So, you probably missed the announcement on the previous chapter, but I decided that I wasn't going to do King of His Heart that way. There's a few reasons for it, but they can be boiled down to three major factors: I didn't want to do another Fate/Zero crossover, Kiritsugu could potentially curbstomp Harry, even with knowledge of Salazar Slytherin going through Harry's mind, and, well, I wasn't sure where to take the plot after a certain point. So, I decided to go back to Dis Lexic's challenge, and do it based on that. This is basically transplanting Nasuverse versions of characters into the Potterverse, and I did that before with my Overlord crossover Yield to the Darkness.
Despite what you may think, this isn't a threeway pairing of Harry/Arturia/Mordred, tempting though it was. Mordred will be paired with someone else. Also, this is not a story for Godric Gryffindor fans. Just saying.
Anyway, I hope you enjoy...
KING OF HIS HEART (REVISED)
CHAPTER 1:
YET ANOTHER FINE MESS…
"You bastard. You effeminate cambion bastard. Did you know about this? I'll bet you knew something."
The man with the long face framed by dark hair knelt down next to the body sitting up against the tree. The fools deluded themselves into believing her to be a man, stuck as an eternal youth. But the man knew better. He stroked the cheek of the woman he loved, the woman who chose to become a king because of her bloodline. She could have been sleeping, but he knew better.
"Ria…" the man said quietly, tears trickling down from his emerald eyes. "I'm sorry…I should have been here. But Godric…he got in the way. He told me, if he couldn't have you, nobody would. He betrayed you. I wish I could have stopped your sister…or at least found a way to stop Mordred. I haven't found her corpse. Otherwise, I would have given her a proper burial. Bastard or not, traitor or not…I think she deserved that much. She was to be pitied, not hated. But…you didn't even give her that. I'd like to think she's how our daughter might have turned out. Maybe less violent, but certainly as rambunctious, strong-willed, and with a fire you would have been proud of."
No reply was forthcoming, and he sagged. "Ria…already they're singing songs about you. They have been for some time, but I know the fucking bards are going to be singing about your glorious final battle…not knowing or caring that so many people have died. That you were once a sweet little girl, cursed by the blood of your father, with a destiny. That you weren't actually happy with Guinevere, not in the way that we were. That I lost you when you pulled Caliburn from the stone. I would give almost anything, even my magic, to have you amongst the living once more, and free from that damned destiny. To be the person I knew you should be. A strong woman, yes, a warrior woman…but not a king. You killed your heart and soul doing that, and mine as well."
He stood, looking down at the corpse of his beloved, noting how the sunlight made her hair look like woven gold. He wished he could see her eyes, emerald like his own. "…I'm not even sure life is worth living now. Not…not without you, Ria." He sobbed quietly and openly.
Then, he straightened, getting off the ground and looking at the corpse of the woman he loved. "There's one thing I can do, even if I die trying. I'm going after that bitch of a sister of yours. There were many reasons why that civil war happened, like your style of ruling, that mess with Lancelot and Guinevere, rejecting Mordred as an heir…but in the end, Morgan set fire to the kindling. Helga told me I should be merciful to the defeated…and look where it got us. And now, look at what Godric did. After Morgana, if I live, he's next. I'm glad we got to meet one last time, when you came to France for Lancelot…that we were able to reconcile…but it doesn't matter anymore. Sal's gone, dead with his sense of mercy. Salazar Slytherin has taken his place. Goodbye…my love…goodbye, Arturia…"
And with that, he walked away from that sun-dappled wood, leaving behind the corpse of the Once and Future King, and the woman he loved…
It had been a dream that he had had for some time, ever since the Chamber of Secrets, one he generally never remembered when he woke. Certainly, he never remembered who the man was. The odd thing was, the dreams that haunted him, they felt more like memories than dreams. It was only now, shortly after the horrific end of the Tri-Wizard Tournament, that he remembered it. It was like the Cruciatus had dislodged something to do with it.
The night after his escape from the graveyard, he was walking through the corridors of Hogwarts with a renewed purpose, heading to a place he only really knew where to go to. He'd been back to the Chamber of Secrets a number of times since the first time, towards the end of his second year. It was because of something he glimpsed, shortly before he had to take Ginny away. It was something he returned to when he was at his lowest. Not even Hermione knew about this.
After entering the bathroom and activating the entrance, he descended into the Chamber of Secrets, walking through the musty tunnels, until he came to where he defeated the Basilisk. A profound sense of sadness came over him, as it did the last few times he was here. The Basilisk wasn't evil, not truly. It was compelled to follow Voldemort's orders.
Then, he entered the mouth of the statue of Salazar Slytherin…only, he knew that wasn't Salazar's statue now. No, that was one of Salazar's relatives, a Pureblood obsessive who stole Salazar's name and ran it into the mud. Salazar Slytherin was a misanthrope, not a racist. Or at least that's what the dreams claimed. And he could believe it too, somehow.
In his dreams, he saw something different. Slytherin wasn't contemptuous towards Muggleborns, but rather, towards Muggles that organised witch-hunts. He'd been proactive in killing those, something that got him into trouble with the other Founders. He didn't think much of Muggles, true, but he didn't think much of his fellow wizards either. He was more of a general misanthrope, and had been for much of his life. Then again, when you were the bastard offspring of a so-called Pureblood line born when your father raped a Muggle woman, and were treated like dirt by relatives both magical and mundane, it was rather hard not to be. A chief tormentor had been a local bully called Godric.
One of his few friends in the village was a girl with golden hair and eyes as emerald as his own. The foster daughter of Sir Ector, and the adoptive sister of the boy who would become Sir Kay. After they became friends, he'd often call her 'Ria', and she 'Sal'. Godric became jealous of their closeness, and tried multiple times to break them apart, believing that he deserved her more than Salazar. She was the one who kept him out of the darkness he nearly fell into…only to find she had a higher calling. He'd warned her, and so did Merlin, that bloody effeminate cambion troll, that she'd be sacrificing a lot to become king. But she had seen the suffering of the people, mundane and magical alike, and wished to put an end to that.
So dutiful. She pulled Caliburn from the stone. On that day, Ria ceased to be, and the King of the Britons took her place.
His destination was through a door just near the entrance of the tunnel leading out into Slytherin's mouth. He opened it, and then went through. The chamber beyond was vast, lined with a tapestry depicting the life of a warrior in blue, white and silver, with golden hair. However, the flowers lining the walls were new, to his consternation. Someone, he was sure, had been here. Aside from the two other people in the room. Then again, he didn't think they counted, given that they were dead.
Both lay in state on stone biers covered in glass. Both looked similar, to be girls in their mid-teens, about his age. They could have been sisters, with their similar androgynous faces set in gentle repose and golden hair. One was dressed in what could only be called an armoured dress, silver plating over a blue and white dress, gauntleted hands over her chest, clutching at an elaborate, beautiful sword, her hair done up in an elaborate bun. The other was dressed in more aggressive-looking armour, only her visible face betraying her gender, and even then, it was a rather more tomboyish look that could have been a boy's. Her hair was more messy.
At the base of the biers was a stand with an engraving on it. In Parselscript, it said, Here lieth Arturia Pendragon, the Once and Future King of the Britons, and her child, Mordred Pendragon. One day, in an hour of need for Britain, they shall return.
"Not that they awoke when William the Conqueror invaded," Harry muttered. "Or when all those wars happened. The Wars of the Roses, the Civil War, World War I and II…not to mention Voldemort."
"You'll note that the inscription says 'in AN hour of need'. In any case, would the people have accepted her returning? After all, she chose to hide her gender when she became King. Even now, in this supposedly enlightened age, people would have trouble accepting that King Arthur was a girl."
The voice was soft, calm and cultured. It could be said that Harry hadn't heard it before…but he had, in his dreams. He looked over to where it came from, to find a tall, elegant man dressed in robes, apparently in his early twenties, with long, messy pale blue hair framing effeminate features.
"Who are you?" Harry demanded. "What are you doing here?"
"I'll answer your questions in reverse," the man said. "I'm not truly here. I am still trapped, as I have been for the past several centuries. At best, I am able to project myself here, use a mere fraction of my power. Perhaps it's for the best. The world is not yet ready for me to re-emerge. The why is related to the what. I feel responsible for the predicament of these two." He walked over to the biers, and tapped the glass cases. Projection or not, his finger made a distinctive chime. "I set Arturia's fate in motion, a fate she would stay the course on until night fell on her life. Mordred was one of the consequences I did not foresee, a puppet dangling on the strings of Morgan le Fay, my foe as well as Arturia's. Both of them deserve happiness…as do you." He looked up at Harry, and gave a sad smile. "As for the whom, well, I think you can take a rough guess, given that I can feel what you once were stirring deep within you."
Harry didn't know what he meant by that, not at first. But then, a name occurred to him, one he whispered in incredulous tones. "…Merlin?"
"Merlin Ambrosius, or Myrddin Emrys, the Magus of Flowers," the man said. "Imprisoned within an enchanted cave by Nimue, influenced by Morgan le Fay. You used to have all these arguments with me, you know. Sadly, one thing you always warned me about came to pass. That I was perhaps too forgiving, a giver of so many chances, and that it would come back to bite me."
"We've never met," Harry said, albeit uncertainly.
"Not in this life. In a way, Voldemort's resurrection has helped weaken my bonds. Enough so that I can help nudge things here and there. I have just enough power now to bring them back to life. Oh, they're not dead. Merely sleeping. It's like an ultra-potent form of the Draught of Living Death, one that will keep them on the knife-edge between life and death. But with the power that I can channel into them, they will wake, their injuries healed. And I can also break through the block on your memories. Once that has been accomplished…you'll know where to find Avalon and Excalibur. You'll need them in the time to come."
Suddenly, Merlin waved his hands over the glass coffins on the biers, and they shattered into scintillating motes of dust, which themselves faded into the air. There was twin ragged gasps from the two figures on the biers. But Harry barely registered them. Because just as the coffins shattered… he felt something within his mind burst, like a collapsing dam. And then…he remembered.
The last thing Arturia Pendragon remembered was drifting off to sleep after speaking with Bedivere. He had given her a potion, one of the last things Merlin had instructed him to do, apparently, before she slipped into the sleep eternal. She had not been expecting to wake up.
And yet, her eyes had snapped open, and a breath, the first one in over a thousand years, was sucked into her chest. She could hear someone screaming nearby, but she couldn't get up. She couldn't help them. Her limbs were unresponsive, until finally, she managed to sit up, clinging to the sword on her chest. She looked down at it in bemusement. Caliburn? But she thought it had been lost.
"Ugh, my head," grunted a familiar voice. "Okay, where the hell am I? And why do I feel like I've been on a bender rather than being turned into a shish-kebab? Actually, why do I know what a shish-kebab is?"
Arturia turned to look at the source of the voice, and stilled, seeing a face she had only seen briefly, though the armour was unmistakeable. The face like her own, and yet unlike her own, framed by the messy golden hair pulled back. Mutual recognition passed between them, Arturia's face becoming set, while Mordred became set in a snarl of fury. But before they could say anything, they heard another scream. Another brief and silent communication passed between them. The pair of them were knights, and no matter what Mordred's own sins, she also didn't shy away from helping those in trouble.
The pair of them got off their respective biers, and approached the convulsing form. A boy, of about fifteen or sixteen, was thrashing and writhing on the ground, clutching his head. A messy thatch of black hair framing his features, his frame a bit on the scrawny side, and he was dressed in robes. Arturia frowned. She was getting a familiar feeling from him, even as she hastened to his side, as did Mordred. Then, suddenly, a scar on the boy's forehead burst open, and black gunk spat out, with a shade, outlined in black smoke, fleeing from it, wailing as it dissipated.
Eventually, the boy stopped convulsing and spasming. Instead, he lay on the floor, panting painfully, and finally, Arturia got a good look at his features. And stared. "Impossible…"
"Whaddya mean, impossible?" Mordred peered at him, before her eyes widened. "What the actual hell? He looks a little different but…that can't be him, can it? He was all middle-aged and crap when I saw him last."
Arturia bit off a retort, just as emerald eyes flickered open behind glasses. Then, painfully, disbelievingly, he rasped, "…Ria?" His eyes then flickered over to Mordred. "Mordred?"
Arturia, hardly believing it herself, whispered, "Sal? But…how can this be?"
"Ro' would probably know, little swot," the boy who was Salazar Slytherin reborn said, before scowling. "Or that damned cambion troll. You're back…you're both back…" He got to his feet and drew them both into a hug, not seeming to care that neither knight wanted to be in close proximity to the other…and yet, after a moment, neither did they. . Somehow, improbably, a reunion had been engineered, across centuries and dimensions. But time would tell whether it would last…
CHAPTER 1 ANNOTATIONS:
So, Harry's Salazar Slytherin? And he knew Arturia and Mordred? Well, I'm sure many of you will take this as proof I've gone off the deep end.
No numbered annotations this time.
