~7~
"Foul!" Arthur yelled. "Guinevere, that's a foul! You can't just go Blatching people, especially the ones on our team!"
Gwen rubbed her arm, which was sure to be heavily bruised. "Sorry!" she called back, the apology intended both for Arthur and for Leon, whom she had rammed into midair.
Merlin, hovering high above the team as he kept an eye out for the Snitch, wondered whether it could still be considered Blatching if one didn't mean to collide with another person. It was a bit of an interesting dilemma; how would the referee be able to tell accident from intent? On that note, Merlin wondered who would be refereeing the upcoming match between Gryffindor and Slytherin.
"Elyan, Leon!" Arthur shouted from his position in front of the goal posts, "try practicing the Bludger Backbeat! That'll throw them off, for sure."
As Elyan whizzed by on his broom, Merlin was sure he heard an irritated snatch of, "…throw me off, more like as…" Merlin grinned despite himself. Hitting a Bludger behind you to the other Beater was a difficult move—it required exact precision, which was made even more difficult considering neither Elyan nor Leon had eyes in the backs of their heads.
He resumed his search for the Snitch. Arthur had tasked him with trying to keep it in his sight without giving away its presence. Merlin was supposed to wait to catch it until they'd scored one hundred points. They'd been at it for a quarter of an hour by then, and no points had been made because Arthur was taking his job as Keeper very seriously. Lancelot had a knot from when he had tried to score a few minutes ago, but Arthur had knocked it back so viciously that it had rebounded off the boy's forehead and flew out of bounds.
Merlin drifted lazily, sagging on his broom.
Quidditch was fun, sure, but not when he wasn't able to do anything but hang around.
He was half-considering taking out his wand and practicing his Charms homework when he saw a figure watching them from the stands, crouched low so as not to be easily noticed. The boy was familiar to Merlin—not a fourth year, he was too young, but certainly not a first year, either. And then Merlin saw the green and silver necktie, and recognized him as that Slytherin boy who had been staring at him some days ago.
As though sensing Merlin's gaze, the boy sharply looked up. And smiled eerily.
Emrys.
"Who are you?" Merlin murmured, frowning in confusion.
But all confusion was momentarily forgotten the instant Merlin felt something dangerous coming—his skin prickled and jumped like he was standing out in a storm. Instinctively, he rolled to one side, limbs wrapped round the handle of his broom.
"Nice dodge!" Leon praised as he whipped past, chasing the Bludger that had nearly taken Merlin out.
Merlin righted himself several feet away, shaking off the last vestiges of primal fear of injury. He glanced back down toward the audience stands, but the Slytherin boy was gone. After a moment's debate, Merlin shot off toward the Captain and pulled up behind him.
"I think Morgana's got a spy," he said lowly.
"What?" Arthur turned, looking alarmed. "Where? Who is it?" His head swiveled around, eyes searching the stands as well as the ground.
Mithian scored in the right goal, but Arthur didn't even notice.
"Some Slytherin boy," Merlin shrugged. "I didn't recognize him. But when he saw that I knew he was there, he disappeared pretty quickly."
Arthur let loose a string of vulgarity that Merlin's mother would have fainted to hear. "How long was he here?"
"Dunno."
"Is there anything you do know, Merlin?" Arthur growled. Merlin opened his mouth to respond, but Arthur cut him off with a jerk of his head: "Why don't you go back to being useless up there?"
Flushing hot with anger, Merlin shot straight upwards—the most direct path away from the right prat of a captain. Well, that's the last time Merlin tried to tell Arthur anything important!
"Useless, am I?" he muttered, eyeballs burning with furious tears that he refused to let fall. "You're useless."
Even when Arthur suddenly called the practice to a halt ten minutes later, Merlin remained on his broom far enough away to not be a part of the huddle, but close enough to hear what was being said.
"Good work today, team," Arthur said. "We've a lot of work to do, but it's a great start."
"Why are we stopping?" Mithian asked. "You didn't call us down to compliment us, I'm sure."
"No," the captain mused. "It seems Morgana's trying to one-up us with a spy."
"A spy?" Leon raised his eyebrow.
"A Slytherin boy, watching us practice," Arthur said. Everyone looked around as though expecting to see him, but Arthur continued unhindered: "It's a good thing our team idiot spotted him earlier, or he might have seen us practicing our real moves."
"Our real moves?" This time is was Guinevere who spoke, looking both bemused and exasperated. "What have we been doing this past hour, then?"
"Warm-ups," Arthur answered, quite seriously.
Merlin rolled his eyes. That was what the stretching had been before they went up to the pitch. Flying twice round the perimeter of the field was a warm-up, too. There was no doubt that Arthur had meant what they had been doing to be their real practice, but now he wanted to play it off as though it hadn't been anything serious. He would probably stay up all night thinking of new tactics and plays and ways to make Merlin feel bad, the prat.
He hoped Arthur lost his glasses again.
The youngest team player lost interest in Arthur's excuses, and so let his eyes roam the pitch. That was when he spotted it: a golden glint that could only have been the Snitch.
Merlin didn't dare take his eyes away from it, and only hesitated a second or two before shooting off towards it. He could blow off some steam with a good chase, and it wasn't as though Arthur would really miss him, and he wasn't really saying anything important.
And besides, Merlin didn't speak Pratdragon.
He whirled around the goal posts, performing a Double Eight Loop—a typical Keeper defense against penalty shooters—his hand outstretched for the Snitch. His fingertips had just brushed the walnut-sized ball when it darted to one side. Merlin followed, turning his handle sharply to avoid collision with one of the spectator stands. His Comet shuddered in protest beneath him, but he spurred it into a smooth, upward arc, sight locked on the flitting golden orb. The wind cooled his skin, erased any anger he had felt just a few minutes before regarding Arthur. He ecstatically reached for his prize.
Abruptly the Snitch changed direction again, disappearing for a moment before Merlin turned and regained his bearings. The Snitch hovered tantalizingly in front of the center hoop, practically daring Merlin to come fetch it.
Merlin did.
He tucked in and shot through the goal like a hawk dive-bombing its prey, following the Snitch on its helter-skelter course about the pitch. After an exerting chase back and forth across the pitch in which Merlin performed several series of complicated moves, he at last caught up. Merlin stretched as far as his limb would go, straining his slender fingertips toward his quarry.
"Ah!" he cried victoriously.
The Snitch's wings fluttered frantically between his fingers, but he held fast, slowing his broom to a halt midair. He grinned down at his fist, cheeks flushed red from the coarse wind and hair sticking up in odd places like the feathers of a ruffled raven. Merlin glanced back to the gauge the reactions of his teammates.
The Chasers, Gwen, Mithian, and Lancelot were cheering him, waving their broomsticks in the air as a gesture of fanaticism and support. Elyan was grinning as he watched him, arms folded across his broad chest. Leon was watching by the captain's side, and though Merlin couldn't see him quite clearly his body language conveyed approval. Arthur, however, was frowning at Merlin.
The pride and thrill Merlin had been feeling ebbed slightly. Perhaps Arthur was angry that he'd flown off mid-speech, undermining his authority. Merlin no longer felt the sting of Arthur's words from before; he realized that he had just been panicking and hadn't thought of what he was saying. The Pendragon probably didn't even remember it.
And then Arthur wasn't looking at him anymore, but across the pitch. Merlin followed his gaze and saw Freya, standing just out of bounds with her arms full of books, and a covered wicker basket hanging from the crook of her elbow. She beamed up at Merlin, not noticing that Arthur was marching toward her with long strides, his Firebolt white-knuckled in his hand.
Merlin wasn't so far away that he couldn't hear Arthur's angry demand: "What are you doing here, Ravenclaw? This is Gryffindor practice."
Freya looked startled, and adjusted her books in her arms. "Oh, uh, Merlin said that practice would be over by now, so I thought that I'd—"
"What, come spy on us? How much is Morgana paying you?"
Merlin knew right then that Arthur had gone too far, because Freya's lips thinned angrily, her eyes flashing. "Excuse me?"
"I should've known that Morgana would make a deal with someone like you. How many galleons did you accept?" Arthur sneered. "Two? Three?"
By then, the rest of the Quidditch team had arrived, looking wary. Merlin descended quickly, stumbling off of his broom and going to Freya's side. Then it was him, Freya, and Lancelot staring down Arthur and Leon. Mithian, Gwen, and Elyan stood uncertainly to the side, unsure whether to interfere or not.
Freya was trembling with fury, her hands turning white from her death grip on the books.
"She's not a spy!" Merlin came to her defense. "She's my friend!"
"Are you sure?" Arthur retorted, face beginning to darken threateningly. "Last time I checked, friends could betray one another! And for that matter, how do I know that you're not one of Morgana's spies? You're even more poor than the du Lacs! Morgana has a big enough allowance to employ half the school!"
Merlin inhaled sharply. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
Lancelot, face pinched, stepped between them, holding up his hands in a placating motion. "Listen, maybe we should all go our separate ways for a bit, cool down."
"Yes," Leon said, looking concernedly at Arthur. "Perhaps we should…"
"I'm not an idiot! I've had enough so-called friends rat me out! You're off the team," Arthur spat at Merlin, shoving Leon off of him. "You're a rubbish Seeker, Emrys, and a rubbish student, and a rubbish peasant."
Merlin reeled back a step or two, looking utterly shocked. The others looked just as horrified at Arthur's obvious lapse in sanity.
For a moment it seemed as though time had frozen.
Then Freya's books thudded to the grass, the basket dropping and spilling its contents (fresh strawberries, Merlin vaguely noticed). She drew her wand, face contorted in fury for the insult to her own family name and to her friend, and pointed it at Arthur.
But Arthur was just as sharp, and snatched his own wand up from his pocket and pointed before the first syllable of the Bat-Bogey Hex had left Freya's lips. "Sectumsempra!"
Freya fell back with a strangled cry, her wand falling amongst her forgotten things. Gwen and Mithian both cried out, voices ringing across the pitch, and Elyan ripped out his own wand in an instant. Merlin could only stare in utter terror as blood welled from the huge slash in Freya's chest, staining the white shirt she wore beneath her robes a stark crimson. She gasped and wheezed frighteningly, staring wide-eyed up at the sky as Lancelot fell to his knees at her side and desperately pressed his shaking hands over her wound.
"Stupefy!" Elyan said huskily. Arthur only had a split second to realize what he had done and to express horror at himself before he was struck by the spell and knocked unconscious where he stood.
"Get help!" Lancelot said. "Someone get help!"
Freya's strawberries were crushed underfoot as Leon pelted off toward the castle, his own Firebolt abandoned next to Arthur's.
"Ohh," Gwen moaned, kneeling on Freya's other side. She put her hands on either side of Lancelot's, trying to keep Freya's lifeblood inside of her, where it belonged.
The gash was long and deep, as though Arthur had wielded a sword rather than a wooden twig. Freya's breath was shortening and her eyes drooping even as Lancelot tearfully begged her to stay awake. Her pale fingers grasped weakly at the cool grass beneath her.
Merlin, in shock, was shaking from head to toe, hands clutching at his jetty locks and tears streaming. "Freya," he choked out, feet frozen in place. "Freya, Freya, Freya…"
He hardly registered Mithian's presence, her arms wrapping tightly around him to help himself hold together. Elyan was standing helplessly to one side, his wand held loosely at his side. Arthur was still sprawled unconscious, ignored where he lay.
Hearing running steps, Merlin somehow managed to tear his eyes away from the terrible sight, and saw that Leon was returning with a professor in tow. Obviously he hadn't had to run all the way to the castle, just to the greenhouses, where his mother had been teaching Advanced Herbology.
"Mum!" Merlin sobbed pitifully.
Whether she didn't hear him or simply ignored him was unclear, because Professor Emrys fell to her knees at Freya's side, ushering Gwen and Lancelot out of her way. She examined her wound quickly, fumbling for her wand. Hunith sang a healing incantation—Merlin didn't know how she knew what to do, but he was so grateful that she did, because he was sure that otherwise Freya would have died.
Before his eyes, the blood staining her began to flow back into her body; Freya's skin became less porcelain; her wound began to stitch itself together; but her eyes remained shut. The ugly wound closed without a scar. Lancelot and Gwen sat back, shoulder-to-shoulder, breathing a sigh of relief. Their bloodied hands lay in their laps.
Hunith sat back, wiping a hand across her forehead. A few wisps of dark hair had come loose from her headscarf, but she hardly seemed to notice. Then she glanced up, her face stoic and serious, so unlike the kindly face with which Merlin had grown up.
"All of you," she said, "with me."
She used the Mobilicorpus charm to levitate both Freya and Arthur, who were still unconscious, and began to walk briskly back up to the castle. The other students stumbled after her, Gwen and Lancelot supporting one another, and Mithian supporting Merlin. Their brooms were left forgotten on the field, as were Freya's books and basket.
Merlin was unable to comprehend what had happened. Well, he knew what had happened: Arthur had insulted him and Freya, Freya had tried to hex him, but Arthur had used one of the most dangerous spells, invented to kill. But what he didn't understand was why Arthur had done that. Arthur didn't seem the sort to stoop so low, even if he was furious and overreacting.
It was all too confusing, so Merlin shut his thoughts down.
The solemn group trekked silently back to the castle, and up the stairs to the infirmary, where Hunith laid Freya and Arthur in bed at opposite sides of the room. Alice immediately set to work on Freya, since she was obviously in the worse condition.
Professor Emrys bustled the rest of them over to the door so as to give the patient and healer some privacy, face tight. If Merlin didn't know any better, he'd have thought she was holding back an enraged scream, but he knew she was trying desperately not to cry. Freya was like a daughter to her, after all.
She wrung her hands together nervously, and picked at the dirt beneath her nails. "The headmaster should be arriving shortly," she said in the hushed tones of a visitor in a hospital. "I sent Mr. Greene to fetch him here, when Mr. Lionel came and…Well, he'll be wanting to speak with each of you in turn, I expect."
Merlin was ridiculously surprised that Mr. Greene, that is, Gwaine, was in his mother's Advanced Herbology class. That he was bothering to think about that rather than what he was going to say to the headmaster felt quite absurd; he nearly laughed, but the severe atmosphere was enough to keep it at bay.
It was important that Merlin organize his thoughts for Professor Pendragon's inquiries. There was something that he needed to say about Arthur's behavior—that it hadn't really been Arthur, because there was a small part of him that rejected any theory that included Arthur being able to kill someone just because he was angry. But he was at a loss to give any explanation for what had happened other than what he had seen. Arthur had been angry, and he had attempted murder.
But stuck in Merlin's brain was that split second after he had used the terrible spell, and that same split second before Elyan had stupefied him. It was of a look of abject horror, confusion intermingled in it. It was the expression of someone thinking, 'This can't have just happened.'
The doors opened and King—no, Professor—Pendragon strode into the infirmary. His eyes landed first on the bed where his son lay, then moved to the one where Alice was bustling around Freya, and then to the out-of-the-way corner where Hunith and the gaggle of Quidditch-uniformed students stood.
"What happened?" he asked, the question directed at Professor Emrys.
She shook her head. "All I know is that Arthur used the sectumsempra curse on Freya du Lac. I did my best to heal her, but I don't know what good it did—healing has never been my strength."
Uther nodded curtly. "Mr. Lionel, with me."
Leon swallowed convulsively, looking a little green, but followed the headmaster out of the room. Merlin could hear the low murmur as they conversed on the other side. He leaned against the cool stone wall behind him, repeatedly scuffing the toe of his shoe on the floor. Every once in a while he glanced toward Freya, then to the closed doors, then to Arthur.
After a moment, Uther reentered, alone, and asked Elyan ("Mr. Smithson, with me.") to go out. They went, and the muffled tones resumed. The process repeated—"Mr. du Lac, with me."—"Ms. Smithson, with me."—"Ms. Montgomery, with me."—until finally, "Mr. Emrys, with me."
Merlin glanced at his mother under his lashes as he passed, and she gave a small, encouraging smile—much like the one she'd given him when he was eleven was about to be sorted into a House. He followed Professor Pendragon out of the room into the privacy of the hall. He didn't know where the rest of the team had gone, but he was sure he would find out once the interview (or interrogation, depending on the headmaster's mood) was over.
"Are you all right?"
It was the same question he'd been asked only the night before, when Aredian had brought him to his office.
Merlin nodded, staring down at the headmaster's very, very, very polished shoes.
"What happened? And please speak clearly."
The young Gryffindor took a shaky breath, then looked sharply (and quite bravely, he might add) up into Professor Pendragon's eyes. "I can tell you what I saw," he said, voice steady, "but I think that what I saw isn't all there is to it."
Uther raised his eyebrows, but nodded for the fourth-year to continue.
"He was fine during practice," Merlin said, "Arthur, I mean. But then I noticed a Slytherin boy watching us, and I thought he was a spy for their team, so I told Arthur. That was when he started acting, well, mean. Meaner than usual, I mean. Well, he's not mean like he's a bad person, it's just sometimes he can be an obnoxious prat—not that he's like that all the time, and that's probably an exaggeration, sir, I don't mean to say Arthur's—"
"It's quite all right, Mr. Emrys, I understand. Please get on."
"Right, well," Merlin shook off his embarrassment and continued more confidently, "the boy who was watching us disappeared before Arthur noticed him. And then Arthur called the team down and ended the practice, and I, well, sort of ignored him and chased after the Snitch. When I caught it, Arthur was the only one who didn't seem happy about it, but I figured it was because he was just in a bad mood anyway.
"Then Freya came down to the pitch so she could walk me back to the castle. She's my friend, but she's also in Ravenclaw so we don't get to spend much time together, so we always try to do so when we can. Arthur thought she was a spy for Morgana, and said all these horrible things, and they both started getting angry, and—"
"What sort of horrible things?" Uther interrupted.
"Um, well, he sort of said that people of our status—poor, I mean—would accept a galleon or two for betraying our friends," Merlin said. "But Arthur's not the kind of person who would say those things, I think."
"Hmm," Uther said. "Go on, please, Mr. Emrys."
"So, uh, Freya got mad and tried to hex him—the Bat-Bogey Hex—but Arthur drew his wand and used the sectumsempra curse. But Arthur didn't mean to use it!" he ended fervently.
"How do you know?" the headmaster sounded genuinely curious.
"The look on his face the second after he realized what he'd done," Merlin said, lowering his eyes again. "It was like…it was obvious…No one who means to use a spell like that would have that expression…Not if he knew what the spell was, at least."
Uther nodded slowly. "Is that all, Mr. Emrys?"
"Yes sir."
"Very well. Thank you, Mr. Emrys. The rest of your teammates are in the side room in the Great Hall. Go and join them, and eat some chocolate. It'll calm your nerves." With that, Professor Pendragon gave Merlin's shoulder a small squeeze and then bypassed him back into the infirmary. He didn't bother to close the doors behind him, so Merlin had a very clear view as he went to his son's beside, took out his wand, and said, "Ennervate."
Arthur woke blearily.
Merlin turned and went to the Great Hall, wondering how he was going to break the news to Will later.
