Thanks for the reviews and suggestions what might be in the locked room! I really appreciate it, and i already know what is going to be hidden there. There's a little hint in this chapter! I'm just about to continue with the story once I post this (even though it's almost midnight here) and let me just tell you, if I don't decide to split chapter 7 into two shorter chapters in the end, then chapter 7 is very very long :D

CHAPTER 4
Just Sherlocking Around

Agatha had to help Merlin up the stairs because he was still limping a bit. The doctor said his leg should be fine, but even though he had given Merlin crutches, Merlin refused to use them and claimed he was alright. Agatha didn't stop him.

When they got all the way up, they found themselves in a hall with three doors. They turned left and opened one of them, but found only a normal bathroom. And so they turned to the other side of the house with the two remaining closed doors.

"What do you think I was hiding here?" Merlin asked as he reached for the handle of one of the doors. "I mean, if I live here alone then why so many rooms? Or why two floors?"

"Maybe you were waiting for someone to come? Trying to throw a little party in secret?" Agatha offered and shrugged, trying to peek over Merlin's shoulders as he finally opened the door.

"It's empty." Merlin sighed.

"It's not empty, Marvin." Agatha rolled her eyes and entered the room. There were two windows, one of them right in front of them. They could see the fields, a forest and the road that led to the town Glastonbury. Next to the window were closets, but all were empty when Agatha opened them.

In the meantime, Merlin entered the room as well and turned to the other side of it – there was a bed with red blanket and two long red pillows. It looked perfect, the only thing that was missing was a red canopy.

A red bed with a canopy...

Merlin closed his eyes and shook his head. He knew the memories were there somewhere, deep inside his mind, buried under... under nothing actually. He needed to break the glass wall and get to the treasure beneath it – and figure out what protector of the lake, or red bed meant to him.

He turned his back to the bed and found himself facing a desk that was pressed against the wall of the room. As everything else, it was empty, save for a little red box in the middle of it. Merlin frowned and picked it up.

"What is it?" Agatha startled him when she appeared right next to him, looking at the mysterious box in his palm.

"Um, I don't know." He answered truthfully. He wanted to open it and see what was inside, but he was hesitant. And he couldn't open it with only one hand. "Should we... should we open it?" He asked, looking into Agatha's curious brown eyes.

"What do you feel when you look at it?" She asked, staring right back into his crystal blue eyes.

Merlin hesitated again, but looked down at the red box anyway. "I don't know, it feels... as if it was vibrating." He admitted. "I think it's really important to me."

"So... should we open it?" Agatha smiled slightly.

"Yes." Merlin said and didn't even look at her. He didn't know what was inside, but he knew it was important somehow and he needed to know why. He needed to know what it was.

He gave the box to Agatha who turned to him and slowly opened the red box.

A ring.

That's what was inside. A simple ring with an emblem of a dragon in the front. Merlin couldn't help but to stare at the mysterious object in Agatha's hand. He slowly reached with his fingers towards it and took it, not once looking away.

"Marvin?" Agatha said his name quietly. "You're crying again."

"What?" Merlin blinked and a slight frown appeared on his face. He clasped the ring in his palm and brushed the unwelcome tears away, trying to focus on the ring again, but the connection was lost. He felt he was so close and then it was all gone in a fraction of a second.

A hand appeared on his shoulder and he looked down, putting the ring back on the table. Agatha picked it up curiously, but after seeing that Merlin had closed his eyes, she hid it back into the box.

"Why is it so important?" She asked. "What did you feel?"

"Um... a connection?" Merlin mumbled and rubbed his eyes. It was late and he was tired, but they still had one more room to go through. "It was as if I knew exactly what it meant, and then it was suddenly gone, out of my reach." He confessed.

Agatha was silent for a few seconds and then she attempted to smile a bit. "One day, it won't." She promised. "The doctor said you'd remember eventually, and you will. I'll help you."

Merlin nodded as he raised his head and took a deep breath. Then he looked down at her and raised an eyebrow. "Can you show me the notepad?"

She looked surprised a bit to hear that, but she nodded anyway and took the notepad out of her pocket. She handed it to him.

Destiny?

There's something about that lake.

Why is he going to the lake? - What made him cry?

Merlin frowned slightly as he was looking down at the notes. Why was he going to that lake? And what had made him cry in front of the locked room? He felt as if he didn't have an answer to anything.

Then he turned to the next page and his frown turned into a confused raised eyebrow.

Gardener. An interesting hobby.

Agatha chuckled nervously and he knew she would try to explain herself. "I saw your beautiful garden and... well, I keep notes for my stories too." She smiled at him when he looked up.

Merlin shrugged and smiled too, handing her back the notepad. She turned it back to the first page and took another note.

"What is it?" He asked as he leaned closer to her, trying to look at the notepad again.

"It's about the ring. Oh and I should write something about the locked room too, we still don't know what made you upset." She told him as she started writing down the next note. "You really are a mystery, Marvin."

"I guess I am." He smiled sadly.

But the thing was... he didn't want to be. He didn't want to be that mysterious man living by a lake. Old grumpy lonely man... Wait, why old? He was young, wasn't he?

"How old am I?" He muttered and regretted it the second Agatha looked up at him again.

"We'll find that out once we find your birth certificate. But I'd guess... under thirty?"

Merlin shrugged. "Not bad." Then he cleared his throat and went back into the hall, looking at the last mysterious door in front of him.

Everything about this house, the garden, the lake, everything about him, was mysterious. He wanted to know the answers, to know why he kept going to the lake and if he should go there this evening even though he was tired just for the chance that he might remember something.

Maybe just going out and staring at the water would help.

Or maybe not.

"The last mysterious door." Agatha said, already standing next to him in the hall again. Right next to them was one of the windows – and it was already dark outside. As if Agatha could somehow sense Merlin's thoughts, she looked down at her wristwatch. "Uh, almost 11pm."

"Wait, what?" Merlin turned around to look at her and checked the time on her wristwatch. Then he looked up at her. "Did we actually spend so much time just wandering through this house?"

"I guess so." She smiled. "Now let's hurry up, and hope this is your room with your documents, otherwise I'm lost."

She didn't hesitate to pull open the door and walk in. Merlin followed her, curiously looking around. This had to be his room. It looked almost the same as the previous room, but it was mirrored. And there were actual things, like clothes and books and old papers and pens with pencils on the table – it wasn't empty.

"Bingo." Agatha grinned and immediately walked over to the bookshelf. Maybe there were more interesting things – books that would actually tell him something about the person he used to be. About his hobbies (like the garden for example) or maybe there was a photo album of him and his family.

If he had a family. So far it looked like he used to live all alone, lost in his own little world, away from anyone else. And Merlin didn't like that idea.

He looked over at the table that was next to a window just like the empty table in the previous room – what was that room there for? Was that a guest room?

Merlin smiled as he slowly sat down to the chair by the table and closed his eyes. Maybe it should feel familiar. Who knew how often he used to sit by this table, but... as many times before, he felt nothing. Nothing at all.

There was a chair he was sitting on, by a desk he put his hands on, in a room he was in. Except that there was an invisible drawer somewhere deep in his mind, full of memories of this place, that chair and the table. And the drawer was locked. It felt like he had lost the key and didn't even have the slightest idea where to look for it.

He sighed and opened his eyes again, examining the objects on the table.

There were some old broken pens, only one of which was probably working. There were pencils of different sizes and different softness, an eraser and some papers. Maybe those were his sketches? He'd like to see if he was any good at drawing.

"Literally every damn book in here is somehow related to the Arthurian legends." Agatha said from the other side of the room, still going through the books. "I guess we know why you chose this place to live in."

"Why?" Merlin turned around to her as he asked – it was a swivel chair. Why would he live in Glastonbury? He didn't think about that...

"Well, Glastonbury is famous for being the closest to Arthurian legends." Agatha turned to him, flipping through the pages of another book. "No one actually knows if King Arthur ever lived, but sometime in the 12th century, some monks said they found his grave. No one can know if it's his actual grave, most people think it's a fake, but the place is still marked as his tomb and is here for everyone to visit."

Agatha continued, talking about the King Arthur's Tomb, and an old Glastonbury Abbey that she visited with her friend and also the famous Glastonbury Tor that he could see from the window next to the bookshelf. Well, if it wasn't dark of course.

And he still had no idea what connected him to that place. To Glastonbury. To that Tor and to the legends and to... to the king Arthur. Arthur Pendragon, right? How did he remember that when he didn't know a single thing from the books?

Arthur Pendragon.

It... felt familiar, oh so familiar. As if his brain- no, his heart was screaming at him to remember because it was so important, but his brain was blank and didn't even know where to begin with remembering.

He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on the thing that made him feel so not lost. So connected all of a sudden.

Arthur Pendragon.

A clotpole.

Wait, what? What did clotpole even mean? Was that a word? But it was something, right? It sort of sounded like an insult, but why would he insult a king of legends? Did he have no respect?

"Marvin?"

He sighed when he heard Agatha call his name again. Yes, he was aware that his shoulders were tensed, that he was frowning and his eyes were closed and that he wasn't even listening to her anymore. And that was fine, he hoped. He just needed to be alone for a while.

"I'm fine." He cleared his throat and stood up from the chair. When he noticed Agatha was still looking at him, he just shrugged and opened the door back to the hall. "It's late and I'm tired, so I'm gonna go to sleep." He mumbled as he rubbed his eyes and faked a yawn.

"Um, alright." Agatha stood up. "I guess this is your room, so-"

"No, that's fine." Merlin stopped her with a smile. "I'll sleep in the empty room and you take my bed. Or keep looking for clues, whatever you want." He waited until she smiled at him and then he nodded. "And in the morning we can look into that last room."

She frowned, obviously not knowing what other room he was talking about and he couldn't help but to laugh as he pointed behind her. She turned around, confused, and her eyes got big and excited when she noticed the last mysterious door. A room inside a room – so cool.

"Tomorrow, sure." She smiled and turned back to him. "Good night, Marvin."

"Good night, Agatha."

"You can call me Ag," she grinned when she heard her full name for at least the fourth time that day.

Merlin smirked. "Ag?"

"Well, it's better than Aggie." She rolled her eyes.

"Yea, but it sounds a lot like an egg-"

"Shut up!"

Merlin laughed and closed the door, going to the bathroom with a slight smile on his lips. Shut up. Another phrase that made his heart ache for no good reason.

xoXÖXox

It's been approximately an hour since Marvin left the room and went to bed. And she couldn't even hear his snores from the other room because she was buried deep within the books. She even found another shelf and she hadn't gone through all of that yet, but she was sure it was where Marvin's birth certificate was located.

Finally.

She really wanted to help him, and he also wanted to find out who he really is, and why he's the way he is. Why doesn't he talk to people and why does he live alone and visits the lake every day. Twice. She really wanted to solve this mysterious case. She almost felt like Sherlock Holmes.

Damn, she really loved that show. Maybe that was why she loved mysteries... But now she needed to focus. She opened another book about king Arthur and turned to a random page.

It was all the same. Every book in Marvin's room was about Arthur, Camelot, the knights of the round table, the Holy Grail, Guinevere, Morgana le Fay... about everyone from the legends. And every page, almost every paragraph had a few words or sentences crossed out.

It looked as if as Marvin had been reading, he was correcting the false information. But how could he know what was wrong and what was true? Why was he so obsessed with the legends? It had to be the reason he decided to live by the lake. But from what she heard, that house had been there since like forever.

Agatha felt clueless. Utterly clueless. With every new piece of information, a new set of questions rose to the surface.

She needed her John Watson.

She sighed again as she turned to another page. To her surprise, there was a picture of Arthur and of Merlin, standing next to each other. King Arthur had brown hair and eyes, but Marvin must have tried to correct that too – there was a note on the corner of the page, saying crystal blue eyes and blonde hair.

What? How could he tell the picture was wrong? How could he tell that was not how the king Arthur looked like, if he had even existed.

Merlin on the picture was old, with long white beard and hair. Another note was on the other corner of the page – same age as Arthur!

Now she was even more confused than before. In every legend she ever heard of, Merlin was an old man who raised Arthur when he was a little boy and then helped him pull the sword out of the stone. Or maybe that was only in the Disney film she saw when she was a little girl, she didn't actually know much about the legends. And she didn't remember much about the film either... But back to the point – Merlin was always old in the legends, so why did Marvin think Merlin and Arthur were the same age?

"Why would you think that?" She mumbled to herself quietly as she gave up on the books and stood up, going over to the second shelf. She really hoped she would find a photo album there.

And about ten minutes later, she really found it! It looked old, but not that much old, she could tell it used to be red with some kind of a writing on the front page. She carefully opened it and grinned with excitement when she realized the book was full of photos.

The first one was of a field. It was black and white, and there were some people working there. They... looked out of a place. Definitely not from the 21st century, maybe from the... late 19th century?

She pulled the photo out of the album and looked on the back of it – 1893. Must have been family photos then. Someone from Marvin's great great grandparents worked on a field? Agatha smiled slightly and turned to the next page.

The next photo was of a group of people. They were all hugging and they looked like they were from the 50s. 19th century and then the 50s? Marvin's family didn't take a lot of photos, or maybe these were the only ones he got to keep? Maybe, for some reason, his family was upset with him and these few photos were the only ones he could keep. It would explain why no one visited him in the hospital and why he was living alone.

It didn't explain the lake though.

Agatha turned to another page, and to her surprise, the photo there was of Marvin himself. But... he looked exactly the same, like literally the same – black hair with blue eyes, his face both motionless and emotionless. Except, when she turned it around, she found out the photo was taken in 1968.

Alright, there had to be an explanation for this, right? Maybe it was his father and they were just really really similar in the face.

Agatha closed her eyes briefly and yawned, turning to the next page. The photo was of the garden outside the house she was in. It looked almost the same, but some of the trees were smaller. And the next photo was the lake with the Glastonbury Tor on the island in the middle.

With that, she reached the end of the album. No more pictures, no more clues. She closed the book and put it back in between another book about king Arthur and a book about the Tor.

And then she found it. The thing she's been looking for! There was a thin book with some sort of papers and IDs and little photos and... no birth certificate.

But how was that possible? She thought everyone had one. "What the hell..." she mumbled as she picked up a couple of IDs. All of them had almost the same picture of Marvin on it, but they were from different years.

2007, 2001, 1995, 1983, 1973, 1964, 1953 and they went all the way back to 1915. But though some of the pictures were slightly different (haircut, scruff on the face, longer fringe), Marvin looked everywhere the same.

That couldn't have just been his father. Or grandpa. This was all him, all Marvin. And his name wasn't even Marvin! How could she have not thought about that? It sounded so similar to the name Marvin had given her in the hospital. The name on the ID cards were always the same too. So it had to be him.

It would explain everything – the lake, the loneliness, the books about magic and king Arthur's legends, the fact that he lived in Glastonbury... So yes, it was really him.

Merlin Emrys.

TBC

Agatha really is smart, isn't she? :D Next chapter is next Saturday! ;)

Btw I was thinking... I should really start posting the sequel to Hungry for Magic... but it seems I can't find the right day in the week for regular updates, I was thinking about Friday, but I'm away next Friday so I'm not sure. I should start soon though, the first draft was written already at the end of July and I'm stuck with proofreading chapter... 8, I think? Also I'd love to do NaNoWriMo this November again (I'm not sure what I'd be writing though) and if I do, it's possible I won't be able to update this or any other story... I definitely won't be able to continue writing this fanfic for a month since I'd be busy with another fanfic/original story, and I don't think I'd be able to make this fanfic my project for NaNoWriMo bc I don't have enough plot left to add 50K words during November. I'm not sure yet though, this was just an information as to what might be coming in the next two months. :)

I hope you liked the chapter and thanks for reading! ;)