disclaimer- i don't own it.
written for Round 3 of the quidditch fanfiction competition. As a Seeker, we had to pick a "rare" pairing between a Gryffindor and a slytherin, and i couldn't think of any rarer than Sir cadogan/merlin. so here you go!
"How is it we always end up here, eh?"
He looked away from the looming stone castle in front of them to glance at his companion, who had his thick arms under his head as they lay on the grass. Cadogan was being unusually contemplative, and this worried Merlin. All was not right with the world if Cadogan was not crazy. Cadogan's pony, grazing nearby, raised its head and met Merlin's eyes as if to say 'I agree.'
"I suspect Hogwarts will always be intriguing," replied Merlin eventually, tugging at his beard. "I doubt all of its many secrets will be unveiled even a thousand years from now."
"Oh, speak English, why don't you?" grumbled Cadogan. Never the scholar, Cadogan. Or the marginally intelligent, really.
"If I don't speak in riddles, how will I keep my air of mystery?" said Merlin, laughing.
Cadogan leaned up on his arm to say, "Simple. Do what you're doing now, you ol' knave."
"And that is?" asked Merlin, slapping a beetle off his neck.
"Don't marry, have no kids, and keep your eyes off women. It keeps 'em wondering."
"Dear Cadogan," said Merlin, his lips twitching upwards in a smile. "I was not referring to my sexuality."
Cadogan laughed long and loud, collapsing back on the grass in his mirth while Merlin privately thought that it hadn't been that funny. After all, it had been true.
"And what," said Merlin, a bit testily (it had been some time since he'd seen Cadogan, and it was easy to forget how obnoxious he could be). "About you? You're the one with sixteen kids and two ex-wives-"
Cadogan interrupted him to say, "Three ex-wives now."
Merlin's mouth fell open. "When did you and Esmeralda-"
"And seventeen children," added Cadogan as an afterthought. "Esmeralda had her fifth right before she left."
Merlin winced. "That was when you were…"
"…with you, yes," finished Cadogan, winking roguishly at Merlin. "On that little island off the coast, living up to our titles."
"By living up to our titles, are you referring to the time a Chimaera spotted us on the beach while we were engaged in coitus?"
Cadogan spent the next several minutes laughing while Merlin watched, eyebrows raised. "Coitus, Merlin? Is that what you call it? Me buggering you on the sand and you call it coitus?"
Cadogan then did a pelvic hip thrust that Merlin hoped he'd never see again, cackling all the while.
Merlin, despite his self-control, found himself blushing. "Yes, that is what I call it. I like to think of that time as simply 'coitus' because about two minutes into this coitus, when we were attacked by said chimera, you shrieked like a child, violently pulled out of me, and brandished your penis like a sword until Lancelot came running to our defense, killing the Chimaera and effectively scarring him for life."
"I don't think he's looked me in the eye since," noted Cadogan, not sounding particularly upset. "I think he's scared of me. Who wouldn't be? The whole world is made of cowards, except me!"
Merlin coughed.
"And you," added Cadogan unabashedly.
"Lancelot is no coward," sighed Merlin. "The reason he never looks you in the eye because you never show up to Round Table meetings. And he did, remember, kill that Chimaera. I would like to see you do that. Didn't Gryffindor call you the last dregs of the metaphorical tea in your class?"
"I don't stand with that exotic stuff," said Cadogan, wrinkling his nose. "Tea. Eurgh."
"China is a wonderful country," said Merlin haughtily. "You should visit someday."
Cadogan made a face. "I hate flying carpets. You know that. Pony travel is my only method of travel."
"Yes, I do know that," said Merlin wearily. "Considering you have vomited on me on more than one occasion."
"That wasn't always because of a flying carpet though."
There was silence, and Merlin's nervousness grew as he watched Cadogan moodily pluck grass and tear it in two. It was when Cadogan had these quick mood changes that Merlin truly worried for him.
"Did you…were you…fond…of Esmeralda?"
Cadogan snorted. "No."
"Then why…why are you so upset?"
"I'm sick of it!" burst Cadogan. "Sick of hiding. I don't want another wife, even though my first ex is trying to set me up with her sister's son's daughter."
"The one with the harelip?"
"The one with the barely noticeable harelip!" spat Cadogan, flailing his arms up and down like a small child in the middle of a temper tantrum. "But I don't want her! I don't want another woman!"
"Then…what do you want?"
"You!"
Cadogan never was one for subtlety, Merlin thought sadly. Or remembering obvious facts.
"My dear friend, you already have me."
Cadogan actually growled. "Not really! I have the wives and you have that off-and-on again thing with Bedivere; don't pretend like it's not true!"
Merlin shifted uneasily. "We live in different parts of the country. I get lonely."
"Esmeralda's gone, Merlin," hissed Cadogan, a strange fire in his eyes. "I've got nothing tying me down. Who says I need to live there anymore?"
"But…your land!"
"Bugger my land!"
"Okay then," said Merlin. "Bugger your land. Are you going to sell it?"
"Why not? I hear Armand Malfoy's looking for property."
Merlin groaned. "I shudder to think what Malfoy would do with a title like yours."
"And you don't shudder to think about what I do with mine?"
"You make, for once in your long, foolish life, a good point," said Merlin, wrapping a long arm around Cadogan's thick body. "Fine, then. You leave me no choice. Come and live with me. I can't promise my castle is perfect, or that I'll always be able to stomach your absolutely abhorrent behavior, but we can be together there."
A normal man would have stopped to plan logistics, but Cadogan was not a normal man, so he jumped into the air, whooped wildly, and hopped on his pony.
"Let's go!" he cried gleefully.
"We haven't even visited Rowena…" said Merlin hopelessly. "That's what we came for…"
But he didn't protest too much as Cadogan and his pony galloped ahead (for about a minute before his pony refused to go further), Merlin walking behind. He glanced back at Hogwarts once, and it seemed to him that the castle glowed as he walked away. Magic, he supposed.
cadogan and merlin definitely knew each other, and the first malfoy settled in england around this time. hogwarts was founded around this time, so its totally possible that gryffindor taught both cadogan and merlin. i tried to keep cadogan in characters, but man, that's hard...
r and r please!