Back to School Shopping
Despite having done it every day for the couple of months he’s been at the Burrow, Molly is still surprised to find Em up before her. The Burrow is essentially a small farm, and her children certainly act like animals, so she’s well used to waking with the sun to tend to it, but what’s his excuse? She thought at first it was him getting used to the new house he’s staying in, but he seemed perfectly at ease and he never stopped getting up early. Every morning she comes down to watch the sunrise in her bathrobe and he’s there, sometimes in a shirt and sometimes not, hair mussed from sleep but eyes sharp and intelligent as ever, and always, always with that scarf on. The scarf is more of an extension of himself than a fashion choice, she gathers. She’s never seen him without it, and from what she can tell, neither has anyone else.
Em looks over the fields in the blues and pinks and oranges of a new day with remarkable patience. He’s terribly quiet about it. He smiles at her warmly and politely leaves her to collect herself into something prepared for human interaction. He won’t say anything until she does. He makes her coffee, feeds the chickens, does the rounds. She’s asked him time and again if he’s not sleeping well, if he’s had nightmares or if he feels sick, but he assures her this is regular for him. It goes against everything Molly knows about children- and she raised eight (not counting her husband, who really should count). Since he’s up, though, she might as well take advantage of it. He can help wake the others.
“I’ll get the boys if you grab the twins- they’re more likely to listen to you than me.”
“Oh, that’s alright Molly. Um, that’s- I mean, I should probably wake Arthur. I’ll handle all the boys, I’ll bet Ginny will be excited, so you should go to her.”
“Are you sure dear? They’re real nightmares.”
“Oh, trust me, if I can handle Arthur, I can more than get by with the rest of them.”
He’s slipped out with a cheeky wink before she can think too much about it, but it’s his prerogative. She hopes he’ll be okay.
“Frrrd.”
“Mm.”
“Frrrrrrrd.”
“Nuhh.”
“Fred!”
“Wh’t!”
“Check the wake-up call.”
George cracks his eyes open with great reluctance, smearing the sleep and crust out of them as he goes. Where they can both read them, doing a happy little dance, there are golden letters waving like a noble flag through the air that read ‘good morning fuckwits’.
“HAHA!” George barks, not mad to be woken for once. “What a twat!”
“He means you, you know.”
“No, you.”
“No!”
Fred flips out of his bunk on top of George’s like a cat and launches himself at his bastard of a twin brother with a cackle.
It is a true and honest shame to wake Arthur. He’s dead to the world, gold-spun hair splashed over the pillows with reckless abandon, drool smeared across his cheek and into his ear somehow. His face is smooshed into the mattress like he’s welded there. His limbs are splayed out like a lost starfish, and his body looks like it’s still searching for Merlin while he’s dreaming. Why is the bed empty? His posture says. Where is that half-wit?
Well, Merlin must be grateful for what blessings he has. At least this isn’t Arthur in his full and glorious form, the golden king of Camelot with his golden chest hair and his frankly absurd muscles; nor is it an older Arthur grown into a beard, honey-gold hair shot with unfairly becoming grey falling over his sculpted face and back, browned by the sun with too many freckles to count. Those Arthurs are unfathomably difficult to wake, and simultaneously almost impossible to resist waking in less than innocent ways. This Arthur’s just adorable.
Merlin smooshes his foot into Arthur’s cheek and jostles him into the waking world, musing on the many dimensions of the man he loves to himself.
“Nnnnrgh.”
“Get uuuuup.”
“nNNnnmm.”
“Riveting conversation, this is,” Merlin sighs, and resorts to depriving Arthur of his bedcovers.
“MUH-HUUHH!”
After a few bacon sandwiches each (about seven, in Arthur’s case) they all pull on their coats (Arthur still hasn’t noticed that Merlin drew a golden Camelot dragon on his red bomber jacket yet) and shuffle into the living room. Molly takes the flowerpot off the mantelpiece. It’s fingerpainted an ugly mix of purple and red with eager meaty toddler hands. There’s a kid’s scrawl that if you squint really hard might say ‘cHArLiE’. The R is backwards.
“We’re running low, Arthur,” she sighs. “Not you, Arthur. We’ll have to buy some more today... Ah well, guests first! After you, Harry dear!”
And she offers him the flowerpot. Harry looks around uncomfortably at them all, lost.
“W-what am I supposed to do?” he stammers.
“He’s never traveled by Floo powder,” Ron says suddenly. “Sorry, Harry, I forgot.”
“Never?” The bigger Arthur echoes. “But how did you get to Diagon Alley to buy your school things last year?”
“I went on the Underground —”
“Really? Were there escapators? How exactly —”
“Not now, Arthur,” Molly snaps. “No not you, Arthur. Floo powder’s a lot quicker, dear, but goodness me, if you’ve never used it before —”
“It’s not hard, Harry, don’t worry,” Em assures him.
“Yeah, you’ll be alright. Watch us first,” Fred chimes.
He takes a pinch of glittering powder out of the flowerpot, steps up to the modest fire, and tosses the powder into the fire.
The flames roar their appreciation and rear up to embrace him, melting from their brilliant orange to a sharp emerald green. Fred steps into them and announces his destination, and then he’s gone.
“You just say the place you’re going and it’ll take you. Step out when you see George. You think you can handle that?” The smaller Arthur asks.
“That was Fred,” Em corrects.
“You must speak clearly, dear,” Molly tells Harry as George dips his hand into the flowerpot. “And be sure to get out at the right grate...”
“The right- what?” Harry stammers nervously as the fire eats George, too.
“Well, there are an awful lot of wizard fires to choose from, you know, but as long as you’ve spoken clearly —”
“He’ll be fine, Molly, don’t fuss,” Big Arthur soothes, helping himself to Floo powder too.
“But, dear, if he got lost, how would we ever explain to his aunt and uncle?”
“They wouldn’t mind,” Harry reassures her in a decidedly unassuring way. “Dudley would think it was a brilliant joke if I got lost up a chimney, don’t worry about that —”
“Forget them, Em would strangle me,” Little Arthur hisses. “So if not for your sake, do it for mine.”
“Quite. You go after Arthur. My Arthur, not Mr. Weasley,” Em decides, and Molly nods.
“Now, when you get into the fire, say where you’re going,” she reminds him one last time.
“And keep your elbows tucked in,” Ron advises.
“And your eyes shut,” Em adds. “The soot —”
“Don’t fidget,” Ron says. “Or you might well fall out of the wrong fireplace —”
“But don’t panic and get out too early; wait until you see Fred and George,” Little Arthur says finally.
Harry swallows and hesitantly takes a pinch of Floo powder. Arthur has to commend his courage, given he’s an eleven year old who’s never stepped into a lit fireplace before. But then he opens his mouth and inhales quite a lot of hot ash.
“D-Dia-gon Alley.”
And Harry's gone.
In the resounding silence, Em drops his head into his hand and pinches the bridge of his nose.
“He did not end up in Diagon Alley,” he groans quietly, resigned.
“No,” Little Arthur agrees.
“No,” Em sighs.
Harry on his own would’ve been a nightmare to find. The boy sheds attention like a duck sheds water. But, by the grace of the triple Goddess- or, more accurately, Hagrid- they manage to locate him without too much trouble. In fact, he’s even a step ahead of them- he’s found Hermione, and he’s already where they need to be, right outside Gringotts.
“Harry,” Bigger Arthur pants, having sprinted over. He leans with his hands on his knees, relieved, adjusting his glasses back onto his long, freckled nose. “We hoped you’d only gone one grate too far...” He mops his glistening bald patch. “Molly’s frantic — she’s coming now —”
“Where did you come out?” Ron asks.
“Knockturn Alley,” Hagrid says grimly.
“Excellent!” exclaim Fred and George together. Em, however, looks mightily unimpressed, and Molly even less so.
“Of course you did,” Em huffs.
“We’ve never been allowed in,” Ron says enviously.
“I should ruddy well think not,” growls Hagrid- and he does it quite a bit better than anyone else.
“Oh, Harry — oh, my dear — you could have been anywhere —” Molly fusses, squeezing Ginny’s hand in hers. Gasping for breath, she sets on his soot-bathed jacket with a large clothes brush. Mr. Weasley takes care of Harry’s glasses, which he’s managed to break.
“Knockturn Alley. What a turn of luck. You’re impossible to keep out of trouble, no matter what he says,” Little Arthur grumbles under his breath, and Harry gets the impression he’s not really talking to him.
Hagrid says his goodbyes brightly after some handshakes and thank-yous and whatever else, and Hermione's snuck in her hugs with the boys in the meantime. Harry takes this opportunity to fill them in.
“Guess who I saw in Borgin and Burkes?” Harry asks them as they climb the Gringotts steps. “Malfoy and his father.”
“What!” Little Arthur barks. Really, what are the chances? It’s like the two of them are pre-ordained- but looking at Merlin’s face, Arthur knows better than to say the D-word in this instance, even as a joke.
“Did Lucius Malfoy buy anything?” Bigger Arthur asks sharply behind them, eyes flashing.
“No, he was selling —”
“So he’s worried,” he says with grim satisfaction. “Oh, I’d love to get Lucius Malfoy for something...”
“You be careful, Arthur. Not you, Arthur,” Mrs. Weasley chides as they’re bowed into the bank by a goblin at the door. “That family’s trouble. Don’t go biting off more than you can chew —”
“So you don’t think I’m a match for Lucius Malfoy?” Bigger Arthur scoffs indignantly, but he’s distracted just then by Hermione’s parents, looking around nervously, waiting for Hermione to introduce them. He makes himself content with accosting them over the muggle money they’re exchanging for knuts and sickles.
“He was talking about me,” Harry says absently.
“What?” Arthur grunts.
“Malfoy. He said… he was talking to his father about me. He does it… apparently, he does that quite a lot,” he finishes bemusedly. “What’d’ya reckon that means?”
Arthur manages, with great effort, not to roll his eyes.
Thankfully the Weasleys don’t make a big deal of it when little Arthur and Merlin are led off by another goblin, although Harry does give them a pleading look not to leave him. Merlin sends him an apologetic look and little Arthur snickers. Ah, the terrible curse of wealth. Although, to be fair, he’d feel pretty shitty opening his vault in front of the Weasleys if he had as much as he understands Harry to have.
Oh wait- he does.
In fact, there are several reasons they really need to take this trip alone. First of all, their vault isn’t opened with a key, but with Old magic- Merlin sealed it himself. They access it not by cart, but by stairs, since the journey is so short. And it would be a little hard to explain how they managed to lay claim to vault number four, the very first customer vault in the entire institution. And then if they managed to get a peek inside- well, that would be beyond the power of even Merlin’s most creative evasive responses.
Vault number four is like its very own ecosystem. There’s only so much exposure to Merlin- to Magic- that an inanimate object can have before it becomes animate. Eventually the house got far too crowded and lively. It was quite an endeavour, moving all the broomsticks and antiques and portraits and things out when they all already had their own friends amongst each other and they all had something to say about it. That was a hell of a decade. But they did manage it, and every now and then they move things around, take some things out and put some things in, rotate the cast and crew. And they seem happy enough in here, anyway- it’s like a little town.
So in they delve, greeting ballgowns and tractors and relics and easter island heads and jewelled skulls and sceptres and bookcases and chandeliers and that one chunk off the roof of the blue mosque in Constantinople- Arthur thinks it’s called something else now, though. He has to move quickly; if Merlin gets all caught up with everything in here they’ll never leave. Even worse, if Excalibur gets excited, he might as well clear his schedule for the week. By the time he's got what they actually need, though, he has his work cut out for him.
Arthur manages to detangle his husband from a string of christmas lights leading him along in a jig and brush off the Camelotian cape trying to do the same to him. A line of shoes try to follow them out like ducklings, and Arthur gives the red ones from the dancing plague in France that one time, still crusted with blood, a stern look.
Arthur cannot account for what he can’t see, though, and one little gem’s taken advantage of that. A raw, uncut red diamond has nestled itself in Merlin’s fluffy hair, taking shelter where Arthur isn’t tall enough to catch it, where Ron picks it out when they meet back up.
“Cool rock,” he says. “Must’ve fallen from the caves on your cart ride.”
“You can keep it,” Merlin shrugs.
Arthur glares at it for escaping his notice as Ron slips it into his pocket. He can’t remember who gave it to Merlin, but he remembers why, because it made him very jealous. Red diamonds are, apparently, the rarest and most expensive diamonds in the world. Uncut, though, they look like any old shiny rock. Whichever king or queen or whoever gifted it to Merlin had said that he was much the same- something entirely unique and marvellous and exceedingly rare hidden in a humble disposition, as common as anyone else’s. Which is stupid. That noble didn’t even have the faintest idea how special Merlin was. But Arthur never said pretty things like that, it was Merlin who was good with words, he was rubbish, and he wondered if it wasn’t disappointing to Merlin to have to spend his days with a glorified brute who fumbled his way through speeches and could never, ever put something so glorious as his own husband into words.
None of that is true, but Arthur’s still glad to see the stupid rock go.
Back outside on the marble steps, they all separate. Percy mutters vaguely about needing a new quill. Fred and George spot their friend from Hogwarts, Lee Jordan, and are gone in a flash. Molly and Ginny announce their plans to head for a secondhand robe shop. Big Arthur insists on taking the Grangers off to the Leaky Cauldron for a drink, to which Molly smiles and nods and rolls her eyes long-sufferingly once their backs are turned.
“We’ll all meet at Flourish and Blotts in an hour to buy your schoolbooks,” Mrs. Weasley sing-songs, setting off with Ginny. “And not one step down Knockturn Alley!” she shouts at the twins’ retreating backs.
As for the rest of them, they set off together. Harry buys them all large strawberry-and-peanut-butter ice creams, and Arthur ends up eating Merlin’s (he always does) because Merlin can’t stand still long enough to do it and it’s melting. It’s all Arthur can do to keep him from leaving the kids behind, because of course he wants to meet every single Owl in Eyelop’s, and blow through the Apothecary’s entire stock, and look at all the pretty quills on display and ‘can’t we go into the book shop, Arthur, we have to anyway and I promise I won’t buy too many I just want a look- ’, and Ron wants to look at the Quidditch shop, and Hermione actually wants to get their school things like they’re supposed to, and if Harry doesn’t keep up they’ll lose him again.
Arthur gives up and leaves Merlin to it once they find the twins in the resident joke shop- fighting that battle’s a lost cause. But if they don’t get their school things soon they won’t have time, so Arthur ends up being the functioning adult and backing Hermione up in her quest to get that done.
By some miracle, an hour later, they do manage it. They have to leg it to Flourish and Blotts to make it, but they do make it- only to find that even the Weasley’s unfailingly red hair isn’t going to help in the endeavour of finding them in this crowd. The place is packed full to sickening capacity. Arthur looks at the crowd, bunched in like chickens in an overfull coop, and finds ‘sickening’ is exactly the right word.
Just as he’s loosening his grip on Harry’s hand and flagging, trying to come up with an excuse to do anything but go in there, Merlin- beautiful, brilliant, angelic, always-has-his-back Merlin swoops in like the miracle he is.
“I’ll take them,” he whispers against Arthur’s ear as he slips through the crowd after the kids like a fish through the stream.
Arthur takes a big breath of appreciation for his husband. Crisis averted. What is with this crowd, anyway? He takes a step back to read the large royal blue and gold banner shimmering in the windows.
GILDEROY LOCKHART
will be signing copies of his autobiography
MAGICAL ME
today 12:30P.M.to 4:30P.M.
“Oh, Christ ,” Arthur groans in a language he doesn’t even remember the name of.
Merlin would like to take back every comparison he made between his husband and Gilderoy Lockhart. They were funny in theory, but the man he’s looking at now oozes shallow vanity to such a degree that Merlin can’t find a single thing they could possibly have in common.
It’s only on account of his height and his remarkable eyesight that Merlin can even see the man over the fussing flock of middle-aged women. He’s about half the size of Arthur at his age, his shoulders broadened purposefully by his many layers of expertly tailored and gilded robes. A red- goddess, they used to wear those to the balls at the palace of Versailles, Merlin blocked the name of them out on purpose- puffs so ostentatiously out from his collar that he resembles an exotic bird making itself bigger than it is. He’s quite colourful enough. The marvellous slice of his clinically bright smile is painfully practiced and entirely false, but beyond that, it’s like it’s held up by pins on either of his cheeks permanently. Like a doll. His makeup covers up all the parts of him that might’ve been interesting to leave him smooth. His terribly blue eyes, the ones Merlin teased Arthur for resembling, are very obviously- to him, at least- contacts over brown ones. And thank every god there is, Arthur’s true and brilliant golden hair has never swooped so genially with a little insufferable bounce over his brow in all the courts and dos he’s ever attended, and it’s certainly never looked like it came straight out of a bottle .
“We can actually meet him!” Hermione squeals, and Merlin tears his eyes away to look at her in abject horror. “I mean, he’s written almost the whole booklist!”
Harry, bless him, drags them all forward to grab their second year book copies and squeeze their way up to a familiar huddle of flame-red hair.
“Oh, there you are, good,” Molly clucks, sounding suspiciously breathless, patting her hair. She looks a little pink in the cheeks. Merlin almost lets out a despairing whine for all the respectable women falling over themselves for a cad . “We’ll be able to see him in a minute...”
Oh, Merlin wouldn’t make Arthur suffer this for anything. He can barely stomach it himself. Everywhere he turns, Lockhart’s shiny, airbrushed face stares stunningly back at him, blinding him with that searing white smile practically painted onto him and his pathetic attempt to mimic Arthur’s goldenness. All Merlin sees is a dirty bronze painted sunshine yellow a dozen too many times. A nasty little man dances around and jostles them around as if he’s the only person who matters on this earth and they’re in the way of his terribly important business.
“Out of the way, there,” he snarls at Ron, moving back to get a better shot. “This is for the Daily Prophet —”
Oh, the Daily Prophet , is it? This just gets better and better.
“Big deal,” Ron mutters, rubbing his foot mutinously where the photographer stepped on it.
Unfortunately, Lockhart’s attention follows the camera flash unfailingly, and therefore swings around them, being so close to the offending item. Merlin steps protectively in front of Harry a second too late.
“It can’t be Harry Potter?” Lockhart exclaims in the carrying boom of a practiced performer, leaping up from his seat at once.
“We’ll leave, Harry,” Merlin whispers to the boy who’s gone stock still behind him, but the words have barely left him when Harry’s wrenched out of his grip. Merlin’s head snaps up as the crowd bursts into applause and the bottle-blonde airhead yanks Harry up on stage, where his muscles promptly lock up and his eyes blow wide.
A few not fucking happy sounds blow out of Merlin as the great buffoon shakes Harry’s hand heartily enough to rattle him and the bright flashes double and smoke from the old cameras chokes the air and sends Ron into a coughing fit. Harry looks fucking terrified.
Merlin snarls quietly as the poor kid tries to escape and Lockhart throws an arm around his shoulders and clamps him tightly to his side.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he declares loudly, waving for quiet. “What an extraordinary moment this is! The perfect moment for me to make a little announcement I’ve been sitting on for some time!
“When young Harry here stepped into Flourish and Blotts today, he only wanted to buy my autobiography — which I shall be happy to present him now, free of charge —” The crowd applauds again and Lockhart ‘modestly’ waves them off. “He had no idea,” Lockhart continues, giving Harry a little shake that makes his glasses slip to the end of his nose, “that he would shortly be getting much, much more than my book, Magical Me. He and his schoolmates will, in fact, be getting the real magical me. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I have great pleasure and pride in announcing that this September, I will be taking up the post of Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!”
Merlin makes a horrified noise in the back of his throat. Fucking what?!
Harry stumbles off somewhere with the entire works of Gilderoy Lockhart someone’s loaded him down with and Merlin fights his way in that direction, making frustratingly slow progress. At this rate, by the time he finds Harry, he’ll have ground his teeth to nubs.
“-got yourself a girlfriend!”
Oh, for the love of Camelot.
Draco Malfoy, hair as oily and slicked back as it ever was, jeers at Harry from over the railing. Merlin almost interrupts until he notices that the colour Lockhart leeched out of Harry’s face is returning to him in the form of a healthy flush. Both the boys’ eyes flash as they regard each other scaldingly, all but bearing their teeth, even as Harry seems to be struck by something new with the resurfacing knowledge that Malfoy talks about him enough to make his dad tell him to shut up, please , Draco.
“Oh, it’s you,” an oblivious Ron drawls, looking at Malfoy as if he’s something unpleasant on the sole of his shoe, effectively breaking the trance. “Bet you’re surprised to see Harry here, eh?”
“Not as– ”
“Whatever you’re about to say,” Merlin interjects a little more warmly than is perhaps warranted, “Don’t.”
“There you all are!” comes a familiar call. They turn to big Arthur, struggling over with Fred and George. Evidently he could smell danger. “What are you doing? It’s too crowded in here, let’s go outside.”
“Well, well, well — Arthur Weasley.”
Lucius Malfoy has materialized like so much grease beside his son. A green jewel, wreathed in intricate silver designs, gleams against his collar. His finely cut robes, lined in genuine black fur, melt off of him like oil. His eyes aren’t quite so startlingly grey as his son’s- a little darker, perhaps, and his nose is much more hooked (good for looking down over) but there is Draco in the sharp cut of his jaw, his stark cheekbones, and most prominently, the straight ironed platinum-blonde hair brushed impossibly flat and neat. Their sneers, though, are identical. The similarities aren’t so obvious yet, and Merlin hopes they stop there. Lucius Malfoy is a naturally cold thing, and Draco isn’t.
“Lucius,” Mr. Weasley acknowledges, nodding coldly.
“Busy time at the Ministry, I hear,” Lucius drawls, his voice low and slithering. “All those raids... I hope they’re paying you overtime?”
He reaches into Ginny’s cauldron and extracts, from amid the glossy Lockhart books, a very old, very battered copy of A Beginner’s Guide to Transfiguration.
“Obviously not,” he mocks smoothly. “Dear me, what’s the use of being a disgrace to the name of wizard if they don’t even pay you well for it?”
Mr. Weasley flushes darker than either Ron or Ginny, who both look about a second away from starting a brawl. Merlin watches warily even as he thinks to himself that it really is quite fortunate his Arthur’s not here after all. But surely Molly’s Arthur knows better, right?
“We have a very different idea of what disgraces the name of wizard, Malfoy,” Big Arthur intones coolly, and Merlin knows for a fact that he does not know better.
“Sorry to cut in, Mr. Malfoy, I know you and Mr. Weasley probably have quite a lot to disagree on and only so much time, but I was just wondering if you knew what a marvellous son you have,” Merlin enunciates coolly, stepping between the two of them in what he thinks might just be the nick of time.
Well, whatever Lucius was expecting, it wasn’t that. In fact, Merlin seems to have brought just about everyone in the vicinity up short, the subject of his praise included.
“Wha’?” Ron blurts.
“What?” The twins echo.
“What?” Draco gapes.
“What?” Lucius Malfoy inquires distractedly, flicking silver blonde hair out of his face.
“Your son, Draco. He gave even our own Ms. Granger a run for her money, a right good show. I make a note of everyone I think might really be special, and Draco outshone them all. He does the Malfoy name proud. Even Harry noticed, didn’t you, Harry? You told me about him, and for a while I didn’t make the connection that you must be talking about Lucius Malfoy’s son, the very same one I was thinking of.”
Merlin sends Harry a subtle look and he immediately starts nodding along. If Merlin thought Draco looked shocked before, he underestimated the term. At Harry’s endorsement, his eyes practically pop out of his head.
Lucius narrows his eyes at Merlin analytically, reposturing himself.
“And who might you be?” he drawls in that slow, seeping way of his.
“I’m Myrridian Emrys. It’s good to meet you, Mr. Malfoy.”
Lucius stills like a deer in the headlights.
“Erm… pardon? You said…”
“Myrridian,” Merlin repeats steadily, “Emrys.”
And the look on Lucius Malfoy’s face is just about worth it.