Author's note:

This chapter marks an exciting milestone. Between all the four Scooby-Doo fanfics I've currently written (I'm not counting the Sabrina one), this is the 100th fanfic chapter I've released! I hope you enjoy it!

Velma was currently grading her students' assignments from the prior week. All weekly assignments were due on the final day of class for the week, and Velma always tried to grade them on the weekends.

Each student's assignment took her a varying amount of time to grade. With some students, she could instantly tell they understood the material that they were supposed to, and thus didn't require much feedback beyond "Keep up the good work!" or "Wonderful job with your assignment this week!" Kara, Madelyn, Sadie, Mitch and Kennedy were in this group. They always got perfect scores on their assignments.

However, some other students struggled a bit more. Parry regularly wrote rambling tangents about all his thoughts for the week, not really connected to any of the questions that she'd asked. Mike usually wrote his assignments by answering the question with as minimal words as possible, which was problematic because it typically meant he didn't answer the question fully. Jake didn't even bother to turn assignments in.

The others were anywhere in the middle. Ramando's assignments were good, but he struggled with being able to paraphrase the author's arguments. He'd often provide lengthy quotes essentially copying the author's words verbatim. While that was technically correct, part of the purpose of this class was to allow the students to understand and interpret the author's arguments in their own words, not just pinpointing where the author made their argument in the book.

Velma was currently reading Katie's answer to the first question, which inquired what Anthos was arguing.

The Warlock of Wimbledon by W. Anthos was a discussion of how magic is everywhere. Anthos's staff showed up everywhere throughout the book. His staff was magical, and it was everywhere.

Bless Katie's heart. Velma could tell she at least sort of understood Anthos's arguments, but she didn't go nearly enough in detail. She had requested at least a paragraph for each answer, and Katie had only given her a few sentences. Ashley's assignment for this week also fell in the same category.

Granted, sometimes she could fudge the one-paragraph rule if somebody clearly got the concept. In example, Sabrina's response perfectly answered the question:

The Warlock of Wimbledon by W. Anthos shows us how magic is inescapable. The staff of Anthos was a metaphor for magic being everywhere, and shows us that we must embrace our inner magic.

In Velma's opinion, rules were good frameworks to ensure students were on the right track. However, if they were in any way harmful to a student when they were already on the right track, then the orange-turtlenecked teacher was fine breaking the rules.

Although Sabrina hadn't given her the full paragraph she'd asked for, Velma could clearly tell she got exactly what the course was trying to teach her, so to penalize her over something as simple as that was unnecessarily punitive.

Many students just did the bare minimum to pass, putting no passion of any sort into their words. Ron, John, Annabelle and Owen were in this group. Owen in particular would have excuse after excuse for why he couldn't turn in his homework that week: he was sick; he forgot it at home; his grandmother was on her deathbed but suddenly made a convenient "recovery" early enough to allow him to come to class that day.

The one student that didn't really fit into any given category was Brian. Sometimes, he'd turn in amazing assignments that went into great detail, and other times he wouldn't turn in any assignment at all. It was very perplexing to Velma, since typically the students who wouldn't turn in assignments were the same ones that did poorly on them when they did turn in assignments.

Velma was relatively pleased with most of her students this week. Nearly 75% of them had gotten an A on the assignment, with only Annabelle, Katie and Ashley falling into the B range; with Ramando and John falling into the C range, and Ron and Owen flat out failing the assignment. She found Ron's assignment of notably poor quality this week, his answer to the first question in particular:

W. Anthos talked about a bunch of stuff related to magic. If you ever try to escape your responsibility, you're gonna be sorry. The lesson here is: always do your chores.

Velma quite frankly wondered if he'd even done the reading. Nothing he had said was anything that couldn't have been guessed from the course lectures, and he put so little effort into making a coherent argument that it seemed he either didn't understand or didn't care enough to read the materials. Velma admittedly worried for Ron's ability to succeed in the course, as the assignments would only get increasingly difficult as the course went on.

Velma never liked doing too much work on the weekends, but this weekend, she was quite frankly excited to research books on Merlin. Turning this literature course into one specifically about Merlin was going to be one of the most memorable experiences these students probably had at this school, and she was really looking forward to facilitating that learning experience for them.

Now that she'd finished grading papers for the week, her plan was to head up to Marlin's room and ask for book recommendations on Merlin. She quickly noted down the grade each student received in her spreadsheet, before heading out of her room and locking it behind her.

Following a long trek, Velma lightly knocked on the door to Marlin's room. She still wasn't sure if this was an office or a bedroom, or both, so she didn't want to be too intrusive.

"Hello? Who is it?" Marlin inquired.

"It's Velma Dinkley. I just had a question for you."

"Oh! Come on in, Velma!" Marlin invited.

"Hey Marlin!" Velma greeted. "I just came here to give you some news, and ask you a question."

"Well, don't leave me in the lurch. What's the news?" Marlin questioned.

"I'm changing my class into a literature of Merlin course." Velma informed. "I figured it would be helpful, since it's something the students are dealing with right now. That will allow the literature to come alive for them more than ever."

"That's an excellent idea!" Marlin exclaimed. "The students are going to love that!"

"Thanks!" Velma smiled. "I was wondering if you had any suggestions for books on Merlin, given he's your ancestor and all."

"Oh, well, let's see." Marlin went over to a bookshelf near his desk, and dug through a large pile of books. "Here's one: Scared a Lot in Camelot by Charles Nichols. It tells the story of Merlin and his Knights of the Round Table."

"That's a great one, yeah!" Velma agreed. "Do you mind if I borrow the book to make copies of it for my students?"

"Well, I don't, but I think you might find it more fruitful checking out the book at the library." Marlin suggested. "Here's another one: The History of Merlin by Ceci Aranovich. This gives a full overview of Merlin's history."

"These are great, Marlin! Thank you!" Velma appreciated.

"Now, the library should have copies of these, but if they don't, you're welcome to come back and borrow mine." Marlin added a couple more books to the stack without saying the titles aloud.

"Hopefully this will help give the students the tools to solve our Merlin problem with their magic." Velma replied.

"I wouldn't put this on the students, if I were you." Marlin cautioned.

Velma immediately felt a little bad. She hadn't intended to give off the vibe that she was turning her students into warriors against Merlin. Rather, she was just trying to make her class interesting by changing her syllabus to be relevant to something that was currently happening in her students' lives.

"Oh no…" Velma stuttered. "I hadn't intended to put this on the students at all. I was just going to teach them about something I thought would pique their interest."

Velma recognized one of her most fatal flaws was taking what other people thought of her very personally, particularly when she was trying to prove herself in a new situation like this one.

"Sorry, I mean…" Velma struggled to explain herself. "This is just so they can be more knowledgeable about something that's happening at their school."

"Oh, that makes sense. Sorry, I was just concerned, since this is such a delicate issue." Marlin clarified. He quickly grabbed a paper and a black pen, and scribbled down some words. "I don't have these particular books, but I had a few more ideas for books you could teach about Merlin that the students will enjoy. I figure you won't like every suggestion I give, so might as well go broad and give you everything I can think of."

Velma glanced through Marlin's list as he handed it to her. All of them looked solid, from Merlin's Journey to Merlin: A Semi-Autobiography: The Life and Times of Me with special introduction and foreword by Dan Brown.

"These look great, Marlin. Thank you so much!" Velma smiled.

"Of course. I'll keep searching for any other information I can find on Merlin…historical or current, in terms of the hauntings…and I'll keep you updated if I find anything."

A question nagged at Velma's mind. She wondered whether she should ask it or not, but ultimately the curiosity overtook her.

"Marlin…do you live in this room?"

"Well…it is where I do research and sleep, but it seems I'm always bustling about campus going to one place or another to fix something or look into something, or what-have-you." Marlin explained.

"Oh, okay. That's good." Velma replied, before realizing her remark came off a bit awkward. "I just feel like it would get a little lonely up here, all by yourself."

"Well…" Marlin paused for a moment. "I keep busy. And besides, I have a very important job. I'm doing so many things in this school, between fixing stuff or making new technology, that it probably wouldn't even run without me! When I'm not fixing one thing or another, I'm doing my research up here. Don't worry about me. I like it up here."

"Good to hear! Thanks for all the help, Marlin. This class is going to be amazing with all these materials." Velma said. "Have a good rest of your day!"

"You as well." Marlin replied, as Velma exited the room. She caught a glimpse of Marlin going back to reading out of a book when she shut the door.

He had a very convincing response, with the exception of that pause. Although she had nothing to base her hypothesis off of, it made Velma sort of infer that maybe he wasn't really all that happy up here. She felt bad for the guy, if she were honest. Being all alone all day couldn't be particularly fun.

The weekend had come and gone, and Velma had spent most of it reconstructing her syllabus. Velma could hear the rain pouring down as she awoke on Monday morning. During the week, she and Madelyn typically got up around the same time and would meet each other for breakfast. Velma never needed to set an alarm, as her body always just naturally woke up at around 8. However, she wondered if maybe she should have when she saw the time was 8:45. She had majorly overslept.

Her thoughts immediately turned to how Madelyn would probably be worried that she hadn't come out to breakfast, so she quickly threw on some shorts and a school t-shirt that Whirlen had given her. The shirt had a picture of Whirlen's face embroidered on it, along with an image of the school.

She raced out to the breakfast area and was thankful to see Madelyn still sitting there. However, it appeared she was sitting with another girl her age. When Velma approached, she saw that the other girl was Sadie.

"Velma!" Madelyn exclaimed. "Oh, thank goodness you're okay, sis!"

"Sis?" Sadie looked confused.

Velma wondered whether she should say anything. She didn't care, but she didn't want to embarrass Madelyn. Madelyn gave a nod of approval, so Velma supposed it was okay to say something.

"Yeah. Madelyn's my younger sister." Velma replied.

"Woah…really?" Sadie gasped. "That must be pretty weird to have your sister teaching you."

"I think it's cool, actually." Madelyn smiled. "Anyway, what happened?"

"I overslept." Velma informed. "Sorry about that. I've been so busy redoing the syllabus that I guess I was pretty tired."

"You're redoing the syllabus?" Sadie gasped again.

"Yeah! I'm using Kara's idea about having you guys read about Merlin. We'll still read Gap with a Ghoul for today, since I already gave you the print-out, but after that, I've completely redone the syllabus." Velma informed.

"That's going to be awesome!" Sadie exclaimed.

"Top of the morning!" Whirlen greeted as he passed by. "I see you're wearing your me shirt!"

Velma was confused for a moment, until she looked down at the image of Whirlen on her shirt and understood.

"And how are we all this morning?" Whirlen inquired.

"Great!" Sadie exclaimed.

"Me too! Too bad it's raining, though." Madelyn replied.

"Good. I overslept, though." Velma yawned.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Mustn't oversleep, y'know." Whirlen scolded. "You know what they say, a busy mind is an active mind! At least, that's what Bumbledore always says."

"Sorry, I've been so busy redoing this syllabus." Velma apologized. "Speaking of Bumbledore, did he tell you about my idea?"

"Yes, he did, and I can't say I approve." Whirlen's face dropped. "I'm sorry, but I just don't think showing the children the impact of the Vietnam War from a feline perspective is appropriate."

"No…no…nothing like that!" Velma exclaimed in shock. "I just wanted to teach the students about the history of Merlin. I don't know where Bumbledore got that idea."

"Well, he is always bumbling, y'know. It's in his name." Whirlen shrugged. "Regardless, I think your idea is marvelous! It will certainly make for a memorable experience for the students."

"Thanks, Whirlen!" Velma appreciated. "Now, I better get some breakfast."

She was happy that Whirlen liked her idea so much; however, she still had doubts about her ability to do justice to the material. Her self-esteem always served as her worst enemy whenever she was trying to do something new, as it attempted to convince her she was never good enough, never smart enough, and never talented enough. Even though she was the one who was executing this idea, technically she wasn't even the one who had come up with it. Kara had suggested the idea. Honestly, as sad as it made her, she felt like Kara would probably be more qualified to teach this class, despite the fact that she was only 16 years old. She was hoping this experience teaching would transform her self-deprecating thought process, but regardless of how much she liked teaching, she still felt like an amateur and a fraud every time she got up in front of the class.

Velma felt a bit more nervous than usual when getting up in front of the class today, but also a little more hopeful. She was excited to present this new idea to the students; she just hoped they liked it as much as she did.

All of the students except Jake, Owen and Ashley were in the classroom with only a few seconds until class began. Ashley and Owen quickly filed into the room at the sound of the bell, but Jake was nowhere to be found. He must have decided to skip class today. That made Velma a bit sad, as she was hoping this revamp of the class would pique the interest of some of the less engaged students, particularly Jake, who was the student who seemed least interested in the course.

"Good morning, class." Velma greeted. "Today, we're going to shake the syllabus up a bit and bring a little variety into the course. We'll discuss the Ilderoy Glockhart book today, but after that, I'm going to switch up the focus of this course for the remainder of the semester to something a bit more relevant. From now on, we'll be reading books about the history of our headmaster's ancestor, Merlin."

"Wow!" Parry exclaimed. "I can't believe the variety! And on top of that, I brought this variety snack pack to class today! Do I pick pretzels, raisins or popcorn? The variety is overwhelming!"

Kara raised her hand, as Parry had so rudely forgotten to do.

"Yes, Kara?" Velma called on her student.

"I just wanted to say I love your idea." Kara smiled.

"Thanks, but it was really your idea." Velma didn't want to take credit for a concept that wasn't her own.

"I mean, not exactly." Kara replied. "My idea was just having a book about Merlin in the syllabus. A whole class about Merlin sounds so interesting!"

This warmed Velma's heart a bit. Kara was right. Even though her remark was what springboarded the idea, she had come up with the idea herself. It was all her. This gave Velma a much-needed boost of self-confidence. She knew she was her own worst critic, and sometimes she didn't give herself enough credit…so maybe it was time to start recognizing all the amazing things she had done more often.

A strike of lightning woke Velma out of a dead sleep. She never quite understood how people became frightened over something like a storm. It was impractical, since there was nothing they could do about the weather, so there was no reason to worry about danger until it happened.

Velma's thought process quickly changed with the next lightning flash when she saw a shadow flash in her room synchronously with the lightning. From the split second Velma could see it, the figure appeared to be wearing a cloak and a pointy hat. If Velma didn't know better, she could have sworn it was the ghost of Merlin himself. Unfortunately for her, she didn't know better, so she spent several hours lying awake obsessing over what she might have seen.

Velma woke up late once again to the sound of another violent rainstorm outside. Waking up late was the least of her worries, though. She was really troubled about seeing Merlin last night, and wasn't sure what to do. She tried to go about her business as if nothing had happened, but she couldn't seem to remove the pesky thought from her mind.

She attempted to hide her distressed state of mind as she went out to breakfast. However, she needed a couple more seconds to compose herself, so she went over to the breakfast counter and grabbed a danish before sitting down with Madelyn.

"Hey sis!" a familiar voice greeted.

Velma attempted to compose herself and put on a brave face, even if she wasn't feeling particularly brave.

"How's it going?" Madelyn inquired.

"Pretty good." Velma said, not sounding particularly convincing.

"Greetings!" Whirlen waved to Madelyn and Velma as he walked by to get his food. It seemed he often got his breakfast around the 8 o'clock hour just like the two sisters did. "And how are the two sisters today?"

"Great!" Madelyn exclaimed.

"Pretty good." Velma replied, cursing in her mind that she wasn't coming off very convincing.

"You don't sound like it." Madelyn observed.

Darn. Foiled by sisterhood again. It was such a close bond that you usually could always tell when your sister wasn't doing well.

"I…had a bad dream." Velma sighed.

"What about?" Madelyn probed.

Velma supposed there was no point in hiding it now. They could already tell something was amiss. "I dreamt I saw Merlin in my room."

"That's hardly something to worry about. Why, just last night, I dreamt that I was eating a raspberry dark chocolate donut whilst riding a motorcycle fueled by unicorn wishes." Whirlen informed.

"That's a very specific dream." Velma observed. "The reason I'm worried is because it may not have been a dream at all. I felt like I woke up and saw Merlin when lightning struck."

"Again, that's hardly something to worry about." Whirlen assured. "Why, just two nights ago, I woke up and believed I saw Mother Teresa and Danny DeVito playing a game of rugby right in my bedroom! Turns out, it was all just a dream."

"I'm sorry…" Velma apologized. "I guess I'm just worried about it actually being Merlin in my room, since I saw him in my classroom a couple times."

"I still don't see how it's something to worry about." Whirlen dismissed. "Merlin likes playing little tricks, but he's never caused anybody any harm. Besides, just three nights ago…"

"Please stop telling me about your dreams. We got the point." Velma sighed, immediately feeling a bit bad for being so defensive. It just felt like Whirlen wasn't listening.

"Well, that's a tad rude." Whirlen looked saddened. "I was just about to give you a vivid description of my never-before-shared dream about being the first person to ever tap dance to the top of Mount Everest, but I guess I'll be keeping that one to myself!"

"Sorry." Velma immediately regretted her previous remark.

"It's quite alright." Whirlen accepted Velma's apology. "Now if you excuse me, I must be going. That last bagel isn't going to eat itself, you know."

Velma waited until Whirlen was out of earshot before asking Madelyn the question she had. "Do you think there's anything to be worried about?"

"Umm…I'm not really sure anymore." Madelyn replied. "Like Whirlen said, Merlin's never done anything other than cause a little bit of harmless mischief. He's never done anything like he's done in our class."

Velma had asked that question hoping the answer would comfort her, but now, she felt more discomforted than ever. She even began to question her idea of teaching the kids about Merlin, as the last thing she wanted to do was anger a vengeful spirit.

Velma felt a bit discomforted coming into the classroom today after her potential experience with Merlin the prior night. She was pretty confident she had indeed seen him lurking around her bedroom, but she really had no proof of that given her sleepy stupor at the time. She was truly excited about the idea of beginning the first day of her revamped syllabus, but she didn't want to put herself or her students in danger in the process.

The familiar ringing of the bell signaled Velma that it was time to start.

"Hello class. I hope you all remembered to read the first three chapters of The History of Merlin." Velma began class.

Parry spit out the drink he was sipping in surprise.

"That's not a mocha, this is a joke-a!" Parry exclaimed as he threw his drink in the garbage. "Anyway, you were saying?"

Velma sighed. "I was thinking we could just go around the room and list one point you found insightful from the book."

"I can start!" Ashley volunteered. "I was surprised his mom was a mortal woman. I've heard a lot about how powerful of a wizard he was, so that was really notable to me."

"One thing that really stuck out to me was that he was killed by his student who had a crush on him, and buried in a magical forest." Owen stated.

"I never knew Merlin had a sister." Madelyn brought up. Velma noticed that Sadie had a smirk on her face, presumably remembering when she discovered Velma and Madelyn were sisters yesterday morning.

Velma's heart sank when the lights began flickering. She presumed it was time for more Merlin mischief once again, probably trying to scare them away after learning about Velma's change of syllabus.

Thankfully, the lights stopped flickering quickly. However, to the class's shock, a ghastly figure wearing a large pointy hat and a purple cloak stood before them. It was Merlin.

"Do not meddle in my affairs, or you shall face the consequences! You have been warned!" Merlin rasped.

Suddenly, a cloud of smoke exploded in front of their very eyes, completely covering the room. It took a moment for the smoke to clear, but when it finally did, Merlin was gone.

Velma was absolutely petrified. What was she going to do? She was stuck teaching in a haunted school, and she had angered the spirit haunting it. The haunting realization hit her like a rock: she had not only put her life in danger, but she'd endangered all of her students' lives as well.

Author's note:

As you may have noticed, there are once again a couple of Scooby-Doo and Harry Potter references here. One of the books that Velma assigns to her class, Scared a Lot in Camelot is a reference to The Scooby-Doo Show episode of the same name. The author's name, Charles Nichols, directed that episode. Speaking of which, Ceci Aranovich being the author of The History of Merlin is a reference to the Scooby-Doo director of the same name. She directed the 2021 DTV Scooby-Doo! The Sword and the Scoob.

Moving right along to Harry Potter references, Gap with a Ghoul by Ilderoy Glockhart is a parody of a book that Harry and his friends read during their third year at Hogwarts, Break with a Banshee by Gilderoy Lockhart.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter!