Late evening, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Arthur and Merlin waited next to the exit of the Gryffindor common room under the invisibility cloak. The room was empty because everyone had already gone to the dormitories. The crackling of the fire was heard from the fireplace and raindrops beat windows rhythmically. Hermione had agreed with Fred and George that they would enter the common room ten minutes before midnight, and the five of them would then sneak out quietly and unnoticed into the hallway. Soon, the Fat Lady's portrait opened and the twins walked in and winked at the empty space where the trio with their medieval friends stood.
When the twins disappeared from their sight they walked out into the corridor and headed down the stairs to the library. It was going to be a nasty night because the dark corridor was suddenly lit by a flash of lightning. Accompanied by thunder sounds, they walked slowly, huddled side by side so that no one's limbs protruded beyond the invisibility cloak.
They walked around the corner and, to their surprise, they found a multitude of items scattered around the corridor. To these things joined others which were being thrown out, vigorously and with a metallic crack, from the nearest classroom. Arthur stopped, keeping the rest from moving forward, and instinctively reached his right hand to where he usually carried a sword. However, he did not find the sword, remembering that he was wearing Hogwarts school robes. The king showed Merlin and the others with gestures that he would go ahead. The warlock more or less understood him, the other three did not read his intentions very much, so when Arthur was about to go and see what was going on in the room, Hermione grabbed his arm.
"It's just Peeves," she whispered.
"Who?" Merlin and Arthur's heads turned to her.
"Peeves, the poltergeist. He always causes trouble."
Suddenly, a silvery cloud flew out of the classroom, and things began to be tossed back into the room. The ghostly cloud stopped in front of them and started to change. Soon, Merlin, Arthur, Hermione, Harry and Ron saw the face and the rest of the body of the ghost dressed in such brightly coloured clothes that hurt the eyes. Another lightning bolt lit the corridor, emphasizing Peeves' wicked, dark eyes and mischievous smile even more.
"Aha! I see you're hiding under that thing!" he laughed.
"Peeves! Just let us pass," said Hermione trying not to raise her voice, but the poltergeist had already made enough noise.
"Yeees? You're probably going to make trouble, huh?" Peeves' smile got bigger that the corners of his lips were probably touching the back of his head.
"You're the one that causes trouble. Look what you did."
"I'm cleaning up, things were not arranged as they should be," the poltergeist smirked and made a circle in the air.
"You'd better go away, otherwise we'll call for the Bloody Baron," Hermione said fiercely.
"I think you took it too far," Ron muttered, knowing what was about to happen.
Peeves puffed up his face so that if he wasn't a ghost, he would have turned red for sure. And after a second he let out a shrill, screeching scream that carried across the corridor: "STUDENTS ARE NOT IN BEDS! THEY MADE A LOT OF MESS!"
Harry, Ron and Hermione paled. Arthur and Merlin just blocked their ears to keep from going deaf. It reminded Merlin of the mandrake scream. Certainly, Peeves was heard throughout the castle.
"Run!" Hermione rushed forward, grabbing the hands of Ron and Arthur standing closest to her.
Harry and Merlin held the cloak to keep it from falling off, but they rushed so fast it fluttered like Snape's robes, revealing completely their running legs. They hid around the corner just as a door from the opposite room burst open and Snape burst out. The bizarre movement of air caused by the invisibility cloak caught Snape's attention and, being sure it was Harry, he smirked, already devising a punishment for him.
"Potter," Snape hissed, staring at the empty space where the five stood.
Merlin looked around and saw a knight's armor standing at the end of the corridor. He focused on it and his eyes flashed gold. The knight's helmet fell with a loud crash and rolled to the edge of the stairs. Snape turned his head abruptly and saw Filch. The caretaker kicked the helmet out of the way and trotted towards the teacher. His cat was running behind him.
"Mr. Filch," said Snape. "Did you hear that noise?" I bet it was Potter…"
"Oh, no, professor," Filch cut him off. "I know that sound very well. It was Peeves," he said with narrowed eyes. "This time I'll teach him a lesson," he murmured and walked away.
Snape looked once again at the place where Harry, Ron, Hermione, Arthur and Merlin stood under the invisibility cloak. He took a step closer and waved his hand but he touched nothing. He frowned. He stood there a moment longer, then returned to his room slamming the door. Friends breathed a sigh of relief, fortunately, they moved aside earlier. When the corridor fell silent again, they headed to the library.
"So, where should we start?" asked Merlin when he saw enormous numbers of shelves high to the very ceiling, with thousands of books on them.
"There," Hermione pointed at the shelves on the left. The sign above read: Restricted section.
Harry pulled the invisibility cloak off them, rolled it up, and put it in his pocket. He pulled out his wand and said lumos, after which Ron and Hermione did the same.
"I think mine can give us more light," Merlin stated, looking at the glowing ends of the wands, and whispered: "Léoht," and a sphere of light appeared on his hand, illuminating the surroundings around them.
"What's in there?" Arthur asked.
"Books in which you can find everything about dark arts…," Ron replied.
"I hope there will be something more about magic and spells from your time," said Hermione.
"So, magic from our time is considered dark?" Arthur glanced at Hermione and then at Merlin.
"Magic is not good or evil, Arthur. It's the way you use it," said Merlin.
"Exactly," Hermione agreed. "Old practices may be dangerous, can be used for evil purposes if someone has a tendency… someone like…," she trailed off.
"Voldemort," Harry finished the sentence for her and she and Ron shuddered.
"Yeah… or Morgana," Hermione continued looking at Arthur and Merlin who nodded knowingly. "Old practices are dangerous especially for young wizards who may not know what they are doing. That's why, I think, it has been placed in a restricted section."
"This might help," said Harry, taking a book off the shelf and giving it to Hermione. It had the title Mysteries of the Old Religion.
They sat at the table next to the window. From outside, they could hear the steady pounding of rain on the windowsill. Hermione opened the book. She scanned the table of contents and found the correct page.
"Look, there is something! About time travel," she pointed with her finger and recited the text: "There is no spell that could ever take a human, animal or item to the past or future. However, there have been cases where there have been unintentional travels in time. Unfortunately, the circumstances of this have never been explained, and people who managed to return to their time even after several years, were also unable to explain this strange phenomenon," she took a breath and continued reading. "It is supposed that the unintentional travel in time could have occurred as a result of the subconscious desires or thoughts of the wizard, which, reinforced by a simple, random spell, could have had such an effect."
"Er… I understand nothing of it," said Ron after a moment. "Why don't we give them a time turner or something?"
"Ron, I can't believe your gaps of knowledge," Hermione rolled her eyes. "You know that time turners are not intended for this. Besides, they are dangerous."
"Well…," Merlin began to wonder about what Hermione read. "But I think I messed up the spell."
Harry got up and walked through the narrow rows of shelves looking for something. Hermione glanced at the book again.
"Yes, it had to be something with the spell," Arthur agreed, just like Ron, not understanding any of it.
"Can you tell me what spell you used?" asked Harry, opening the volume of Ancient Spells. Merlin thought for a moment trying to remind himself.
"It was ferest foreweard… Oh, no…," Merlin groaned. "Now I know… I said fierst foreweard instead of ferest foreweard," he slapped his forehead.
"What does it mean?" Hermione dashed over to Harry, helping him search. "Look under the letter "F"," they put the book on the table and started searching.
"There it is, ferest foreweard makes a person or a thing move forward when the spell is cast on them, but… there's no such spell like fierst foreweard," said Hermione.
"It has to be! Merlin cast it and it worked," Arthur objected.
"Oh, didn't you listen? Thoughts in our subconscious mind are more important, they can be reinforced by an ordinary word," she explained and went through a narrow row between the shelves. "Where was it…?" after a few moments she found a proper book and threw it on the table, a cloud of dust rose around them.
"So heavy! I think it hasn't been opened in years!"
Hermione started flipping the page from one page to another, it took a while because the book was written entirely in the language of the Old Religion. They would have been sitting there for another week, if not for Merlin's help.
"Fierst means… time," Merlin read. "So it was time forward. That's why it took us to the future."
"But why here?" Arthur asked.
"It's simple, I've thought about it before," said Hermione. "Hogwarts it's a place full of magic, so it found Merlin itself. He was unaware that he had mistaken the words. But… What were you thinking about when you cast the spell on Arthur?" she turned to the warlock.
"Well, I wanted to save him from an arrow," he replied.
"Not this, the thought had to be deep in your mind, a desire. It had to be something that you really, really wanted."
Merlin glanced at Arthur involuntarily, sighed and sat at the table rubbing face with his hands. The king gave him a curious look.
"That day I wanted to tell Arthur I have magic, but I didn't, because we were in a rush for training," said Merlin. "I was nervous then because I wasn't sure how Arthur would react. You know, using magic is banned in Camelot under penalty of death."
Harry, Ron and Hermione's eyes widened as they heard that. They couldn't believe it.
"But…"
"I know you know much more about us and our future than we do ourselves," Merlin cut her off. "But that's the way it is in Camelot at this moment. Arthur is my friend and I just wanted him to understand that I was born like this, that I was born with magic. I didn't want him to be scared, because I'm a good person and I use magic only for good reasons, most of the time to save him," he chuckled. "You know, Arthur, you'd be dead by now if it wasn't for me."
"Merlin…," Arthur said quietly and sat next to him. "Now I'm starting to understand. You wanted to show me that magic is beautiful and that I shouldn't be afraid of it. You wanted me to become tame with the idea that you were a wizard. That's why we ended up here in the magical Hogwarts by mistake. The mistake of the spell has made your subconscious wish come true."
"Yes, I think that might be it."
Author's note
Some spells in this chapter are in Old English. Ferest is the second person singular form of the word ferian meaning: to take, move [...]. The word fierst means: time (especially time granted for doing something); but I used it 'cause it fit very well to the word ferest :).
