The Legacy of Salazar

O Memory Devourer

"Meerrrlin!" came a thrilled, half-sung voice followed by a heavy thwump on the side of his bed.

His neck always hurt the most in the morning. Merlin groaned, opening his bleary eyes to see Silas bouncing and holding an armful of brightly wrapped presents. Oh yeah—Christmas. He reached for the dial on the side of his bed and it moved him into a soft recline.

"What time is it?" he asked, yawning.

"Present time," Silas said, handing him one wrapped in glittering purple paper. Merlin took it with one hand, his other going to rub his eyes. He looked up to see Florean Fortescue, wearing a red and silver pinstripe suit today, enter the room with a few more gifts in his arms.

Merlin suddenly felt terrible. "I—I didn't remember to get you anything," he said, his eyes going to the gift in his hands. He'd been so out of it, Christmas had slipped his mind. He still wasn't used to the holiday. They hadn't celebrated it back in Camelot. Today would be a party around a bonfire, loud with lots of alcohol. Winter Solstice or Yuletide. Gift-giving hadn't been a part of it—

Silas, however, didn't seem bothered. He smiled and shook his head. "You getting better will be a present," and then he touched his chin thoughtfully, "though I suppose you could always just make up for it later with a really special present."

Merlin laughed. "Of course," he said and he tore off the wrapping paper. Silas had wrapped whatever it was in layers and layer of packaging. He had to wrestle with it for nearly a minute before he finally revealed a book entitled, "You and your dragon, how to connect magically."

"He said it was an inside joke between the two of you," Florean said coming to sit in one of the armchairs.

Merlin and Silas exchanged looks. "I told him it'd be awesome to have a dragon as a familiar," Merlin said after a moment, smiling. It wasn't even a lie.

"I'm just preparing him for that eventuality," Silas added. "Now, here's the next one," and he handed Merlin another present.

They'd brought all of his gifts. Florean had explained they'd arrived at the house—since no one had expected him to be in the hospital. Hermione had given him a book as well, "Tricks to recover lost memories," and Draco had given him an bottle of password protected ink and a note:

Just tap it with your wand with a word-password of your choice and the ink will be unreadable to anyone without that password. Wish you could've come to the Christmas Party, suppose I'll have to entertain myself this year. Best wishes and Happy Holidays!

Snape had given him a package of ingredients with a stern note that he'd better not be caught making any nefarious potions for rule-breaking or otherwise. He'd gotten an assortment of chocolate frogs and pumpkin pasties from the twins, and an additional basket of sweets and a meat pie along with a simple best wishes note from Mrs Weasley. But Florean had given him an odd little contraption he couldn't figure out.

"What's this?" he asked. It was a small box, the walls an assortment of mirrors, all different sizes, reflecting the room in broken miss-matched pieces.

"It's called a mirror cube," Florean explained, taking it gently from Merlin and holding it out on his hand. He pulled on one of the mirror squares and it shifted forward, creating a three-dimensional reflected surface—a metallic box atop the larger whole. "By moving each piece the right way, the box will expand three times its normal size and open. You can then put whatever you want inside it before closing it again."

"It's a puzzle box!" Silas said, taking it from Florean and fiddling with it. "Did you put something in it?"

At this Florean gave a sly smile. "I guess Merlin will have to solve it to find out."