This sort of fell out of my fingers...

It was innocuous enough. A thorough view of my magical core before I started my job in the Ministry. One to get the…flavour of my magic. In effect, a lineage test.

Everyone had had one. Ron, a pureblood, already knew his was Robert of Chester as the earliest founder of his magic. Harry's was Stephanus of Alexandria. Lucky sod.

And, I admit, I was curious. Hopeful. I was a muggleborn, the infamous Hermione Granger, and there wasn't any magic in my Blood, in any relative my family could trace. Not a drop. My mum —with my Hogwarts letter still new with the scratches from the delivery owl's talons— had began a thorough search. Eight years on, and she'd stretched some lines back a thousand years —as I said, thorough. With my parents back in Britain, she'd begun her work again.

She'd still found…nothing. No one. Not even a single cunning man or woman.

We were dull and pedestrian and…muggle to a fault.

I'd sprung into the magical world as Athena from the head of Zeus. My mother's words. I got a narrowed glare when I mentioned him swallowing Metis…

Mum, she wanted to believe her daughter was exceptional.

A drop of my blood on a potion-soaked length of parchment proved that to be true. In a way.

In fact, the worst way.

"Miss Granger. It is still Miss Granger, is it not?"

Severus Snape lifted one of those infamous eyebrows and with a flick of long fingers, eased the heavy warding of his office.

I stopped myself from frowning. I was nineteen. Only weeks out of sitting my delayed NEWTs, of course it was still… But this was the wizarding world. They married young. And The Prophet loved to speculate on my love-life. All those famous —and infamous— wizards I chased and caught.

I stopped myself from huffing. If only.

"Still Miss Granger, Professor Snape."

"Thankfully, I am not your teacher. Master Snape will suffice."

He slid me a dark look and was that a glimmer of humour? Perhaps? Possibly? I'd not set eyes on Severus Snape since that nightmarish time in the Shrieking Shack. He'd recovered, but never returned to Hogwarts.

Apparently, he was in the Ministry now. Working in this mysterious department in the lower levels of the Ministry and was the one to oversee my test.

I inclined my head. "Then Master Snape it is."

His lips twitched. "Indeed."

He opened the heavy door to his office and ushered me inside.

Lit by firelight and a few flickering candles, it was a vaulted room whose every inch of wall held a book. Every inch. I staggered forward onto a deep rug and the rich scent of leather and polished oak, parchment and the whisper of hickory smoke and cedar wrapped around me.

"This way, Miss Granger."

There was an edge of amusement to Snape's velvet-rich voice, as a pale hand waved me towards the broad desk set before the fireplace, piled with yet more books and stacked leaves of yellowed parchment.

I sank into a green padded chair, its leather soft and buttery and watched, dazed, as Snape sat opposite to me.

"How…how to you ever leave?"

That lip twitch again. "Only on rare and special occasions." He drew one of the leaves of parchment from its pile and set it on the table between us. Magic thrummed through it and the sharp scent of fresh green apples hung in the air. He put out his left hand, palm up and with nerves twisting in my belly, I placed my right hand in his.

His skin was warm, the callused tips of his fingers pressed against my wrist. My pulse drummed and I had to remember to breathe as I held his dark, fire-lit eyes.

A silver blade flashed and with a sharp stab of my thumb, a bead of blood rose and glistened.

The magic thickened. Hummed. Almost…eager.

Snape withdrew his hand. "Let the blood fall, Miss Granger."

I turned my hand and in the flickering light, watched the tiny bead stretch and drop to the parchment below.

A whisper of his magic chased over my skin and the wound healed.

"Thank you." It was a murmur. I clutched my hands in my lap and fixed my attention on the parchment, on the dark, branching spread of my blood. It rose up and bloomed over and over, as if a series of stones dropped into water, spraying it out.

"It's chasing back the years to the first of your line."

My eyes darted up for a heartbeat, before flicking back to the bloom of magic. "I'm… My mother. She looked. Nothing. In a thousand years…"

"Every muggleborn has a…progenitor. Every—"

The magic stopped. Something sharp and sudden.

Snape's mouth thinned. His hand, resting against the dark oak of the desk, drew back into a fist and his knuckles strained bone-white.

The colour of the blood deepened to a velvet-black and a name began to rise.

Long fingers snapped a spell at the door and other magic chased through the air, in colours and scents I didn't recognise. The work of a few hard heartbeats.

I blinked. "What…?"

Snape swore and it shocked me. "The name, Miss Granger. They said. Damn them to all hells. You…we, we cannot," he was on his feet in a fluid rush and he raked his fingers through the length of his black hair, "it cannot… I will mask it. It—" He charged to a corner, his fingers dancing over leather spines. "Dee, Dee said something—"

"Sir?

I stared at the name and blinked again. But…what was so bad?

Emrys ap Cythraul.

"Merlin."

It wasn't the usual mild magical oath. I gaped. "That's…"

"Merlin."

I barked a laugh and fell back in my chair. "I am not a decedent of Merlin. That's impossible."

"Improbable."

With a huge tome opened in one hand, he paced the floor, his free fingers in his hair and his…worry started the stir of panic in me.

"Why is it a problem?"

Snape stopped and drew in a breath. He snapped the book shut and a plume of dust glittered and began to drift. "There are two Merlins." His lips pressed together. "One is the myth, he of the beard and the toenails and whatever other body part you care to conjure. The father of magic in his Precinct. The seeker of knowledge and wisdom. The man we needed him to be. But the true man, the true sorcerer who honed our powers in these islands, the man fathered by a High Lord of the demon realm—

"A demon?"

However many generations removed, I was part demon…?

"Demon blood in the wizarding world has been…cauterised. It's his marker. This test…"

A stone sat in my chest. The test was there, not as a 'let's look at the base of your magic' but let's exterminate one branch. And gods, gods, he'd warded, sealed and silenced the room. Was he…? No, no, he'd said he would mask the result. Hide me. Hide who I was. As my family had done down the centuries? Until we forgot who we were when magic found me.

"Why?"

"Merlin, the true Merlin was a Dark Lord. So foul that Grindelwald and Voldemort are…innocent babes. The magic that sustains us was wrought in blood and pain and horror. That is the legacy of Merlin."

My belly squeezed and the foulness of the blood that gave me magic ran a chill through my veins. But… "A villain, but why seek it out, why…?" I waved my hand and hated the tremor that shook it. To survive everything my new world had thrown at me and have a wizard gone and dust for a millennia and half see me dead? "Why?"

"There is a prophecy."

I almost groaned. "Of course there is."

Snape huffed a sour laugh. "Yes, quite." He added the book to the pile on his desk and sat again, slumping into the high back of his chair. For a long moment, he was silent, but then his low voice murmured, "'A demon child, child of the foul Lord of the Precinct, will shape our magic and land to their dark will'." He closed his eyes and his shoulders dropped. "And because of it, one who has already taken a life must always sit in this chair."

"Bastards."

It broke from me, hot and quick. They'd used him. A reluctant spider in a beautiful web. And they wanted him to kill me for a single sentence. Had killed how many of my ancestors?

"You won't tell them?"

"Forty, fifty generations removed from a demon-spawned warrior mage, you are not dark, Miss Granger." His mouth quirked upwards. "Sly and vindictive, yes, but not the foul enemy of the wizarding world reborn."

I should've been insulted, but well, I was, wasn't I? A hint of the demon Merlin from centuries before? I stared at the name again. Merlin… "You know, I do have plans to become Minister for Magic…" I lifted an eyebrow. "Could that be shaping?"

"You are very likely the witch our world needs."

Warmth bloomed in my chest at the unexpected praise. "You know…that prophecy sounds more like sour grapes."

"As the agent of this office, I did witness it being spoken. One of the few. It is a true prophecy."

"I…thank you."

"I have seen enough death, Miss Granger. Through others…and by my own hand." His shoulders lifted and the steely core of this wizard practically shone. "I have also witnessed darkness. True evil." He drew his fingers along his left arm, where his Dark Mark sat. "Tasted cursed magic. You may have a drop of Merlin's blood, but through every trial I have seen you choose the light." The hint of a smile traced his lips. "Dolores Umbridge and Miss Edgecombe? Simply…a smatter of grey."

"And Rita Skeeter."

He lifted a black eyebrow and I blushed.

"I kept her in a jar and blackmailed her to…to tell the truth. She's an illegal animagus. A beetle."

"Grey and…admirable."

Laughter broke from me. "Thank you, I think." I ran my hand over my hair and the weight of what the parchment had revealed sat on me again. "And now?"

"Now, with a little shifting of ink…"

He swept his hand over the parchment, pale skin glowing in the candlelight. Curls of magic glistened and the ink lifted, shone and reformed into a new name.

Morienus.

He rolled up the parchment, winding golden cords from end to end. It hung in the air between us. A stamp appeared in his hand and he pressed it to the blood-red wax seal. Another flicker of magic and the scroll vanished.

His shoulders dropped again. "Congratulations, Miss Granger, you have a stolid but respectable founder."

"Another wizard who created a philosopher's stone." I frowned. "But wasn't he a hermit?"

"Even hermits can have a wild youth."

I shook my head and couldn't help my smile. "I suppose they can." I stared at the stretch of ancient oak where the parchment had lain. "And you're safe? No one will know…?"

"I was told that the line of Merlin had been eradicated. That this," he waved his hand around the book-lined room, "was simply a ceremonial position. That there'd not been a rise of his name since 1605. Now, with you, I believe since that date others like me have simply…shifted the evidence and let the witch or wizard leave. No one the wiser."

This was his backhanded reward for helping to save the wizarding world. Becoming Minister seemed more appealing by the minute to stop such shitty practices. "Lovely as this room is, it's hardly worthy of your talents."

"They pay me a king's ransom to sit in here every morning, from Monday to Friday. Mostly, I read. There are volumes here I thought lost. So many from John Dee's ransacked library." He smirked and the shine to his dark eyes made my heart skip. Damn, I wanted to know the man who'd escaped the grasp of two megalomaniacs. The man whose honour was protecting me, yet again. And, I admit, I wanted access to his books. "The rest of my time, is my own. Totally mine."

Perhaps, it was a fitting reward. A freedom to decide as neither of his previous masters had allowed him. Something he said picked at my mind. "1605? Did John Dee sit in that chair?"

"He did."

"He…?"

"I used his annotated spell to 'reshape ink'. He was most likely the first to ignore the dictates, yes."

"I've always liked him."

Snape huffed a laugh and a wave of his hand dismantled the thickened wards and silencing spells. "Then we are done here, Miss Granger."

He rose to his feet and I scrambled to mine. He flowed around his desk, tall in unrelieved black and the scent of him, that elusive hint of cedar warmed through me. I didn't want to be done. Not with this wizard. Not at all.

I stopped at the heavy door, the drag in my belly urging me to say more, to not break away from him. Not now. Not yet. I blinked, was the discovery of the base of my magic affecting me? Did something in me, that hint of darkness, that touch of the demon, recognise something in this man? Was it drawing me to him?

"Does…will this change me? This knowledge? Does it change my view of people, of the world?"

Snape paused and drew one of those long finger around the surprisingly perfect line of his lips. "It's possible. Discovering my own founder, the founder of the Princes was Paracelsus, did spark my interest in potions. Revealed that talent. You, Miss Granger, your magic has always been unexpectedly powerful. Morienus" —yes, we would never say the name Merlin in connection to me ever again— "was a renowned scholar, able to turn his hand to any of the magicks. Was fierce. At times, ruthless."

That was me. And Merlin was dark. Was I drawn to the dark…?

"The dark may draw you, but you always choose the light, Miss Granger. Always."

I stared up at him, oddly comforted by his words and uncaring in that moment whether he'd read the worry on my face or picked my thoughts from the air. It was something he himself knew all about.

I was drawn to him, Merlin's influence or not. I bundled up my courage. I made my own path. "May…may I visit you?"

My face was on fire. Would he surge back into the Professor Snape of old and ridicule me? Or would—

"You covet my books."

Amongst other things. And that quick thought surprised me into gaping. I snapped my mouth shut and jerked a nod. "Yes."

"There's the Index. A complete list of all titles in this chamber. We can meet…elsewhere, to discuss which you would want to read—"

"First."

That smile was back and the shine in his eyes was quite…lovely. "Yes, first."

"How many books are there?"

"Ten thousand, give or take a volume or two. A side project of the role here, to find, restore and protect lost knowledge."

If I read one book a week, I'd be closing in on two hundred years. And Snape, Snape knew that. It was there in that little twitch of a smile and the devilment in his eyes.

"Shall we say tomorrow at one. That new Emporium near Potages?"

I grinned at him. I wasn't expecting to become so fascinated by Severus Snape of all wizards. Even being a loathed descendent of Merlin or being of demon blood paled beside the…interest I had in knowing him better. So much better.

"It's a date."

"Yes." That smile turned wicked, "I do believe it is…"

I may come back to this in the future. It'd be a long, l-o-n-g fic though, so I don't think I have that in me right now, so you get...this. :)