Thanks to everybody who wished me luck on my music course. The concert was brilliant, but I sadly found out that my conductor was retiring. This is a bit of a random question, but it applies to all of you.
Do you want long chapters, which will come at least once a week (maybe twice) or do you want shorter chapters, which will probably come more often (like twice, maybe three times) but bear in mind that my other story which was originally a one shot, In Memory of the Fallen has turned into a story, so I am also working on that. (I know, Multitasker here!)
Please leave your answer in either the review of PM me (Private Message Me)
This chapter is dedicated to SwimmerGirl0726 who was the only person to wish me luck on my course (plus she is generally awesome and my first like fan (she reviews both of my stories) I love you Swimmer!
Merlin's Guide as to Why You Shouldn't Be Voldemort
Chapter 9-Alot of Questions Asked
"What's the matter?" asked Hermione the next morning, when Merlin, Ron and Harry came down the steps from the dormitory. "You look absolutely – Oh for Heaven's sake."
Merlin looked round to see why she had stopped in midsentence and found her looking towards the common room board, where a large new sign had been put up over a poster of the first Hogsmeade weekend.
GALLONS OF GALLEONS!
Pocket money failing to keep up with your outgoings?
Like to earn a little extra gold?
Contact Fred and George Weasley, Gryffindor Common room, for simple, part – time, virtually painless jobs.
(We regret that all work is undertaken at applicant's own risk)
Merlin gazed alarmingly at the last line, wondering what dangers students would be put through.
"We'll have to talk to them Ron."
Merlin smiled a little grin when he saw that Ron was looking positively alarmed.
"Why?"
"Because we're prefects!" Said Hermione, as all four crawled out of the portraits hole (Merlin made sure he was in the middle to avoid detection.) "It's up to us to stop this thing!"
From what Merlin gathered and with a little deduction, Fred and George Weasley were obviously relations of Ron, perhaps older brothers?
"Anyway, what's the matter, Harry?" Hermione continued, as all four walked down a flight of stairs surrounded by portraits, all of whom luckily ignored them, by being engrossed in their own conversation. "You look really annoyed at something."
With good reason to, Merlin thought angrily, as he recalled what the Irish boy had said about Harry being a liar.
"Seamus (ah that was his name!) Reckons Harry's lying about You –Know –Who," said Ron when Harry did not respond.
"Hermione sighed, before saying gloomily, "Yes, Lavender thinks so too."
"Been having a nice chat about whether I'm a lying, attention seeking prat have you?" Harry said loudly.
Merlin winced as he saw Hermione's and Ron's hurt faces. It was a very Arthurish moment, which made Merlin smile in remembrance, until he saw the others confused faces, which promptly made it vanish.
"No," Hermione said calmly (Merlin was beginning to admire this witch), "I told her to keep her big fat mouth shut about you, actually. It would be nice if you stopped jumping down our throats Harry, as in case you haven't noticed, Ron and I (Here, Merlin coughed, and Hermione added hastily) and Myrddin are on your side."
"There was a short pause, where they all walked silently before;
"Sorry" said Harry finally, in a low voice.
"That's quite all right," Hermione accepted, shaking her head. "Don't you remember what Dumbledore said at the end of last terms feast?" She looked enquiringly around at the boys faces who shook their heads in unison.
"I wasn't here last year, remember."
"Oh yes, I quite forgot!"
"Hermione, forgetting? The end of the world is nigh!" Ron said jokingly. The four started to laugh, and still chuckling, they entered the Great hall.
"Why have you only now moved?" asked Ron, buttering his toast.
"It was my Uncle's wishes." Merlin said swiftly, as he reached for a croissant.
"But why now? Why not at the normal time, so you could have come into first year?"
"He, he died." Merlin's voice croaked when telling Ron that Gaius had passed. Even though it was over thirteen hundred years, he still missed his wise mentor.
I'm so sorry for Ron's tactless and for your loss, Myrddin." Hermione said comfortingly before pouring milk into a large bowl of cereal.
"It's fine, really." Merlin forced a smile on his face and busied himself with eating the croissant.
"So were you home schooled?" Asked Harry curiously after a few minutes of awkward silence passed.
"Yes, my mother first started it when I showed signs of magic. I lived in a muggle village, and she grew very alarmed when I first started to use it unknowingly."
Here, Merlin began to grin, thinking back to what his mother Hunith had to have gone through when he was a baby.
"I put a whole new definition of the saying that every child is "Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see". Eventually, my uncle took over and continued my education, right up until he passed away."
"Is that normal?" Harry said confusedly. "I thought everybody was taught in schools like Hogwarts."
"It's not really; it's just that my parents had rather religious and... unusual beliefs."
Hermione frowned, but before she could say anything disrupting, Merlin had thankfully, noticed that Professor McGonagall was walking towards their way, handing out timetables, which also managed to prevent Ron from speaking (Merlin thought that what he knew of the ginger so far, it was most likely going to be another tactless question) and Hermione for speaking her suspicions out loud.
"Hey, Myrddin, what subjects are you taking?"
"I'm taking... Divination, Care of Magical Creatures and all the usual."
"That means you're taking the same subjects as me and Ron!" seeing Merlin's confused gaze at Hermione, he added "She dropped Divination (Hermione snorted) and took up Arithmetic instead."
"Look at today!" groaned Ron. "History of magic, double potions, Divination and double Defence against the Dark Arts... Binns, Snape, Trelawney and that Umbridge that you mentioned was at your hearing all in one day! I wish Fred and George'd hurry up and get those Skiving Snackboxes sorted..."
"Do mine ears deceive me?" said a ginger boy, arriving with another ginger and squeezing in onto the bench next to Harry. (Here, Merlin guessed they were identical twins and related to Ron as they looked very similar.)
"Hogwarts prefects surely don't wish to skive off lessons?"
"Look what we've got today," Ron said grumpily, shoving his timetable under one of the boy's nose. "That's the worst Monday I've ever seen."
"Fair point, little bro," said ginger number one. "You can have a bit of Nosebleed Nougat cheap if you like."
Merlin started to feel confused. What on earth were Nosebleed Nougat and Skiving Snackboxes? Well, he supposed, it was exactly what it said on the label.
"Why's it cheap?" Ron asked, and with good reason too.
"Because you'll keep bleeding till you shrivel up, we haven't got an antidote yet," said ginger number two.
"Cheers," Ron said moodily, "but I think I'll take the lessons."
"And speaking of Skiving Snackboxes," said Hermione, eyeing the twins beadily, "you can't advertise for tester on the Gryffindor notice board."
"Says who?" said the twins together, looking astonished.
"Says, me" said Hermione. "And Ron."
"Leave me out of it," Ron said hastily."
Merlin started to smile again, really, Ron was simply too funny with Hermione glaring at him. He seemed to shrivel and sink down in his chair a little bit.
"You'll be singing a different tune soon enough. You're starting fifth year, so you'll be begging us before too long."
"Why would being in fifth year mean I'll want one of your products?"
"Fifth year's OWL year," said ginger number one.
"So?"
"So you've got exams coming up haven't you? They'll be keeping your noses so hard to the grindstone that they'll be rubbed raw," said ginger number two in satisfaction.
"Half our year had minor breakdowns coming up to OWLs," said ginger number one happily. "Tears and tantrums... Patricia Simpson kept coming over faint..."
"Kenneth Towler came out in boils, d'you remember?" said twin number two reminiscently.
"That's 'cause you put Bulbadox powder in his pyjamas," said twin number one.
"Oh yeah," said twin number two grinning. "I'd forgotten... hard to keep track sometimes, isn't it?"
Merlin grinned. It seemed that these two twins had a comic side to them and a great sense of humour. Maybe they should start a prank war... No, Merlin reminded himself soberly, business before pleasure.
"Anyway, it's a nightmare of a year, the fifth," said twin number one, "If you care about exam results anyway. Fred and I managed to keep our peckers up somehow."
"Yeah... you got, what was it, three OWLs each?" said Ron.
"Yep," said Fred unconcernedly, "But we feel our futures lay outside the world of academic achievement."
"We seriously debated whether we were going to bother coming back and doing seventh year," said twin number one brightly, "now that we've got-"
"Now that we've got our OWLs," said twin number one hastily. "I mean, do we really need NEWTs? But we didn't think Mum could take us leaving school early, not on top of Percy turning out to be the world's biggest prat."
Percy... Could this Percy be the red head in the ministry hearing that Harry seemed to recognise? Perhaps that was what the twins meant when he had become the biggest prat; he believed in the ministry's propaganda and had elected to join with them.
"We're not going to waste our last year here though..." said twin number two, looking affectionately around the Great Hall.
To put it simply, History of Magic was extremely dull. Seeing as Merlin had lived through most of it, he already knew more than the teacher of the subject, plus with the fact that he had been several times before; it meant he had the subject pretty well covered.
When he walked in, Merlin had gone to sit next to the golden trio and waited expectantly for the teacher to walk in. When he saw Professor Binns floating through the black board, it gave him a shock. As he hadn't been to Hogwarts for at least... 40 years, maybe more, he had thought that Binns would have died, and someone else would have taken over. It seemed not.
"Good morning Myrnin."
Merlin froze in shock, in the middle of pulling out his chair. He saw Binns floating closer towards him, until he eventually stopped in front t of him.
"It has indeed been a long time since you were last here, was it not?"
People started to turn round and began to listen in to their conversation. Behind him, Merlin was hyper aware that the 'golden trio' were listening in intently.
"Uh... Ye-Yes it was?"
His voice went up at the end as he answered the professor. The teacher had recognised him and it was only on the first day of term! He began to grow nervous and taking a few deep breaths to calm himself, he almost missed what the teacher said next.
"You will excel in the subject again I suppose, seeing that-"
Merlin interrupted, trying to stop the ghost before he could spill out his secrets that were supposed to remain undiscovered.
"Sir, my name is Myrddin; you must have got me confused with someone else. I'm new to this school, as I was previously home schooled by my Uncle.
"Another transfer, again, I see. Same old, same old..." Binns muttered quietly, seemingly to himself, then seeing Merlin's warning look, said loudly for all the class to hear;
"Of course, of course, well settle down class. Today we are going to be covering Trolls..."
Merlin sat down with relief, then when feeling Ron's nudge, he looked over to see Ron mouthing the words;
"Don't worry; he does it all the time."
Merlin sighed in relief, and then answered Ron's kindness with a smile before settling down to take notes.
Merlin joined the queue waiting outside the potions classroom, with Ron, Hermione and Harry just behind. The door into the classroom opened and immediately everyone fell silent as they all filed into the freezing cold room.
"Settle down," Snape said coldly, shutting the door behind him. "Before we begin today's lesson," Snape said as he swept over to stand in front of his desk," I think it's appropriate to remind you that next June you'll be sitting your OWL's. I expect you all to scrape an 'Acceptable' in your OWL, or suffer my... displeasure."
Snape's gaze lingered on Neville, who gulped in terror. Merlin frowned; it was a cruel thing to intimidate the boy. Although Snape was an informant for the other side, he should not have to keep up appearances by being so cruel to Neville and other misfortunate's.
"After this year, many of you will cease to sturdy with me," Snape went on. "I take only the best into my NEWT Potions class, which means some of you will almost certainly be saying goodbye."
The black eyes rested behind Merlin, where he knew that Harry stood.
"But we have another year before that happy moment of farewell, so whether or not you intend to do NEWT level, I advise you all to concentrate your efforts upon maintaining the high pass level I expect from all of you."
"Today, we will be attempting the Draught of Peace, a potion to calm anxiety and soothe agitation. Be warned; if you're too heavy handed, you'll put the drinker into a deep and sometimes irreversible sleep, so you must pay attention to what you are doing."
Merlin sensed Hermione straightening up next to him as she heeded the potion master's words.
Snape flicked his wand.
"The ingredients and method are on the blackboard, and everything you need is in the store cupboard- He flicked his wand again and the door to the store cupboard flew open-. You have until the end of the lesson to finish."
Merlin waited till after the immediate crush to enter the store cupboard had passed which took about ten minutes, before finally fetching his own ingredients. When he returned, he found Hermione feverishly stirring her potion and muttering to herself.
Not bothering to look at the board for the instructions, Merlin immediately set to work with practised hands, grinning slightly as he remembered the time that he had pretended to concoct this potion for Elena, when in fact it was to force the changeling out of her.
Even though he could create the potion within minutes, he forced himself to slow down considerably, and after he calculated that it would only just slightly above average, Merlin settled back in his chair and gazed around the room.
Beside him, Hermione looked distractedly over to him, then seeing that he was doing nothing, snapped "What are you doing sitting there? You can't have finished!"
Merlin was surprised and then asked curiously "Why not?"
"We still have fifty minutes to go! That's why! You must have got something wrong, to be finished so quickly." With that, Hermione quickly went back to her own cauldron, where she began stirring it slowly with extreme precision.
After a few minutes of staring into space, Merlin became aware of a presence and looking up, found Snape standing in front of him.
"What do you think you're doing, staring into space? You still have fifty minutes left and I would like everybody to complete the task set."
The room grew quieter, with most conversations stopping, and everybody watched with bated breath to see how Merlin would respond. He could see behind him, a few of the Slytherins silently laughing as they watched a Gryffindor get into trouble.
"Get back to work now." Snape turned around and was just about to go back to his desk when Merlin spoke up.
"I have finished, Sir."
"What?" Snape turned back towards Merlin in apparent surprise.
"I have finished, Sir." Merlin said loudly. It echoed around the room, and those who were not paying attention before now suddenly grew silent, as everybody watched in astonishment.
"You could not have finished it, not without making errors."
"I do not think I have made any mistakes, Sir."
"We shall see, we shall see." The teacher gazed into the cauldron, and then said in amazement.
"This... This is correct, all of it."
Snape looked directly at Merlin, then snapped; "How have you managed to complete it so soon? A NEWT student would not be able to make it as quickly and they would have had an 'Outstanding' in Potions."
Behind the Potions master, Merlin could see that the Slytherins who were hoping for him to be in trouble looked shocked and slightly disappointed. In particular, a pale, thin, blond boy sitting next to two boys who looked like the hulk looked almost crushed by the fact that Merlin wasn't getting points taken off or detention.
In his head, Merlin cursed himself. He had shown his advanced Potion making skills well beyond his years and even when slowing down, still made it in an exceptional time.
"Remember when you questioned me, Sir, with Professor Dumbledore?"
Snape nodded sharply, and then motioned for Merlin to continue.
"I mentioned my Uncle, Gaius?"
Snape gazed at Merlin with dawning realisation on his face.
"He taught me everything regarding school, but I also helped out in his experiments and testing. He often sent me out to fetch special herbs and whilst instructing me, I became his apprentice. He always watched me making them, and corrected me when I went wrong."
Merlin started to smile, as he remembered Gaius forcing him test the Troll potion, and ordering him to go out and 'fetch herbs' (in reality he was either with Kiligarrah, saving Camelot, or both).
"Gradually, I began to make more and more potions on my own, with no guidance, as he trusted me to not get it wrong. Towards the end, I made most of the brews needed, with him helping now and again by making some of his own. Eventually, I was on my own creating brews."
The smile turned melancholy as Merlin recalled the happenings in the final years of Gaius' life.
"I have had to make potions many times, Sir; it is no wonder that I completed it so quickly, as often I worked under time limits."
Snape's face seemed to soften, and he said with perhaps a hint of emotion in his voice, although Merlin wasn't sure;
"Of course, I forgot... Very well, seeing as you have finished, instead of you sitting there and doing nothing, you will go around and help with the other's potions."
Snape looked around and seeing that everybody was paying attention to them snapped angrily;
"Well go on! You have forty eight minutes left and you're doing nothing?"
With realisation, everybody went back to their work, and once again, the hissing of Cauldrons as ingredients filled the dungeons, but this time with the combined chattering as no doubt, they were talking about him. And he was supposed to keep a low profile. Merlin snorted to himself, and then lent over to look into Hermione's brew.
"You're doing amazingly! I'm surprised I finished before you. Still, make sure you don't rush as," Merlin reached out and caught Hermione's hand. She looked confusedly at him, and Merlin continued grinning;
"As, you will accidently put the wrong quantity of ingredients in and wreck your brilliant skills. Now, would that be smart?" Hermione looked into her hand, where she discovered that she was going to put in three Shrivelfig instead of two.
"Thank you!" She smiled at Merlin, and then returned back to her potion.
Walking around the classroom, Merlin stopped and helped every single person, whether it was Slytherins of Gryffindors. After all, they were all pupils in the end, were they not? So why should they be treated any differently?
Merlin wandered over to where the blond boy and the two towering pieces of muscles sat. He was just in time to grab Muscle man number one's arm to stop him from dropping something in the cauldron.
"Don't put that in there! It will make your flask explode when you collect it in, and we shouldn't ruin a good potion now, should we?"
Merlin gave a friendly smile to the boy, who grunted before setting his arm back down. He turned to look into muscle man number two's cauldron, where he again, stopped him.
"You're doing the same thing as you're friend over here! You must be connected in some way!" He quickly pointed out the right ingredient, before finally looked into the blonds' cauldron, who had been staring at him the whole time.
"Your potion is excellent."
The boy glared back at Merlin, then said sharply "I don't need your help, Gryffindor."
Merlin looked crestfallen at the boy, who sat there with a sneer on his face, obviously pleased at something.
"So you will not let me help you simply because I come from another house?"
The boy nodded smugly and said "Slytherins are people with great cunning and skill, which is probably something that you don't understand. I only accept guidance from my own, worthy house."
"Are you incredibly thick or what? What kind of sick prejudice is that? To be so proud you will only let your fellow students help you, even though I could be the difference between a pass and a fail mark? Do you know what? I could say to you that if you add another lacewing fly, your potion will have unforeseen consequences to you. But of course, you are always right, and you wouldn't accept my help, seeing as I am so unworthy. I'm not going to waste my time with you."
With that Merlin walked away angrily, feeling the boy's eyes on his back. After a few seconds he turned around, where he found the albino blond guy torn over indecision. He wondered idly which route he would take before turning away.
Merlin made his way over to Harry and Ron, where he made Harry add the Hellebore and Ron to lower the heat on his cauldron. After those two, he spent the remainder of the lesson with Neville, where he found that Neville wasn't bad at potions, he was really bad. Patiently explaining to him where he went wrong, the time passed so quickly that he was startled when Snape called out,
"It is now the end of the lesson, so I want everyone's potion to be put into a flask and labelled clearly before bringing it up to my desk. Homework; twelve inches of parchment on the properties of moonstone and its uses in potion-making, to be handed in on Thursday."
Merlin walked back over to his original seat, and leaned over to pick up his bag. Suddenly, a loud BOOM shook the room, and when all the smoke cleared, everybody was staring at the cause; a liquefied cauldron with the potion running onto the floor. The victim was soaking wet and even though Merlin was at the other side, he could see the skin turning red and the quiet hisses of pain as it burnt into his skin.
Merlin shook his head in sadness, and made eye contact before the culprit looked away. It seemed that Malfoy had not listened to what he had said.
How are you, my dear reviewers, and followers? I am pretty sure that I said that I would answer your questions, but if I didn't then it's your lucky day!
Kiligarrah – I am OBVIOUSLY going to make Merlin go against Umbridge, as think, just how much fun and mischief he could get up to! In fact, that is coming up quite soon...
XxTheWhiteDragonxX – I don't know about Arthur... But Kiligarrah is definitely coming back, but you will have to wait and see to know how he appears.
To all the other people – Yes I did make up the song of the hat by myself (did you like it?) It has some hints, but I had to leave some verses out as ONE. It would be REALLY long, and TWO. It would give too much away...
I love you all and pleeaaasssee review! (I now have to do a load of French homework which I am pathetic at, so it helps me to get through all of the translating)