what you seek."

The group watched in confusion as the woman walked through the archway. "What have we got to lose?" Ginny said with a shrug as she began to walk.

"It could be a trap," Harry and Draco said at the same time, earning them smirks from Ginny and Hermione.

"Really? If she had wanted to harm us, I don't believe she would have been so solicitous," Hermione countered. "Besides, something about her is familiar."

"Look," Ginny interjected. "Hermione and I have good instincts, don't you agree Harry? I know that you are an Auror and I can appreciate your caution, but I agree with Hermione. If this woman wanted us dead, we would be dead."

"Or we would not have our wands still," Hermione said. "Draco, I know how you grew up. I know that you do not trust anyone lightly. Trust me. I don't believe this is a trap."

Shrugging, but keeping their wands at the ready, Harry and Draco acquiesced. They followed Hermione and Ginny as they began to walk towards the opening again. As they crossed through to the next room, they found it to be cavernous, but welcoming. On the wall opposite the doorway there was a fireplace large enough to roast a wild boar, a fire burning brightly in it. Arranged in front of it was a seating area, complete with fur rugs.

That was not what drew Hermione's attention. That was taken up by a large black boulder in the middle of the room, with a gleaming sword stuck in it. As she made the connection she gasped loudly.

"Love? What is it?" Draco asked her, worry colouring his words.

Hermione just smiled as she turned to the woman. "You are the Lady of the Lake," she stated.

The woman laughed in delight. "Ah, my child. I knew that you would be the one who figured it out. I am Nimue, the one you call the Lady of the Lake."

"Um, Hermione? What are you on about?" Ginny whispered.

"Explain to your friend, child. Please make yourself comfortable for there is much information to share."

Hermione nodded excitedly as she settled on a love seat with Draco as Harry and Ginny settled across from them. "What do you know about King Arthur?" she began.

Draco and Ginny gave her blank stares, but Harry caught her message. "Oh, that Lady of the Lake. The one who gave Arthur the Sword." He looked at the sword in the black boulder. "That's Excalibur?!" he exclaimed.

"Can you please tell me what you two are going on about?" Draco interrupted them.

"Okay," Hermione said, her eyes bright. "So, legend has it that back in the fifth or sixth century, there was this boy who became king of all Britain. He does so by pulling a sword from a stone after everyone else had failed. He expands Britain to include parts of the Roman Empire." She saw Draco open his mouth and she held up her hand. "Wait, the reason this has significance is because in the legend, he is helped by Merlin. According to the written legend, Merlin disguised Arthur's father, Uther Pendragon, as his enemy Gorlois and Uther slept with Gorlois' wife. Arthur was conceived. After Uther's death, there was a search for his true heir and it was said that whomever could pull the sword from the stone was the true king of Britain. Arthur was the one that pulled the sword."

Draco snorted. "That's a bunch of rubbish."

Hermione raised an eyebrow as she turned to him. "Are you sure? I thought about that legend my first year at Hogwart's. Merlin disguising Uther could have been Polyjuice and how easy would it be to charm a sword into a stone keyed only to one person? With magic anything is possible, Draco. At least it seems that way to a Muggle or a Muggleborn when they first find out. And you have to remember that this legend is fifteen hundred years old. The only way for us to know for sure is to go back in time with a time-turner and find out ourselves."

Draco just snorted again. "If it were true, then we would have a record of it, Hermione," he insisted.

They turned as a chuckle resounded through the room. An old man in midnight blue robes was walking in, his long white hair and beard shining as brightly as Nimue's did. "That would be true my son, if I had not purged the records of that particular transgression myself." He walked slowly across the floor until he was standing in front of the chair directly in front of the fire. "Forgive me, my aged bones feel the cold more than anything," he continued as he sank into the warm seat. Once settled, he looked at them, the twinkle in his eyes reminding each of them Dumbledore. "Before you ask, yes, I am Merlin."

"How is that even possible?" Ginny scoffed.

"Good, you are suspicious my child. There was a combination of factors; I shall not bore you with the details, but as part of my last casting there was some unfinished business. Business that only my descendents are able to complete. My life is tied to that business and until it is completed, I am still alive. But I digress. To answer the question I know Miss Granger wants to ask, the whole Arthur debacle was best left to legend with no basis in fact." He sighed. "It was my deepest regret."

"So Lancelot and Guinevere are real?" Hermione asked.

He nodded. "Yes, but the legend with them is not. Would you like to know the true story?"

All of them looked at each other, each with questions burning on their tongues for the acclaimed wizards. As one they nodded eagerly.

"It all began with Uther Pendragon and his best friend Gorlois of Cornwall. They were close friends growing up in the Pendragon court. They competed against each other in many things, including their training for knighthood. Uther bested him in each competition, but still they remained inseparable until they both laid eyes on Igerna. Daughter of Prince Amlawdd, she arrived in court shortly before her sixteenth birthday and was presented to the court when the Prince arrived to arrange her marriage to Uther. It was to unite what is now Ireland with Britain. The moment they set eyes on each other, Igerna and Uther fell into a love so strong that most believed them to be soul mates. However, Gorlois was also enamoured with her and was determined not to let Uther win her hand. So, he employed the services of the Very Black Witch and had her produce the strongest love potion she could manage, which he gave to Igerna. She immediately fell in love with Gorlois and forsook Uther for him. They ran away from the court and disappeared for twenty years."

Hermione leaned for, fully engrossed in the story as he continued. "During those twenty years, Uther sought them out, sending knight after knight out after them once he became king. But each knight failed. Then he sought out my services. I was a young wizard then, barely fifty in years, but I did a foretelling for him and was able to locate the pair. Unfortunately, that was at the beginning of the invasion of Rome and Uther had more pressing problems. He lost the part of Gaul that he was reigning over to the Romans and another ten years passed before he could begin the search again. By this time, my skills had been finely honed and once we were within striking distance, I gave Uther a potion that I had created which caused him to take on the appearance of Gorlois as well as the antidote to the love potion that Gorlois had given Igerna."

"Is that the Polyjuice potion?" Draco asked, intrigued despite his scepticism.

Merlin nodded. "Yes, that is what it is called now. When we reached the estate where Gorlois and Igerna lived, Uther slipped into the castle in disguise and managed to slip the antidote in her evening drink. Once the Polyjuice potion wore off, Uther slipped into her room and the declared their love for each other and consummated that love."

"What happened after that?" Ginny asked, sighing at the romance of the story.

Both Harry and Draco rolled their eyes at both of the women's starry-eyed response.

"When Igerna discovered what Gorlois had done, she went into a rage and stormed around the castle until she found him and confronted him. A fight ensued and somehow Gorlois ended up dead. I do not know how, but considering that one of their children turned out to be a powerful sorceress, I would hazard a guess that she had some latent magical talent and lashed out against him magically. With his death, Igerna and Uther returned to the court of Pendragon and raised Arthur."

"I thought Arthur was an orphan or something," Hermione said with her brow furrowed.

Merlin smiled. "One of the many changes that I made to the story after this was over. Yes, Uther died when Arthur was a lad and there were many questions in regards to his parentage, including the fact that he did not look like Uther. On Uther's deathbed, he made me promise to make sure that Arthur was crowned king. I did the only thing I could think of, I borrowed Excalibur from Nimue, who I had met during my Journeyman period, and enchanted it so that only Arthur could pull it from the stone. Thankfully, most people in the court just thought me a scholar, not a magician or the ruse would have never worked. In the presence of a priest, I brought the sword to Uther just before his death. He cut his hand on it and the priest said, 'Blood of Thy blood, may only a true Pendragon master this sword.' With a flash of light, I vanished the sword into the boulder of obsidian to await Arthur to pull it from there."

Harry smiled. "I think I understand. When Arthur was ready to take the throne, after the death of Uther, with the priest's words they believed the sword to be the only true thing that could indicate the real heir."

"Yes," Merlin confirmed.

Hermione furrowed her brow, her thoughts swirling about in her head. "As much as I love that we've heard the true story of Arthur, why do I think it has something to do with why the four of us are here?" she asked sweeping her arms around to encompass the room.

"Ah, my child, that is because your inquisitiveness is legendary and as usual, it is correct. Before we get to that part of the story, would anyone like any refreshments?" he responded as a tray laden with tea and biscuits floated towards them.

The four of them settled back and served themselves as they waited for the story to continue.

~H~P~

AN: Most of the information I got on Arthur and his legends is from Wikipedia. I just worked it to fit into what I wanted! Was anyone expecting Merlin to be alive and kicking? As always, thank y'all so much for the faves, reviews and follows! They brighten my day.

Dianna – You were correct about Ginny and I hope I surprised you with where they were! Thanks for the review!