Chapter 36: Just a Merlin

It was the weekend but instead of relaxing after an exhausting week, Merlin trudged on to the dungeons, not looking forward to detention with Snape. The dungeons were the coldest part of the castle, and as expected, the fireplace in the Potions classroom was not lit. Merlin predicted that and dressed appropriately but still felt chilled, prompting him to tighten the scarf around his neck.

Snape seemed to be disappointed that Merlin arrived on time. It was oddly satisfying to know that the greasy-haired Potions Master had nothing better to do on a Saturday night.

He pointed to a small wooden crate set up on one desk. "You will dice the pungeous onions—all of them—and pack them neatly in these jars."

Without saying anything else, he walked to the other side of the classroom to grade essays—as far away from Merlin as the space allowed to avoid the onion fumes. Since he couldn't sit, he had magically elongated the table's legs, so that he could work semi-comfortably.

Merlin looked inside the crate where hundreds of small, elongated onions awaited. He could cut them up by magic, but Snape would undoubtedly give him another unpleasant task if he finished too quickly. He supposed he had to do it the hard way. He started dicing, and the onion immediately gave off a sharp pungent smell which he knew was going to stay on his skin. That was probably what Snape wanted, for him to stink for weeks, but all Merlin needed was a Bundimun Solution, easily found in the greenhouse.

Finished with the first onion, he stuffed it in a jar and continued to the next. To pass the time, he distracted himself with some planning. To cure Colin, the school healer needed fresh mandrake roots to prepare the Restorative Draught. Merlin had stopped by the greenhouse this morning to inspect the crop, and to his horror, the roots were still babies. Madam Sprout called it a sheer stroke of luck that she had planted them this summer since she did this only every few years. Luck. Luck would have been if she had planted them in the spring. Instead, Colin was going to be stuck in a petrified state for months, waiting for the nasty roots to grow up.

Angry at the injustice of it all, Merlin started plotting alternative treatments. He had a compendium of healing knowledge in his archives, but he was out of time to check it.

He hated being pulled in so many directions at once. He had to ensure to spend time with Harry's gang to stay in the loop on what they were doing. He tried to follow Dobby to its master—a task he thought was going to be easy but proved otherwise. He kept his eye on Jack and his sister who had an emergency meeting today in the library. He tried to listen in, but was spotted and had to pretend to study instead. He hated having to spend such a large chunk of his day in classes. Ah, but studying wasn't the worst. The ultimate waste of time was what he was doing right now—cutting up fetid onions. The noxious fumes irritated his eyes to no end and he had to blink the tears away. He dumped the onions in a jar and snuck a look at Snape who was a safe distance away from the putrid smell.

The Potions Master shifted his weight from leg to leg, tired from the day-long standing.

'Serves you right,' Merlin thought spitefully.

He rolled his shoulders and turned back to the task at hand. He got on with the next bulb and tried to release his frustrations on the onion. He chopped it harder than was necessary and could barely see for his teary eyes. And like the clumsy oaf that he was, he cut into his finger.

"AAHHH!"

Merlin grabbed his finger instinctively, and the knife clattered to the floor. But touching the wound with a hand stained with pungous onion juice was a disastrous idea. It stung so painfully, he saw stars.

Once he could somewhat see, he ran to the sink and tried to wash the juice away. He hissed when the water hit his wound. His whole hand throbbed with burning pain. While Merlin made all that ruckus, the Potions Master did not even look in his direction. He must have known that his student had just gotten hurt on the job. He was going to just stand there and do nothing? Merlin wanted to do a small test just to confirm what level of cruelty he was dealing with. He could heal himself right now, but he needed this wound for his test, so he only whispered a simple spell that numbed the pain but allowed the bleeding to continue.

He was sliced up badly. He somehow managed to cut into three fingers at the same time at an angle, and the blood was flowing freely in bright red streams. He cupped his bleeding hand with the good one and waited until blood pooled inside his palm. Then he walked up closer to Snape.

"Excuse me, Professor," he said in the most polite tone he could muster. "I need help."

Snape lazily shifted his eyes in his direction, and Merlin chose this moment to tip his hand so that blood would dramatically stream down to the floor like a crimson waterfall. Snape's eyes followed the red liquid with a bored expression like he was being bothered with the most mundane request.

"First aid kit is in the cupboard," he drawled and went back to his papers.

Merlin blinked a couple of times, trying to calm himself. It was one thing to ignore a cry of pain but to see his student bleed in front of him and do nothing…

Merlin stiffly walked to the cupboard and brought out a first-aid kit. He loudly dropped it on Snape's table and even opened it for him.

"Just keep it hygienic if you can manage it. Don't contaminate the contents," Snape said without looking up.

He wasn't going to help? In that case… Merlin proceeded to take things out of the box with his bleeding hand, marking everything in red. He applied dittany extract to cleanse it, although it was pointless when it was bleeding so much, and wrapped it tightly in gauze, which immediately became stained in red. By now, his blood was everywhere. It stained all supplies in the box, painted the box itself, it was on his robes, on both of his hands, probably on his face from when he tried to rub his eyes. It dripped from the table onto the floor, where he stepped into it, smearing it properly. But Snape did not look up until a stream of it slowly approached his papers, guided by Merlin who stood by, waiting for the Professor to notice the carnage.

Snape picked up his papers before they got stained and finally took a look at the bloody display on his table.

"Did you slaughter something in here, Ealdor?"

Merlin lifted his red-stained bandaged hand. "It was bleeding a lot."

Snape's usual mask of indifference changed to shock for a moment, and Merlin had to remind himself to not smirk. He was supposed to be in pain, so he grimaced and held his wounded hand tenderly. His eyes met the Professor's, and they were frozen in a staring war. Was the Greasy Git trying to break in? Merlin closed off his mind just in case.

A skilled Legilimens could invade a person's thoughts without their knowledge. The trick was in eye contact. If that was what Snape was trying to do right now, he must have noticed that Merlin was shielding himself.

"You're going to contaminate the onion mixture with this," he motioned at Merlin's hand as if it was an abomination. "Come back tomorrow, same time. Get out of my sight, before you befoul this place even more."

Merlin stood there for a moment longer and ground his teeth. No, he wasn't done. Snape failed the test spectacularly. He gave him several chances to show even the slightest tinge of compassion, but the Potions Master was too blinded by his dislike of Merlin to do the right thing. A new idea formed in Merlin's mind and he involuntarily smiled. The chair prank was too mild.

"Thank you, Professor."

While walking out, he whispered a new curse to put on top of the old one. To not draw suspicion to himself, he did not activate it yet. It was swirling around its target, waiting for him to say the magic word and make the Greasy Git's life a living hell.

》《

The following morning, Merlin knocked on the door of the girls' lavatory and poked his head inside.

"Anyone here?"

No one answered so he went in. It was the most depressing public lavatory in the castle, complete with yellowed tiles, chipping paint, and faucets missing knobs. And it was haunted.

The ghost called Moaning Myrtle floated above her usual toilet and quietly sobbed. "Another boy," she complained and prepared herself to launch at him.

He wasn't looking forward to the cold feeling of a ghost passing through, so he plastered a pleasant smile on. "Myrtle, but I'm here to see you."

"You are?" Her stance completely changed from an aggressive, vengeful spirit to that of a shy, flirty girl.

"Of course. There are no other pretty teenage ghosts in this castle. Who else could I be looking for?"

He tried to sound genuine but his smile was hard to maintain once he heard snickering coming from the last stall.

Myrtle curled her hair on her finger while smiling shyly and then her face contorted into a vicious snarl. Her mood swings were frightening.

"You laugh because you're jealous," she screeched, looking in the direction of the stall where the snickering got louder. "No boy could possibly visit the ugly Myrtle. I'm a girl too! Even if," she sobbed, "a dead one."

She floated in circles under the ceiling while wailing her sobs. Her shrieking intensified until, with a high-pitched scream, she dived into her toilet, splashing Merlin with the water. His only consolation was that these toilets were never used. At least he hoped so.

With the ghost out of the way, he walked up to the last stall and pushed the door open. Three amused faces looked up at him, and seeing how wet he was, roared with laughter. He pulled out his wand and tried to remember a spell that was safe to use in front of these kids. He hadn't used verbal wand spells much before coming back to Hogwarts. His memory was like a giant cabinet with many drawers. He had to close some drawers to access others. He couldn't keep them all open at the same time or the cabinet would lose balance and fall over, which he guessed would be equivalent to losing his mind. The drawers containing names of wand spells were so rarely used, they were covered in cobwebs and rat droppings, but it was about time to clean them up and shuffle inside for something useful.

"Targeo," he said the spell, and the water dried off.

There was no more space for him inside the stall, so he stood outside with both hands braced against the stall's walls. He was amazed that the three of them fit in there, or that they wanted to squeeze around the toilet at all.

"How's the stewing going?"

"Perfectly," Hermione answered and stirred the lacewing stew.

He craned his neck to inspect the mixture. The color and consistency were good. He had been monitoring her to ensure she followed the recipe and didn't create a poison by accident. The potion's potency would greatly depend on the brew's quality. Thankfully, this young witch was a perfectionist.

"It looks great. You're really good at this."

Hermione's cheeks blushed a vivid pink, and she cleared her throat. "About the missing ingredients."

"I'll get them. You can count on me."

"We could create a diversion to help you," she offered.

Ron smiled wickedly. "We're making a Swelling Solution next Potions. Let's put Filibuster fireworks in Crabbe's cauldron."

Harry sniggered while Hermione nodded in agreement. Were these kids crazy?

Merlin said, "You are all mad. That's going to cover everyone in boils!"

"Snape has an antidote, I'm sure," Hermione dismissed him.

"No way. I'm not getting innocent kids hurt over this. Believe me, he doesn't care enough to lift a finger to help a student in need. I wish you had been there when I was bleeding in front of him."

Hermione immediately looked up with concern in her eyes. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," he smiled at her. "I'll get even. Don't worry."

"Get even?" Harry asked jokingly. "Who can get even with Snape?"

Merlin changed his expression to the mask of absolute lethal sincerity. "Do you doubt the Legendary Merlin?"

Ron chuckled. "You're not THE Merlin. You're just a Merlin."

Hermione elbowed him in the ribs.

Merlin snorted and crouched down to their level. "Alright, a Ron, if that's what you wish to call me."

The trio joked around in the toilet stall, and Merlin's eyes lingered on Harry. There was still an important question he didn't ask the boy—how Harry knew to show up in that hallway on Halloween, but he couldn't ask yet. He felt like he was at a trial period—his friendship and trustworthiness hadn't been tested yet.

He didn't know yet how he was going to sneak past Snape to break into the locked storeroom, but he was resourceful. He'd broken into Gringotts bank in the past without the goblins figuring it out. He could handle this task easily. It was time to show them what kind of Merlin he was.