All Hallow's Day

[ccollinsmith]

Entry point: Hours after the murder of James & Lily Potter, but quickly expanding into the ancient Hogwarts past. Multiple POVs. Work in progress.

CHAPTER 1

November 1, 1981
1:17am

Severus Snape's eyes opened wide, taking in the black coldness of his dungeon quarters. The room was spare, and he had awakened early - much too early to practice the lessons the Headmaster had assigned him.

Dumbledore was a hard master, but he would work just as hard until he succeeded. Always. Against any Legilimens. He would submit to a severe discipline. Master his emotions. Compartmentalize his memories. Arrange them to hide behind inner and outer shields. Calm himself every night before sleep. And awaken at 3:30 every morning to practice until he was confident that he could withstand even Dumbledore.

Thus far, he had blocked the Dark Lord's attempts to get too far inside his mind. Yet in their lessons, Dumbledore had sometimes found a way to break through an outer shield and catch a glimpse of his father screaming, or his mother surreptitiously using her wand to light a candle before a dark side altar. If he could set a block that Dumbledore himself could never penetrate, then what chance had the Dark Lord?

It was not the anticipation of practicing Occlumency that had startled Snape awake, however. It was the prickly sensation in his arm.

Reaching his wand, he whispered "Lumos."

There, on his left forearm, the Mark the Dark Lord burned into his skin had faded to an outline, like a white scar, in the hours since he retired.

Tossing off his nightshirt and throwing on his dark robes and boots, Severus rushed out the door, walking briskly, nearly sprinting, through the abandoned halls of the silent castle, his feet guiding him as the blood rushed through his heart.

On reaching the stone gargoyle, a crease appeared over Snape's brow as he concentrated on keeping his voice low enough to speak the password. He feared that without such concentration, he would positively shout "CHOCOLATE FROG!" into the night.

***

November 1, 1981
1:17am

A large owl, clutching a note in its beak, took flight out the window as Albus Dumbledore turned back to face his study. The Halloween Feast had been barely two hours finished when owls began tapping at the glass of the Headmaster's great windows, bringing extraordinary rumors from across Wizarding Britain. The Dark Lord's forces now huddled in hiding. The Imperio'd returned. And Death had again come knocking in Godric's Hollow.

An exceedingly rare cloak had lain beside the glass-encased sword of Godric Gryffindor on a shelf behind the Headmaster's desk. Now, cloak in hand, Dumbledore strode across the room toward Fawkes' perch (where the Phoenix sat, head tucked inside his wing) and secured the cloak inside a black cabinet nearby. Then he turned his attention to the most urgent object of his interest.

Dumbledore removed the Pensieve from the cabinet in which it sat and extracted a small strand of memory, placing the silvery-blue substance inside the stone basin, then touching its surface with his wand. Figures from less than a week prior rose up out of the Pensieve. The tiny church. The graveyard. And his own figure kneeling beside a grave at night, tears dripping on the headstone.

More than 80 years had passed since Ariana lay dead, felled by a stray curse thrown in a heated argument. Yet with each visit to Godric's Hollow, Albus renewed his pledge to fight the darkness that swallowed him up in the months leading to his sister's death.

He watched as his figure in the Pensieve gradually rose, wiped the tears away, then disapparated to the cottage gate. Safer for the Potters, he'd reasoned, not to draw attention by walking past even a few rows of houses.

The curtains to the cottage remained open, and in the moments before knocking, he'd watched as the laughing boy fell off a toy broomstick and the father stopped the child's tears by perfectly disappearing his legs behind the rare cloak that now sat in his cabinet.

Dumbledore had only just glanced at the boy during that meeting. Precautions for the Potters' safety, and his own interest in James' remarkable Invisilibity Cloak, had taken precedence. But now, he could more carefully scrutinize the child's features. The boy was little over one year old, black-haired like his father but with his mother's green, almond-shaped eyes. Lily's eyes, he thought, would prove a crucial bargaining-chip in the inevitable interview he could no longer postpone.

***

The knock came as Dumbledore took up a handful of floo powder to summon his Potions Master. But before he could answer, the oaken door swung open impatiently to reveal the young man himself standing across the threshold. Snape peered briefly into Dumbledore's somber face before rushing into the room, news bursting out of him.

"Headmaster!" he said, rolling up the sleeve to reveal his left forearm. "The Mark. It's faded..."

"Severu - "

"The Dark Lord... he seems... it seems he's gone... defeated... possibly dead."

"Severus! - "

"Lily - They - THEY MUST BE SA- "

"Severus... Please!"

Dumbledore's gentle forcefulness stunned Snape into silence.

"Do sit down, Severus. I wish to speak with you."


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CHAPTER 2



November 1, 1981

6:34am



He lay crumpled and bloodied in a narrow alley reeking of filth, wand tucked safely away in a magically fortified inner pocket of the black leather jacket. One simple spell could have laid all six attackers at his feet, but on this night, he preferred to feel the felicitous distraction of Muggle fists and boots pounding him into unconsciousness.



When he'd thrown himself onto the floor, slamming his body into the other slamming bodies, he had abandoned himself to the frenzy, fists flailing. But his best efforts to attract their fists lacked sufficiency until he hoisted drunken Muggles onto his slight shoulders and threatened to tip the tall stack of amplifiers into the shirtless singer whirling his way across the stage. Then the blessed bouncers came... and oblivion.



Now an owl poked him conscious. Opening one swollen eye just a slit, he took in the alley where they'd tossed him - a yard away from a shivering, bony teen with a smashed nose, rotted teeth, and abscesses across a scarred left forearm. So innocent. So bloody innocent next to the scar that marked him.



"Is this remorse, Severus?"



Wincing, he reached for the owl's note with an arm that, he noted, would require an Episkey charm, and soon he was reading, in the familiar thin hand, "Severus, perhaps it would be best if you could take the day off."



He looked, almost clinically, over at the shivering boy. He had witnessed these living Inferi before and could feel little pity. He desired to feel nothing at all. But despite having taunted - no courted - Death in the early morning, his interview with Dumbledore had condemned him to live. And he would keep his word. Assisting the Muggle would be good practice, that was all, for the odious task he had sworn himself to.



Severus gingerly removed his jacket, fished his wand from the pocket, and gripped it in his less sorely injured hand. Though the Ministry today was engaged in business more substantial than worrying about magic performed in the vicinity of Muggles, he nevertheless carefully shielded the wand with the back of his jacket - and applied the Charm to mend the breaks in his other arm and ribs.



The swollen, fractured cheek would have to do for now. And in the unlikely chance that a fleeing Death Eater should happen to spy him, it might help him pass unnoticed. He certainly would not wish to explain the bloody Muggle attire... or the drug-infested Muggle boy.



Tucking his wand inside the front right pocket of his torn black jeans, Severus scooted over toward the boy, wrapping his jacket around him and heaving him onto his shoulder as he stood. He lurched from the alley toward the street, and decisively set his back to the distant mill chimney that rose in the morning blackness over Spinner's End.



***



Limping toward dawn, face to the ground, Severus could nevertheless see them, huddled on the cracked pavement in multi-colored cloaks, whispering. He hoped to pass them by without comment or recognition, and on that score, at least, he was hardly disappointed. He could overhear excited, joyous snippets of their chatter - so absorbed in the night's events that they never looked up to notice his bedraggled, scowling countenance, or his burden.



Hours earlier, the Minister had burst into Dumbledore's office in a similarly ebullient state. Soon after, Severus fled the castle in Muggle garb, running through the great doors as Flitwick's "Happy happy day" died on his lips. Seemingly, even here, there would be no escaping the infernal celebrations determined to mark the dark day.



"They collected the crippled, the wounded, the maimed..."



A pub owner had let open the doors to air out the smoke and stink of the night's custom. 



"The armless, the legless, the blind, the insane..."



How many summer mornings had Severus spent scraping his Muggle father from off this same tobacco-strewn floor to songs of exile, imprisonment, and execution (his own preferred fate) - before the man's heart finally gave out one night in a public loo?



"And as the ship sailed into Circular Quay

I looked at the place where my legs used to be..."



It was humiliating. Worse even than the shouting, the thrown mugs, the notoriety of being known as "that Snape boy" from Spinner's End whose father could be heard down the row, shoving his mother around the kitchen. Why, he wondered bitterly, had she never lifted a wand on the brute?


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[ccollinsmith]

Well, it took a couple of years to find my transition into this chapter. But here goes...

CHAPTER 3

November 1, 1981
6:55 a.m.

Worse even than the shouting was the palpable silence between rows. His mother sat long hours, eyes fixed ahead, as Severus fled to the hidden shrine near the park, where his uncle served as a Healer for the Order of St. Beuno.

“You’re a Half-Blood, Severus,” his uncle explained one day, when the boy inquired why he and his mother could not escape Spinner’s End for the relative safety of the Prince family estate. “The family was unhappy when your mother married a Muggle.”

“But you heal Muggles,” the boy replied.

“And so the family is unhappy with me as well,” his uncle grinned. “You would think the old families of the West - especially the oldest - would remember who we truly are.”

Severus puzzled now over what exactly the oldest families would remember, as the magically-concealed entrance to the shrine appeared before him. It was here that he first noticed her - a small red-haired girl, attuned to an unseen power that her Muggle sister walked straight by.

He wondered if it would open for him now, or if the password would burn his tongue. According to the convoluted mnemonic his uncle had once sealed in his memory, today would be the Feast of All-Hallow’s, and so the password would be…

“Beati mundi corde,” he whispered, and the intricate mechanism of the lock began to unbolt the door. He waited for the inevitable wards against Dark Magic to do their worst, yet he entered unhindered and laid his burden down on the bench nearest the door. On the wall to his right, a panel of moving stained glass retold Medieval legends of the Healers of St. Beuno, riding the fringes of battle, saving from death the most hopeless of Muggles.

His senses recognized the familiar scent of incense hanging in the air, the strains of chant filling his ears. “Beati mundi corde,” they sang, as the morning sun rose into the panel opposite him. Thus illumined, the panel revealed an angel kneeling before a blue-clad woman who was crowned with the stars of heaven and stood atop a field of precious jewels. As the sun struck the large diamond planted directly beneath the woman’s feet, a prism of color shot through the shrine, and the angel stretched forth his hand… presenting the woman with lilies.

***

That same afternoon, Amatus Prince busied himself over the inert form of the broken Muggle as Severus awoke in the healing room adjacent to his uncle’s spartan cell. His own swollen cheek had healed in the hours since he lost consciousness, and he deduced that his uncle had brewed him a powerful potion to fix any internal bleeding.

“So you’re awake then are you, Severus?” the Healer half-asked, his back still facing his haggard nephew. “And you gained entrance.”

“You loosened the wards.”

“I did not. You gained entrance. And you brought me a Muggle.”

Severus winced, as if Amatus had touched a broken rib.

“Why do you heal them?” he blurted out, defensively attempting to shift the topic from himself.

Severus knew some of it... knew in general terms of the Slytherin power struggle between the disciples of Salazar and the Muggle protectors... knew that a modern downtown had grown up around the ancient shrine of St. Winifred but that a byzantine sequence of supporting spells rendered the Fidelius Charm impenetrable... knew that the Healers’ most ancient magic prevented their whereabouts from ever being traced on any magical grid or map... knew that no Muggle whose life they saved would remember any of the circumstances surrounding his rescue. But none of that answered why his uncle had joined the Healers' ranks.

Amatus brushed the question aside. “You were the reason I tightened the wards, you know. To keep you and your associates out. And the password mnemonic had a built-in block should you ever join the other side. If the block has dissolved, then…”

“I never told anyone about this place!” Severus interrupted, hoping again to deflect the point his uncle appeared determined to make.

“That doesn’t mean Riddle couldn’t have found out about it,” Amatus hinted darkly. “Slytherin wasn’t what it used to be, Severus. I had to protect our work here once I knew you would be getting a Malfoy for your Prefect. Where did you find the Muggle, by the way?”

“In a stinking alley reeking of Muggle filth.”

“Ah, now there’s Salazar’s disciple. You were hoping to die, no doubt… but were met with an uncooperative fate.”

“You’ve been in contact with Dumbledore,” Severus countered accusingly.

“As a matter of fact, I have. But it didn’t take a Headmaster of Hogwarts to get news to me that all of Wizarding Britain knows. I knew what happened last night in Godric’s Hollow before Dumbledore ever notified me that you had fled the castle in Muggle clothes. Severus… you and I may not have been in contact these six years past, but it’s hardly a secret that you are on the Hogwarts staff. Dumbledore suspected you would be heading my way. You walked - I hope - from that ‘stinking alley’ where you let the Muggles beat you senseless.”

“Of course. Apparition blocks the password. I remembered that much.”

“Good boy. So… you want to know why I heal them?”

Severus nodded.

“Keep yourself alive, then… until the next All-Hallow’s.”



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CHAPTER 4

One Year Later - October 31, 1982
9:29pm - Headmaster’s Office

Apart from the small matter concerning the devil’s snare, the Halloween Feast had passed without incident - leaving Albus Dumbledore a few moments of leisure to review his research notes on dragon pox.

Settling in to his high Headmaster’s chair, Dumbledore heard a BANG as a ribboned packet of parchment slammed onto his desk. The ribbon, Dumbledore deduced, functioned as the portkey.

Finding no trace of Dark Magic as his wand probed the parchment, Dumbledore quickly gleaned who had sent the packet. Amatus Prince! Of all his friendly acquaintance, only Amatus would have so little fear of violating Ministry regulations as to send an unauthorized portkey directly to Dumbledore’s office.

Dumbledore tapped the parchment with his wand. Scripted letters traced themselves on the surface of the parchment:

Speak your name please, and then tap twice

Dumbledore spoke his name, tapped the required number of times, and then watched as the letters re-formed themselves into a message:

Greetings, Headmaster. Please pass this packet to my nephew Severus. Yours, Amatus Prince

It was just like Amatus - this fascination with subterfuge - when most likely there was no great secret to be concealed.

As a student, Amatus had been a younger housemate of Tom Riddle’s, but since Riddle’s ideology held no appeal for him, he had quickly set to work on developing his native propensity for protection and concealment. Creating passwords, protective magical devices, elaborate concealment spells, blocks and counter-blocks - these had been his most passionate hobbies during his years at Hogwarts. By the time Amatus disappeared into the Order of St. Beuno, Riddle’s followers had little memory that he had ever existed… and to his nephew’s credit, Severus had done nothing to remind them.

***

9:53 pm - First Floor of the Castle

Why the Headmaster had chosen him to sort out the matter he had no idea, but with only seven minutes remaining, Severus Snape resigned himself to the knowledge that he would be reporting only inconclusive results to his inquiry.

He had, at least, narrowed it down to two possibilities: either some addlepated Hufflepuff had tracked the devil’s snare in from Herbology… or some malice-ridden Gryffindor had set it down on the Hufflepuff table, hoping to have it mistaken for a Flitterbloom plant. He leaned toward the latter explanation.

He had seen nothing in the minds of his Slytherins, and (had the guilty party come from Ravenclaw) even his least intimidating look would have compelled the whole of Ravenclaw House to start babbling one on top of the other. The Hufflepuffs grew teary-eyed at the first hint of an interrogation, while the Gryffindors just glared at him in stony-faced defiance. Guilty. Obviously. But as Gryffindor House was blessedly not under his purview, he refrained from probing the matter through more intrusive methods.

Near the entry to the Headmaster’s Tower, Snape saw the Fat Friar conversing excitedly with a group of first year students. The moment the Hufflepuff ghost spotted him, though, his translucent mouth instantly bolted shut. Then the ghost turned and swiftly passed through the nearest wall.

Normally, the Friar was so unflappably amiable that Snape found himself positively disconcerted the first time this behavior occurred. Now, however - after repeated instances in the past two weeks alone - he could see that the Friar was hiding something from him… and he would press the Bloody Baron to find out what exactly it was.

***

10:07pm - Headmaster’s Office

“And so you are of the opinion that the culprit is from Gryffindor,” Dumbledore concluded.

“I am," Snape replied. "You know the lethal tendency of Gryffindor pranks.”

Dumbledore sighed. “Have you considered Peeves?”

“The poltergeist?! What could he have to do with it?!”

“The Halloween Feast does bring out the mischief in him,” Dumbledore said, eyes twinkling.

Snape’s vexation mounted. The Headmaster would protect his precious Gryffindors even if their own mischief strangled half the school!

“If you didn’t need me to look into the devil’s snare,” he seethed, “then why did you ask me to do it?”

“Severus, what I need is for you to develop an ability to assess the evidence before you and consider all possibilities dispassionately before drawing conclusions. But now…”

Dumbledore pointed to the packet.

“…I need for you to take this packet from my desk and remove it to your quarters.”

The Headmaster read the perplexity in his young Potions Master's features.

“It is from your uncle, Amatus,” Dumbledore added with a sly smile. “Be sure to tap the parchment with your wand when you return to the Dungeons.”

***

11:23pm - Quarters for Slytherin Head of House

Snape scowled at the packet of parchment sitting on his desk.

Why had he made such a fool of himself last All Hallow’s... tramping back to the shrine with his heart on his sleeve… and in front of his sainted uncle who appeared ready to kill the fatted calf?!

“Are you going to open it?” asked a voice from behind him.

Snape jumped. It was the voice of the Fat Friar.

“What are you doing here…” he turned, “… trespassing in Slytherin?”

“Your uncle asked me to see that you opened his packet.”

So that was the ghost's great secret!

“The Hufflepuff ghost?" Snape replied, icily. "Why would he ask you?”

“Because he has confided in me since he was a boy, I suppose.”

“And not in the ghost from his own House?”

“They are not unfriendly. But Amatus always had… different… ideas about what it meant to be a Slytherin,” the Friar sighed. “Please open it, Professor. Your uncle hopes you will approve its contents.”

Snape wondered how his uncle kept contact with the ghost when Amatus usually steered well clear of Hogwarts. But eventually, after much pleading, the Friar prevailed upon him to open the packet. Snape dutifully tapped the parchment, followed each step of instructions, even dug out of his mnemonic the shrine password for All Hallow’s Eve (Anno Domini 1982). Finally, the following message appeared:

Dear Severus,

I know how fond you are of books. As you are the current Head of Slytherin House, I hope you will indulge me by reading a short Slytherin history I have begun to work on. Despite the narrative form (you know how I fancy myself a storyteller!), I assure you that I have indeed done diligent research - largely in the form of conducting interviews throughout the years with the ghosts and portraits of several eyewitnesses to the events recounted herein. And thus I believe that I have provided you with an accurate accounting. Take this as a downpayment, perhaps, on my explanation for why I heal ‘them.’

Sincerely, Your Uncle, Amatus Prince

P.S. To be read only during the Feast of All Hallow’s.

Or what? Or the parchment would burst into flames? crumble in his hands like dust? turn into a pumpkin at the stroke of midnight on the following day? He had no doubt that, whatever method his uncle used to enforce this restriction, it would be most effective.

Intrigued by his uncle's latest stratagem, and realizing that his own time to explore the packet’s contents would be short, Snape flipped to the following page. At the top, he saw only one word: “Arrival.”

Though the main body of text beneath that word was neatly scripted, a tighter, more cramped script - not unlike his own - filled the margins. The first note of marginalia read:

The "arrival" account is based on interviews conducted with the portrait of Maelwine located at St. Winifred’s Shrine; the ghost of Devona, first Mistress of Potions at Hogwarts (and Legilimens of renown); and the Slytherin House Ghost, commonly known as the “Bloody Baron.”

Illustrious personages, all of them... but Devona! How had his uncle found her?

His resistance thus trumped, Severus Snape settled in to his reading chair, realizing it was going to be a very long night.


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CHAPTER 5

From the parchment of Amatus Prince, as sent to Severus Snape.

ARRIVAL

The alarm rang out from the bell tower the moment the large dark speck rose over the mountains. The castle’s inhabitants emptied swiftly into the courtyard, gazing skyward where the speck grew ever larger as it hurtled toward the castle.

“Look at the markings!” exclaimed Aedelbert, the Gamekeeper. “Who ever saw the black breed with a gray underbelly or a silver ring encircling its neck?”

“Do you think it will breathe fire when it reaches the castle?” asked a youth with the flame of adventure in his eyes… and a scarlet and gold ornament pinned to his robes.

“It will never reach the castle, Domric,” replied the Charms Master. “The wards will burn it before it ever burns us.”

“You are confident in your handiwork, Maelwine,” interjected their Headmaster, watching the young man blush and stammer before adding with a laugh, “… as well you should be! The wards will hold, I warrant.”

The dragon approached the perimeter. Then the onlookers shouted as it abruptly changed course, circling over the lake in a descending spiral.

“Aedelbert! Could it have spotted the wards?” cried a voice from the crowd.

No sooner had the question left its speaker’s lips than the circling dragon transfigured into a boy - garbed in a gray tunic beneath a black cloak, his neck adorned with a silver torc. Lacking dragonwings to hold him in the sky, the exhausted boy plunged beneath the surface of the lake.

Moments later, as the Gamekeeper, the Charms Master, and the Potions Mistress raced down the lake path, five lake dwellers raised the unconscious form above the waves, glided across the water, and deposited the boy on the lake’s nearest shore.

What could it all mean? A boy arriving in dragon form? Merpeople rising above the surface to put air into his lungs? Even a group of centaurs refraining long enough from disdainful stompings to observe the uncommon scene from forest’s edge?

Most importantly… who was this boy?

On the latter question, Maelwine had enough of an idea to know that once they returned to the castle, he could finally test the new Translation Charm he had spent so long developing.

***

When the boy’s eyes opened, he found himself in a room so high it seemed level with the clouds. On the wall hung a bright sword marked in Roman letters. On the shelf next to it sat a slightly worn and pointed hat.

The people bending over him dressed themselves in cloaks of sylvan green, royal purple, and mournful black. Though he could understand their speech, their lips moved strangely, as if their mouths made noises his ears could not hear. Foreigners, then, perhaps. Foreigners under a spell.

The castle, he recalled from his dragonflight, possessed great power, but these same faces had guided him on his way. So these were either not the faces of foes - or he had been sent here to his doom.

The one they called Maelwine spoke to him directly, his lips moving in harmony with the noises his mouth made. His accent hailed from north of the Wall, but his speech could still be understood.

“You are a distinguished prince of the Cymry,” Maelwine asserted, pointing to the silver torc. “… or a very clever thief.”

“I am no thief,” the boy countered.

“Then you are a prince?”

“My mother is a princess of the Demetae.”

“Yet you fled your home in Dyfed? Perhaps your people drove you out because of your power… or your thievery.”

Back in his own country, the boy might have replied hotly to such insolence, but here he was a suppliant whose entry had alarmed the castle. Before making his reply, he shrewdly examined his examiners. The listeners, he noted, nodded when Maelwine leveled the charge, quick to believe the boy’s power (or criminality) had made him an outcast. Yet Maelwine hinted that he knew even the geography of the land below the Wall. He likely knew its customs. The boy looked deeply into the young man’s eyes and observed the slightest trace of a glimmer. Yes, Maelwine already knew the answer to the riddle! He was merely performing for the benefit of his listeners!

The boy chose his next words carefully.

“My people respect our power. They honored it with the torc. It was the Saxon raiders who feared such power. They thought my father a demon, and slew him.”

“And then they came after you?”

“Yes,” the boy nodded.

The mood in the room relaxed. The listeners now spoke at once, their lips moving in a strange dance out of step with speech. The castle, he deduced, was their own refuge from raiders, a place where they could improve their powers without fear of discovery from Saxon eyes.

“So the Saxons are your enemy as well?” the boy broke in.

The one named Aldin - the one they called ‘Headmaster’ - appeared stung by the question. “No,” he replied. “Our powers make us outcast among our own people. We arrived in Caledon and established this castle some two generations past. But we ourselves came from the land of the Saxons, as have most of our students.”

It was almost too much for the boy to take in. Saxons of power fleeing Saxons without it… generations before the usurper Vortigern made his devil’s deal with Hengist and Horsa. (On this obscure historical point, the marginalia proved quite helpful. Vortigern, Snape learned, had been a usurping Briton High King while Hengist and Horsa were the Saxon generals to whom he had given land in exchange for troops).

“So then, we are… allies?”

“You could call it that,” Maelwine interposed. “These people certainly have no argument with the Cymry. But we prefer to call ourselves ‘friends.’”

“Do you have a name, boy?” Aldin asked.

“Myrddin… though our friends in Caer Legionis find it easier to say ‘Merlinus’.”

“Then, Myrddin,” smiled Aldin, testing the Cymric on his his tongue, “why don’t we just take the best of both names, and let you be ‘Merlin’?”


***

As he reached the bottom of the page, Snape scanned his uncle's marginalia, selecting the most extensive note to read first. His uncle had, as always, anticipated the questions before his nephew ever had the opportunity to ask them:

I realize, Severus, that this account of Merlin’s arrival at Hogwarts does not correspond with any of the Ministry-approved histories. But the eyewitnesses all agree (and you may ask them for yourself if you wish): Merlin arrived at Hogwarts without a wand, without a summons, in the form of a dragon.

I suspect that the discrepancy between this and the more “official” version results from the Ministry of Magic’s disapproval of certain violations of current Ministry law and practice: Merlin’s transfiguration into a dragon would constitute what the Ministry now terms “underage magic” - not to mention that it might lead to questions about traveling in the form of an “unregistered animagus.” Perhaps most embarrassing, however, is that a young boy could use these advanced abilities prior to receiving a wand or any sort of formal training inside of Hogwarts. In essence, the true story is simply too subversive vis-a-vis the Ministry’s agenda and Wizarding society's current understanding of the Wizard's power.

Additionally, Hogwarts is commonly said to have been founded “over one thousand years ago,” but Merlin’s arrival as a prince of Dyfed fleeing encroaching Saxons demonstrates that Hogwarts histories could accurately have made the same claim for the past 500 years.

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CHAPTER 6

Continued from the parchment of Amatus Prince, as sent to Severus Snape.

MARGINALIA (continued - page 1)

Amatus was, if nothing else, meticulous in arguing for the credibility of his account. In a marginal note parallel to Merlin’s first meeting with the castle staff, he credited Devona’s ghost with recounting the view from inside Merlin’s mind.

Using a Legilimens in such circumstances was certainly believable, as Snape well knew from his own experience, and so he found it credible that Devona would have helped the Headmaster during that meeting by surreptitiously using the most celebrated of her skills. But it was unusual, to say the least, for the Legilimens to later use the insight gained to assist with historical research.

Given the singular nature of the events surrounding Merlin’s arrival, the Headmaster asked Devona - once the boy was well on his way to the dungeons - to continue to “keep an eye” on him during the coming weeks. Those coming weeks stretched into years, and Devona was periodically required to use her skill when the unusual happened… until Merlin discovered what she was doing, that is, and learned to occlude his mind. Nevertheless, Devona possessed a most comprehensive understanding of Merlin’s memories and emotions during his first years at Hogwarts... and therefore, according to Amatus, had proved an invaluable resource.

Snape additionally observed that whenever these historical personages spoke, his uncle invariably added a disclaimer, noting that there had undoubtedly been additional dialogue - and that it had undoubtedly flowed more naturally - but that these were simply the points of conversation on which all his sources actually agreed.

Finally, the marginalia included the following note concerning the Saxon belief in Merlin’s demonic paternity:

Merlin’s claim about why the Saxons killed his father is undoubtedly the source of Muggle legends contending that Merlin was sired by an Incubus - or even by the devil himself. In truth, Merlin had simply been what we would call a Half-Blood… not to mention a Muggle Prince.

Snape nearly grinned at his uncle’s winking allusion to his own childhood nickname as he flipped the parchment to the following page.

***

ARRIVAL (continued - page 2)

Merlin could scarcely conceal his befuddlement as he left the Headmaster’s tower to begin his long descent into the maze below the school. Only two days before, he had freely wandered the hills above his Caer. Now, in this remote northern castle, he was about to be thrown into a damp, dark dungeon!

The black robes they dressed him in and the emerald and silver ornament they pinned to his shoulder were, he supposed, the attire they used to distinguish their prisoners and their slaves. What had the enchanted Hat told them to cause such scornful treatment… and after they had first made such a show of friendship?

The Hat had probed his mind - he understood that much - seen his dragonflight, heard the words the lake dwellers sang as he sank into the water above their homes, even witnessed some of the dreams that often filled his waking mind. The Hat told him that he was brave and cunning and shrewd, that he possessed a talent for wielding and recognizing leadership and power. Did these Saxons come to fear him, then, after the Hat had shouted its one incomprehensible word?

“Why are you taking me to the dungeons?” Merlin demanded. “You told me these people were my ‘friends’!”

To the boy’s horror, Maelwine roared with laughter.

“The dungeon, Merlin, is not a prison. It houses classrooms and a dormitory. The dormitory is the place where you will live with a group of other boys.”

“The Hat shouted out the name of a dormitory?” Merlin marveled.

“Yes. We call them Houses, actually,” Maelwine explained. “You were selected for Slytherin House, and Slytherin’s quarters are in the dungeons. But Merlin, there are some things you first need to understand about Slytherin. These people here in the castle... they call the power they possess ‘magic’ and they...”

“Magic!” Merlin scoffed. “I thought that was only for necromancers and charlatans!”

Maelwine smiled. “Allow them their terminology, Merlin. Their ancestors settled among the barbarians. They even sometimes refer to themselves as ‘sorcerers’... though I have yet to see the best of them involve themselves in outrages like Necromancy.”

“So they cannot distinguish between the dark powers and the light.”

“Not in the words they use, no. In practice, most of them, yes. It seems the memory of our ancestors has died out further to the East, except in rumors and legends. But here is what you need to understand before we reach Slytherin… These people understand that the power is inherited, but they don’t understand where it came from or why. Even the best of them consider it a privilege. Others consider it their right. Many think of themselves as lords among men, lords over the people they call ‘Muggles’.”

Merlin regarded Maelwine and guessed at his meaning.

“'Muggles'," he snorted. "The people who don’t have our powers, you mean. So, this Slytherin - as you call it - this is the home of the most disdainful?”

“Much of the time,” Maelwine replied. “Many Slytherins associate only with those who have our powers and whose parents had our powers and whose parents’ parents had our powers.”

“Why would the Hat place me there then?” Merlin wondered. “These people would seemingly style themselves 'lords' over my mother's entire royal household! My mother's people have no powers of their own!”

“Well, the Hat must have seen something in you that put you in Slytherin. I suspect you have Slytherin traits in abundance. You've already shown shrewdness and resourcefulness. Perhaps the Hat sees in you the seeds of greatness. I am certain, though, that the Hat placed you in Slytherin for some purpose. But I guarantee you, Merlin, that some of your Housemates will be envious of your power. You will need to watch yourself.”

______
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[ccollinsmith]

CHAPTER 7

Severus Snape’s head drooped to the parchment as his uncle’s account got Merlin to his dormitory room. In the Potions Master’s dreams, it was an eleven-year-old Snape - not an eleven-year-old Merlin - who looked with wonder out the Slytherin dormitory windows, seeing for the first time the green fields of weed swaying in the murky water at the bottom of the lake.

“‘Snape’…” barked Mulciber, breaking the boy’s reverie. “What sort of a Wizard’s name is that?”

“Sounds more like a Mudblood name to me,” Avery chimed in, unpacking a copy of Basic Hexes for the Busy and Vexed and throwing it carelessly on the bed nearest him.

“Whatever it is, it’s no proper name for a Wizard,” declared Mulciber.

Between his Housemates' taunts and the insults from those pampered prats on the school train, Snape now reached the end of his endurance.

“Half-Blood,” he burst out, “if it’s any of your business. Just like Merlin. And the family name is Prince!”

“Ooh! Merlin!” Mulciber chortled. “A Half-Blood! No wonder he favored Muggles over his own kind!”

When prefect Lucius Malfoy poked his head into the room to see how the first-year boys were settling in, he saw Mulciber’s wand half-drawn, and Snape’s Ebony wand pointed directly into his antagonist’s face.

“Avery! Mulciber!” Malfoy scolded a minute or two later, “I don't care that you think you were only having a laugh. If I ever hear of anything like this happening again with one of our Housemates, I will personally see to it that the Bloody Baron never lets you sleep a single restful night as long as you live inside this castle. Am I clear? Now… put away those wands. The Hat chose Snape for our House, and that makes him one of ours. Slytherin is a more powerful bond than even blood, and you would be advised not to forget that.”

Merlin had no such trouble during his first night in the castle. Maelwine made a point of not testing his Translation spell inside of Slytherin House… not until he deemed the boy good and ready to speak with other students.

***

November 1, 1982 − 10:11pm

After spending a fitful night in a seemingly endless round of nightmares, Snape’s day - and his early evening shift patrolling the castle’s halls - had passed uneventfully. It was almost too quiet, he thought, as he flipped again through his uncle’s parchment, estimating how much further he could reasonably read in the two hours remaining during All Hallow’s Day.

After a lengthy (and, he suspected, unlikely) account concerning a late-night tribute the merpeople paid Merlin, Severus Snape finally found exactly what he had been hoping for: the notes to an interview his uncle had conducted with Devona.

From the parchment of Amatus Prince, as sent to Severus Snape.

AN INTERVIEW WITH DEVONA

Amatus Prince: Is the legend true that Merlin wandered into the Forbidden Forest one day only to have an enchanted oak tree recognize him, reach out a gnarled wooden hand, and present him with a ready-made wand?

DEVONA: Oh, heavens no! Merlin’s wand was purchased! Once he had been inside the castle for the period of two weeks, the staff decided it was time for him to begin his lessons. This meant that he needed a wand… which meant that he would need to go down to Ollivander’s in Londinium.

AP: How did he get to London from the north of Scotland? Enchanted broomsticks, sideways apparition, and portkeys had not yet been invented. Did he transform again into a dragon?

DEVONA: After considerable debate, it was decided that he would fly to Londinium - but not in the form of a dragon, which was considered too risky and unreliable. Instead, Aedelbert would accompany him at night on one of the winged beasts.

Then, of course, we debated at length over which one - Hippogriff or Thestral. I think sometimes we loved to hear ourselves speak because the answer should have been obvious before we started speaking. Thestrals fly faster and would be better camouflaged at night… not to mention that they can only be seen by those who have witnessed death. Fewer Muggles, in other words, would notice a Thestral.

AP: So that’s what you chose.

DEVONA: The Thestral, yes.

AP: Which wand chose Merlin? Legend says he used an Oak wand.

DEVONA: Not while he was at Hogwarts! Later, perhaps, he did, when he served the Pendragon King. Britons may have expected him to act the part of a druid and wield an Oak or Rowan staff. In truth, though, Merlin never studied with the druids, and he was selected by a long, supple Apple tree wand with a unicorn core. I’m surprised at how many modern Wizards don’t realize this and assume he must have used Oak. Have you ever noticed how often his prophecies speak of Apple trees? Or do only the Muggles read such things?

AP: No, I never noticed. But what do you make of the unicorn tail hair? I would have thought dragon heartstring.

DEVONA: I puzzled over that for a long time myself. My belief is that Merlin was too powerful for dragon heartstring, which tends to amplify a weaker Wizard’s power. Unicorn most likely stabilized his magic and gave it more balance by giving him a weaker core for his own power to work against. Also, unicorn is the most common Slytherin core, despite your House’s reputation for dragon.

Then, of course, Merlin, you know, was not really an animagus at all. He was a shapeshifter, a... what do you modern Wizards call it?

AP: A metamorphmagus.

DEVONA: A metamorphmagus, yes... and a great one. Well, even the Muggle legends have him turning himself into wood cutters, herdsmen, white stags! And his hair changed constantly from red to white to black. He was hardly limited to the form of a dragon!

He used the dragon form when he fled his home because it suited him at that moment, but he was merely assuming the outer form and powers of a dragon, while retaining his human mind and emotions. If transforming into a sparrow or an otter had accomplished his aim, he would have used one of those forms. So dragon heartstring should never have been considered a “given.”

AP: You performed Legilimency on Merlin.

DEVONA: Yes.

AP: What did you see in his mind the first time you did so?

DEVONA: I saw mainly the circumstances leading to his escape from his home. Legilimency is not at all like what the Muggles call “mind-reading,” you know. I don’t see what he’s seeing while he’s seeing it. I see what he saw or what he felt when he saw it or felt it. Past tense. That makes all the difference. But I’m sure you know all that from your own experience, so you will understand when I say that what he saw and felt during his interview with the castle staff, I learned only during later attempts to penetrate his mind.

AP: Was there anything you saw that you never reported?

DEVONA: Yes, of course. I reported only the necessary information required under each set of circumstances. Was he telling the truth about why he fled his home? Yes. Was he telling the whole truth? No… but nobody ever asked me if there was anything he omitted.

AP: And what did he omit?

DEVONA: Well… he saw the Muggle raiders kill his father. What do you think happened to them after he turned into a dragon?

AP: So you’re saying he murdered his father’s murderers?

DEVONA: No, I’m not saying that at all. I’m saying that he saved the lives of all his people - Muggle and magical alike. The raiders would have torched the Caer and pillaged without mercy. I didn’t report all of what happened because the raiders’ battle shields bore familiar markings, and some staff had Muggle kin. Merlin, though, saw that the inhabitants of the castle faced the same threats his own people did, so he quickly recognized us as future allies. I never sensed any threat to Hogwarts from him.

AP: So you were protective of him.

DEVONA: Well, let’s say I was intrigued. The Muggle raiders thought Merlin’s father a demon, you know, because they had seen the boy shift his shape into a lake dweller while he swam in a shallow pool. A merman one minute… a dragon the next. What self-respecting Ravenclaw would not be intrigued by that sort of phenomenon? I wanted to study him - something I never would have been able to do had he been considered too dangerous to roam freely around the castle.

AP: How did Merlin fit in with the House system?

DEVONA: Well, even though he was distressed about a lot of things when he arrived at the castle (who wouldn’t be?), he seemed particularly distressed when Maelwine told him about the concept of blood purity. The Muggles among his own people held Wizards in high esteem, so Merlin had no problems with Muggles as such and saw no need to hide his power from them or crush them beneath him. His problem was with the raiders - Saxons, Scotti, Picti - whoever troubled the peace of Britannia. Merlin settled down easily into Slytherin, though, when he learned that Maelwine - who shared his views - was Head of Slytherin House.

AP: Why do you think the Headmaster selected Maelwine - a Briton - to head Slytherin?

DEVONA: Maelwine had always encouraged his fellow Slytherins to strive for greatness, not dominance. This appealed to Aldin, who was a Hufflepuff and hoped to smooth things over between Houses, particularly after the rift between Founders and the rumors about a monster. Maelwine gave Aldin hope that there was potentially more to Slytherin than Salazar’s crack-brained notions of Wizarding dominance and power.

AP: The Bloody Baron claims to have kept vigil at Merlin’s bedside during the boy’s first night in the castle. Did you see anything in Merlin’s mind concerning…


Midnight arrived. The parchment went blank. Then, a new message traced itself on the blank surface:

Dear Severus,

I hold the Master copy of this parchment in my possession and will add new material that you may read in your twin copy during the next All Hallow’s. If you would like to continue with this account, then simply keep yourself alive for another year... and don't forget to tap the parchment with your wand!

Your Uncle, Amatus Prince

______
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