A/N: Slightly AU.
He goes to his library and tends to his books, and only Gaius and his apprentice ever come by. He is an old man. One ignored at feasts and mocked by children. He is left alone with his books and his memories of times when scholars filled the aisles and worked and when the shelves were not as empty as they are now.
Most of the scholars dabbled in magic. Most of them are dead now.
He does not approve of the sorcerers who attack. He does not approve of Gaius edging on treason.
But he misses his dead friends and he only raises an unseen eyebrow when that apprentice looks around and then whispers a spell to send a book down from a high shelf.
It is quiet and lonely in the forgotten shelves. It is even quieter in the hidden alcoves where he hid the books he was told to burn.
He is old and forgotten, like his books. He has no apprentice. No one to tend to the forgotten things when he is gone. No one to remember Malthus arguing the finer points of defensive runes or Balinor trying to convince Uther that the knowledge held in the books had more power than any army. No one to remember laughing apprentices and complaining students. No one to remember a blue-eyed girl who had kissed him and left dried flowers in books and gave him clues to find them.
He still comes across one, now and then. He always weeps when he does.
He forgets them, bit by bit. What color were Balthazar's eyes? What did Anya's apprentice's laugh sound like? Who won the argument on maternal blood magic?
He doesn't know, and his records don't say. He mutters names to himself as he tends to the books. His old, clouded eyes can't see the dust like they used to, and his hands shake and curl and won't glue bindings together properly. He smells mildew but can't find it.
They forget him and mock him until they remember that this doddering man is also the one to crown kings. Or queens, as the case may be. He had crowned Uther.
(He regretted that.)
He had crowned Ygraine.
(He regretted that too.)
He had crowned Morgana.
(His hands had shaken.)
He is asked to crown Arthur. He spends the night before shuffling through the aisles and listening to ghosts.
He finds a flower in a book on fire proofing spells.
He weeps until he's gasping for breath. He can hear the flames even now.
They find him in the morning. Gaius checks his pulse and shakes his head.
Arthur sees the book, but now is not the time. The man is dead. What does it matter, now?
Someone else will hold the crown. The library doors will be shut.
Merlin will take to sneaking in at nights, checking on a goblin, breathing in the dust. His fingers will trace the words in books that should have burned, and like the man before him, he will cry, very softly, as he listens to the ghosts.
