~2~

Of course, on the way back to the castle after reuniting with his friends by the greenhouse, Merlin had related the last fifteen minutes. Freya and Will had agreed that Arthur had been unfair about the test, as the Snitch had a mind of its own and always made itself deliberately hard to spot. They made their way to the library where they could hide themselves among the musky piles of books and talk behind Arthur's back in peace. Geoffrey of Monmouth, the reclusive librarian, never minded people whispering, but there was only a certain level of noise he would tolerate.

Soon, though, Will and Merlin had to retreat to the Gryffindor dorms to put away their brooms and change into clean robes for dinner. Even after scorning and jabbing at Arthur's character for the better part of an hour, they still very much wanted to know who made the team. And, both secretly thought that they had a fair chance of being chosen as well.

They arrived early for dinner, their nerves having gotten the better of them. After all, it was far better to be early than late. Most of the professors were already seated at the long table at the fore of the room, conversing amongst themselves. The headmaster had not yet arrived, but he was often busy in his office or away at the Ministry. He and Will found themselves a place to sit at the Gryffindor table, but no sooner had their bottoms touched the bench than Gaius was catching Merlin's eye and waving him over.

Biting back a sigh of aggravation (Gaius always waited for Merlin to sit before calling him over), Merlin hurried over, nearly tripping on the three steps up to the platform where the teachers took their meals.

His great-uncle smiled kindly down at him, and, noticing his appearance, so did his wife Alice and Merlin's mother, Hunith. Gaius was the wizened, portly Potions master, married with no children to Alice the kindly and humorful Healer. Hunith (her smile looking slightly strained) was the beloved Advanced Herbology professor and Head of Hufflepuff House. "How was your try-out, m'boy?" Gaius asked.

Merlin pursed his lips. "Not too bad, I think. Even Captain Pendragon said I was a good flyer. Don't worry, Mum. I don't think I made the team, anyway."

Hunith's shoulders sagged a bit in relief, but she frowned anyway to see her only son looking unhappy. "Why ever not?" she asked.

He shrugged, giving a careless smile. "Even if I don't, there's always next year!"

"That's the spirit," Gaius nodded approvingly. "Run along now, and make sure to eat something with protein in it!"

Merlin acknowledged him with a backwards wave of his hand, sure that he was going to eat whatever he liked and not something strictly adhering to his uncle's constant dietary advice. By the time Merlin made it back to his seat, hungry students were arriving in droves, chattering noisily. The tables began to fill up, and the headmaster arrived in all his stern, majestic glory. But as far as he could see, there was still no sign of Arthur.

He didn't know why he was so anxious. Merlin was fairly certain that he hadn't made the team. He'd failed Arthur's test. Went over the allotted time by two minutes and forty-four bloody seconds, like that meant anything. The frustration over that one made his shoulders tense up, but he made a conscious effort to relax them. It was no matter. As Merlin had told his mother, there was always next year.

Unless the prat was captaining then, too. After all, he was only a fifth-year.

His mood soured again. Will noticed and didn't try to engage Merlin in conversation. Instead, he began to speak with Lancelot beside him, who had arrived just a moment before still wearing his robes from the morning.

Merlin was only snapped out of his trance when a person sat down on either side of him. "Hullo, Merlin," said Gwen on his left, smiling brightly. "Do you know Mithian Montgomery?" She gestured to the girl on his other side, who he recognized as the rosy-cheeked girl with an auburn bun.

"Uh, hullo," Merlin said, a bit flabbergasted. Girls had never been quite repulsed by him, but neither had they ever fallen over him. Not that he thought Gwen and Mithian were after his virginity—they seemed to just want to befriend him, for some reason beyond him.

"Excellent flying earlier, Merlin," Mithian said. "I do hope you make the team as Seeker."

"Uh—"

"Oh, there's Morgana," Gwen said, standing. She raised her hand high into the air and waved it vigorously, catching the attention of a Slytherin girl across the room. Morgana, who had long black ringlets that cascaded freely down her back and framed her pale face, smiled and waved back enthusiastically, then resumed her conversation with the blond beside her.

Merlin raised his eyebrows. "You're friends with a Slytherin?"

Gwen merely smirked. "What, you thought Slytherins are all bullies?"

He flushed, thinking back to his first and second years when a particularly nasty brute named Valiant used to humiliate him—and once stuck him in a Vanishing cabinet and locked it, only for Merlin to discover that its pair was also locked, leaving him frantically running back and forth between the doors banging and screaming and crying for someone to let him out, much to the shock of the old lady who owned the other one. But Gwen didn't seem angry at all, and patted his hand as a sort of reassurance.

"When's Arthur going to be here?" Mithian asked, leaning around Merlin to address Gwen.

She shrugged, tapping a beat on the table. "He's still finalizing things with Leon's help. Apparently it's harder than he thought it would be. They're probably snogging, too."

Mithian frowned suspiciously. "Are they dating?"

"No, but wouldn't they make a cute couple?"

They snorted and giggled at the idea, and Merlin tried to imagine Arthur snogging another boy. But that was difficult, as he didn't know who Leon was, so he ended up seeing the back of Arthur's head as he and his invisible partner kissed.

Luckily, he didn't have to dwell on it long, because Uther Pendragon, the headmaster, stood to say a few words. "I hope you've all had a good day," he said once he'd had everyone's attention. "Seeing as it is a weekend, I have not much to say, other than eat up."

There were several hear, hears.

Suddenly, food appeared before the students, a wide diversity spreading along the lengths of the tables. Platters of exquisite foods, both local and exotic, gave off mouth-watering aromas. People dug in, filling the plates in front of them with whatever they were in the mood for—in Merlin's case, some shepherd's pie, fish and chips, and baked beans on toast. Stereotypical, he thought for a moment, but then shrugged it off. It was delicious anyhow.

Mithian spoke up beside him as he ate. "Isn't your mum the Herbology professor? Professor Emrys?"

He nodded quite eloquently, mashed potatoes spewing a bit from the corner of his overstuffed mouth.

"I've not had her yet," Mithian said. "Though I've heard she's a favorite. I wish she would teach the younger students instead of the advanced courses. Professor Borden is downright mean."

Merlin nodded in concurrence, having been under the tutelage of the man himself. From what he'd learned from Uncle Gaius, Julius Borden had once been a disciple of his, but they had had quite the falling out, and Borden had gone off in search of dragons for a while before suddenly reappearing and asking for a job. The man was clearly embittered because he couldn't procure the Potions job as he wanted.

He swallowed and said, "Mum's got to teach the advanced classes because she's the only one qualified for it, and she hasn't got the time to take all of the regular classes too." He shoveled in another large bite of his pie.

Mithian nodded absently, her eyes having caught the oncoming figures of Arthur and Leon Lionel, the curly-haired friend of his. Merlin stubbornly lowered his eyes to his plate, shoving excessive quantities of his meal into his mouth. He realized his mistake a moment later, finding himself unable to chew or swallow. His only choice—besides choking to death—was to spit some of it back onto his plate, much to his only witness's (Will's) disgust.

"So?" Gwen said when Arthur, with Leon on his other side, came to sit by her. "Let's see the list, then!"

Arthur shrugged her off, piling his plate with roasted beef and carrots. "There's no list."

"No?"

"No."

"Leon?"

"There's no list," he answered dutifully.

"You promised to tell us who's on the team at dinner tonight, and now it's dinner tonight!" Mithian interjected, leaning around both Merlin and Gwen.

"I'm hungry!" Arthur snapped irritably, loading his plate. "And I can't find my glasses anywhere. They're not in my room, not in the common room, not in the library, not even in the Lost and Found! I nearly got my hand taken off by a Monster Book of Monsters looking through there, too."

Mithian and Gwen backed off then, a mixture between exasperated, sympathetic, and impatient.

"You're always losing your glasses, Arthur," Gwen chided him, stirring her fork through her salted peas. "It's a wonder you've made it this far. Some of the first years think you're scary, the way you glare at them all the time."

"I'm not glaring!" Arthur protested, slapping a mound of mashed potatoes onto his plate. "I just can't see!"

A laugh bubbled up in Merlin then, remembering how irritated he'd been that Arthur squinted at everyone for the entire morning. And here he'd thought that the prat was just trying to look intimidating.

"Well," Gwen said, "when's the last time you saw them?"

"Last night before I went to sleep," he grumbled, "when I set them on my bed stand. And don't ask if I've retraced my steps, because I have. I'll bet it's Morgana."

"How's Morgana going to get in the Gryffindor dorms?" Mithian demanded.

"Gwaine, then."

"More likely, but I know for a fact that he'd snuck out into Hogsmeade yesterday evening and only got back this morning," Leon said.

Merlin leaned around Gwen and interjected, "Maybe it was wood worms."

"What?" Arthur made a face, squinting at him.

"Wood worms," Merlin said seriously. "They're mischievous creatures that take valuable things when you're not looking."

"Wood worms," Arthur repeated flatly.

The younger Gryffindor nodded, taking no notice of the others trying to suppress giggles and grins. "They're quite the problem, especially in old houses in the woods."

"Please tell me you're not an idiot all the time, Merlin," Arthur said in a despairing tone. "I don't think I could stand it if you're like this all the time."

Will answered for him. "He's like that all the time, sometimes even in his sleep. He should have been in Hufflepuff, if you know what I mean."

Merlin glared at him.

Arthur rolled his eyes. "Well, at least our team is mostly all right. I mean, it's not like we'll have to see him outside of practice."

Will choked on his pumpkin juice, spraying it across the table. Merlin didn't even notice the chilled liquid dripping down his face; he was paralyzed in shock, staring at Arthur. Mithian handed a napkin to Will as Lancelot thumped him on the back, looking slightly concerned for the fact that Will was purpling in the face. Gwen nudged Merlin with an elbow, trying to give him a napkin as well.

He started back to life, releasing a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. "Does—does that mean…?"

Arthur raised an eyebrow. "What did you expect, Merlin? I thought it was rather obvious, considering you're the only one who tried for Seeker."

"But…But you said…!"

Since Merlin still hadn't taken the paper cloth, Gwen dabbed the juice from his face herself, and he absently reached up and took over.

Gwen smiled pleasantly. "I knew you'd be picked for Seeker!"

"Congrats, Merlin!" Lancelot said, raising his goblet in commendation.

"Thanks," Merlin said, unable to tear his gaze from Arthur.

Mithian patted him on the back as she leaned past him once more. "Arthur, who else is on?"

"I'm Keeper, Leon and Elyan are Beaters—I've already told him—you, Gwen, and Lancelot are our three Chasers," Arthur listed off, tapping his fork on the edge of plate for each player. "And, as I've just said, Merlin is Seeker."

"Which makes Merlin and Lancelot our only new players," Leon added. "Frankly, everyone else was rubbish. Almost as rubbish as Hufflepuff."

"That's not fair!" Gwen admonished him, though there was twinkle in her eye. "Don't let Gwaine hear you say that, Leon."

Merlin wasn't surprised in the least that Gwaine chose that precise moment to appear, munching another apple. "Hear what?" He looked between Leon and Gwen. "I heard my name, eh, but nothing about my charm or good looks or top marks."

"You haven't got top marks, Gwaine," Arthur said.

"Well, neither have you, Perfect."

"Well, I don't lie about it, Gwaine. And it's Prefect."

Gwaine scratched his nose, grinning triumphantly as Arthur speared his meat mutinously. "And anyway, while I was out last night, one of the fine ladies of The Three Broomsticks told me she'd found a pair of glasses lying around, thought to ask me if I knew them." He dug around in his robe pocket as Arthur spun around, suddenly looking very interested, and pulled out a pair of wire-rimmed rectangular spectacles.

"Those are mine and you know it, Gwaine," Arthur said.

"Aye," Gwaine said merrily, "that I do. That's why I brought 'em to ya." He stuck the apple in his mouth, sinking his teeth partly into the red skin to hold it, and unfolded the legs of the glasses. He shoved them onto Arthur's face before the blond teen could stop him, face jerking back in response to the movement. "Now stop scaring the first years!" he said, crunching the apple, and he sauntered off toward the Hufflepuff table.

"I wasn't trying to scare them, I just couldn't bloody see," Arthur mumbled darkly, taking off his glasses and rubbing the lenses with his robe. "He got his bloody fingerprints all over them, bloody Gwaine."

Merlin craned his neck, frowning. "Isn't Gwaine in Gryffindor?"

"Yes," Gwen answered, "but his best friends are in Hufflepuff—they're Percy and Elena. And Gwaine, as you'll probably come to find, isn't too big on rules."

"More like we wonder how he's not been expelled yet," Arthur said haughtily, pushing the glasses up the bridge of his nose with a knuckle. Merlin thought that he looked like a normal person when he wasn't squinting. Nicer, maybe. More approachable. "And how were my glasses at The Three Broomsticks? I haven't even been to Hogsmeade in the last week!"

Gwen patted his shoulder as though to say it was one of life's mysteries and it was better not to question such things. Merlin took a slow breath, and started again on his meal. It had a slightly pumpkin taste to it, thanks to Will, but it didn't particularly bother him. They'd shared lollipops when they were kids, and still sometimes shared cups and such, so it wasn't as though they'd never ingested one another's saliva. (Which is only gross if you think about it—and after all, kissing is just swapping spit—which is also gross if you think about it. Merlin stopped thinking about it.)

"What is our schedule looking like?" Lancelot asked, leaning over the table to address Arthur and to be heard over the general chatter. "I wouldn't mind much, only I'm taking advanced courses."

"As it is," Arthur said, setting down his fork to retrieve a folded square of parchment from his inside robe pocket, "I've got Saturday mornings reserved for Gryffindor practice." He opened the parchment, scanning it. "Slytherin's got those afternoons, but they did take Tuesday afternoons as well, damn them. No way'd they trade. So I suppose we'll have to make do with Thursday evenings. Every once in a while we could do a Sunday or Monday practice, if we need it."

Lancelot nodded. "That's fine. Tuesday practices would have been nice, though."

"Indeed."

"Well," Mithian said airily, "the Slytherin's teams made up of six girls, so they should be quite easy to beat."

"That's a trap," Arthur said immediately, knowing that there would be hell to pay if he made any remark or agreement insinuating that girls were the worse at flying. "And anyway, no one believes that. Their seeker may be an inexperienced third year, but everyone else is fifth year or up, and all of those girls used to terrorize me as a child…Bloody Holyhead Harpies wannabes."

Gwen and Mithian laughed, but Arthur fixed them with a stern look that said he wasn't joking, which only made them laugh more. Merlin didn't laugh, and neither did the other boys; they knew how scary girls could be.

"Who's on the Slytherin team?" Merlin asked. He wanted to watch out for them.

It was Lancelot, surprisingly, who answered. "The Seeker is a third year named Mordred, uh, Mordred something. He's a good flyer and he's got a sharp eye, but he's nothing special. Vivian Moffett plays Keeper position, but she can be easily distracted sometimes, especially when she's mad. The Beaters are Sophia Sidhe and Sefa Bane—Sophia's got a strong arm but her aim's not great, and Sefa is left-handed. The Chasers are Kara Dowling, she's got a Comet like yours, Morgause le Fay, she's a seventh year and a brute of a girl if I've ever met one, and Morgana Pendragon, Captain and sixth year."

"Morgana Pendragon?" Merlin repeated, shooting an astonished look to a sullen Arthur. "No wonder you've got such a grudge for Slytherin, you prat! You're fighting your sister!"

Arthur scowled at him. "Half-sister," he said firmly, as though it were an important distinction that should be remembered at all cost. "And that doesn't matter, because we're not fighting, we're competing." He turned to Lancelot, ignoring Merlin's smug look of comprehension. "It's Mordred Disir. And how do you know all that if you've only just got here from France?"

"I watched their try-outs last Tuesday," he responded. "Morgana set up the team immediately after the practice and dismissed those who hadn't made it, then had a sort of team-building exercise on the pitch."

Arthur hissed in frustration. "I should have done that!" He frowned down at his half-eaten plate for a moment, then looked up. "What sort of team-building exercise?"

"Well," Lancelot said, reaching forward as the desserts abruptly replaced the dinner things, "it was getting sort of dark, and I was hiding because I wasn't exactly supposed to be there, but it looked as though they were making up formations and plays. I'm sure she had Mordred practicing the Wronksi Feint."

Arthur snapped his head to Merlin, actually elbowing Gwen back a little so as to see the Seeker. "You're learning the Wronski Feint and the Plumpton Pass as soon as idiotically possible."

"Idiotically possible?"

"You can't be human, not with those ears. Although you could be a diminutive species of troll."

"Prat."

"Idiot."

"Dollophead."

"That's not a word, Merlin."

"Yes, it is, haven't you ever read Frindle?"

"What?"

"You're both being ridiculous!" Gwen exclaimed, pushing Arthur's arm away so she could sit up straight and eat her spotted dick and salted caramels in peace. "And Merlin, no one's read Frindle because it's an American Muggle children's book. And I have, but only because my mother was an American Muggle."

"Oh," he said simply, leaving it at that. He picked up a delicious candied strawberry. It was then that he suddenly noticed that Will was missing. Alarmed, he shot an inquiring look to Lancelot.

"He said something about sharing the news with Freya?" he offered.

Merlin twisted in his seat, knocking knees with Mithian, and spotted the messy head bent over a small figure with hair braided down her back. That was Will and Freya, apparently deep in conversation—or rather, Merlin winced, an argument. Will bent double, clutching at the tender place that Freya had just slammed her sharp elbow into. She stood up, said something curtly to him, and stormed off. When Will recovered, he ran after her, several people watching them with some interest. But they exited the Hall, and the gawkers returned to their desserts and friends.

Merlin frowned and turned around slowly, debating inwardly whether to go chase them down. It looked to be something serious, as Freya rarely became violent, and Will more rarely still sought her out when she was in one of her moods. He decided against it, but he was still bothered. When he glanced up, Arthur quickly looked away. Merlin blinked in confusion, then nodded sagely to himself when he at once surmised that Arthur was concerned for his sudden change in demeanor, but didn't want to show it. A small smile quirked at the corners of his lips.

Maybe Arthur wasn't all that bad.