Chapter 10: Temptress

Arthur's Christmas break was one disappointment after another.

Firstly, all of his friends left the school. All of them. Well, not some of his 'holiday' friends, who he found companionable enough, but Leon, Elyan and Percival all disappeared with apologies and explanations that they had places to go and relatives to see.

Then, for Christmas, his father had gifted him and a veritable bookshelf of novels, a new set of quidditch gloves, a pair of dragon hide boots – because his latest growth spurt had resulted in his toes butting against the end of his old ones – a sneakoscope and a new holster for his wand. Arthur wasn't complaining, he really wasn't, given that all were items he both wanted and needed. But what he'd really wanted was a broomstick; since the incident with Valiant at the Gryffindor-Slytherin match, his old broom had been rendered useless from magical tampering and he'd been required to use one of his older models instead. Arthur had wished Valiant could be expelled all over again for that.

And then Morgana, the person he'd been – begrudgingly – spending most of his time with in the first days of the holidays, had fallen ill. Seriously ill. A curse of some sorts by some unknown assailant that had rendered her unconscious in an induced sleep of which not even Gaius could drag her from. Arthur had known Morgana since he was born, the older girl the daughter of his father's closest friend, and though he found her tiresome in her sarcasm, ridiculous in the aloof and apathetic façade she presented towards the world, he was still fond of her. It worried him that someone had cursed her into a serious state. Worried him even more that someone had managed; Morgana was more than competent at defending herself from a magical attack. How had it even happened? It must have been a backhanded attack; that was the only thing Arthur could consider possible.

All in all, coupled with the fact that Morgana's curse had set a very definite dampener upon the mood of the school as a whole – it had become very subdued at mealtimes in the Great Hall over the past few days – Arthur was not enjoying himself. Not at all. It didn't even help that finally the older boys who had attempted to assist him with Morris earlier in the year had finally knocked him down a peg and the Ravenclaw boy had deigned to send Arthur a formal, written apology for his behaviour. Just as a proper pureblood should.

Yet even that victory tasted faint stale on Arthur's tongue.

He'd spent as much of his time outside by himself as he had in the company of others over the past days. Finishing his homework was easy enough – Arthur knew he was an exemplary student in all but perhaps Potions and Herbology – and he'd found himself nothing if not bored.

That was how, for the nth time that week, Arthur found himself wandering along the edge of the Black Lake. It was crisply cold outside though snow was not quite falling, and Arthur was glad both for his layers of thick robes, scarf, hat and gloves as well as the Warming Charm that buzzed with a pleasant heat beneath his clothes. It meant that he could trudge around the edge of the lake for hours should he choose to without the need to seek shelter to defrost his frozen extremities.

Arthur hadn't ever spent much time around the lake before. His outdoor enjoyment usually took the form of flying around the quidditch pitch, or engaging his friends in a snowball fight or, should the urge take them, building an army of snow goblins. He wasn't one to stroll with aimless sedation around the shores of an icy lake, breathing in the thin, crisp air and gazing out across the reflective blackness that remained undisturbed, glass-like but for the occasional breeze that sent ripples dancing in faint trembles across the surface. Arthur didn't go too close to the water, abiding as always by his father's precautions to stick well clear, but he still found the proximity oddly calming. It was as though the silence resounded with his magic, somehow stilling the discontent within him.

It was the day before New Year's Eve, a day that Arthur anticipated to be as flat and lacking in festiveness and joviality as the past days had been. He didn't resent the fact that the mood of Hogwarts was so sombre - not really. Truly, he was worried for Morgana as much as the next person. More, even. He'd visited her every day until he was shunted from her bedside by the objectionable and ridiculously overprotective Morgause. He wanted her to be well, to recover, and felt a bursting fire of rage erupt within him whenever he considered that someone had cursed her and potentially gravely injured her. But even so… it would have been nice to enjoy the holidays just a little bit.

Arthur was striding with his head downturned, eyes locked upon his feet and impressing his footsteps with unnecessary force every step, when he heard the scream. It echoed across the flat plane of the lake, battering at Arthur's ears as though the screamer stood right beside him. Snapping his chin upwards, Arthur whipped his gaze around himself, raking over the thin shadows of the forest lining the lake before turning to fling a hasty scan over the lake itself. And there he saw her.

He couldn't identify the girl at first. Not from such a distance but more because of her flailing and twisting. Flailing in the water of the half frozen lake, where she had somehow managed to throw herself. The splashing of her struggles added a bass to the shrillness of her cries.

Arthur was running before he was even aware of it. Pelting around the lake, leaping over the jagged rockiness of the shoreline, he drew towards her with flying speed. What was she doing? How did she end up in the water? What was she even doing so close to the water to fall in there in the first place? Arthur found himself almost angry and frustrated as he was worried. What foolishness had driven the girl to get so close to the water? Didn't she remember what Arthur's father had said about the sirens?

Even with that thought, Arthur didn't pause as he skirted around the lake to the shoreline closest to where she flailed and leapt into the water. He didn't pause, not even to cast a Repulsion Charm on himself to keep the icy water from seeping immediately through boots, socks and robes. His breath was momentarily lost, whooshing from him with the sudden chill at his momentary submersion and instantly eliciting a whole body shiver but he strove to ignore it. Arthur could hear the words of the cries now as he broke once more through the surface, heard the pleas for help, could make out the words that were barely comprehensible through the girl's gurgling.

"Help! Pl-please help me! I can't – I can't swim, I can't –"

Arthur startled as he heard the words, making out the voice and recognising it immediately. It sounded like Sophia Tir-Mor, the Gryffindor girl from his year who lived practically attached to Vivian Rani's hip. His suspicions were validated when, in another spray of splashes, the girl managed to claw her way high enough out of the water once more and loose another shriek for help.

It was definitely Sophia. Definitely.

"Sophia! What the – What are you –?"

Arthur didn't finish his shout, as much because he choked upon the reprimand that longed to blurt forth as because he realised an instant later that Sophia wouldn't reply. That she likely couldn't, even if she had heard him, and that there were more important things to consider in that moment. Like saving her life.

Plunging forwards, careless of the water that weighted him down and was already numbing his fingers and toes, Arthur submerged briefly before kicking to the surface and throwing himself into hard strokes. It was bitterly cold, the iciness stinging in biting splashes across his face, flooding into his mouth and attempt to freeze off his ears. He ignored the cold as best he could, eyes affixed upon the struggling girl a ridiculous distance before him. Sophia had somehow managed to throw herself far from the shore, which was likely why she was drowning in the first place.

He reached her after what seemed an exceptionally long swim, battling through the water and pulling up short to tread water with difficulty. His sodden clothes, his heavy boots, weighed him down more noticeably now, but he fought against the force that threatened to drag him downwards. He had to hold up a hand to protect his face from the splashing of the flailing girl before him.

"Sophia! Sophia, stop struggling! I'm trying to help you, but I can't if you don't just – hold still!"

Lurching through the water, he reached outwards and clasped a hand around the girl. With a tug, he dragged her towards him. Thankfully, she ceased her attempts at keeping her head above the water as soon as he touched her. Quite the opposite, in fact, she became instantly limp. Her sudden heaviness, the lack of buoyancy, was almost as hard to manage as her struggling.

Arthur took a hold of her other arm and drew her closer to him. He shook the girl slightly, attempting to rattle some sense into her. The sodden mass of her golden curls turned dark by the water covered her face completely, and Arthur nearly lost them both beneath the icy surface once more for his attempt at scolding.

Choking around a mouthful of sharply clean water, he kicked his feet with a struggle. "What the hell do you think you're doing? Are you trying to get yourself killed? It's freezing in here!"

Slowly, as though waking from a dream, Sophia raised her head. A sickly pale arm – likely half frozen from the cold – raised to brush the curtain of her hair from her face. And when she peered up at Arthur, it was to offer a smile that was nothing like the giggling, blushing girl he knew. It was vague, and distant and… faintly triumphant.

The pieces clicked into place rapidly, one at a time in quick succession. The distance Sophia was from the shore. The irrationality of her being in the water at all. The fact that Sophia shouldn't even be at school in the holidays.

The fact that she wore nothing but what appeared to be a summer dress in the middle of winter, the thin material swirling like pale algae around her.

The fact that Arthur – who usually prided himself on being level headed in surprising situations – had rushed headlong to her aid without considering the fact.

And the fact that freshwater sirens, unlike their cousins, were based just as much in illusionary magic as they were with the magic of song.

The second the thought occurred to Arthur, wading through the fogginess of cold that squeezed his mind, Sophia's face changed. It morphed, fading like a potion shimmering from one colour to the next in barely-discernible stages. It aged into a woman of maturity, becoming more angular, eyes flooding from iris, sclera and pupil into full blackness. And then the girl – the creature, the siren – opened her mouth and she sung.

Arthur should have acted faster. He should have thrown himself from the creature the instant his suspicions had arisen. Sirens were territorial at best, even worse when they were nesting over a new princess. But he wasn't fast enough. He got as far as releasing his freezing fingers from their clasp on the creature's upper arms before the lullaby of ethereal music pervaded his numbed ears and he felt himself slump like a rag doll. The coldness of the water embraced him in a mimic of the arms the siren that drew to wrap about his chest. He slipped beneath the surface of the water without a struggle.

Somewhere in the back of Arthur's head, he was bellowing his anger, just as loudly as he screamed in terror. He had foolishly fallen into the clutches of a siren and had rapidly become helpless to it.

Yet the larger part, the more consuming part of his mind, drifted in bliss. In comfort and release, simply… letting go. It didn't matter that he couldn't breathe, that his lungs had ceased in their attempts to inhale with the urging melody of the music that still played in a shimmer of whistles and wind chimes in his drowning ears. It didn't matter that his body had become heavy, rigid, immobilised as much by the cold as the enchanting song. It was only distantly concerning that the darkness of the lake around him grew deeper and deeper as the light at the surface grew further away. He felt his eyes drift closed; the hold of the siren's pale, smooth arms around his chest was comforting, the sort of embrace he imagined a mother might give their child.

It was almost too easy to just let go. To close his eyes and give himself over to the cradling music and completely ignore the distant cries to "Resist!" and "Fight back!" that pounded away at the back of his mind. He didn't know how fast he was dragged under, how long he'd been submerged and the tightness in his chest that was mildly concerning to him wasn't cause enough to consider it further. TO grasp a hold instead of letting go. To just…

Easily…

Too easy…

Until a sudden blast of cold that shot past him was glacial. It was cold, colder even than the surrounding water. It would have frozen Arthur if he had not already been mostly there. The song of the siren shrieked, a warble of shattering mirrors that was so jarringly contrasting to that of the gentle lullaby that Arthur's eyes snapped open painfully. Another blast of too cold lanced past him, and this time Arthur could make it out visibly in the surrounding darkness.

Ice. A shaft of solid ice, spearing through the water beside him like a flung anchor. Another dropped past his other side, barely visible from his periphery, then another, and another just above his head. The siren gave a further shriek, something that sounded more like a high-pitched roar of fury, and then the crushingly tight hold – it really was too tight, not gentle at all, how had he thought it was gentle – was gone. It was gone and –

Arthur was all too suddenly aware of the burning sensation in his lungs, even as what remained of his vision began to fade.

He couldn't even struggle. He couldn't bring his arms to attempt to reach for the surface, to draw himself from the bottomless depths of the lake. He was frozen, he was breathless, and the inhalation of icy water burned but provided no release. The last of his vision faded from view just as he saw the darkness of a diving shadow fall towards him from above.

Through the blackness of semi-consciousness, Arthur felt a hand clasp his wrist. A hand that grasped and dragged and drew him upwards. Before he could discern if the hand belonged to friend or foe, the last of his awareness faded and he fell into black oblivion.

He was warm.

That was the first thing that Arthur noticed. That he was warm, and dry, and blessedly he could breath again, though he wasn't sure immediately why such things were quite so important. He took a deep inhalation to confirm once more the fact for himself before he even attempted to open his eyes. When he did, it took several blinks to clear the blurriness of his vision, to adjust to the glare of sunlight bathed him and brightened white walls.

The Hospital Wing. Arthur knew where he was from the second he caught sight of the rafters criss-crossing the ceiling and the faint smell of potions on the air that he'd always associated with cleanliness. Which meant that he was sick. Or injured. Or… or something.

Or recovering from a near drowning with a siren.

The voice whispered on the edge of his consciousness, faintly reproving and sounding far too much like Morgana for his liking. But regardless of the identity of the voice, Arthur immediately felt himself thrust completely into alertness.

The siren. The Black Lake. Sophia who wasn't Sophia, and the coldness, and the darkness and… and…

And the ice anchors that had driven the siren away. The hand that had grasped him and dragged him. To the surface.

Who…?

Blinking, Arthur pushed himself up in his bed. In the hospital bed, actually, the relative hardness of the mattress informing him that it was far from his own four-poster in the Gryffindor dormitory as much as the actual knowledge of his location. He felt stiff, as though his muscles had been tensed for too long, and it was with a muffled groan that he managed to push himself fully up to sitting.

"About time you woke up. You've been asleep for hours."

Arthur immediately spun his attention to the left, to the bed alongside him. To the dark-haired girl who slumped with casual elegance upon a heap of too many pillows that were certainly not afforded by the Hospital Wing and stretching languidly beneath her blankets with the presumptuousness of a queen upon her throne. The rest of the room appeared empty, but she was more than presence enough to fill even its furthest corners.

"Morgana!"

"Very observant of you, Arthur. I'm glad to see that you're brief brush with death hasn't addled your senses." Morgana paused, frowning slightly as she drew her gaze to the side in consideration. "Or at least addled them further. It would surely take a fool to go for a swim in the Black Lake at this time of year, to say nothing of the sirens that you were told about."

Arthur had so many things that he could have said to that. Said with indignation, and bluster, with scathing indignation. It wasn't his fault. He had been trying to rescue someone. He had stayed the recommended distance from the Black Lake and yet still evidently had been close enough to be captured by the charm of the siren's illusions, enough to appear to pose a threat to their territory. It wasn't his fault.

But what came out was instead, "You're awake."

Morgana rolled her eyes. "Very good, Arthur. You're putting your observation skills to practice. I'm so proud of how you've grown."

This time, Arthur didn't feel the least bit inclined to withhold his disgruntlement. His mind was clearing, sharpening, the surprise at seeing his friend alive and well again fading under the sharpness of her insults. "I see you're certainly making up for the speaking time you've lost while you were sleeping the holidays away."

Morgana didn't rise to the bait. She simply nodded and gave a small shrug. "I do feel as though I have been denied an opportunity. So many people I could have drawn from their happy buzz as they attempted to celebrate the redundant tradition of Christmas."

"Oh, believe me, you were there in spirit. Your dampening of everyone's fun was certainly felt."

"How so?"

"Your father made sure of that. He's been a black cloud for the past week. Everyone's walking on tiptoes around the castle."

Morgana gave a slow, wide smile, as though she had just been handed the most wonderful news. It didn't make Arthur feel any happier to see knowing that few enough people in the word ever saw Morgana truly smile in something other than condescension. "Really? He did that for me? What a wonderful Christmas present."

"You know, sometimes I wonder what sick, twisted fairy exchanged the real Morgana with a changeling when she was a baby," Arthur grumbled, slumping back into his own pillows. They weren't nearly as thick and plush as those Morgana rested upon but he fought against the childish envy.

Morgana waved the words aside. "I'm hardly a changeling, dear Arthur. Father always says that I reminded him exactly of Morgause when she was my age."

"Yes, but Morgause is the devil incarnate."

"She'd take that as a compliment, you know."

"As I'm sure you do being compared with her."

"Naturally," Morgana said with a nod.

Arthur rolled his eyes, shaking his head as they subsided into a brief silence. Not a long silence, though, before Morgana, with her incessant nosiness that was so carefully concealed from most of the world, prodded him once more. It was only a matter of time before their mutual muteness was broken anyway, by Arthur himself in his curiosity for Morgana's own situation as for Morgana with her own. "So. What happened?"

"What do you mean what happened?"

"Don't be obtuse, Arthur," Morgana said with a slight frown. "It's unbecoming, and makes you appear even stupider than I can assure you I already wholeheartedly believe you of being."

Arthur glared at her sidelong. "You know, offending me will hardly make me want to answer your questions."

"On the contrary, I've found it has always worked before."

"Not this time."

"Don't make me drag it from you."

"Like you could. What, are you going to hex me?" Arthur smirked. "Last time we fought at less than a duel it was pretty close. I don't think you'd manage this time around."

Morgana sniffed, lifting her chin proudly. "That was merely because you fought so unutterably underhandedly, Arthur."

"And you didn't?"

"Not in the slightest. I always play by the rules."

Arthur snorted. "Maybe when the professors are watching, but only then. Come on, give it your best shot."

"You know I've been learning Legilimency recently." Morgana raised an eyebrow and gave a smirk of her own when Arthur turned incredulous eyes towards her. "Morgause has been teaching herself and then teaching me. I've gotten quite good at it and I'd wager I could pull the real story right from your head if I wanted to."

"You could not," Arthur said disbelievingly, as much because he wanted to believe his own words as because he did.

"I could. I warrant I could even break through those pathetic Occulmency shields you've being trying to learn to build."

"They're not pathetic," Arthur grumbled, but he knew a lost cause when he saw one. Whether Morgana really did perform Legilimency on him or not, she had set her sights upon dragging the story from him and would persist in nagging him for it until he folded. Sometimes it was just easier to back down and provide a hint of the truth than to have the actual story torn from him.

So Arthur told Morgana. With as much skirting around his foolishness – which he would never admit to doing – that he thought he could get away with, and speaking only the bare minimum in his recitation. When he finished, he folded his arms across his chest and lifted his own chin, challenging Morgana to object.

She stared at him long and hard, her gaze flat, before answering. "You. You really are an idiot."

Arthur narrowed his eyes. "Thank you for your opinion, Morgana, unwanted as it is. It will be noted and ignored."

Morgana shook her head and rolled her eyes, though Arthur considered it was less because of her words and more because of the sentiment she still persisted with. "Honestly, such an idiot. What were you even doing down by the lake in the first place?"

"I was just going for a walk," Arthur said defensively. He knew he was pouting, but it didn't really matter with Morgana as the only one to see him.

"Walking?" Morgana raised her eyebrow again. "Just walking? Since when do you do anything as sedate as 'just walking'?"

"Shut up, Morgana. I was bored."

"Bored enough to potentially endanger yourself?"

"I told you I wasn't close enough to get even be noticed by the sirens. I made sure of that," Arthur replied, exasperated.

"Well, evidently you were. You'll have to tell Uther about that, if your pathetic attempts at judging distance aren't the root cause for your near disaster. Right after you thank Merlin."

"I don't have a 'pathetic' ability to judge distance," Arthur muttered. Then the rest of what Morgana had said caught up with him. "Wait, Merlin? You mean Merlin Emrys?"

Morgana studied her fingernails nonchalantly. Somehow she always managed to make it appear as though she was actually more interested in her cuticles than in the person she was ignoring. "Do you know of another person who has the misfortune of carrying that name?"

Arthur brushed aside her rhetorical question. "Why would I have to thank Emrys?"

Morgana regarded him with a sidelong stare before heaving an exasperated sigh that was far too expansive for the situation. "Obviously because he was the one who saved you."

Arthur blinked. "Emrys… saved me?"

"Yes. Somehow, he managed to see you down at the lake and got there in time to chase the siren away before it dragged you into the depths, never to be seen again."

Arthur blinked once more and turned away from Morgana to frown down at his lap. Emrys? Emrys had been the one to save him, to shoot the ice magic at the siren and chase it away? He hadn't even known that Emrys was at Hogwarts again, had seen him leaving with Gwen and that Hufflepuff, Dulac, a little over a week before. How had he…?

That's the second time he's saved you, a voice whispered in the back of his head. An annoying, smirking and reprimanding voice who similarly dredged up a sea of memories of every time he'd glared at the Slytherin boy over the past months, scowled at him, insulted him for his stupidity to his friends and, because she was practically asking for it, Gwen. Unfortunately, this time those memories brought with them an upwelling of guilt.

Emrys. Emrys had saved him from the siren.

And he'd also, in a way, saved him from Valiant's attack on the quidditch pitch by telling him of the intended actions of the Slytherin captain.

And – well, it wasn't specifically Arthur who he had saved, but he'd also exceptional valour in facing the strix at the beginning of term, not to mention discovering with alongside Professor Livingstone the reality of the poisoned juice that had been sickening so many of the school's residents.

Why? Why was it always Emrys? Why did he seem to make it his goal to disprove everything Arthur accepted as the norm for Slytherins? Morgana didn't even manage that; Arthur had resignedly come to accept his friend's sorting in the two years that she had attended Hogwarts before him but only because he knew, deep down, that Morgana was fairly typical of a Slytherin. She was ambitious, and cunning, and though Arthur was her friend in spite of it, he couldn't deny that at times she could be downright mean.

Not even Morgana was an outlier, proving rather than disproving the conceptions he'd formed of Slytherin. Why did Emrys have to be so different?

A sharp sting to his cheek shook Arthur from his thoughts. With an exclamation more surprised than pained, he clapped a hand to his cheek and spun to face Morgana once more. "What was that for?"

Morgana, wand out and spinning it end over end between her hands from where she'd evidently struck him with a mild hex, regarded him flatly. "I know what you're thinking, Arthur. Stop it."

"Stop what?" Arthur scowled.

"Stop coming up with excuses not to do it." She folded her arms across her chest and raised her eyebrows at him expectantly.

It took Arthur less than a second to realise she was right. That unconsciously, before he'd even realised he was doing it, Arthur was coming up with excuses not to thank Emrys, even knowing that he should. That in anyone else he would have thanked them.

Except that of course anyone would have saved someone in need, and that didn't make Emrys exceptional.

That had he known it was Arthur he was saving, he probably wouldn't have done it. Emrys disliked Arthur just as much as Arthur was disconcerted by him. His careless use of insults in every exchange they'd had was proof enough of that.

That thanking Emrys would be as good as admitting that Arthur had been helpless, and that was something that went so against Arthur's character that it almost hurt to consider.

That he couldn't, that he wouldn't, that he shouldn't. The list extended, becoming more and more outlandish and unreasonable as he thought, from the consideration that, had their roles been reversed then Arthur wouldn't expect any gratitude himself – even though he knew, realistically, that he would – to it being sorely embarrassing or event that Emrys would probably have forgotten about the incident entirely by the time he even got around to it.

That last even Arthur had to admit was a little foolish. Who could forget something like that?

Another sting struck him on the cheek. "Ouch! Dammit, Morgana, would you stop that!"

"Only as long as you swear that you'll thank him," Morgana replied, arms folding across her wand once more.

"Why do you even care about some sorry Slytherin kid?" Arthur asked and yes, he knew he was pouting again, but the situation was just so annoying.

"In case it has escaped your notice, Arthur, I myself am a Slytherin."

"It hadn't," Arthur growled. "You only remind every chance you get." That was the truth, and Morgana delighted in it. Much to Arthur's – and his father's – initial shock and horror, both Morgana and her elder sister had been sorted into Slytherin house. Not only was it surprising in that they, who mixed with the Pendragons who were practically the icons of Gryffindor, would be sorted as such, but even more confusing because both of their parents were Ravenclaws in their time. Garret was even now the Head of Ravenclaw House.

Morgana smiled. It was a dangerous smile. "Of course. I'm proud of my house and my sorting."

"I can't understand why," Arthur muttered, barely above a whisper. He held up a placating hand when Morgana lifted her wand to hex him once more. "Alright, alright! Why do you even care, anyway?"

Morgana lowered her wand once more. "Well, let's just say that I find myself with something of an invested interest in Merlin Emrys."

"What? When? Why?"

Morgana rolled her eyes. "When? About three hours ago when I woke up and realised that the witch who had helped Livingstone shake the curse that was put upon me was his mother. And why? Well, other than the reason that I just gave you, I have to admit that he interested me after witnessing him drag you sodden and half-dead into the Hospital Wing only moments after I'd just woken up myself."

Arthur blinked. The mental image of himself, limp and helpless and being… being dragged by Emrys anywhere was horrifying. He hated appearing weak, hated being weak. And Emrys, who had already helped him out once before for some unknown reason, had been the one to see him like that.

It was nothing short of humiliating.

Arthur was so distracted by his brooding, by his inward cringing, that he barely even registered what Morgana had said about her revival. It fluttered past him on wings of recognition, and he gave a mental nod at their passing: Morgana, curse lifted, good. Then he went right back to brooding.

"You're not getting out of this, Arthur," Morgana interrupted his thoughts. "I won't let you. I'm intending to make myself familiar with Merlin when the opportunity presents itself and I will be asking him."

"Oh, I believe you," Arthur sighed. He had no doubt that Morgana would stick to her word and would make sure that he expressed his gratitude. He didn't quite know where her sudden interest had come from – the explanations she had given him fell short somehow, as if there was another element that he was missing – but he didn't ask. He wasn't sure he wanted to know. He simply thoroughly wished that Morgana would just stop talking about Emrys because, as always happened, whenever he came up as a topic of conversation, of consideration, Arthur inevitably found himself falling into confused thought patterns as he struggled to accommodate the boy anomaly.

"Arthur? Don't ignore me Arthur," Morgana was saying.

He'd missed half of what she'd said, but didn't think it would take much of a stretch to appropriately guess her words. "Okay, Morgana. I'll thank him. I will."

"You'd better," Morgana said with a curt nod of her head. "Now, fill me in, would you? I've missed over a week and I'm feeling very much out of the loop. I know that most everyone went home for Christmas, but I still think…"

Arthur tuned out Morgana's words as she fell into talk that was more of a conversation with herself than with Arthur. And he thought.

The worst part, he considered as he slumped back into his pillows, was that he didn't even really have a solid reason to object to Morgana's demand. Not anymore. Because really, Arthur had come a long way since actually disliking Emrys over the past weeks. Since the quidditch match, actually. Maybe even before that a little.

That was probably what made it all the harder. He knew and admitted, for one of the first times since he'd realised the reality of his understanding of pureblood superiority, that he was wrong.

The guilt and regret, as well as the embarrassment, made the approaching expression of gratitude taste sickly on his tongue.

"And down, and up, then a twirl of a flourish to complete the gesture. The flourish must rotate in a clockwise direction, otherwise the incantation will be rendered redundant."

Arthur's uncle beamed around the third year classroom, raking his eyes over Gryffindors and Slytherins both with a keen eye that refuted the kindliness of that smile. Agravaine was like that, Arthur knew from experience. Not that he'd never seen a problem with the kindly façade that he wore, but he was aware of it nonetheless.

They were practicing modified Reinforcing Charms, self-directed and crafted to be aimed at oneself to thicken skin or, in the even of wearing armour, to make such armour all the more durable. The charm itself was modified from that used to reinforce magical buildings that would otherwise collapse from the sheer impossibility of their crafting, and if that didn't give Arthur confidence in its strength he didn't know what would.

Far from attending to Agravaine's words – of Professor Debois as he was supposed to call him during school hours – Arthur found that for once his attention was thoroughly diverted. Away from Sophia Tir-Mir, who he still couldn't look at without an upwelling of uneasiness, and focused upon someone else particularly. Just as it had been for the last three days that school had resumed.

It was Emrys that he peered at while very determinedly pretending not to.

Emrys, who in turn seemed to be listening to Debois with only half an ear. His attention was turned more fully towards something that he was doing on his desk, some twitching of fingers that Arthur recognised as being his habit when casting wandless magic.

"You're doing it again."

Arthur turned to glance towards Leon at his friend's whisper, raising a questioning eyebrow. "Doing what?"

"Glaring. You're glaring at Emrys again."

Arthur blinked, then frowned. "No, I'm not." He truly wasn't. He knew for a fact that he wasn't because he felt no inclination to glare, to express his dislike towards Emrys. He didn't feel dislike, not anymore. Confusion, yes, frustration, certainly, but dislike? No, he didn't think so. Not anymore.

"Arthur, you always glare at him. And I know you won't tell me why he seems to annoy you so much – I'm not asking, so there's no need to hound on me again – but really –"

"Leon, I'm not glaring."

"- I mean, Gwen seems to think he's nice enough, and he did help us that day with the potion –"

"Honestly, Leon, I'm not."

"- so would it be such a hard thing to give him a chance? Or at least to lessen off a little bit –"

"De Grace, do you have something to say to the class?"

Leon's whispers were cut off my Debois' words, and he glanced up at him with cheeks flushing slightly and dropped his chin. "No, sir. Sorry, sir."

Debois nodded shortly, gave a short smile that Arthur knew he wouldn't have given to anyone but a Gryffindor after delivering a reprimand. "Very well, then. If you'll all spread out across the room; working in partners please. One will observe while the other casts. Reflection statements as to your own and your partner's progress will be expected by tomorrow."

There was a scuffled of feet, a scrape of chairs and the entirety of the class spread out in their pairs. As usual, Arthur fell into place beside Leon while Elyan worked alongside Percival, and they quickly began their attempts. And Arthur to glancing with what was definitely not nervousness over his shoulder towards the Slytherins who had very deliberately placed themselves across the other side of the room.

Maybe he was a bit nervous. But no, it was more embarrassment than nerves, he was sure. Arthur knew he had to thank Emrys, and not only because Morgana had threatened him into doing so. Over the past week, he had reached the conclusion for himself, and as always when he had both identified his own wrong and made a decision, he was determined to stick to his resolution. And Arthur had realised, had decided, that Slytherin or not, confusing and frustrating and… and… and insulting as Emrys could be at times, Arthur was going to let go of his residual dislike for him. That he would make the exception for him as a Slytherin, just as he had made one for Morgana, because this Slytherin in particular was an exceptional case.

He doubted they'd ever be friends but… well, something less than enemies might be a possibility. Regardless of the fact that Arthur didn't even know if Emrys had ever seen him as an enemy, because maybe he called everyone prats and asses to their faces? Arthur liked to think he wasn't exceptional himself in that regard. And he would start with turning things around by saying a simple thank you.

If only thanks were ever simple to convey.

Strangely enough, as though fate had twisted to allow it, the opportunity presented itself midway through the lesson. It was just as Debois had stepped briefly into his office – possibly to take a swig of a Calming Draught as Arthur knew his uncle frequently did when teaching – with a word to "watch yourselves and your partners and protect them if need be" when it happened. Because of course it would happen then. If an incident was going to arise in class, naturally it would be when the professor was out of the room.

It was an explosion of unexpected proportions that should not have arisen from a simple Reinforcing Charm. A desk on the Slytherin side of the room splintered and shattered, sawdust immediately springing into the air and dangerously jagged spears of needle-sharp wood sent flying. Several voices shrieked and more than one person dropped to their knees with their hands covering their heads.

Debois was striding back into the room before the brief plume of dust had dispersed. His eyebrows were drawn down low, lips downturned and eyes roiling in a thundercloud. Arthur guessed that he likely hadn't had the opportunity to take the Draught. "What happened here? Explain."

The question was barked to the room at large, but Debois' eyes swept immediately to the Gryffindor boys. Or, more correctly, to Arthur. Arthur knew he was favoured by his uncle, knew too that such favouritism was inappropriate and likely would have vexed him twice as much had anyone else been the subject of it, but he let it die. At least in this instance he could use it to his advantage.

Because Arthur had been looking at Emrys'. Through the settling dust, he had seen the brief expression of horror, the flash of guilt that had swept briefly across his face and then the instant arousal of terror he'd turned towards Debois as the professor had burst back into the room. Arthur couldn't help but sigh in exasperation; Emrys was an idiot, no doubt about it. Maybe not a cruel, cunning or particularly devious idiot as most Slytherins were, but an idiot nonetheless. The explosion of the desk likely had something to do with the wandless spell that Arthur had noticed he'd been attempting to cast throughout the entire lesson, even when he was supposed to be attempting the Reinforcing Charm.

Emrys was an idiot, and Arthur would have been angry rather than exasperated had someone been hurt. But no one had, so he could use the opportunity it provided.

Adopting a contrite expression and lowering his chin slightly, Arthur returned his attention back to his uncle's expectant gaze. "I apologise, Professor. I simply wished to test the strength of the Reinforcing Charm myself and… well, as you can see it got a little misdirected." He tucked his chin further. "I sincerely apologise for my actions, sir."

Debois was silent for a moment, and from his falsely-sheepish peering Arthur could make out a flicker of surprise, a brief moment of disapproval, then the smoothing of his uncle's brow as he nodded. "Well, so long as you understand that you were in error, Pendragon. See that you do not repeat your actions."

"Of course, sir. I will learn from my mistake." He spoke mechanically, the words he knew were expected as both a student and a pureblood, and was rewarded by the faint upward tilt of Debois' lips and a curt nod.

I wonder how severe the punishment would have been had I allowed Emrys to take the blame for it?

Shaking his head to disregard the passing thought and pointedly ignoring Emrys – for he knew that the other boy was staring at him and didn't want to meet his gaze just yet – Arthur turned back towards Leon. Only to find a similarly unnerving expression on his friend's face.

"What?"

Leon stared a moment longer, then shook his head. "Nothing, just…"

"What?" Arthur repeated with a heavy sigh.

Shrugging, Leon raised his wand and pointed it at himself in the position assumed to reattempt the Reinforcing Charm. "I guess you weren't glaring after all."

Infuriatingly enough, Arthur had no reply for his words.

It wasn't until the end of class that Emrys confronted him. After class, really, and it wasn't even much of a confrontation. Arthur barely would have noticed the him approach had he actually been listening to the words that Leon said. He did slow in step, however, upon meeting his gaze as Emrys stood unobtrusively just inside the door. He stared at him for a moment, and Emrys stared back. There was a touch of curiosity in his expression; Arthur wasn't entirely sure that was a good thing.

He didn't say much. Just one word, and it was barely audible over the clamour of departing students, the call of Arthur's friends as they filed through the door glanced over their shoulder in the corridor to realised he wasn't with them. "Thanks," was all Emrys said, but somehow it seemed to say far more than that.

Arthur stared at him for a moment before slowly dipping his chin in a single nod. "You too."

Emrys cocked his head to the side, something that could have been the beginnings of a smile touching his lips. It was the first genuine attempt at such an expression that Arthur had seen from him, free of any hint of mocking or ridicule or teasing. A moment later he nodded his reply and slipped through the vacated doorway. Arthur followed a moment behind, and very deliberately ignored the questioning glance Leon cast between himself and the Slytherin boy disappearing down the hallway alongside the Bast girl.

It might not be the equivalent. Arthur wasn't so caught up in his own embarrassment and desperation to avoid expressing gratitude that he could see that standing in for a potential scolding was hardly the equivalent to saving a life. But it was a start. He would get there. Maybe.

And maybe it would get Morgana off his back too. After all, he had apologised.

Sort of.