Altogether, the months of his childhood passed by in a frenzied blur for young Harry Potter, indistinct from one another in their greatness - he'd later recall a vacation which saw the Dursleys visiting the Natural History Museum. As they were perusing the various collections of ancient artworks, painted vases, paleontological and mineral collections, ancient insects, and petrified eggs, Harry wandered off from the family to approach the large skeleton of a Tyrannosaurus Rex standing in the middle of the large hall they were in when the inner voice - the one he kept imagining when everything was silent and he was alone - spoke as if roused from a deep sleep at the sight.
I remember learning about this, oddly enough - in my personal research hours, that is... Did you know that dinosaurs and chickens share much of their deoxyribonucleic acid? That is, their DNA, the code by which all living things are made. Alligators are also quite related to them, but the most relevant part of this fact is that the cry of a Tyrannosaurus would be capable of slaying a Basilisk, and that's odd because a Basilisk is genetically a chicken that hatched with the soul of a toad, and yet somehow appears as a snake or - some would argue - dinosaur. And spiders come into this somehow, because Basilisks hate them. It's odd how natural history works out, isn't it?
"Huh?" He'd never done so before - not often, at least, and never with any commitment - but Harry found himself too intrigued and decided to engage the voice, "What are you talking about? What's even a Basilisk?" And why was its name capitalized, when the voice spoke of it, somehow conferring upon Harry the correct grammatical syntax?
It's a huge snake with the power to make anything that looks into its eyes into stone.
"Like a Gorgon?"
Sure. Actually, the Basilisk even originates in the same place - ancient Greece. I never thought about this, but I'm convinced now that the Greeks are actively releasing new magical weaponry to turn the rest of the world into stone and use our petrified selves as statues in their gardens. We should conquer them before it's too late.
"Huh?"
However, the inner voice didn't answer to his confusion. It attempted to, but Harry could feel its own confusion as its cognition untangled, memories scattered to the sands of a nebulous void, as some portions of its knowledge were lost due to being overtaxed.
Who even am I, and why am I in your head, Harry Potter?
"Oi, that's pretty dynamite," Dudley said, approaching Harry with Aunt Petunia in tow. She looked at Harry for a moment, crouched, and whispered into his ear - chastising him for wandering off. After a few seconds, Uncle Vernon, too, arrived - he was slightly thinner than a year before, his mustache and hair well-combed.
"A Tyrannosaurus Rex, that's Latin for... Tyrant King?" Uncle Vernon questioned, mumbling to himself.
"Whoa, since when d'you know Latin, dad?"
"I've been taking courses," Vernon answered his son with a smug expression.
Harry answered his voice. I don't know. Why are you in my head? And who are you? I never thought you're real, but... apparently you know a lot of things about a lot of things. Are you magical? A spell that I cast by accident when I was very little?
I doubt that a spell of any kind, especially one that conjures up a voice that speaks to you, would last for years. Unless you've been unconsciously maintaining me, and isn't that terrifying to contemplate - that one moment of errant distraction or emotional turbulence on your part might be the end of my life... such as it is.
Harry harrumphed. What's wrong with your life? Look at mine, I'm ten and I have to live with my cousin, uncle, and aunt!
And I have to live in your head, and I don't even know who I am, said the inner voice. Oh, Harry, I think I know what's happening.
"Let's go check out those pterodactyls!" Dudley said, before jogging away. A cross expression eating away at her face, Aunt Petunia gently trotted after him, careful not to let her dress snag on anything.
And what's that? Harry asked, looking at his uncle from the side.
I think I have amnosia.
---
And so they determined that Harry's inner voice had amnesia - or, as it kept calling the condition, amnosia. Since Harry was nice and wanted his inner voice to feel welcome, he went to great lengths to alter his lifestyle for its benefit, so it wouldn't feel so bad and so it'd start talking to him more often. As an example, sometimes it'd say something, and Harry would parrot those words out loud to communicate its desires, but since the voice could sometimes be impolite or say things archaically, Harry was forced to come up with instant translations into modern speech on the spot, which made the sentences he spoke rather stilted and somewhat harrowing to listen to.
He started to unconsciously think of his own body as 'theirs,' when he could, but this caused him to change pronouns in the middle of conversation, sometimes, which greatly disturbed random listeners and sometimes caused the Dursleys to blink.
Altogether, one such conversation went as such:
"Hey, Uncle Vernon, we demand- we wish for sustenance- food in the form of breakfast cereals. Deliver this immediately."
At that, Petunia had said, "Vernon, I think we should get a priest."
"Nonsense," Vernon had replied, clasping a friendly hand around Harry's shoulder, "Harry is ten-years-old, now, Petunia. It's that stage in a boy's life where he - or they, here and now - must find their identity. Isn't that right, Harry?"
Petunia wasn't convinced, looking and watching as Harry levitated spoons in a ring around his hand and stared at Vernon with deep perturbation.
Although the voice shared most of Harry's memories in life, it also had a set of its own memories that it couldn't recall save in moments of dire exigence or unexpected nostalgic recall, long-forgotten details coming to life when properly roused or stimulated, much like nerveless skin rubbed to the point of regaining some measure of feeling. And in the coming weeks, they attempted a number of things to make the voice recall its previous life - singing songs, doing research on sciencey things, and even an attempt at electroshock therapy that left Aunt Petunia gasping and slapping the fork out of their hand.
As time went on, the voice kept overdrawing on Harry's politeness, making him go to increasingly remoter lengths to achieve some kind of semblance of recall. After the Dursleys had a quiet conversation in the entryway about having Harry institutionalized, or 'calling in the wizards,' they decided to slow down their attempts to a more manageable pace. At one point, when Harry was outside in the playground on yet another hot summer day, this led to something of an argument between them.
And then, spoke the voice - in a slow, annoyed hush. Will you listen to me for once? I already told you, the Chinese meditation idea simply wasn't going to go anywhere.
I've been listening to you my whole life, Harry thought, So I'm gonna go with no on that one.
You've been hearing me for your whole life, it said, affecting something that resembled spite, but you never, not once, really listened to me. And what a huge mistake! We could've avoided so much pain, misery, suffering, and stupidity if you'd listened for just once to what I'm saying, instead of mindlessly aping and repeating my words to your Monopoly entrepreneur of an uncle! I told you the fork and outlet thing was a bad idea, but you insisted on it like some kind of complete nincompoop. It's a good thing that Petunia Dursley saved your worthless life, I would not have the strength, nor will, nor willingness to persist after that on my own. No, you know what? I don't have the energy to argue this. I subsist only on your mental waste, a thin figment of what I once was, but you treat me this way, boy? I refuse to believe in you. I refuse to cooperate any further. May your life forever be accursed with inordinate peril, I want no part of it.
Harry leaned back, sighing. I'm not even convinced you're real, why am I talking to myself?
...That's it. Do you really desire evidence? So be it. Do you see that stick, lying over there, five feet to your right? Go pick it up. Go pick it UP. Harry snapped at the sudden volume of his own thoughts. I will teach you, then, to cast a Levitation Charm. Pick up the damn stick, boy.
Harry moved, slowly, testingly. He picked up the stick, and as he did, the voice kept going, It's a common misconception that a wand requires a magical core. This is blatantly untrue. Wizards do not require wands to cast magic in the first place. It's much like a fat man relying on a horse to get him everywhere. However, in the right hands, sufficiently puissant, even a common stick may become a minor tool of channeling, and you are powerful enough indeed. Raise the wand.
Harry did, breathing in. What was he doing?
Now, move it in a circle and then tap a point in the middle of the circle, and then sweep your wrist to the right. As you do so, loudly declare, "Abracadabra," and you will become able to move any discrete object within your direct line of sight, no matter how voluminous or heavy. You shall become able to fling around entire buildings or uproot vast forests like a god of invisible psychokinetic vigor - a power unseen in this entire world for millennia because people - wizards and witches - no longer believe in such magic.
"You're not lying, are you?" Harry asked, a little doubtful, but also very hopeful this might work.
I am not. Do it.
Harry followed the voice's instructions to the letter. He drew in a deep, steadying breath, calming down the slight shakiness in his wrist. His wand's tip moved in precise and smooth shapes and ended in a sweep to the right. "Abracadabra!"
Nothing happened. No feeling, no tingle. He attempted to uproot the nearby tree with a thought, but couldn't.
Worth it, said the voice with a dying breath, so deprived of the mental energy it seemed to subsist on, it fell into something that Harry felt must have been similar to a deep sleep, before its presence dissipated.
"Blast it!" Harry tossed the wand.
Aside from Harry's anger and ignorance, as well as a few random things, one type of event that prompted the voice to speak more often were the appearances of what they'd dubbed, 'the Pottergeist,' together because it seemed to exclusively wish to haunt Harry himself. It was the dark tattered cloak-wraith he'd seen that one time in October, and it had started to make regular and unwelcome appearances, whenever the Dursleys were sound asleep or simply not around.
After several consecutive nights of close encounters with the Pottergeist, Harry became accustomed to its horrific presence and started using a water gun stocked with holy water to make it bugger off; a tactic of modest effectiveness, but one that provoked the inner voice to react with something resembling ignominy.
A reaction like this made Harry believe the Pottergeist must've been somehow related to his inner voice, so given that the Pottergeist was named after its Harry Potter-seeking properties, they both decided the inner voice's own name should be the counterpart - Geist.
Another event of small note was Harry's numerous attempts at controlling the local rodent population. By skillfully mapping out Little Whinging on a piece of paper, enlisting the aid of Dudley in figuring out their town's configuration, and with Geist's advice on how to best accomplish such a thing, Harry managed to convert all of the rats and mice in Little Whinging into his personal friends and spies - informing them of the kind of stuff he liked to know, and having them come to him when they found something interesting, whereupon Harry would pay them with cheese. He developed a personal relationship with three of the most productive among the rats, something almost like a friendship between boy and animal, naming them Squeaky, Squipper, and Snippy.
As the summer approached its middle point, the Knights of the Cardboard Table reconvened together for yet more adventures - but in an unexpected event, one of Dudley and Harry's mutual friends, Noah, challenged him to a duel for kingship. All the knights stood back in abeyance to behold this immense event - a martial challenge should never go unmet, not among boys, being the most pervasive opinion - except for Harry and Noah's second, Oliver, who helped their friends strap on their suits of cardboard armor. As Harry handed Dudley his sword and helmet, he smiled tightly. "Good luck."
Dudley smiled back and nodded. "I'll be fine. This'll be over in thirty seconds."
Something tells me it won't, thought Geist.
And so they fought each other, King Dursley against would-be King Davies, a claimant to the throne and pretender to the good title of king, or so Harry believed.
They met in the middle of a ring made by the knights, toy sword of wood against toy sword of wood. At first, the knights observed the duel as it happened with honorable conduct, attack to meet parry; parry against twist, and twist versus counter; a dance and play all in one.
However, as Noah started to grow increasingly frustrated by Dudley's skillful resistance, his attacks became more brutal, with redoubled strength behind every blow; skillful yet mindless, the instinct of a beast on the attack, as he groaned and moved forward in unhesitating martial advance, blade swinging in wide carving arcs, risking to disarm Dudley should he even think of meeting the parry in a halfhearted attempt, and forcing him to dodge. And yet, the strikes came, chasing after him; powerful blows, until Dudley could no longer evade and was struck successfully if narrowly; a glancing blow, cardboard plating shearing away to reveal Dudley's shirt underneath.
"Stop that," Dudley growled, rapidly backpedaling to say that.
"Make me," Noah replied. He raised his own blade, pointed it like an accusatory finger, "You are not my king any longer, and not fit to be so. You are weak, Dudley. Always have been."
And the honor of their duel dissolved, as Dudley was forced to meet the strength of Noah's attack with his own power, beginning a brutal two-sided assault of mindless lashing-out, as both of the boys penetrated their respective suits of armor, delivering painful bruises on one another.
The duel eventually developed into a brawl between the Knights of the Cardboard Table when the people watching the duel started to voice their opinions - some agreed with Noah's earlier words and believed that King Dursley's yoke was too light, his kingship too harmonious and boring, and many argued they needed to start a war for economic reasons, which Noah would be able to deliver and successfully carry out with his brilliant mind for strategy, which Dudley also lacked, being a mere figurine on the throne. The split between the Cardboard Knights was roughly half-to-half, but the fighting was brutal, as knights fell over upon receiving killing wounds.
"Stop! Guys, stop fighting!" Harry called out, the only among the knights to not have a sword.
"Cram it, Potter," said a traitor knight, "You are not even a real knight - not one of us. Just yet another of King Dursley's mindless puppets."
And he was right, too; Harry was too petrified to fight on either side, unable to find the courage to face his own friends in combat - a friend turned into an enemy wasn't something he'd ever contemplated before. The depth of betrayal made his eyes sting, even though it was mere play.
"Guys, stop fighting!" But no one did, no one even heard or listened to him - and for a moment, Harry understood what Geist had meant earlier.
At that feeling of betrayal, something darker in his chest rose - something inside Geist as much as himself.
I have a way to resolve this conflict, said Geist, a way that might not work, that might backfire, but a way nonetheless.
If you can find a way to stop this, then do it! We have to find a way.
Or make one.
At last, it was Harry who ended the conflict, raising up his wizard's staff - a long branch of wood he'd found - and slammed its butt against the earth with such strength the earth briefly shook, which stopped the fighters immediately, all of them - even the 'dead' ones - looking at him in confusion and slight worry.
And then, Harry did what came naturally, and announced, in a loud, imperious, and booming voice, "No. I shall be king."
After what he did, the knights doubted their ability to resist meaningfully, to fight and overcome him. Noah came first with open contempt, snarling, "You, Merlin?"
Merlin, as opposed to Potter, he noted, which meant that Noah still thought they were playing - or maybe lapsed into using that name naturally. No matter.
"Yes. Because I am wiser and more powerful than any of you," Harry replied with feigned arrogance, a look of blatant disinterest etched on his face, eyebrows barely lifted up from his green eyes. "I am wiser than Arthur and more powerful than you, Mordred; I've more temperance than fair Lancelot and I am greater than Gawain. All save Galahad are lesser than me, but he is not here." The fact that he'd left for summer vacation, Harry decided to keep unmentioned.
"Hmph," Noah scoffed, still doubtful.
At the same time, Dudley vacillated between dropping his sword and swearing fealty and continuing the fight. Although Arthur was friends with Merlin, he'd never bowed to the wizard before, never acknowledged his superiority in these respects, even though he knew, deep down, they were true.
It was simply that Merlin had always supported Arthur, rather than the other way around - for who is Arthur without Merlin? A man of virtue, maybe, and an exemplary, right-thinking king, but still a mere man in the end, powerless to prevent a conflict such as this one.
"And though I care little for your kingdoms and petty squabbles, it bleeds my heart to see them burned to ruin, and your families to ash," Merlin continued. He moved down from the hill that he'd set himself upon. "As such, I will control this kingdom from now on - I will reserve all legislative, executive, and judiciary functions to myself and those I appoint. I furthermore demand all of the Lords of Camelot to bow to me and my peers, those who command magick, so that we may better lead you. We'll craft a false history for those to come to believe, and weave an enchantment to make magick protect its own secrets. And there shall be peace, whether you like it or not."
"I..." Arthur stepped forward, crown gleaming in the dusken light, even in the ashes and fires of warfare. It was unstained by neither blood nor grime, even though no enchantments protected it from such. "I must take issue with that, Merlin. It'd make us all subjects to you, and our descendants. There'd be no way to form resistance or have our own independence from you - we'd be slaves to you, and I do not condone such. And it's not as if your kind do not have conflicts of their own. As the High King of Britain, in the name of my peers, I refuse your tyranny."
"So be it."
And so began a three-way conflict, between the Rebels, the Loyalists, and the Wizards, to see who might control the British Isles. Although Arthur was indeed wise and learned in the ways of battle, and Mordred had ferocity and ruthlessness, Merlin was the Prince of Enchanters and commanded power from beyond this world.
As the last supplies from the groves of the original Wand Wood in Rome were exhausted and sent to Britain to support the war on the side of the Wizards, the power and inventiveness of their kind rising to a deadly level seen never before - with magickal spells that could bewitch the mind, and deal excruciating pain, and kill with a simple flick of the wand - did Arthur understand, at last, the folly of his decisions in his life, and the foolishness of those under him, and the blindness of his own reign. They'd always been doomed, consigned to failure and an eternity of service under the serpent that was Merlin. They simply never knew it, until right now.
So goes in the sayings of Merlin, He-Who-Was-First: in Britain magic began in caves and under stars, among standing stones and in forest hearts. Kings bent to the words of the magicians; magicians did not ply tricks for kings.
After several years, the deadly war finally neared its conclusion, the Rebels and Loyalists once more collapsed into a single faction, under Arthur - for Mordred fell in the Battle of Camlann - and they fought against the wizards. Although the wizards were outnumbered almost ten to one, they had powers that mere humans could not wield, and so, kept making a slow advance to the lower lands of Britain. Many times now, Lancelot had urged Arthur they should flee to Avalon using the Prydwen, that surviving in the fairy world where even the wizards could not reach was their only hope, but Arthur wasn't sure, and chose to stay, at least for now.
As the final battle approached, Arthur was far older, in his fifties, his once shining beard having become gray and then matte white, his hair falling out steadily. He was around the age where a man would die normally without the help of wizardly magics - however, given that Merlin no longer supported him, his months were counted.
At least, they would've been, were it not for his sword, Excalibur, and its scabbard. And even if they fled to Avalon, Arthur knew that he had to forsake any notion of immortality and leave them behind, somewhere the wizards could never find them.
And so he rode, with only a small party of retainers to accompany him. Arthur rode into the far northern lands, beyond Leicester and Lincoln, beyond Joyous Garde, beyond Roestoc and Nohaut, beyond the sentry wall and Lothian, and into the lands of the Scots, and even further beyond, to places where the genesis of the world was fresh yet, soil undecided on whether it'd be fertile or infertile, the winds undecided on whether they'd be harsh or welcoming, the sun confused as to its supposed brightness.
A land unformed, still wild and untamed, its people free; centaurs galloping in the forests, trolls dwelling in the darkened caves, wild hatchling spiders as large as men prowling in the woods, giant men and women traveling in nomadic tribes and milking furry elephants to make cheese.
Arthur fought many of them and made it past countless challenges before he emerged on a clearing where a number of hogs fed on the available cuds. Some kind of disease had afflicted the hogs, as warts sprung out over their skin. A shame - for they seemed a good breed, otherwise.
At the mere thought of doing this, his heart shook with pain, but Arthur unsheathed Excalibur. Its protective magics were one of the things keeping the kingdom afloat, preventing Merlin and his kind from unleashing the fullest portion of their might; but Arthur had already sent the missive, told Lancelot to board the Prydwen and come for him, so they might escape to Avalon. Maybe Britain was lost, but their people weren't, not yet - not all of them, at least. Arthur would come back in the future.
Although he was not a wizard, could not use the form of magic that wizards could use, he was able to call upon some amount of power as the sovereign of Britain, as its promised king, who'd taken Excalibur from the Stone that Merlin placed it in; the blade had some of the magic that was left behind by those who came before.
"I, High King Arthur Pendragon, order you, Blade of Hard Cleft, Caledfwlch, Excalibur - my companion. May you ever protect yourself, as magic protects itself, and elude the grasp of the wizards - of Merlin and his ilk, and his bloodline entire. May you ever run away from them, and find one who is worthy, at some time long from now. Anyone shall do, so long as they are worthy, my sword. And then, maybe sometime in the future, I shall see you once more."
And like that, he cast Excalibur back into the lake.
And then, seconds later, he did the same to its scabbard, named after the island of Avalon it had come from. Avalon was the last thing protecting Arthur from death, giving him some last measure of health, and as he cast it away, he could feel his age catching up to him within moments.
A dread certainty filled him, then - a primordial sensation like some deep instinct, informing him that he'd be dead within days or weeks unless he reached Avalon. If the Prydwen arrived before Merlin, he'd be saved.
A flash of thunder, like a momentary beating of the drums, as Merlin Apparated behind him.
So maybe he wouldn't be saved.
"A foolish mistake, old friend, to cast away the sword that protected you."
Arthur turned around to behold him. Merlin had been an adult when Arthur was a child, many years his senior, and even now, decades later, he was older still, than Arthur who was already an old man himself. Merlin's long raggedy beard reached down almost to his feet, and though he'd killed thousands of people, he was smiling as he'd always done, eyes glittering with effervescence as if the war had never happened - as if they were still friends, seeing one another once more after a long vacation.
A book floated in front of Merlin. Its cover was blue leather adorned with a sapphire, pages as black as night; a clockwork grimoire linked to a silver chain. Its script lit up, the corners of letters like blue stars. A cuneiform of glowing blue splattered across the pages. As he raised it, the constellations spilled out into the surrounding air, spreading across, almost like fireflies, filling the air with magic so thick and acerbic that its simple presence burned at Arthur's tongue and nostrils whenever he breathed in.
"An interesting land you've found here, I must say," Merlin commented, looking away at the hogs. "Maybe I'll lead my students here after I am done, establish a presence here. Show them its beauty and splendor. A good way to celebrate peace among the British people, don't you think?"
"I am sure Rowena would love it," Arthur commented politely.
"She's always been one for exploring nature and its possibilities," Merlin agreed candidly with an eager nod.
A frank and simple conversation, as if they'd never gone to war against one another.
"I will kill you now," Merlin said, in simple and pleasant tones.
"I appreciate your candor. But know, Merlin, that I enter the grave spitting upon thee."
"You are not spitting," Merlin noted absently.
"A king should have more decorum. However, that does not stop others from spitting," Arthur said.
A look of arrogance entered Merlin's features, similar to the one he bore when making his pronouncement. "Goodbye, old friend. I shall rule from now on."
"And yet, I don't think you'll do a good job of it," Dudley said, snapping Harry out of his thoughts. They were going back home. At some point, Harry must have blanked out and started thinking about something else. "I mean, it'll be hard to hold 'em together. Oi, Harry, you listening to me?"
"Uh, yeah. Sorry. I kind of spaced out. Being, uh, the ruler is just a lot."
"Ha, you're telling me?"
---
Harry trusts Dudley with his secrets, but Geist doesn't - he believes that a Muggle knowing about magic could be dangerous, and as such, Dudley, already being dangerous, should not be made even more threatening.
[ ] Tell Dudley - Yo, that's wicked! +Dudley.
[ ] Hold Back - A wise choice. +Geist.
As this might have some bearing on the outcome of the kidnapping event, I'll hold back on that one for now.
