My name is Arthur Pendragon, and I am the Head Boy of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

HI ARTHUR IT ME (heart emoji) LONG TIME NO SEE. I MISSED YOU. THAT TOM RIDDLE SON OF A BITCH TRAPPED ME IN HIS HORCRUX

May I know who you are and how you know me?

…you don't recognise me?

No, fortunately or otherwise.

I'm insulted. Goodbye. Bye, now. Don't talk to me. I hate you. Bye bye.

Oversensitive.

Well, when your soulmate, the half that makes you whole, the other side of your coin doesn't know who you are, it's bound to sting a little.

I've only known you for two minutes, mate.

Good night, Arthur.

Soulmate, you said.

Was that an apology I just absorbed?

C'mon, mate, I really don't know who you are. Gwaine gave me this book and told me

Merlin. You're like a snail with a quill. You used to have much better handwriting; you're lucky I've retained the ability to read your spidery letters through the centuries.

Shut up and stop swearing, I got a detention for that only today. Gwaine told me people've passed this book around for ages, writing a load of tosh in it, secrets and confessions and all that. He never told me you talked back.

No, I really am Merlin.

The legendary Slytherin wizard with the hat and the white beard?

No, not that bluffer. The real Merlin. From Camelot. Arthur, c'mon, you're not really saying you don't remember.

I would if I had something to remember. And do you normally not respond to the stuff people write in you?

First of all, I am not a living book.

1. Book 2. Talks

Bro, do you even Horcrux?

We haven't got to that part in the DADA course yet. It's on the syllabus, though.

A Horcrux is a piece of soul sealed inside an inanimate object with the use of Dark Magic. This book was originally Tom Riddle's diary.

That Tom Riddle?

How many are there? Yeah, him. So, he'd done said Dark Magic—it was murder. Do not recommend following in his footsteps—and tore off a piece of his soul to put in here, but I intercepted him (I felt awful for the wizard who'd have to come along and destroy it later!) and he caught me at a weak moment and trapped my entire being in this bloody ancient diary.

Hm.

Eloquent.

What weak moment? If the famous Merlin's an impostor, I reckon you'd be much more powerful than him, wouldn't you?

Maybe I'll tell you later. I wish you remembered me, though.

What's Camelot?

The place we used to live in. Long gone, now.

"We". Have you been stuck in this book long?

Years and years and years.

Must've been boring.

God, you can't imagine. All these people thinking I'm a confession book just 'cause I sop up all their ink and keep their non-secret secrets—I fancy so-and-so, I cheated on my homework, I pushed someone off their broom and they nearly died—fuck's sake, I couldn't care less (except about that last one but what the hell can I do about it, sitting here). But I can't tell them that; I don't talk back 'cause the first time I tried, some woman set fire to me. Good thing it wasn't Fiendfyre or I wouldn't've got to meet you again.

Good to know I'm special.

You have no idea.

So, the Transfig teach apparently forgot all about the detention she'd given me TWO MONTHS AGO until tonight, when she knew I'd be going down to the pitch for some solo Quidditch practice.

What happened?

Got a lecture on why I'm not allowed to do anything I want, Prince of Hogwarts though I may be—and then had to help Filch sweep the chambers under the trapdoor on the third-floor corridor. Nightmare. Long perished Devil's Snare can still try and get you.

Deadly fun, will sulk in the sun.

Dead-ly fun. Heh.

Merlin.

Hey, it wasn't that bad.

Hi, Merlin.

Hey, Arthur. Isn't it midnight?

Couldn't sleep.

What happened?

Don't know. I mean, I've been talking to you for months now, and I kind of feel like I've known you forever, you know? 'Cause we've chatted that much. But somehow I've been feeling lately like…

There's something fundamentally missing in you? That I've been filling?

Yeah.

Arthur, the first time we talked, I told you we were soulmates.

I thought you were a weird book that taught the reader chat-up lines.

Go to sleep, Arthur

Night, Merls

Arthur

Merlin

Don't you have class right now?

Free period, so I'm in the Common Room with my essay unrolled in front of me, along with you so I'd know immediately if you wanted to waste my time.

Need any help?

Goblin Rebellions.

So there was this

No, I don't need any help! Talk to me about anything but History of Magic.

Charms? The Order of the Phoenix? Sirius Black?

Did you know him?

Not really. He wrote "My brother Regulus deserved better" once and then he gave me to someone else.

You seem tired, somehow.

Feel like I'm fading. Don't know why. I've been fine for centuries, and I've been fine the few decades I've been in this book, but ever since you touched my pages, I've been, somehow, feeling weak.

Want me to upend a bottle of ink on you?

Hah. Please do.

Not RED INK, YOU IDIOT. WHO WRITES WITH RED INK EXCEPT TEACHERS

Good to know you're feeling better!

Thanks, Arthur.

I'm sleepy.

My first day in Camelot, I saw the King Uther Pendragon condemn a sorcerer to death.

My dad was a king? He condemned sorcery? He holds an Order of Merlin, First Class!

Oh, the irony. And you were a prat. I mean prince.

You're making this up.

I can show you, if you trust me. I think I could bring you into the book and we could both sift through my memories together.

I… I'll talk to you later. This essay's a bitch.

Okay. I'm sorry.

So I've been sitting open on what I hope is your bed, the words FUCK YOU ARTHUR blazing on my pages, and Gwaine dropped by and wrote "u were holding back on me, luv".

Still Gwaine.

Fuck off, I want to talk to Arthur, even though you've got better handwriting than him.

Whyd u never chat w/ me wen I had u?

You weren't Arthur.

Arthurs special eh

You have no idea.

Merlin, u rly just had to say it was u, u knw

YOU'RE MY GWAINE? MY GWAINE OF CAMELOT?

Hw many r there?

I MISSED YOU. HOW'VE YOU BEEN. WHY'S ARTHUR NOT REMEMBER A THING

Fuck if I knw. He told me bout u tho. U rly held back on me. Missed u too, luv. Gwen, Lance, Elyan, we all tlk abt u all th time. And Percy wen we meet him, hes a Hufflepuff

Gwaine, I need to get out of here. Riddle trapped me with this very specific curse and now I think I'm succumbing to it.

What do you need to get out before it kills you

…true love's kiss

Are you sure it was Voldemort who trapped you. Voldemort the murderer, the wicked wizard, the guy who tore his soul up into shreds to try and live forever

Yeah. His sense of humour was just as evil as the rest of him

And Arthur hasn't smooched you yet why

I don't think he believes who I am, or trusts me, really. I offered to draw him into the book for a while to show him our shared past and he just… cut off all contact

Git

Hasn't talked to me in about five weeks.

Brb

Gwaine, c'mon, I'm LONELY FOR THE FIRST TIME IN AGES

GWAAAAINE

Merlin, Gwaine here, do ur sucking into th book thing now, no ques

…Okay?

Tht was a ques

Erm, I'm... sorry

"So," Arthur says, standing there all regal in his Gryffindor robes, completely ignoring the bustle of Camelot peasants around him and the sorcerer getting beheaded a few metres to his right. "You really were telling me the truth."

Merlin huffs and folds his arms, looking anywhere but at him. He catches Uther giving the command and flinches.

"Merlin, an old family friend of ours told us never to trust anything if we can't see where it keeps its brain. How did you think I would react?"

"I tried to show you! But no, if there's one thing you'd retain across a millennium of non-existence it'd be your idiotic tendency to never listen to me!"

"Gwaine set me straight, don't worry," Arthur says, sighing. "Look, I don't know what I'm supposed to do now that I'm here, but—"

"We can go through the ten years I knew you and you can try and remember your past in time."

"For?"

"My continued survival."

"…no pressure."

Merlin laughs despite himself. Arthur grins, pleased. "Merlin," he says. "I'm sorry I was such a berk. I've known you for less than a year but you're already my closest friend, and I prolly should've trusted you when you said you weren't part of Tom Riddle's soul; he'd choke before writing the heart emoji anywhere."

Merlin makes a face at him, and is met with an armful of Arthur.

"You're really not a hugger," he says, incredulous.

"Maybe this once," Arthur says, holding Merlin tight. "I've finally got to see the person behind the egregious red ink."

"Which was all your fault," Merlin snaps, pulling back and facing Arthur (who looks so pretty with his pink mouth and his snaggletooth and his sparking eyes, he thinks, that his heart might just give out and all his magic expended to bring Arthur into the diary would go to waste). "Really—"

Arthur kisses him with a broad smile on his face.

Merlin beams when they part. They gaze at each for a long minute, silly with affection. But then Merlin's smile slowly fades, as does Arthur's. "Why hasn't anything happened yet?" Merlin asks the sky.

Maybe you two need to fuck to break the curse, writes Gwaine in the sky, and don't ask how Merlin knows Gwaine wrote that.

"Not where you might see," Arthur calls.

Shame. I had my wank-sock ready.

"Shame indeed," Merlin mutters, clutching Arthur's hands to his chest. "Listen, I ought to get you back out now."

"I'd like to stay with you a bit longer," Arthur mumbles, already angling for another kiss. Merlin freely gives in, because it sure feels nice to kiss the love of your life a thousand years after having waited for him.

"I'd like for you to stay, too, but now that we know that even true love's kiss is ineffective, my magic'll run out soon and you shouldn't be here when that happens."

"But what about seeing Camelot, all our past memories?"

Merlin shrugs. "Some other time, I promise." He has to fight with Arthur for half an hour more until Arthur capitulates.

"Don't die," Arthur says fiercely, kissing Merlin one more time before Merlin rolls his eyes at him and steps back to work his sorcery.

And Arthur disappears in a flash of magic, leaving Merlin alone to look at himself being manhandled by another Arthur. He wistfully watches the two of them fall in love then and there, and then everything goes black.

Hey, Arthur.

Why are you still writing in the book

Nostalgia

The Headmaster's waiting to see the real Merlin in the flesh, you know

He can wait a bit more

Merlin

Arthur

I love you, and I'm sorry it had to take a powerful magical punch to get me to remember you and everyone else, I'm an arse and a git and a prat and an utter cock, but as the Head Boy of your new school I command you to

Yes, Sire.

Don't get shirty with me. (I'm all yours, yeah?)

'Course, Arthur. (And I'm all yours, too.)