Fic: Meeting the Minister (Merlin/Arthur)
Hey people, this is just a repost so feel free to ignore it, just like Gaius does when he hears Arthur sneaking into Merlin's chamber every night ;)
I know lots of people commented on the kmm (thank you by the way, I was so amazed by the wonderful response) and I'm still working my way through those with replies :) but I like to put things on my journal eventually as well so I can add them to my masterlist and have them all neatly in one place.
Wordcount: 3,592
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Summary: Written for this brilliant prompt on kinkme_merlin, The new Muggle Prime Minister meets the Minister for Magic.
Huge thanks to Vensre for the truly inspirational purple and green Comic Sans coding ;) As Merlin always says, nothing says 'informative' AND fun like Comic Sans.
Arthur had been Prime Minister for little more than a day when he finally saw his office. He had a hangover, which he had been assured was normal for his first day on the job, but really that was no excuse for hallucinating. His office was much as he had expected, dark wood panelled walls, a large and imposing desk and an even larger fireplace behind it (it couldn’t be real, he supposed, not in this day and age), but the untidy haired man in the painting holding a balloon and wearing a lop-sided party hat was rather a shock. And if Arthur didn’t know it was insane, he would have sworn the man had been singing when he came in. Arthur stared, and stared, and then stared some more. And then the man’s right eye twitched and Arthur leapt backwards in shock, tripped over his executive chair and knocked himself unconscious on the edge of the desk.
Two days later Arthur was back in his office, sporting an impressive dressing on his forehead and tasked with not, under any circumstances, killing himself with an antique desk before his newly appointed Chancellor, Gwen, had had chance to complete her first budget. That sounded simple enough, hallucinations tended to be more difficult without a conspicuous amount of alcohol in his system and after a day’s enforced bedrest. With that in mind, Arthur pushed open the door with the sort of confidence expected of the Youngest Prime Minster Since Pitt The Younger, and strode into his new domain, All was as he remembered it, except the desk which was now sporting a large DANGER sign, no doubt courtesy of Morgana, the harpy.
“You’re not funny!” he said loudly, since she could be relied upon to be hovering outside the door, waiting to hear the result of her handiwork.
“I’ve hidden the whisky,” she called back, because that’s what happened when you let nepotism run rampant and made your sister your PA.
Arthur pulled a face at the closed door, because he couldn’t think of a better comeback, and then stalked over to his chair. He should have been here three days ago, lord knows how much extra work he had made for himself and his new government now. “This is all your fault!” He spun round in his chair, the better to direct a finely honed glare at the man with the balloon (and who paints ‘Man With Balloon’ anyway? And then thinks it would look good in the Prime Minister’s private office?). “I hope you...” He stopped, and gaped. The man, and it was still the same man which rather ruled out a new painting, had somehow lost his balloon, and his party hat, and was instead looking deeply and rather pathetically sad. His hair was the same, he was still wearing what appeared to be a ridiculous scarf tied round his neck and he was still standing against the same background, a field with a castle in the distance and... Arthur stood up and then blinked several times, but no, the clouds did still appear to spell out the word SORRY.
What the hell?
He was going mad. That was the only explanation. All the pressure of the campaign, the late nights, the celebratory drinks, bloody Morgana nagging at him 24/7, it had all been too much. The Right Honourable Leader of the Opposition was never going to let him hear the end of it.
He slumped back down, resisting the urge to bang his head against the polished surface of his desk and give himself another concussion. It was no good, there was only one thing for it.
Gaius arrived not ten minutes after Arthur had given him a vague and not terribly reassuring account of how he was having a nervous breakdown and being haunted by strange men with balloons and apologetic clouds. But to his shock, Gaius’s first act was not to ask what substances he’d been taking, or even to give him the Eyebrow of Doom (he’d been the Pendragon personal physician since Arthur’s birth, and Arthur was well used to the Eyebrow), but rather to march over to the painting and demand that someone called “Merlin” stop being so “utterly ridiculous and a disgrace to the Ministry” and appear immediately.
“Er... Gaius, I don’t think he can hear you.” Arthur wondered when Gaius had gone senile, and whether the memo was still in his in-tray.
“He most certainly can,” snapped Gaius, “And unless he wants me to inform Miss Granger that he illegally voted in a Muggle Election, I suggest he stops behaving like a teenage witch under a love spell and perform his duties to the wizard community.”
“Maybe you should sit down,” Arthur put in worriedly, already reaching for the bottle of water someone had thoughtfully left on a side cabinet. Gaius glared, and it took Arthur a nervous second to realise it wasn’t directed at him, but rather at the large fireplace which Arthur didn’t even remember being lit. But it was burning now, leaping emerald flames that only barely covered something moving in the depths of the fireplace, spinning and growing until with a shower of sparks and rather a lot of soot, a man tumbled out onto Arthur’s antique rug and almost immediately righted himself, patting down dark hair, his face tomato red.
“Oops, normally I don’t do that. I mean, I wasn’t expecting the rug because who puts a rug right there? Unless it’s your rug. Is it your rug? It’s very nice.”
“Merlin!” Gaius barked, and the hallucination, who was apparently called Merlin, and who had disappeared from a painting and re-appeared in the middle of the Prime Minister’s office, blushed even harder (if that was possible) and abruptly stuck out a hand. “Oh sorry, that was very rude of me. I’m Merlin, Minister for Magic.”
Arthur looked dazedly at his hand, which had been seized and was in the process of being shaken quite enthusiastically. “I’m-”
“Arthur, I know,” Merlin said happily. “I watched all your appearances on Answer Time.”
“Question Time,” Arthur corrected absently, since he’d actually been about to say “hallucinating again.”
“Oh yes, of course. Sorry.” Merlin finally released Arthur’s land and smoothed down what had to be quite the oddest assortment of clothes Arthur had ever seen (and he’d once opened a Renaissance Faire).
“I don’t...” Arthur trailed off helplessly, then sat down rather suddenly in his executive chair.
“I think what Merlin is trying to say, Arthur,” Gaius put in kindly, with a quelling look at Merlin, “is that it is his duty to inform you that magic is in fact real and very much alive in Britain today, and that witches and wizards live peacefully alongside non magical people, or ‘muggles’ as they are known, throughout the world.” When Arthur seemed unable to reply, Gaius ploughed on. “I’m sure you must have many questions, not least about my own involvement in all this, and we will be happy to answer them all.”
“I’ve made you a handbook,” said Merlin at once, ignoring Gaius’s eye roll. “Hermione helped me with the printing machine, since I thought you’d prefer something muggle.” He rooted around in his jacket pocket and pulled out an A5 booklet which he proceeded to place in Arthur’s nerveless hands. “She made it colour and everything.”
Arthur glanced down and then recoiled slightly from the large lurid green font declaring,
SO YOU’VE BECOME THE YOUNGEST PRIME MINISTER IN BRITISH HISTORY SINCE MR. PITT YOUNGER AND FOUND OUT MAGIC IS REAL, YOU PROBABLY NEED HELP.
Arthur couldn’t argue with that.
“You have to turn the page,” said Merlin helpfully when he still didn’t move, “I couldn’t fit it all on one parchment.” After a moment, he leaned forward and cautiously turned the page, flicking worried glances at Arthur as though he feared he was about to swoon on the carpet. “There, see?”
The giant text continued,
DON’T WORRY. YOU WILL FIND EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW RIGHT HERE.
On the opposite page, the contents were laid out in slightly less lurid purple.
1. MAGIC IS REAL. DON’T PANIC.
2. SOMETIMES IT GOES WRONG: WHEN YOU SHOULD PANIC.
3. HOW THE MINISTRY CAN HELP YOU.
4. MERLIN: MAGIC’S MOST ELIGIBLE BACHELOR (re-produced from Witch Weekly. August 2010)
“Witch Weekly Merlin? Really?” Gaius’ disapproving tone could barely be heard over the roaring in Arthur’s ears. Magic was apparently real. Magic. The stuff of Disney films and fairy tales and Lord of the Rings, and here was a man - called Merlin of all things - calmly telling him it was all true and handing him a badly stapled guide in green and purple Comic Sans, while Gaius, who he’d known his entire life, was nodding along in the background. On second thoughts, Arthur thought he’d preferred the prospect of campaign induced insanity.
“Is there any chance I am hallucinating?” Arthur managed at last, looking hopefully at Gaius since he, at least, had been around far too long to be a figment of his imagination.
Gaius drew a stick out of his pocket, waved it around, and then handed Arthur a perfectly made cup of tea which had just appeared out of thin air. “I am afraid not, my dear boy, although I must say you’re taking it better than some of your predecessors. Mrs Thatcher attacked her Minister with a fireside poker.”
Merlin looked rather startled to hear that. “You’re not going to do that, are you?” he said, looking between the poker by the fireside and Arthur somewhat nervously.
Arthur just shook his head, since that certainly wasn’t foremost in his mind.
Merlin instantly relaxed. “Oh good. I thought you might be angry, you know, after the other day,” he gestured furtively at the dressing on Arthur’s head. “I really am sorry about that by the way. I didn’t mean to make you faint.”
“I didn’t faint,” Arthur snapped. He had never heard anything so ridiculous in his life!
Then he shut up abruptly, wondering if Merlin could turn him into a frog or something equally horrible, but he was relieved to see that Merlin didn’t look like he was about to curse him, if anything he looked pleased to see Arthur recovering his voice.
“Of course not,” Merlin said quickly. “But I didn’t mean for you to... uh, fall over, anyway. I had had a little bit to drink in the celebrations.” He studiously avoided Gaius’s disapproving eye.
“Celebrations?” Arthur asked, confused.
Merlin eyes went wide, “For your victory! Elvina Etherbridge threw a spectacular party, she made a picture of your face out of fireworks and there was a broomstick display by the Chudley Cannons.” He beamed.
Arthur frowned, “Wait, Elvina Etherbridge the assistant to my press secretary?”
“Er... no?”
Somewhere to their left, Gaius let out a loud sigh. “Arthur, why don’t we all sit down and discuss this. There’s a lot you need to know and this is hardly the introduction to the world of magic I had envisaged.” This last was directed at Merlin, whose ears immediately went red. Gaius then conjured a couple of squashy armchairs from nothing and sat down in one, turning a look on Merlin until he too sat, shifting his chair closer to Arthur in what Arthur thought was a rather worrying way. “Right, where shall we start?”
There followed quite the strangest half an hour of Arthur’s life, as Gaius calmly informed him that there was what amounted to a whole separate part of British society that had wands and performed spells and thought ‘A Cauldron Full of Hot Strong Love’ was a perfectly acceptable name for a song. Gaius explained that there was a Ministry of Magic (which sounded both more and less complicated than the House of Commons) and that a majority of obviously deranged people had elected Merlin to lead it. There were magical creatures, and bloody invisible castles where they taught magic, and Gaius was a wizard and had a broomstick (“but I sent the car for you!” protested Arthur).
Merlin did his best to contribute, mainly adding things like “if you turn to page thirty three, I drew you a diagram,” or “on page forty two there’s a picture of me with Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger at the Ministry Christmas party, but that isn’t my real hair.” Then Gaius conjured up something called ‘firewhiskey’ and handed Arthur a glassful, telling him to drink up and things would all seem better in the morning. Arthur gulped it down, and then regretted it when he spent five minutes coughing and having his back patted by the Minister for Magic (he seemed very keen to help) while Gaius just looked amused.
“I think he’s quite recovered Merlin,” Gaius said, when Arthur had stopped spluttering and was merely red faced and feeling a little warm (and not just from the firewhiskey, Merlin was still sitting rather close and had moved on to rubbing his back). “Perhaps we should be going? I’m sure we’ve given the Prime Minister rather a lot to think about and you have a delegation of goblins coming at 4.”
“Oh, yes.” It must have been Arthur’s imagination that Merlin sounded disappointed. His hand left Arthur’s back (Arthur absolutely didn’t miss the warmth).
“Is that it then?” Arthur said, feeling somewhat bewildered that two wizards could sweep into his office, tell him magic was real and then sweep out again to keep an appointment with some goblins without so much as a by-your-leave.
“Unless you have more questions?” Merlin said, sounding extremely hopeful about it.
“Well I will probably have some,” Arthur said, feeling very put out. “This is a lot to take in.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Merlin was nodding very seriously. He frowned, as if in deep thought, then his expression cleared. “Oh I know! Why don’t we meet for dinner? That’s probably best, since we wouldn’t want people to think we were having any secret political meetings.”
“...We don’t?”
“No. There are, er, wizardly rules about that sort of thing.” He nodded some more. “I couldn’t possibly be seen to be breaking any rules. I ran for office on a platform of complete integrity and devotion to duty. Not that duty takes up all my time of course. I mean, I’m not married to the job or anything. That’s not why I’m single. Did I mention I was single?”
“No, I don’t think we-”
“Oh, well I am,” Merlin interrupted, his face a shade of pink that should not be as charming as it was, “Single I mean. It says so on page fifty-four, in Witch Weekly’s Ten Tantalising Truths about me.”
The mutter of “Oh dear God,” from Gaius must have been Arthur’s imagination. In any case he was far too pre-occupied by the sneaking suspicion that he had just been asked out by a wizard named Merlin who might or might not have broken wizarding law to vote him into office. And it didn’t even sound like it would involve politics. Arthur couldn’t remember the last time he had been out for dinner with anyone where politics wasn’t on the menu, although it might have been around the time Valiant had ditched him for his tennis instructor. Arthur wondered if wizards played tennis, and then realised he’d gotten off the point and forcibly dragged his thoughts back to the matter at hand, which was Merlin, brow furrowed as he leafed through what appeared to be an enchanted Week Planner (the front cover was cycling through a selection of eye watering colours).
“How does Tuesday sound for you?” Merlin was saying. A quill leapt from his pocket and balanced itself expectantly on the page, fairly quivering with anticipation. “I can do Tuesday, or Wednesday. I’m de-gnoming the garden on Tuesday, but that shouldn’t take longer than half an hour unless they stage another protest.”
“Tuesday’s fine,” Arthur said hastily, before Merlin could start telling him there were bloody dragons and unicorns too. He made a mental note to clear whatever he was doing on Tuesday night, and told himself it was purely for his own safety, and not because the magical green flames still leaping in the fireplace really highlighted Merlin’s cheekbones.
The quill was already scribbling furiously in the week planner. “Perfect,” said Merlin happily. “I thought we could go for Italian, as it’s your favourite.” Arthur must have looked taken aback because Merlin added proudly, “I’ve been buying the muggle newspapers.”
“Right,” said Arthur, like it all made perfect sense, trying to remember if he’d ever mentioned his food preferences in any of the numerous interviews he’d given over the course of the campaign.
“I’ll send you an owl,” said Merlin, tucking the week planner and quill away and beaming at Arthur.
“Er...ok,” said Arthur, hoping that was some sort of euphemism.
“If you’ve quite finished,” Gaius put in, using The Eyebrow on both Merlin and Arthur, which was probably a good thing since Merlin was still smiling at Arthur and Arthur could feel his face getting warm again as he resisted the urge to loosen his tie (Merlin wasn’t even wearing a tie, not that Arthur was looking).
“Right, yes,” said Merlin, standing up so quickly he knocked over his chair and spilled half the papers stacked haphazardly on Arthur’s side table. “Oops!”
“It’s ok,” Arthur said hastily, when Merlin immediately dived after them, managing to knee him quite painfully in the shin. “Really, you can just leave them.”
“Or you could use your magic,” said Gaius, pointedly.
Merlin blinked at him, then seemed to remember he was Minister for Magic and was (Arthur presumed) therefore quite proficient in the whole magic business. Three seconds later, the papers came to rest neatly in a pile once more and Merlin climbed to his feet, looking terribly flustered when Arthur offered a hand to help him. “I don’t normally do that,” he said, flushing (although the ‘humph’ from Gaius suggested otherwise).
It took Arthur a few moments to retrieve his hand and his manners. “I’m sure. Well, I should let you go. Thank you for-” He stopped, not entirely sure whether a thank you was really appropriate in this case. Thinking through his lengthy PR training, he couldn’t think of anything that would be appropriate in this case. Luckily, Merlin didn’t seem to mind.
“You’re welcome,” he said, still much too close for Arthur’s comfort. “If you need me- Er, anything from the wizarding community, feel free to ask the painting.” He moved back - presumably before Gaius could actually drag him from the room (he looked very tempted).
“Hang on,” Arthur said, as Merlin’s words registered, “Do you mean you’re going to be hanging around in the corner, watching me?” He didn’t know how he felt about that at all, and not just because Morgana had once caught him dancing to the hits of Abba in his parliamentary office.
“Oh no,” Merlin said at once, to Arthur’s relief, “It’ll be Edwin.” He waved at the battered frame in the corner which Arthur noticed with a start was once again occupied, this time by a dour man with a scarred face who was sitting on a mossy rock, reading an enormous leather bound tome. He glanced up at Merlin’s interruption, looking irritated, before he returned his gaze to the book, soundly ignoring them all. “Edwin isn’t very sociable, I’m afraid,” Merlin said in a loud whisper.
Arthur frowned, confused. “So Edwin just lives in your painting?”
“Actually it’s his painting,” said Merlin. “He, er, wanted a holiday, so I gave him the week off.”
“A man in a painting wanted a holiday?”
“Is that the time?” said Merlin brightly, pulling an ornate pocket watch from his coat and giving an unconvincing start of surprise (Arthur couldn’t help but notice the watch was upside down). “I must dash. I need to tidy my office before the goblins arrive.”
“Ok,” said Arthur, feeling like he’d missed something. “I guess I’ll see you on Tuesday then.”
“Yes,” Merlin sounded far too happy about it. “How do you feel about flying carpets?”
“Flying-?”
“Goodbye Arthur,” said Gaius firmly, all but yanking Merlin after him to the fireplace. He then proceeded to retrieve a large handful of powder from a particularly ugly vase on the mantel, fling it into the flames and pull a still protesting Merlin after him, disappearing in a swirl of sparkling green flames even as Merlin’s hurried “bye Arthur!” was still echoing in the room.
There was a long silence.
“...Goodbye,” said Arthur weakly and far too late. He sat back down in his chair, staring around the room and finding nothing that would suggest the extraordinary events of the past hour, unless it was Merlin’s handbook, still attempting to blind him with its objectionable colour scheme. Edwin was still reading quietly in the corner, the flames were once again orange and the only sound in the room was the quiet ticking of the clock. If he was lucky, no-one would even suspect.
Then the door opened and Morgana hurried in, carefully carrying a tray on which was balanced a silver tea pot, two cups and a plate of chocolate biscuits, only to stop dead, eyes sweeping the room even as she frowned.
“What on earth did you do with Gaius?”
Arthur had a feeling Merlin’s handbook didn’t cover this part.
The End.
NEXT: A Ministerial Appointment
I know lots of people commented on the kmm (thank you by the way, I was so amazed by the wonderful response) and I'm still working my way through those with replies :) but I like to put things on my journal eventually as well so I can add them to my masterlist and have them all neatly in one place.
Wordcount: 3,592
Rating: PG
Warnings: None
Summary: Written for this brilliant prompt on kinkme_merlin, The new Muggle Prime Minister meets the Minister for Magic.
Huge thanks to Vensre for the truly inspirational purple and green Comic Sans coding ;) As Merlin always says, nothing says 'informative' AND fun like Comic Sans.
Arthur had been Prime Minister for little more than a day when he finally saw his office. He had a hangover, which he had been assured was normal for his first day on the job, but really that was no excuse for hallucinating. His office was much as he had expected, dark wood panelled walls, a large and imposing desk and an even larger fireplace behind it (it couldn’t be real, he supposed, not in this day and age), but the untidy haired man in the painting holding a balloon and wearing a lop-sided party hat was rather a shock. And if Arthur didn’t know it was insane, he would have sworn the man had been singing when he came in. Arthur stared, and stared, and then stared some more. And then the man’s right eye twitched and Arthur leapt backwards in shock, tripped over his executive chair and knocked himself unconscious on the edge of the desk.
Two days later Arthur was back in his office, sporting an impressive dressing on his forehead and tasked with not, under any circumstances, killing himself with an antique desk before his newly appointed Chancellor, Gwen, had had chance to complete her first budget. That sounded simple enough, hallucinations tended to be more difficult without a conspicuous amount of alcohol in his system and after a day’s enforced bedrest. With that in mind, Arthur pushed open the door with the sort of confidence expected of the Youngest Prime Minster Since Pitt The Younger, and strode into his new domain, All was as he remembered it, except the desk which was now sporting a large DANGER sign, no doubt courtesy of Morgana, the harpy.
“You’re not funny!” he said loudly, since she could be relied upon to be hovering outside the door, waiting to hear the result of her handiwork.
“I’ve hidden the whisky,” she called back, because that’s what happened when you let nepotism run rampant and made your sister your PA.
Arthur pulled a face at the closed door, because he couldn’t think of a better comeback, and then stalked over to his chair. He should have been here three days ago, lord knows how much extra work he had made for himself and his new government now. “This is all your fault!” He spun round in his chair, the better to direct a finely honed glare at the man with the balloon (and who paints ‘Man With Balloon’ anyway? And then thinks it would look good in the Prime Minister’s private office?). “I hope you...” He stopped, and gaped. The man, and it was still the same man which rather ruled out a new painting, had somehow lost his balloon, and his party hat, and was instead looking deeply and rather pathetically sad. His hair was the same, he was still wearing what appeared to be a ridiculous scarf tied round his neck and he was still standing against the same background, a field with a castle in the distance and... Arthur stood up and then blinked several times, but no, the clouds did still appear to spell out the word SORRY.
What the hell?
He was going mad. That was the only explanation. All the pressure of the campaign, the late nights, the celebratory drinks, bloody Morgana nagging at him 24/7, it had all been too much. The Right Honourable Leader of the Opposition was never going to let him hear the end of it.
He slumped back down, resisting the urge to bang his head against the polished surface of his desk and give himself another concussion. It was no good, there was only one thing for it.
Gaius arrived not ten minutes after Arthur had given him a vague and not terribly reassuring account of how he was having a nervous breakdown and being haunted by strange men with balloons and apologetic clouds. But to his shock, Gaius’s first act was not to ask what substances he’d been taking, or even to give him the Eyebrow of Doom (he’d been the Pendragon personal physician since Arthur’s birth, and Arthur was well used to the Eyebrow), but rather to march over to the painting and demand that someone called “Merlin” stop being so “utterly ridiculous and a disgrace to the Ministry” and appear immediately.
“Er... Gaius, I don’t think he can hear you.” Arthur wondered when Gaius had gone senile, and whether the memo was still in his in-tray.
“He most certainly can,” snapped Gaius, “And unless he wants me to inform Miss Granger that he illegally voted in a Muggle Election, I suggest he stops behaving like a teenage witch under a love spell and perform his duties to the wizard community.”
“Maybe you should sit down,” Arthur put in worriedly, already reaching for the bottle of water someone had thoughtfully left on a side cabinet. Gaius glared, and it took Arthur a nervous second to realise it wasn’t directed at him, but rather at the large fireplace which Arthur didn’t even remember being lit. But it was burning now, leaping emerald flames that only barely covered something moving in the depths of the fireplace, spinning and growing until with a shower of sparks and rather a lot of soot, a man tumbled out onto Arthur’s antique rug and almost immediately righted himself, patting down dark hair, his face tomato red.
“Oops, normally I don’t do that. I mean, I wasn’t expecting the rug because who puts a rug right there? Unless it’s your rug. Is it your rug? It’s very nice.”
“Merlin!” Gaius barked, and the hallucination, who was apparently called Merlin, and who had disappeared from a painting and re-appeared in the middle of the Prime Minister’s office, blushed even harder (if that was possible) and abruptly stuck out a hand. “Oh sorry, that was very rude of me. I’m Merlin, Minister for Magic.”
Arthur looked dazedly at his hand, which had been seized and was in the process of being shaken quite enthusiastically. “I’m-”
“Arthur, I know,” Merlin said happily. “I watched all your appearances on Answer Time.”
“Question Time,” Arthur corrected absently, since he’d actually been about to say “hallucinating again.”
“Oh yes, of course. Sorry.” Merlin finally released Arthur’s land and smoothed down what had to be quite the oddest assortment of clothes Arthur had ever seen (and he’d once opened a Renaissance Faire).
“I don’t...” Arthur trailed off helplessly, then sat down rather suddenly in his executive chair.
“I think what Merlin is trying to say, Arthur,” Gaius put in kindly, with a quelling look at Merlin, “is that it is his duty to inform you that magic is in fact real and very much alive in Britain today, and that witches and wizards live peacefully alongside non magical people, or ‘muggles’ as they are known, throughout the world.” When Arthur seemed unable to reply, Gaius ploughed on. “I’m sure you must have many questions, not least about my own involvement in all this, and we will be happy to answer them all.”
“I’ve made you a handbook,” said Merlin at once, ignoring Gaius’s eye roll. “Hermione helped me with the printing machine, since I thought you’d prefer something muggle.” He rooted around in his jacket pocket and pulled out an A5 booklet which he proceeded to place in Arthur’s nerveless hands. “She made it colour and everything.”
Arthur glanced down and then recoiled slightly from the large lurid green font declaring,
SO YOU’VE BECOME THE YOUNGEST PRIME MINISTER IN BRITISH HISTORY SINCE MR. PITT YOUNGER AND FOUND OUT MAGIC IS REAL, YOU PROBABLY NEED HELP.
Arthur couldn’t argue with that.
“You have to turn the page,” said Merlin helpfully when he still didn’t move, “I couldn’t fit it all on one parchment.” After a moment, he leaned forward and cautiously turned the page, flicking worried glances at Arthur as though he feared he was about to swoon on the carpet. “There, see?”
The giant text continued,
DON’T WORRY. YOU WILL FIND EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW RIGHT HERE.
On the opposite page, the contents were laid out in slightly less lurid purple.
1. MAGIC IS REAL. DON’T PANIC.
2. SOMETIMES IT GOES WRONG: WHEN YOU SHOULD PANIC.
3. HOW THE MINISTRY CAN HELP YOU.
4. MERLIN: MAGIC’S MOST ELIGIBLE BACHELOR (re-produced from Witch Weekly. August 2010)
“Witch Weekly Merlin? Really?” Gaius’ disapproving tone could barely be heard over the roaring in Arthur’s ears. Magic was apparently real. Magic. The stuff of Disney films and fairy tales and Lord of the Rings, and here was a man - called Merlin of all things - calmly telling him it was all true and handing him a badly stapled guide in green and purple Comic Sans, while Gaius, who he’d known his entire life, was nodding along in the background. On second thoughts, Arthur thought he’d preferred the prospect of campaign induced insanity.
“Is there any chance I am hallucinating?” Arthur managed at last, looking hopefully at Gaius since he, at least, had been around far too long to be a figment of his imagination.
Gaius drew a stick out of his pocket, waved it around, and then handed Arthur a perfectly made cup of tea which had just appeared out of thin air. “I am afraid not, my dear boy, although I must say you’re taking it better than some of your predecessors. Mrs Thatcher attacked her Minister with a fireside poker.”
Merlin looked rather startled to hear that. “You’re not going to do that, are you?” he said, looking between the poker by the fireside and Arthur somewhat nervously.
Arthur just shook his head, since that certainly wasn’t foremost in his mind.
Merlin instantly relaxed. “Oh good. I thought you might be angry, you know, after the other day,” he gestured furtively at the dressing on Arthur’s head. “I really am sorry about that by the way. I didn’t mean to make you faint.”
“I didn’t faint,” Arthur snapped. He had never heard anything so ridiculous in his life!
Then he shut up abruptly, wondering if Merlin could turn him into a frog or something equally horrible, but he was relieved to see that Merlin didn’t look like he was about to curse him, if anything he looked pleased to see Arthur recovering his voice.
“Of course not,” Merlin said quickly. “But I didn’t mean for you to... uh, fall over, anyway. I had had a little bit to drink in the celebrations.” He studiously avoided Gaius’s disapproving eye.
“Celebrations?” Arthur asked, confused.
Merlin eyes went wide, “For your victory! Elvina Etherbridge threw a spectacular party, she made a picture of your face out of fireworks and there was a broomstick display by the Chudley Cannons.” He beamed.
Arthur frowned, “Wait, Elvina Etherbridge the assistant to my press secretary?”
“Er... no?”
Somewhere to their left, Gaius let out a loud sigh. “Arthur, why don’t we all sit down and discuss this. There’s a lot you need to know and this is hardly the introduction to the world of magic I had envisaged.” This last was directed at Merlin, whose ears immediately went red. Gaius then conjured a couple of squashy armchairs from nothing and sat down in one, turning a look on Merlin until he too sat, shifting his chair closer to Arthur in what Arthur thought was a rather worrying way. “Right, where shall we start?”
There followed quite the strangest half an hour of Arthur’s life, as Gaius calmly informed him that there was what amounted to a whole separate part of British society that had wands and performed spells and thought ‘A Cauldron Full of Hot Strong Love’ was a perfectly acceptable name for a song. Gaius explained that there was a Ministry of Magic (which sounded both more and less complicated than the House of Commons) and that a majority of obviously deranged people had elected Merlin to lead it. There were magical creatures, and bloody invisible castles where they taught magic, and Gaius was a wizard and had a broomstick (“but I sent the car for you!” protested Arthur).
Merlin did his best to contribute, mainly adding things like “if you turn to page thirty three, I drew you a diagram,” or “on page forty two there’s a picture of me with Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger at the Ministry Christmas party, but that isn’t my real hair.” Then Gaius conjured up something called ‘firewhiskey’ and handed Arthur a glassful, telling him to drink up and things would all seem better in the morning. Arthur gulped it down, and then regretted it when he spent five minutes coughing and having his back patted by the Minister for Magic (he seemed very keen to help) while Gaius just looked amused.
“I think he’s quite recovered Merlin,” Gaius said, when Arthur had stopped spluttering and was merely red faced and feeling a little warm (and not just from the firewhiskey, Merlin was still sitting rather close and had moved on to rubbing his back). “Perhaps we should be going? I’m sure we’ve given the Prime Minister rather a lot to think about and you have a delegation of goblins coming at 4.”
“Oh, yes.” It must have been Arthur’s imagination that Merlin sounded disappointed. His hand left Arthur’s back (Arthur absolutely didn’t miss the warmth).
“Is that it then?” Arthur said, feeling somewhat bewildered that two wizards could sweep into his office, tell him magic was real and then sweep out again to keep an appointment with some goblins without so much as a by-your-leave.
“Unless you have more questions?” Merlin said, sounding extremely hopeful about it.
“Well I will probably have some,” Arthur said, feeling very put out. “This is a lot to take in.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Merlin was nodding very seriously. He frowned, as if in deep thought, then his expression cleared. “Oh I know! Why don’t we meet for dinner? That’s probably best, since we wouldn’t want people to think we were having any secret political meetings.”
“...We don’t?”
“No. There are, er, wizardly rules about that sort of thing.” He nodded some more. “I couldn’t possibly be seen to be breaking any rules. I ran for office on a platform of complete integrity and devotion to duty. Not that duty takes up all my time of course. I mean, I’m not married to the job or anything. That’s not why I’m single. Did I mention I was single?”
“No, I don’t think we-”
“Oh, well I am,” Merlin interrupted, his face a shade of pink that should not be as charming as it was, “Single I mean. It says so on page fifty-four, in Witch Weekly’s Ten Tantalising Truths about me.”
The mutter of “Oh dear God,” from Gaius must have been Arthur’s imagination. In any case he was far too pre-occupied by the sneaking suspicion that he had just been asked out by a wizard named Merlin who might or might not have broken wizarding law to vote him into office. And it didn’t even sound like it would involve politics. Arthur couldn’t remember the last time he had been out for dinner with anyone where politics wasn’t on the menu, although it might have been around the time Valiant had ditched him for his tennis instructor. Arthur wondered if wizards played tennis, and then realised he’d gotten off the point and forcibly dragged his thoughts back to the matter at hand, which was Merlin, brow furrowed as he leafed through what appeared to be an enchanted Week Planner (the front cover was cycling through a selection of eye watering colours).
“How does Tuesday sound for you?” Merlin was saying. A quill leapt from his pocket and balanced itself expectantly on the page, fairly quivering with anticipation. “I can do Tuesday, or Wednesday. I’m de-gnoming the garden on Tuesday, but that shouldn’t take longer than half an hour unless they stage another protest.”
“Tuesday’s fine,” Arthur said hastily, before Merlin could start telling him there were bloody dragons and unicorns too. He made a mental note to clear whatever he was doing on Tuesday night, and told himself it was purely for his own safety, and not because the magical green flames still leaping in the fireplace really highlighted Merlin’s cheekbones.
The quill was already scribbling furiously in the week planner. “Perfect,” said Merlin happily. “I thought we could go for Italian, as it’s your favourite.” Arthur must have looked taken aback because Merlin added proudly, “I’ve been buying the muggle newspapers.”
“Right,” said Arthur, like it all made perfect sense, trying to remember if he’d ever mentioned his food preferences in any of the numerous interviews he’d given over the course of the campaign.
“I’ll send you an owl,” said Merlin, tucking the week planner and quill away and beaming at Arthur.
“Er...ok,” said Arthur, hoping that was some sort of euphemism.
“If you’ve quite finished,” Gaius put in, using The Eyebrow on both Merlin and Arthur, which was probably a good thing since Merlin was still smiling at Arthur and Arthur could feel his face getting warm again as he resisted the urge to loosen his tie (Merlin wasn’t even wearing a tie, not that Arthur was looking).
“Right, yes,” said Merlin, standing up so quickly he knocked over his chair and spilled half the papers stacked haphazardly on Arthur’s side table. “Oops!”
“It’s ok,” Arthur said hastily, when Merlin immediately dived after them, managing to knee him quite painfully in the shin. “Really, you can just leave them.”
“Or you could use your magic,” said Gaius, pointedly.
Merlin blinked at him, then seemed to remember he was Minister for Magic and was (Arthur presumed) therefore quite proficient in the whole magic business. Three seconds later, the papers came to rest neatly in a pile once more and Merlin climbed to his feet, looking terribly flustered when Arthur offered a hand to help him. “I don’t normally do that,” he said, flushing (although the ‘humph’ from Gaius suggested otherwise).
It took Arthur a few moments to retrieve his hand and his manners. “I’m sure. Well, I should let you go. Thank you for-” He stopped, not entirely sure whether a thank you was really appropriate in this case. Thinking through his lengthy PR training, he couldn’t think of anything that would be appropriate in this case. Luckily, Merlin didn’t seem to mind.
“You’re welcome,” he said, still much too close for Arthur’s comfort. “If you need me- Er, anything from the wizarding community, feel free to ask the painting.” He moved back - presumably before Gaius could actually drag him from the room (he looked very tempted).
“Hang on,” Arthur said, as Merlin’s words registered, “Do you mean you’re going to be hanging around in the corner, watching me?” He didn’t know how he felt about that at all, and not just because Morgana had once caught him dancing to the hits of Abba in his parliamentary office.
“Oh no,” Merlin said at once, to Arthur’s relief, “It’ll be Edwin.” He waved at the battered frame in the corner which Arthur noticed with a start was once again occupied, this time by a dour man with a scarred face who was sitting on a mossy rock, reading an enormous leather bound tome. He glanced up at Merlin’s interruption, looking irritated, before he returned his gaze to the book, soundly ignoring them all. “Edwin isn’t very sociable, I’m afraid,” Merlin said in a loud whisper.
Arthur frowned, confused. “So Edwin just lives in your painting?”
“Actually it’s his painting,” said Merlin. “He, er, wanted a holiday, so I gave him the week off.”
“A man in a painting wanted a holiday?”
“Is that the time?” said Merlin brightly, pulling an ornate pocket watch from his coat and giving an unconvincing start of surprise (Arthur couldn’t help but notice the watch was upside down). “I must dash. I need to tidy my office before the goblins arrive.”
“Ok,” said Arthur, feeling like he’d missed something. “I guess I’ll see you on Tuesday then.”
“Yes,” Merlin sounded far too happy about it. “How do you feel about flying carpets?”
“Flying-?”
“Goodbye Arthur,” said Gaius firmly, all but yanking Merlin after him to the fireplace. He then proceeded to retrieve a large handful of powder from a particularly ugly vase on the mantel, fling it into the flames and pull a still protesting Merlin after him, disappearing in a swirl of sparkling green flames even as Merlin’s hurried “bye Arthur!” was still echoing in the room.
There was a long silence.
“...Goodbye,” said Arthur weakly and far too late. He sat back down in his chair, staring around the room and finding nothing that would suggest the extraordinary events of the past hour, unless it was Merlin’s handbook, still attempting to blind him with its objectionable colour scheme. Edwin was still reading quietly in the corner, the flames were once again orange and the only sound in the room was the quiet ticking of the clock. If he was lucky, no-one would even suspect.
Then the door opened and Morgana hurried in, carefully carrying a tray on which was balanced a silver tea pot, two cups and a plate of chocolate biscuits, only to stop dead, eyes sweeping the room even as she frowned.
“What on earth did you do with Gaius?”
Arthur had a feeling Merlin’s handbook didn’t cover this part.
The End.
NEXT: A Ministerial Appointment