Merlin intercepted Draco as he went down the stairs. They walked in thoughtful silence to the dungeons, dodging other students as they went. As they approached class the silence was broken.

"So, how was Care of Magical Creatures? I see you haven't been mauled yet at least." Draco said snidely as though having a personal vendetta against the class.

"I thought it was fun. We talked with merpeople and I got to see Charlie." Merlin grinned as he thought of his old friend.

"Charlie?"

"My thestral friend."

"Ah."

The rest of the walk was again spent in silence as Merlin thought about his later meeting with Luna and Draco thought about who-knows-what. When they had finally arrived at the class they proceeded to sit among their classmates on the right side of the room while the Hufflepuffs congregated mostly to the right. Their professor: Slughorn, if Merlin recalled correctly, had not arrived yet.

With barely a minute to spare, a large jovial man swept into the room. He glanced around the room happily, pausing on particular people every now and then.

"Well then, welcome to 7th year potions!" Here his face took on a slightly more serious expression. "I expect all of you to work very hard this year. I am going to warn you right now that this class is for those serious in persuing the art of potion making. I will not accept slackers in my class." With his warning out of the way, he morphed back into the happy man from moments ago.

The class just looked at him in mixed parts fear and wonderment.

He smiled back at them. "Oh come now, cheer up! You made it this far, I'm sure you will do fine. As long as you study, I am positive you will make wonderful potion masters and mistresses. Now, will you all retrieve your textbooks, 'The Fine Art..."

Merlin managed to let the professor's voice fade into soothing background noise. He gathered the gist of it: you will be making the simple potion on page 45 so that I may asses your skills and you will be doing it without a partner. He opened his book to the assigned page to find that they were making Veritaserum. The book had it classed as a potion master level potion, so many of the other students look weary. Thankfully, Merlin had learned something while assisting Gaius, and he would be sure to put his tutelage to good work. Still, this class was going to be difficult if this potion was classed as simple by the professor.

Draco had already fetched his ingredients by the time that Merlin had pulled himself out of LaLa Land. Merlin quickly set to work, putting his water on to boil and then getting the ingredients his book said he would need. After he had lined them all along the table in order of usage, he let his work take over.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

By the end of the class, everyone had finished in time, but not without some damage. Some were covered in potion ingredients, some were covered in the potion itself, some had nearly ripped their hair out. Thankfully, there were no explosions or fatal injuries. One student had been rushed to the hospital wing, but that was because they had slipped on some spilled potion after finishing and celebrating. Merlin himself was one of the students covered in potion ingredients. He had had a unhappy greeting from a plant stem that apperantly spewed purple liquid when cut wrong. In the end, though, Merlin was one of the few that had a potion vaguely resembling the description of the final product in the book. Draco had managed an almost perfect potion without any damage to himself or the surrounding area. He knew his way around the potions ingredients due to his training with his godfather, and Merlin knows (the saying, not Merlin himself) he would not pull on his hair for all the stress in the world.

Once everyone had calmed down and the messes had been cleaned up, Professor Slughorn made his way around the room. He started on the Hufflepuff side, grunting at the less well made potions, and stopping on a few occasions to congratulate students who had accomplished an okay job or better. He then made his way over to the Slytherin side and weaved his way through desks and students, grading as he went. He then stopped in front of Draco and Merlin's conjoined desk and peered into Draco's potion.

"Marvelous, simply marvelous. This is the best one I've seen today! We may make a potions master out of you yet Mr.-" Slughorn looked up. Upon seeing that Draco had been the receiver of his complements, his face seemed to harden slightly. "-Malfoy." He gritted out the word with a fake smile plastered on his face as if he disliked Draco in particular for some strange reason. Slughorn quickly turned to Merlin's potion.

"Decent job Mr-" Once again Slughorn paused. "I'm sorry, I don't think I've had you in my class before. What would your name be?"

"Marvin Emerson, Professor. I'm new this year, just transferred in." Merlin replied.

"Welcome to Hogwarts then! I see potential in you, Mr. Emerson. You handled most of your ingredients very neatly, it would appear you just need to work on timing."

Merlin nodded. He knew that some potions would turn out slightly off if the timing was wrong, even if everything else was perfect. "Thank you Professor."

Slughorn nodded to him and finished inspecting the rest of the Slytherin potions. After he had seen all of the potions and given advice, he asked them to bottle their potions and bring the vial to his desk. After that, they were free to talk amongst themselves for the small time before class ended. After both Merllin and Draco had done as instructed, Merlin turned to his to carefully ask about Professor Slugorn's odd behavior.

"So, have you had Professor Slughorn before?" Merlin asked, trying to rein in his curiousity.

"Yeah, last year. I was also in a little club he ran, the Slug-Club or something equally stupid." Draco obviously could see where the conversation was headed and abruptly switched topics. "Why did you have such difficulty with the raven sprouts? They are a first year ingredient, everyone knows by now not to cut them like you did. Well, everyone with braincells."

"Oh well I'm sorry, I haven't run into it before." Merlin snapped. He paused and took in a deep breath, in and out, in and out. "Do you know where the plant originated from?"

Draco nodded. "Yeah, somewhere in northern Mexico."

Merlin nodded back. It made sense he wouldn't have run into it. It was from a whole new country that didn't even exist when he fell asleep. That and "the Americas" and "Canada" and "the southern Americas". He sighed again and ran a hand through his hair.

Draco, who was about to ask why it mattered where the plant had originated from, noticed his new friends stress. "Hey it's okay. I'm sure that even if you do have some gaps in your potion ingredient knowledge, you will catch right up. Remember, Slughorn said you had potential, yeah?"

Merlin smiled back at Draco, glad that he didn't think he was weird or stupid for not knowing what was apperantly such a basic ingredient. "Yeah, I'm sure I can catch up."

And if Merlin was still curious about the Professor's behavior towards Draco, well, he guessed he could just let it be for now.

Hey all! Sorry for slow updates. I've had the first half of this chapter written for ages but I lost inspiration for awhile there. But here we go! Potions Class. Looks like Merlin missed quite alot in terms of world development. After a bit of research as to certain times, I have determined that Merlin went coma in about the year 925 (seven years after the founding of Hogwarts) due to some made up timeline I now have (Hogwarts was supposedly founded in the 900's so I went from there). That means he's missed quite a bit more than simply over 300 years. But look! He's learning already! Also, raven sprouts are my attempt at potions lingo. A.k.a they don't exist as far as I know. I am also adding Draco to the list of characters in the summary/description because he is quickly taking over :) Hope you enjoyed this chapter.