Velma couldn't believe her eyes.

Whirlen was currently floating in midair, his eyes glowing a bright shade of red. Merlin had completely consumed his body, causing Whirlen to look almost soulless.

"At last, I have reclaimed my school after 1,500 years!" Merlin chuckled, as he placed Whirlen's feet firmly on the floor. "Things are going to run a lot differently around here now! This school will be run with an iron fist. Whirlen was far too soft on the children, but if any students misbehave under me, I will torture them!" Merlin cackled.

"That's horrible!" Madelyn whispered to her sister.

"Moreover, finding my lost wand will be top priority. After finishing their classes for the day, students will work tirelessly digging up this school to find my wand!" Merlin continued.

"Your wand?" Marlin inquired. "You mean…"

"Yes, Marlin." Merlin responded with an evil grin slowly forming on his face. "The Wand of Eternity. Students will be working tirelessly night and day to recover my lost wand, so that I may regain the full source of my power!"

"You can't do this! This is essentially the equivalent of sending children into the salt mines!" Marlin exclaimed.

"And who is going to stop me?" Merlin cackled.

Everyone stood there, their eyes wide with fear. Nobody was brave enough to respond.

"As I expected." Merlin smiled. "Now, Marlin, you will join me in setting up the work room for the children in the gym."

Velma's heart pounded with anxiety. She had never in her wildest dreams thought something like this would ever happen. The previous worst case scenario in her mind is that Merlin kidnapped somebody else, but she never thought that somebody would be Whirlen. Merlin essentially putting the students into forced servitude took it a step beyond the worst-case-scenario. There was no better way to describe the current situation than an absolute nightmare.

After Whirlen's possession following the election, Velma had stayed in her room the entire weekend. She and Madelyn didn't do their normal movie night viewings, she didn't go out for any game nights, and she didn't even leave her room to eat. One night, she'd snuck out and grabbed a stash of food from the dining hall at an odd hour to last her a few days. She was constantly worrying that Merlin would attempt to come into her room and confront her, given his fascination with her class, but thankfully he never did. It felt sort of like old times to Velma, as she spent a lot of the weekend reading to find a sense of escape from this horrifying situation. It had been a nice way to calm herself down (well, as much as one could when an evil ghost wizard had possessed your boss and changed your working environment into a place of servitude). However, it was Monday now, and even though the world around had practically ended, she still had to teach her students.

She pondered just staying in her room for breakfast again, but a quick look in the cupboard showed her that there was no food remaining. She would have to venture out to the dining hall to grab some food. A part of her secretly hoped the Merlin issue had resolved itself within the weekend, but she knew that was unlikely.

Very cautiously, Velma opened the door to her room and looked around. No sign of Merlin. Inevitably, she knew she'd probably run into him sooner or later, but she was hoping she wouldn't have to run across him again until much, much later.

"Hey." a voice whispered.

Velma's heart started to race for a moment, until she spun around and saw it was just Madelyn.

"Velms, are you okay? I haven't seen you for days." Madelyn asked, keeping her voice quiet.

"Yeah." Velma made sure to keep her voice at the same level. "I've been trying to lay low given what happened."

"Good plan." Madelyn replied. Her attention quickly drifted over to John, as her jaw dropped in horror. He wore a construction hat and his face was covered in dirt.

"John, what happened?" Velma exclaimed in shock.

"Oh you know, just digging for the boss." John sighed. "We didn't find anything yet, but I'm just taking my 15 minute break while my coworkers fill in for me."

"Coworkers?" Velma asked. She was getting more worried by the minute.

At that moment, Ramando came out into the hallway in a construction hat as well. His face was also covered in dirt and it appeared he had a cut on his hand.

"What's up, coworker? How's the break going?" Ramando asked.

"Oh, pretty good." John sighed. "I'm just going to get a morning cup of joe before I get back into the daily grind."

"Yeah, Mondays, am I right?" Ramando laughed.

Velma was horrified at how her students seemed to just be taking this in stride. She supposed it was the best coping mechanism they had, but Merlin had essentially instituted a violation of child labor laws.

"Hey, have you asked Boss Man Merlin for Friday off yet? I'm gonna need some extra time to do Ms. Dinkley's paper." John asked his coworker.

"Nah, he'd never approve that. You know Merlin, he's really stingy about making sure you get your weekly hours in. I tried to punch out a half hour early yesterday, and he got pretty mad." Ramando answered.

"You can have an extension on the paper." Velma vigorously assured. "Being forced into working by a ruthless dictator is more than a reasonable excuse for being late."

"Oh thank god. Thanks, Ms. Dinkley! Now, we've got to get back to the work room." John said. "I see the boss coming right now!"

A quick look showed Velma that they were right. Merlin was heading right in their direction. Velma had no idea how to talk to Merlin, who everybody just seemed to be accepting as the new headmaster of the school. How exactly did you have a conversation with a ruthless dictator who was currently forcing children to work against their will?

She simply blurted "Hi, Merlin. How are you doing today?"

Velma had to fight the urge to blush from how dumb her comment sounded. What in the world was she doing, addressing Merlin as if they had a polite working relationship?

"Excellent, excellent. The children are making great progress in finding my lost wand." Merlin rasped. "I expect you'll be teaching the children more about my history today?"

"Well, actually I assigned them to read Offensive Magical Theory by Slilbert Winkhard." Velma paused, worrying she was going to anger Merlin. "But I can do that another day. Today, I'll make teaching them about you the priority. I'm sorry I didn't think of that before. I just thought the students would be more engaged if they had the opportunity to read something specific about your history first."

"I like your thinking, Velma." Merlin hissed. "Teach them the other book today, and assign the books about me for tomorrow."

"Will do!" Velma simply said, hoping Merlin would go away. Thankfully for her, he headed back towards the gym, presumably to check on the children. She was absolutely terrified to be taking orders from a being from beyond the grave like this, especially one who had the power to cast spells to do who knows what to her if she disobeyed. All she could hope is that this nightmare would be over soon.

Velma felt a cold chill run down her spine as she went to class. She could see the discomfort and fear on the students' faces as she walked up to her podium to teach. There was still a few minutes before class began, and there were still several students who hadn't arrived yet. She didn't want to make the silence more awkward than it already was, so she decided to check in on her students.

"So how's everyone doing?" Velma asked her class. "I know there's been a lot going on lately."

"That work room sucks, man." Mitch blurted. "It's crowded and dirty."

"Yeah, and if that wasn't bad enough, they've got the song "Macarena" in there on a twenty-four hour loop." Parry revealed.

"I'm so sorry you guys have had to work so hard." Velma tried to remain cautious as not to say something that would offend Merlin, in case he was listening. "How many of you have had shifts?"

John, Parry, Kennedy, Ramando, Owen, Ron, Sadie and Annabelle all raised their hands.

"I've got a shift this afternoon." Ashley began to tear up a little.

Velma was still in complete shock that this could even be happening. She struggled to know how to best respond to comfort Ashley. Ashley was such a sheltered sweetheart who loved everyone, and didn't deserve to be working in shabby conditions like that.

"Ashley, I'm so sorry. Is there anything I can do?" Velma asked.

"I…don't think…so. Thank you." Ashley struggled to say through her tears.

Velma looked up at the clock and saw it was time to begin class. She noticed Brian was still missing, but she assumed with what had happened with Merlin, he'd never show up. He was probably hiding out before he was assigned a shift by Merlin. Velma couldn't imagine what he could be going through right now. If he was already anxious about Merlin before any of this happened, surely he couldn't be doing too well with this. Velma felt horrible for him.

"Class, today we're going to be discussing Offensive Magical Theory, which is centered around a discussion of unethical practices for stage magic. Does anybody have any thoughts they want to share before I go into my lecture?" Velma inquired.

"Yeah!" Parry exclaimed. "I loved this book! It taught me so many things I want to incorporate into my stage magic career!"

"No, Parry, this book was telling you things you shouldn't be doing." Velma clarified.

"Really? Even the part about revealing all of a magician's secrets without their consent?" Parry rebuked.

"Yes, that part too." Velma rolled her eyes.

"What about the part where you make the magician a victim of their own trick?" Parry asked.

"That part too." Velma simply replied, growing impatient.

"What about the part where you hijack another magician's trick and make it your trick in order to create a meta-trick?" Parry asked.

Someone clearing their throat by the door caused Velma to feel a lump in hers when she saw that it was Merlin.

"And how is the class going, Ms. Dinkley?" Merlin hissed in a hostile voice.

Velma tried to maintain her sense of confidence as not to let the class (or Merlin) know that she was scared.

"Oh, good, good. The students are really enjoying learning about this book." Velma smiled nervously.

"Excellent to hear. I hope to see the students this engaged during your teaching evaluation next week. I will be conducting some routine firings for anyone who does not live up to my standards." Merlin said with an evil chuckle. "Anyway, I am here for one of your students, Ashley. It's her turn to dig in the work room."

"During my class?" Velma asked, quickly worrying she came off as too blunt immediately after she said it.

"Do you have a problem with that?" Merlin growled.

"No, no! Not at all!" Velma panicked.

"Good. Ashley, it is time." Merlin once again flew up into the air. It was incredibly strange to Velma to see Whirlen in this soulless, possessed state.

"Okay." Ashley whimpered. Her eyes became red and puffy from the tears streaming down her face.

Velma's heart became heavy as she saw Ashley disappear out the door following Merlin to the work room. In the 11 weeks she'd been working here, she'd really grown a connection to her students, which made it hurt extra when she saw the horrible conditions her students were being subjected to under Merlin's rule. Moreover, she was terrified about the 'routine firings' next week. Surely Merlin had no other motivation to say that in front of the class other than to terrify her and create fear for the students. At this point, it was an understatement to say she didn't want to work in these conditions, but she felt an obligation to be here for her students. Somehow, some way, there had to be a way to defeat Merlin and end his reign of tyranny.

"Yeah, everything's fine, dad!" Velma assured.

Her parents had called her on the phone asking how things were going. Naturally, Velma panicked and didn't know what the best thing to do was anymore. While her parents would want Madelyn to return home immediately, Velma felt that would be even more unsafe than keeping her here. If Madelyn tried to leave, Merlin could stop her and punish her by doing who knows what. Merlin had instituted a strict policy that no student was allowed to leave the school for any reason, even to visit parents. On the other hand, even if Madelyn did successfully escape the school, Merlin could still come to her parents' house and find her. In Velma's mind, it was ironically safer for Madelyn to stay here. Unfortunately, that meant lying to her parents, which Velma hated doing, but she felt she had to, for the safety of Madelyn.

"I'm glad you and Madelyn are having a good time, honey. Sounds like Whirlen really got a hold of the situation." Dale Dinkley declared.

"Yep, he sure did!" Velma rapidly said, in an attempt to move on from this subject as fast as possible. It wasn't technically a lie, since Whirlen technically did get a hold of the situation…or at least, the person inhabiting his body did. "Hope you and mom have a great week!"

"Sounds great! We'll talk again next week." Velma's father promised. "Goodbye!"

"Bye dad!" Velma responded before hanging up the phone.

Suddenly, Velma heard a knock at the door and panicked. She presumed it was probably Madelyn, but now that Merlin had free reign over the school, she was always worried it was going to be him confronting her on one thing or another. However, she supposed if he was really mad, he wouldn't knock…he'd just come in like he had that one night when Velma was sleeping.

"Who is it?" Velma asked.

"It's just me, Madelyn." her sister replied.

Velma breathed a sigh of relief when she heard her sister's voice. She quickly ran over to the door and opened it, as not to keep Madelyn waiting.

"Hey sis. You know, I've been thinking about this whole Merlin thing." Madelyn began.

"Yeah, as have I. It's pretty much all I've been thinking about, actually." Velma nervously chuckled.

"We can't keep living like this. I just got back from my first shift in the work room, and it's the worst thing you can imagine. It smells, it's dirty and it's so hot and sweaty in there." Madelyn whimpered.

"Well, I figured Merlin wouldn't be considerate enough to put on the air conditioning." Velma teased.

"Sis, this is no time for jokes." Madelyn scolded. "What Merlin is doing isn't only driving students into exhaustion, it's illegal."

"I don't know what to do though. We can't exactly tell the authorities that the headmaster has been possessed by a vengeful spirit from 1,500 years ago. No one would believe us." Velma reasoned.

"We need to restart that club to make a plan to plot against Merlin. Nobody's doing anything, and we can't just keep living like this." Madelyn began to tear up.

Madelyn definitely had a point. Velma had been absolutely miserable this past week. Even thinking about Merlin putting the students to work was enough to churn Velma's stomach if she thought about it too hard.

"I agree with you, but what can we do? How can I let the students know that our club meetings are still on without Merlin knowing?" Velma asked.

"Well, it's just about dinnertime. Maybe you could find everybody and secretly spread the word to each person individually. I can help, if you want. You take three people and I'll take four. I can tell Sadie, Annabelle, Owen and Mitch and you can take Sabrina, Ashley and Kara." Madelyn suggested.

"I like your thinking, sis." Velma smiled. It would be risky, but if Velma didn't at least try, everyone would be at the mercy of Merlin for the rest of the semester. She couldn't let that happen. She owed it to her students to rescue them from the tyrannical dictator trying to make their lives a living nightmare.

Velma felt a pit in her stomach as she arrived at dinner. She spotted Sabrina right away in line, but she had to look first to ensure there was no sign of Merlin. She glanced around in all directions, but only saw a sea of students. Thankfully, she didn't see Merlin anywhere. She tried to make it look like she was about to get dinner by heading over to the line, but she noticed two male students had gotten behind Sabrina. The first student donned a blue shirt and had short blond hair, while the second student wore a red shirt with a black stripe, and had brunette hair. She had to slip ahead of those two students somehow.

"Sorry…I need to talk to this student. It's about a late assignment." Velma said to the two students blocking her from being behind Sabrina. They quickly moved out of her way, which allowed her to jump ahead two places in line.

"Psst…Sabrina." Velma whispered in her ear. "The DA meetings are back on. Let's meet next Monday at 4:00pm in Bumbledore's office."

"Sounds great." Sabrina whispered back.

Velma scouted around for Kara and Ashley, but she didn't see them at first. After a bit of looking, she saw Kara was at the very front of the line, as she grabbed a scoop of a disgusting-looking meal.

Velma quickly stepped out of line and hurried to intercept Kara as she went to sit down.

"Have you seen what they're serving us?" Kara asked. "It's just been goulash every single meal for the past seven days."

A random student wearing a yellow shirt who was sitting at a nearby table chimed in. "I heard tomorrow, they're serving us spaghetti, but they're switching it so that the meat is noodle-shaped, and the noodles are meat shaped! And instead of sauce, the sauce is gonna be all parmesan cheese, and instead of cheese on the top, they're gonna sprinkle a little bit of sauce on the top!"

"I know…that's kinda what I wanted to talk to you about." Velma said to Kara, ignoring the other student as she lowered her voice to a whisper. "The DA meetings are back on, if you're interested. Monday at 4:00pm. Bumbledore's office."

Kara simply gave her a thumbs up as a smile slowly formed across her face.

Velma walked the entire length of the dining room, but she couldn't find Ashley anywhere. She began weaving in and out between the tables to ensure she wasn't missing anybody, but still, no sign of Ashley. Although Velma didn't want to think about it, she assumed Ashley must be in the work room. Velma didn't want to waste any time getting goulash. It didn't particularly look very appealing anyway.

Velma hurried down the hall to the gym. When she arrived, she saw a horrific sight. She saw a number of students digging out trenches with shovels, searching for Merlin's lost wand. The entire gym floor was now approximately a six foot deep hole.

The brunette teacher scanned the room for any sign of Ashley, and quickly located her as one of the students that was currently digging. She didn't see any sign of Merlin around, thankfully, but she did see a ladder for the students to climb down into the hole. With a heavy heart, Velma stepped one foot on the ladder and descended into the growingly-cavernous hole. She quickly scurried over to Ashley the moment her feet hit solid ground.

"Ashley." Velma whispered in her student's ear.

"Ms. Dinkley!" Ashley exclaimed.

"Shhh…" Velma said. "I'm here to rescue you…I mean, I have a plan to help everybody."

"I knew you'd be able to help! You're incredible! You stopped Merlin before, and I know you'll do it again." Ashley replied at normal volume, clearly not understanding that she should be quiet in case Merlin came back in.

Velma tensed up when she heard her student say this. She didn't feel half as brave as Ashley believed her to be. She knew she had never stopped Merlin before…he clearly wanted to be defeated in their previous confrontation, so he could have the element of surprise and come back stronger than ever. Velma didn't have any business executing a plan like this, but she knew she had to at least try for the good of her students and this school.

"My plan is to start the DA meetings again, so we can come up with a plan together." Velma whispered. "We'll meet next Monday at 4:00pm in Bumbledore's office, if you're up for it."

"Absolutely! I knew you'd have a plan." Ashley smiled.

"Remember, you can't tell anybody about this." Velma whispered. She didn't think Ashley would, but she could be a bit naive at times, so she just wanted to make sure that the plan was foolproof.

"I know. Merlin has that policy about no extracurricular activities except work." Ashley said at normal volume.

"Hey, I was told this was Professional Development Club!" John chimed in from a few feet away. Velma hoped he hadn't overheard other bits of the conversation, but she was pretty sure he hadn't given most of what Velma said was done in a whisper.

Velma admittedly wasn't aware of the banning of all clubs, but it definitely sounded like something Merlin would do. It was clear he wanted the students to focus on nothing but digging for him, given he was even taking students out of her class so they could work..

"I'm going to leave now before Merlin shows up. I'm so sorry you have to go through this, but know it will be over soon." Velma admittedly didn't feel nearly as brave as she was sounding. Even as a teacher, she was afraid of Merlin's random firings, so she couldn't imagine being forced into hard labor.

"Okay!" Ashley replied, finally lowering her tone to a whisper. It seemed she finally understood she needed to keep this quiet so others wouldn't overhear. "You're my hero!"

This felt like a lot of pressure on Velma. She knew the school thought of her as a hero, but Merlin's return negated any feeling of success Velma had previously thought she'd had against Merlin. Velma hadn't done anything to stop Merlin or even slow him down. This was all just an elaborate ruse so that Merlin could take over the school.

As Velma made her way back to the dining hall to get some dinner, she shuddered as she thought of the idea of eating goulash for the third day in a row. To her chagrin, Velma got in line to get her scoop of goulash for the evening.

"I can't believe we have to have goulash for another meal." a red-shirted student ahead of her sighed.

"It could be worse. My last school was taken over by a kraken for a semester and a half! We had to eat Slimy Swamp Water Souffle every night with a side of Octopus Surprise!" another student wearing a blue shirt lamented. "The worst part was that the surprise was really that the octopus was alive."

"Sis!" Velma heard a voice cry behind her.

"What is it?" Velma panicked, worrying something was wrong.

"I told all four of them. We're all set. The DA is back in business!" Madelyn whispered. "We're gonna beat Merlin once and for all."

As much as Velma was happy the first step of their plan had worked, she almost felt more afraid than she did before resuming the DA meetings. Now, she would be putting herself in danger by running these meetings when Merlin had forbidden any club meeting. Not only that, but she would be putting all her students in danger as well. She knew her students really looked up to her. In fact, she knew the whole school looked up to her after rescuing Madelyn and Parry, but all she could think is that she felt like a fraud. She wasn't nearly as brave as everyone thought she was, and she had no idea if her plan would even work. Velma hoped she and her students could use this opportunity to come up with a plan, but she had serious fears that taking this risk might inevitably doom them all.

Author's note:

Things are certainly heating up now! I hope you're enjoying this fanfic thus far, and if you are, you're always welcome to leave a review! I always appreciate when readers give me constructive feedback, whether it's something they liked or something they feel I could improve upon.

Parodying a book from the Harry Potter franchise has pretty much become commonplace in this fanfic, and the parodied book of this week is Defensive Magical Theory by Wilbert Slinkhard. Moreover, the student in line at dinner mentioning Octopus Surprise is a reference to the meal Dracula served at his Halloween party from The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries episode "A Halloween Hassle at Dracula's Castle."