Chapter Text
Merlin had learnt of the reason behind his need to enter the Triwizard Tournament. He had learnt in his dreams that an ‘older’ boy from Hufflepuff would have ended up dead, after being chosen as champion. He didn’t know how, or why he’d ended up dead, but he knew that he couldn’t simply not act, not after seeing the unseeing eyes of a student, one whose life could be happy and prosperous, staring up at him from a still body on the cold ground in the middle of the night - why did he feel like this didn’t bode well for his resolution not to get involved in destiny?
Merlin had also been carefully monitoring how he was performing in each subject - average to just above average in most of his subjects, and very well in potions, care, and herbology.
He was, as well as this, still trying to get back into the trio’s good books after being sorted into Slytherin. He had thought he was making progress after the opening feast, but then when he passed them in the hall on the way to breakfast the day after, they were just as angry as they had been when he was first sorted. It deeply saddened him how deep the house rivalries ran - if only they knew how close Salazar and Godric had been.
Merlin sighed. And then there were the Slytherins. Blaise was nice enough, Vincent and Gregory reminded Merlin of the mindless cronies that followed Arthur around before he decided to get some real friends, and Draco was - well, stuck up, rich, entitled, and incapable of original thought - a bit like Arthur when Merlin had first met him, really.
Merlin sighed again, leaving his musing behind, before turning back to his transfiguration homework - switching spells. It was brain meltingly easy, but even so, he still had to focus so as to make sure it was at the right level for a student, and contained a few errors here and there, or it would arise suspicion, which he really didn’t want, so, after a moment of consideration, he began to write.
When the weekend rolled around, Merlin was the only Slytherin in his dorm without any homework outstanding, leaving him free to visit the castle’s library, just on the off chance it had any books he had yet to read in it. It turned out it did - seven - he decided to pick out three to take out, and come back for the others at a later date. He chose one about ancient russian magic forms, one about recent advancements in celestial magics, and one an analysis of a muggle philosophy book from a magical perspective.
He sat down at an empty table, with the three books by his side, and began to read. He had considered making copies of them to add to his personal collection, but had eventually decided that he was unlikely to ever need any of them again - he would of course copy them if he found something that may come in handy, but otherwise there was very little reason for him to bother.
He didn’t try to kid himself into thinking that he had read every book ever written, muggles published hundreds of thousands of books every day, so it would be impossible to read them all, magical books, however, were published at a much slower rate, maybe a couple of books every few weeks or so, so he had plenty of time to keep up to date in the magical world. This meant that he did often have a hard time finding new magical books to read that were both interesting and contained a new idea or perspective, which was why he was surprised to find any at Hogwarts, which rarely updated its library.
Looking up from his book, he could see a handful of other students scattered around the room - mostly Ravenclaws, but some older students from other houses as well, probably owl and newt students, he guessed. And then there was also the golden trio. He could have laughed out loud at the look of disgust on Ron's face - no doubt it was Hermione who had dragged them there, or else they would no doubt be playing chess or quidditch.
He considered going over to talk to them, but ultimately settled on just sending a grin their way when they looked his way - give them some time to get used to the idea of me in Slytherin, he figured.
“Oy! Emerson! What are you doing here?” Came the superior drawl of Draco Malfoy that Merlin had become intimately familiar with throughout the past week. “I thought you said you had done all of your homework - or was that a lie you filthy lion?”
“No, just figured I might as well find something to occupy my time with as everyone else is doing homework. Or procrastinating.” He added with a raised eyebrow at Malfoy. “Besides, what makes me a lion? That I prevented Professor Snape from taking points from Neville? It’s that sort of blatant unfairness that gives Slytherin it’s bad reputation, you know. Well. That and the racism.”
“You should be more careful what you say, you know. Mudbloods and blood traitors don’t deserve to come to Hogwarts, and if you don’t realise that soon, you're not going to last long in the house of the snakes.”
“Why?”
“Why what?” Replied Draco with a sneer.
“Why shouldn’t Muggleborns and those who don’t degrade muggles not be allowed at hogwarts? Are they less magically powerful? No. Are they less intelligent? No. Are they a threat to the health of the population of hogwarts? No. So why shouldn’t they be allowed to come?”
“They are impertinent, rude, and snobbish, the come into our world and just assume they know everything and expect us concede to their ideals without giving a single fuck about tradition and culture.”
“And how is it their fault that they don't know about our culture? And you’re wrong, not every muggle born comes in and begins demanding things, most do try to learn, but its because of people like you that they can’t, they’re just told they’re not worth anything and made to feel stupid for not automatically knowing everything. It’s like if you went to stay in magical Tunisia or somewhere else that you don’t know anything about, and were told that you were worthless for not knowing all their traditions and culture automatically”
Malfoy opened his mouth to reply, but when no sound came out Merlin smiled internally. Maybe this wouldn’t be as hard as he initially thought. Ideas began swirling around in his head - how would he persuade Malfoy to think for himself? He was pulled from his musings by the audible snap of Draco’s mouth closing, and Merlin watched as he just glared at him before turning around and stomping off in the direction of the transfiguration section.
Merlin just rolled his eyes and turned back to his book, noticing out of the corner of his eye, the trio gaping at him like he’d grown a second head - was it really that unusual for a Slytherin to not be racist? Apparently.
————————— HVFTR —————————
With Monday came the first Defence Against the dark arts lesson of the year, and Merlin wasn’t looking forward to it. The teacher, ‘Mad-eye’ Moody, exuded such a strong dark aura that Merlin was amazed no one else seemed to be able to feel it - it wasn’t the type of dark one would pick up from being hit by a dark curse or twenty... or else he too would have an extremely dark aura. No. This was the type of aura one got from using the dark arts. Day after day after day, for years and years and years.
This meant one of two things to Merlin. Either this person wasn’t who he said he was, or Moody wasn’t as light as everyone seemed to think he was. And honestly, at this point in time, Merlin wasn’t sure which. It seemed unlikely that he would have earned so much trust and such a reputation if he really was dark... but then again, Malfoy (senior) had a very positive reputation amongst many circles, so was it all that impossible for Moody to do the same? And then there was also the fact that Moody had a reputation for being somewhat... paranoid. Would such a famed auror really be able to be incapacitated and used for polyjuice (or at least if it wasn’t Moody Merlin assumed that was what they were doing).
He sighed as he walked in, and took a seat right at the back of the room. As far away from the source of darkness as possible, and then, not two minutes later, said source of darkness burst into the room, making everyone but Merlin jump.
“The ministry believes you too young to learn about the effects of dark curses, I’m supposed to just teach the counters and leave it at that but Professor Dumbledore thinks you’re made of sterner stuff. I trust Professor Dumbledore so I’m not going to hold back with you.” Moody barked at the class, not - Merlin noticed - even bothering to introduce himself.
"So...do any of you know which curses are most heavily punished by wizarding law?"
Several hands rose tentatively into the air, including Ron's and Hermione's. Moody pointed at Ron, though his magical eye was still fixed on Lavender, who Merlin could clearly see passing a note under her desk.
"Er," said Ron tentatively, "my dad told me about one....Is it called the Imperius Curse, or something?"
"Ah, yes," said Moody appreciatively. "Your father would know that one. Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble at one time, the Imperius Curse."
Moody got heavily to his mismatched feet, opened his desk drawer, and took out a glass jar. Three large black spiders were scuttling around inside it. Merlin noticed Ron recoil slightly away from the desk - he’d forgotten about Ron’s hatred of spiders.
Moody reached into the jar, his scarred fingers easily catching one of the spiders, and holding it in the palm of his hand so that they could all see it, he pointed his wand at the shivering creature and muttered, "Imperio!"
The spider leapt from Moody's hand on a fine thread of silk and began to swing backward and forward as though on a trapeze. It stretched out its legs rigidly, then did a backflip, breaking the thread and landing on the desk, where it began to cartwheel in circles. Moody jerked his wand, and the spider rose onto two of its hind legs and went into what was unmistakably a tap dance.
Everyone was laughing - everyone except Moody and Merlin. Merlin knew how dangerous this spell was, and didn’t think it was funny in the slightest. Merlin agreed that these children needed to know what people could do, especially when it seemed like war might be inevitable, but he didn’t like the way Moody was going about showing them.
"Think it's funny, do you?" he growled. "You'd like it, would you, if I did it to you?"
The laughter died away almost instantly.
"Total control," said Moody quietly as the spider balled itself up and began to roll over and over. "I could make it jump out of the window, drown itself, throw itself down one of your throats..." And that, Merlin thought, is why it’s so dangerous.
Ron gave an involuntary shudder.
"Years back, there were a lot of witches and wizards being controlled by the Imperius Curse," said Moody, and Merlin knew he was referring to the war. "Some job for the Ministry, trying to sort out who was being forced to act, and who was acting of their own free will.” Merlin had to refrain from rolling his eyes - if the ministry wasn’t so corrupt they would have just had everyone drink veritaserum and be done with it, but unfortunately bribes were all too powerful, and hundreds of death eaters were still free
"The Imperius Curse can be fought, and I'll be teaching you how, but it takes real strength of character, and not everyone's got it. Better avoid being hit with it if you can. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" he barked, and everyone jumped - again, barring Merlin.
Moody picked up the somersaulting spider and threw it back into the jar.
"Anyone else know one? Another illegal curse?"
Hermione's hand flew into the air again and so, to Merlin’s slight surprise, did Neville's. The only class in which Neville usually volunteered information was Herbology which was easily his best subject. Even Neville looked surprised at his own daring. Merlin knew which curse he was going to offer, but he didn’t expect the boy to actually put up his hand and say it. It was a sensitive topic, after all - Merlin couldn’t help but smile a bit, the boy was a Gryffindor all right, he just needed a touch more confidence.
"Yes?" said Moody, his magical eye rolling right over to fix on Neville.
"There's one - the Cruciatus Curse," said Neville in a small but distinct voice.
Moody was looking very intently at Neville, this time with both eyes.
"Your name's Longbottom?" he said, his magical eye swooping down to check the register again. Merlin narrowed his eyes at this, it wasn’t fair to bring that up, no matter how indirectly.
Neville nodded nervously, but Moody made no further inquiries. Turning back to the class at large, he reached into the jar for the next spider and placed it upon the desktop, where it remained motionless, apparently too scared to move.
"The Cruciatus Curse," said Moody. "Needs to be a bit bigger for you to get the idea," he said, pointing his wand at the spider. "Engorgio!"
The spider swelled. It was now larger than a tarantula. Abandoning all pretense, Ron pushed his chair backward, as far away from Moody's desk as possible.
Moody raised his wand again, pointed it at the spider, and muttered, "Crucio!"
At once, the spider's legs bent in upon its body; it rolled over and began to twitch horribly, rocking from side to side. No sound came from it, but Merlin knew that if it could have given voice, it would have been screaming. Moody did not remove his wand, and the spider started to shudder and jerk more violently -
"Stop it!" Hermione said shrilly, Merlin was glad someone said it, if Hermione hadn’t, he probably would have ended up cursing Moody for his cruelty towards another living creature.
Merlin glanced at her curiously- he was glad she had put an end to the torture but he was mildly curious as to why. She was looking, not at the spider, but at Neville, and Merlin, following her gaze, saw that Neville's hands were clenched upon the desk in front of him, his knuckles white, his eyes wide and horrified - Merlin felt his heart break for Neville, then rise up in righteous anger towards Moody - how dare a professor, a man who was supposed to make these children feel safe, do this, knowing what had happened to Neville’s parents, but he still kept his face carefully blank - not now, he would deal with Moody later.
Moody raised his wand. The spider's legs relaxed, but it continued to twitch.
"Reducio," Moody muttered, and the spider shrank back to its proper size. He put it back into the jar. Merlin sent a silent spell to the spider, relieving it of its pain and regenerating its energy as best he could.
"Pain," said Moody softly. "You don't need thumbscrews or knives to torture someone if you can perform the Cruciatus Curse... That one was very popular once too.
"Right… anyone know any others?"
Merlin looked around. From the looks on everyone's faces, he guessed they were all wondering what was going to happen to the last spider. He knew, and he winced internally as Hermione's hand, slightly shaking, rose for the third time.
"Yes?" said Moody, looking at her.
"Avada Kedavra," Hermione whispered.
Several people looked uneasily around at her, including Ron, and the last, desperate hope that he was wrong about the fate of the last spider left Merlin.
"Ah," said Moody, another slight smile twisting his lopsided mouth. "Yes, the last and worst. Avada Kedavra....the Killing Curse.” Merlin disagreed. Avada Kedavra was not the worst, it was instant and painless. He knew people who had been driven insane by the other two, but Avada Kedavra offered no torture, neither physical nor emotional. And he really didn’t like the way Moody smiled - actually smiled - when Hermione said the words.
He put his hand into the glass jar, and almost as though it knew what was coming, the third spider scuttled frantically around the bottom of the jar, trying to evade Moody's fingers, but he trapped it, and placed it upon the desktop. It started to scuttle frantically across the wooden surface.
Moody raised his wand "Avada Kedavra!" He roared.
There was a flash of blinding green light and a rushing sound, as though a vast, invisible something was soaring through the air - instantaneously the spider rolled over onto its back, unmarked, but unmistakably dead. Several of the students stifled cries; Ron had thrown himself backward and almost toppled off his seat as the spider skidded toward him.
Merlin offered a silent prayer that the spider rest in peace.
Moody swept the dead spider off the desk onto the floor, disregarding the body of the innocent life entirely.
"Not nice," he said calmly. "Not pleasant. And there's no countercurse. There's no blocking it. Only one known person has ever survived it, and he's sitting right in front of me."
Merlin felt bad for Harry as every eye turned towards him. He had also survived the killing curse - more than once at that, but he always wiped the memories of any witnesses, he didn’t want to draw attention, after all.
"Avada Kedavra's a curse that needs a powerful bit of magic behind it - you could all get your wands out now, point them at me and say the words, and I doubt I'd get so much as a nosebleed. But that doesn't matter. I'm not here to teach you how to do it.” Merlin had to hold back a smirk at that - he almost certainly would be able to successfully cast the curse - and kill the vicious man in front of him. But with an internal sigh, he rejected the idea - it wouldn’t do to draw attention.
————————— HVFTR —————————
Merlin glanced down at the note in his hand one last time - it was from the headmaster, requesting a meeting with Merlin. He figured it was probably just to check on how Hogwarts’ latest transfer student was doing, but there was always that little voice in the back of his head saying that maybe Dumbledore somehow knew his secret. He knew, of course, that it was practically impossible. But even after a millennium and a half, that worry always came back to him every time he took on a new persona - what if someone found out?
He took a deep breath. “Twix”. The gargoyle slowly rotated around to reveal the spiral staircase that he knew was the entrance to the headmasters office. He quickly jumped into the stair and let the rotation take him up to the headmasters office. Why did Dumbledore have the stairs on such a slow setting? It was just impractical. Maybe for dramatic effect? That seemed like the sort of thing Dumbledore would do.
He reached the top and knocked. After receiving a quick ‘come in’ from Dumbledore, he opened the door to reveal a cozy looking room filled with various gadgets - silver spindly devices, large whirring copper machines, golden flasks of ever moving liquid, orbiting rings of precious stone, and bookshelves upon bookshelves of rare tombes. He recognised most of the contraptions, but some were probably original inventions or at least custom built ones, seeing as he didn’t recognise them, either way it was quite the impressive collection that Dumbledore owned.
Keeping his face carefully blank, he turned to the headmaster, “Professor Dumbledore” he said with a respectful nod, “What may I do for you?”
“I merely wished to check up on you, and see how you were settling in. Your dorm mates and yourself get along? You are not getting lost too much?”
“I am settling in very well, thank you. I am able to ask my classmates for help finding lessons if I am unsure of where to go, and I have had little quarrel with my dorm mates, we get along well, for the most part.”
“That is wonderful to hear, I have been told by your teachers that you are settling in well to your classes and are exceeding expectations in a lot of them, which is nice to hear.”
“Thank you, sir”
“Is there anything you wish to talk about? Anything you wish to ask?”
“No, sir.” After a pause, though, he added, “Although, actually, sir, I did notice that device, the bronze one when I came in, and I can’t say I recognise it. May I ask what it does? I am merely curious.”
“Ah yes, curiosity, a wonderful, yet oh so dangerous thing indeed.” A sentiment which Merlin firmly agreed about - did this mean Dumbledore wouldn’t tell him? He had to admit he was intrigued. “It is a monitoring device, for one of my projects, a creation of my own, that device. Something I am most proud of. Was there anything else you wished to ask?”
“Uhh - I - er - I heard a rumour, sir that you have a phoenix familiar?” Merlin of course knew that Dumbledore did, in fact, have a phoenix familiar named Fawkes, but it seemed like the sort of thing that a new student would ask, so he had asked it.
“Indeed I do, his na-“ But Dumbledore was cut off by a flash of fire in the middle of the room, which quickly dissipated leaving behind a beautiful golden phoenix. A very familiar phoenix. Merlin had never gotten the hang of telling apart different animals just by their appearance, somewhat in the same way a human would never necessarily be able to tell others apart by touch or smell. It was because it was not his primary way of telling people and animals apart. He used auras - the unique magical field that surrounded all living beings.
It was this that was the reason he hadn’t recognised this particular phoenix from his scrying. In fact, even though sight was not his most important sense he was still slightly surprised that he hadn’t recognised Ignis. After all, Merlin had spent, many, decades, centuries, even, with this bird, he had first met the bird when Godric had saved his life. After that day, Ignis had become Godric’s familiar, and after his passing, Ignis and Merlin had spent many years together, traveling the world at times but always coming back to Britain in the end. After a few centuries, though, Ignis had decided to go off on his own, he had been young when he had first met Godric, and he still was young, but he had been ready to leave the nest, so to speak.
Merlin had missed him dearly, the bird had been a great companion, and a great friend, but he had understood. That had been the last time Merlin had seen Ignis, so to see him again, after so long was a shock. Ignis, it seemed, shared that sentiment and the second he saw Merlin, perched himself happily on his friend’s shoulder.
Dumbledore was almost gaping. “He appears to be very fond of you - his name is Fawkes. It is unusual for him to take to a stranger so quickly - and yet he seems to trust you completely.” There was a slight question in Dumbledore’s tone.
“I don’t know why, I’ve always had a way with magical creatures, I guess.” Which was partially true, he had always had a way with magical creatures, but he did know the reason.
————————— HVFTR —————————
Merlin collapsed with a deep sigh into a large comfortable armchair in the Slytherin common room. After five minutes of just lazing he pulled out his arithmancy homework and set about laying out his calculations in a clear and methodical print onto his parchment. He may have to use a more long winded method than he usually would in order to complete the assignment, as the majority of the more direct routes wouldn’t have been taught to most sixth years let alone mere fourth years, and seeing as he was acting slightly behind in that class, he couldn’t just forge ahead and use them as he may have done in other subjects.
As he was finishing up his calculations the rest of the fourth year Slytherins came piling into the common room and collapsed onto the remaining chairs around Merlin’s table.
Blaise let out a loud groan when he saw what Merlin was doing. “How, in Merlin’s name, are you already done with that? You got it literally like two hours ago, I’ve got loads to do still, do you secretly get less homework or something?” he was clearly only half joking, if his disgruntled tone was anything to go by.
Merlin chuckled, “If you didn’t procrastinate so much then you’d be all done by now too, and you’d have free weekends.” He turned back to his parchment to add a last few numbers, smiling in exasperation as he heard the Slytherins grumbling. “Tell you what Blaise, if you look over my Arithmancy” he held up the parchment to indicate, “I’ll help you get all your homework done before dinner”
Blaise was clearly surprised, “you’d do that? Just for looking over your homework?”
“Sure, why not” Blaise still looked incredulous, but Merlin’s reputation as a semi-prodigy had quickly spread through the school, and he wasn’t about to turn down free help. He quickly bounced up the stairs to the fourth year dorm. Seeing the looks on the other’s faces, Merlin added “you lot too, if you want, no point procrastinating.”
Milicent narrowed her eyes “What’s the catch?”
Merlin sighed internally, it was sad that they wouldn’t trust anything without a catch, but if he wanted to help them, he would have to earn their trust - which, in this case, meant playing by their rules. “You’ll all owe me a favour, similar in size, anyone who wants help, that is.” She gave a curt nod, and stood up slowly, still eyeing him with a slight suspicion, before heading up to the girls dorm, the others following her quickly after, even, to his slight surprise, Malfoy went to get his work.
What followed was an afternoon of fun and productivity, and helping each other out, and by the end of it, even Vincent and Gregory had passable essays. Merlin had spent the majority of the evening reading over essays and making and explaining corrections, and handing them back over and over and over again until he was happy that everyone would get at least an ‘Acceptable’ on all their essays, yes, even Vincent and Gregory.
When at last the last essay (Pansy’s Transfiguration) had been deemed acceptable, and Blaise had corrected the errors he had put into his arithmancy homework and had explained them, they trudged up to dinner, in considerably higher spirits than they had finished classes in.
By the time they had all finished eating, it was almost eight o’clock, and they were ready to settle down to a relaxing evening of chess, gobstones, and cards.
When 10:30 rolled around, Merlin let out a loud yawn and declared he was off to bed. He knew that after the homework help they would want to discuss him and decide whether he was going to be an ally or an enemy. He wanted to give them time and space to do that without having to get annoyed at trying to find a way to escape his presence.