Merlin was not bitter, nor was he stewing, but – yes, he was both of those things.

He'd been in Nimueh's office rearranging her bookshelves and papering her walls without magic in exchange for his note passing, or lack thereof. Her crystalline gaze said that the reason for him being stuck here didn't have anything to do with class and everything to do with his new reputation.

Goddamn Gryffindors.

All of them were the same.

"Run this to Professor Gorlois and you can be through for the evening," Nimueh interrupted his banging about with no real purpose, hardly looking up as she lifted a sealed and stamped letter off her desk. "I fully expect to see you here tomorrow at seven. You've missed three of my classes since your first infraction, which earns you another detention here with me. I expect better of my star pupil."

Merlin was torn between making a comment about super fucking high standards or casually mentioning that these detentions had much more to do with his new status of future dark wizard. "Of course," Merlin, disgruntled, ripped it from her hands with unnecessary force.

Stalking out of her office with much more attitude than he usually would have, Merlin entered a deserted hall. It was approaching eleven at night, because Nimueh, for all her appearing with smiles and prettiness, was actually an evil bitch. Everyone agreed, it wasn't just him.

Merlin let out a sigh of relief at the emptiness. Approaching on two weeks since the message had been left, and still he was the primary blame for it. At least the whispers had started to die down.

Two floors later and Merlin still hadn't run into another human soul. But Morgause's Charms classroom was only a few feet away, and then he would be forced into interaction with her.

"Ah, Merlin," Morgause smiled icily when Merlin knocked on the open door. She beckoned him inside with a crooked finger. Slightly uncomfortable in presence, as always, Merlin lifted up the letter awkwardly.

"This is from Professor Nimueh," Merlin stepped forward to place it on her desk. Morgause looked down at it expressionlessly for half a second before glancing back up at Merlin similarly.

"Thank you," Morgause said without sounding like she meant it. Merlin shifted under her assessing eyes. She had graduated from Hogwarts in his third year, and it never wasn't creepy that the girl he once saw drunk and snogging a statue was now his Charms teacher. "Is that all?"

"That should be it –" Merlin was anxious to make with a quick getaway, but a voice from the door heading into Morgause's private chambers interrupted his hurried words.

"Hey, love; do you know what happened to my bag –?"

Merlin did a horrendous double take as Morgana Pendragon, clad in only a black button-down shirt and a pair of lacy knickers, hair messy and makeup smudged, appeared in the doorway. He gaped at her for a moment – her eyes flickered to him and face immediately dropped into the same expression. Merlin couldn't even look back to see Morgause's reaction because of the complete shock running through his veins.

"Uh, um, uh," Merlin felt himself blushing. Morgause stood up from her desk, eyes alight with flame and worry, to stand next to Morgana, whose mouth resembled a fish.

"You're not to tell anyone of this," Morgause hissed venomously under her breath, but Merlin still picked up on the scared and desperate undertone.

"Um," Merlin said, mind drawing a complete blank as he tried very hard not to let his eyes wander downward on Morgana's body.

"Please," Morgana pleaded, sounding somewhat human instead of super scary witch lady, the aesthetic she gave off at any given time.

"Um."

Morgause's eyes narrowed. "What do you want? A passing grade in my class?"

Merlin's throat unstuck. "I can do that on my own."

"What, then?"

"Uh, nothing?" Merlin tried with an awkward, somewhat faked smile at two of the most frightening women he'd ever had the terror of meeting, both of whom were giving him identical looks of anger. Christ, it wasn't his fault they were anything but discreet. "Really. I won't tell anyone about – uh, whatever this is." He waved a hand. "You have my word."

"And how trustworthy is that?" Morgause sounded like she was about to go into a rant, but Morgana stopped her with a hand to her hip and a significant and unreadable look at Merlin.

"You can trust him," she said, eyes intent and serious. "You have my word on that."

A chill went through Merlin's bones for unexplained reasons.

"I'm – I'm just gonna –"

He was not ashamed to say he bolted out of the room as fast as his wobbly legs could carry him. He made it a grand total of three corridors later before he started giggling quietly to himself.

Christ on a crutch, everything interesting in school only ever happened to him.

"Merlin, wait."

Emotions mixed, Merlin looked backward to see Morgana, now thankfully dressed in a skirt and a Slytherin tie. She smiled nervously at him as he slowed down to her pace. When they were evenly footed, she began to speak.

"Look, it's not just fucking, alright? It's a real, healthy relationship, and if you fuck that up by reporting it to Kilgharrah, or telling one of your little friends about it, there will be hell to pay."

Merlin raised his hands in mock defense as they rounded the corner leading to the spiral staircase. "I meant what I said. I won't tell anyone. I'm really very good at not telling people things. I don't tell people things all the time."

Morgana eyed him critically. "As long as we're on the same page."

They walked in silence for a few moments before Merlin felt like he had to break in as inappropriately as possible. "Black lace. Very nice."

"Oh, shut it," Morgana hit him not very lightly on the back of the head. He rubbed it, wincing.

"Well, I guess that removes the tension between the two of us."

A disbelieving eyebrow was raised. "What tension?"

Somewhat wishing he didn't have such an awful case of motor mouth, Merlin finished as unashamedly as he could. "First night of school, when you were asking me about Hogsmeade? I almost thought you were asking me out."

She stared at him for a moment before breaking out laughing. And not just pretty girl giggles and smirks, but the whole snorting package.

"It's not that funny," Merlin pulled a childish face. "What else was I supposed to think?"

"Maybe that I was inviting you to a party. Or that we were having a House-wide get-together. Or that I knew someone would be there that's interested in meeting you." Her voice turned sly at the mention of the last one. Merlin turned to face her, curious.

"What do you mean?"

"Let's take a rain check on that, pretty boy," Morgana laughed when they reached the bottom of the staircase. "It seems like you have a lot on your plate already – did you know that you're in line to overtake Cenred Taber in most hated dark wizard in school?"

So close. Merlin almost groaned. So close to escaping this conversation without a mention of the dreaded rumor. He decided to play it off the way he always did – with really bad jokes and too loud of laughter. "I did know, actually. I'm thinking of snapping on Thursday, for future reference. Let all the Muggleborns know."

"I'm sure everyone will be very excited to hear," Morgana began to walk the opposite direction of the Slytherin Common Room, over toward the Potions dungeons, without a word, only the clopping of her heels on the stone floor.

"Where are you going?" Merlin called after her retreating form. "It's past curfew."

"Goodnight, Emrys," was the only response the shadows had for him.

Merlin stared after her disappeared form before shaking his head in exasperation. This was approaching on one of the strangest nights he'd had in a while.

But it was the first time he had seen Morgana Fay act like an actual human being with a life, emotions, and a purpose other than scaring the living crap out of everyone she came across, so there was something to be said for it.

Merlin learned knew things about people every day.

"I hear Nimueh keeps finding excuses to give you detention," Leon said at lunch the next day. Merlin had made himself at home at the Ravenclaw table, squished between him and Freya, because not enough galleons in the world could get him to sit with the Slytherins when half of them wanted him to sign their bag.

"I deal with it," Merlin shrugged, not letting on how bothered he actually was at the bigotry. Slytherins were widely known as the least tolerant of the houses, but the Gryffindors always won the prize in his mind. Sure, Muggleborns had been treated quite awfully in the past, and still were to an extent, and Salazar Slytherin hadn't the best ideals in mind, but the entire house kept repeatedly being blamed for one or two transgressors.

Just wasn't right.

Leon knew his façade too well. "Sure you do."

"I think the rumors have quieted down," Freya said as she picked at her food. "I haven't heard any in the past couple of days."

"Really?" Merlin's spirits lifted considerably at that news.

"No," Freya winced up at him and Merlin's face fell. "But I thought it would make you feel better."

"You could have kept lying and said yes," Merlin told her. "Generally a good idea. Although I do hate being lied to, so maybe it's better this way."

"Yes, you're a human contradiction," Leon said not without fondness through bites of his steak. "Can we talk about something else now?"

"Like how beautiful and wonderful and perfect Guinevere is?" Merlin snorted, earning him a glare. "That's all you ever want to talk about."

"It's the only thing worth talking about," Leon replied snottily, and Merlin did a mini-victory dance in his mind for having Leon at least admit his sorry and besotted state when it came to the Hufflepuff girl.

Who was, coincidentally, heading over to their table with another person in tow, the sight of whom made Merlin do a double take.

"Why is Gwen coming over here with Arthur Pendragon of all people?" He hissed at his friends, craning his neck for a better view of the pair of them. Gwen, small and dark, was leading the large and golden Gryffindor over with a yank on his sleeve.

Leon and Freya squinted over as well.

"That's a mystery," Freya shook her head.

The mystery was solved when the two of them were face to face with the trio, Gwen immediately making herself at home on the bench opposite them. Arthur looked down at it uncomfortably for a second – probably worried sitting at the Ravenclaw table would bruise his Gryffindor pride – then looking unsurely at Merlin for so short a time he must of imagined it. He sat down after that, however, albeit still appearing untrusting and skittish.

"Elyan says Arthur needs to talk to you," Gwen informed Merlin, no nonsense, as if this was a regular, everyday occurrence, Merlin was sought out by Gryffindor golden boys for reasons other than maiming and torture.

"Um, okay?" Merlin blinked at Arthur a few times, just to make sure he was real. He was. He was also determinedly not making eye contact.

"Uh," Arthur began, biting his lip. Gwen, the most tactful of them all, immediately got to her feet, motioning the Ravenclaws to do the same. Freya stood with her within an instant, Leon following after a 'what the fuck' look at Merlin. Merlin just shook his head.

"We'll be…elsewhere," Gwen said, sing-song-like, and Merlin was probably going to kill her. At least with the disappearance of his friends, he didn't have to worry about their judgment for whatever happened next.

Everyone else seemed to be in a judging mood – the Gryffindor and the Slytherin boys at the Ravenclaw table were gaining a few extra glances, especially since it was the Quidditch prodigy and the dark lord prototype.

"What did you need?" Merlin asked a still quiet Arthur cautiously. He and the other boy hadn't done much talking since their run-in at the hospital wing, other than a few half-hearted jibes and moans about homework during Alchemy class. Arthur was still on edge around Merlin, but he was getting better. Sort of.

"Well, the thing is – I –" Arthur jabbed a finger in the air as if it would articulate his yet to be made point.

"Yes?"

"I need some help with the Alchemy homework," Arthur said after a moment, a kind of triumph in his voice. Merlin refrained from making sarcastic comments about when to admit you need assistance. "And as you're the only other student in class…Look, I know I hate you, but I need this favor, okay?"

"You want me to…tutor you," Merlin said slowly, almost uncomprehendingly.

"Yes," Arthur said after brief hesitation, voice forceful but eyes darting back and forth.

"Just checking," Merlin said faintly, wondering what the state of his life had become. "Wow. Um. This is an unexpected turn of events. My thirteen year old bully asking me for homework help. This could be the start of a very bad B-list movie."

Arthur narrowed his eyebrows, annoyed. "Are you going to help me or not?"

"Sure," Merlin answered automatically, though he wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because Arthur, for all his irritating qualities and refusal to believe anything decent about him, was one of the only people left in the school who still thought he was a human being. Arthur blinked, obviously surprised, a reaction Merlin enjoyed. "What the hell?"

"Is that your attitude toward everything?" Arthur asked, snobbery shining through.

Merlin thought for less than a second. "Pretty much, yeah."

"Well, just tell me when and where then," Arthur said with a half-smile half-grimace and not a single thank you spoken as he raised himself to his feet.

"How about the library, Saturday after next?" Merlin shuffled through his schedule mentally within a few seconds.

"Isn't that the first Hogsmeade weekend?" Arthur said with a raised eyebrow.

"Is it?" Merlin said, and then thought it through. "Oh, yeah. Sunday, then?"

"Sure," Arthur nodded in assent. "How does two sound?"

"Grand. See you then?"

"Be there with bells on."

The wonders of being civil with Arthur Pendragon. Merlin should write a book on making out of these interactions alive and unscathed. It would become a best-seller, he was certain.

"Hey, look, you made it through a conversation with him without blowing him to bits! Or him blowing you to bits. There was no blowing action happening."

"God, Gwen, do you have to put all the euphuisms in there?"

"I didn't mean to. So what did he want?"

"You didn't know?"

"Elyan just told me he needed to talk to you, that's all. Looked rightly pissed about it, too."

"Apparently I'm going to be his tutor."

"His…"

"You heard me right. Arthur Pendragon wants me to tutor him. And I currently like him more than I like half of the year. God, what has my life become?"