Chapter 5: Magic is Easy

The next day Merlin woke up, and stared up at the ceiling. It took him a few seconds to remember the events of the previous day. Of course he was at Hogwarts and had a friend. Albus was still asleep along with the rest of the boys in the dormitory. So quietly careful not to disturb any of them he got up and got dressed and went down into the common room below.
He sat and read until finally Albus came down and they made their way down to breakfast. This proved harder than they had thought because neither of them had memorised the way they had come up the evening before. But finally after running into several ghosts having a meeting in an empty corridor that shocked them greatly. Merlin had never seen a ghost and despite having lived with wizards nor had Albus. They they were finally rescued by to Albus's great annoyance: Grace who was also making her way down and had just got instructions from nearly headless nick the ghost of Gryffindor tower.

Down in the hall timetables were then handed down the rows. Merlin looked at his. He had transfiguration first.
They finished their breakfast as fast as they could wanting as much time to get there but as it happened they met Nick after only a few minuets who showed them the way so they ended up being 10 minutes early. Then only a few minutes latter Grace came clutching a book.
Albus deliberately turned his back and pretended not to hear her when she tried to talk about what things they might start learning.
Then finally the rest of the Gryffindors turned up along with professor Enford. He started by talking about the difficulties and dangers of transfiguration. Then they all took some complicated notes which Merlin Certainly didn't understand. In fact on looking about it seems that only Grace had a clew what Enford was going on about. Then finally they started to do some magic. Trying to turn a match into a needle.
When Merlin picked the match and slowly closed his finger about it, he muttered something indistinct while Albus was next to him muttering random words with his wand pointing at the needle. Merlin opened his hand, and there lying on his palm was a perfect needle.
No one seemed to have noticed and then when professor Enford came round he thought he had simply given Merlin a needle.
Then with one tap of his wand Merlin was given the match back.
Merlin however simply did the same thing again. This time in plain view of the professor who exclaimed the moment he saw the needle in Merlin's hand and held it up for the rest of the class to see:
"How on earth did you do that?" Grace asked incredulously.
"Yes I think we'd all like to know that," professor Enford said.
Merlin shrugged, what more could he do? He had absolutely no idea how he had managed. The right spell had simply come to him but what process he'd gone through to find it or how he knew it in the first place he had no idea. It was like all the spells in the universe were somewhere in his head just waiting for the right moment to reveal themselves and then vanish again once they had served their purpose.
The whole class was looking at him now:
"Can you teach me?" Albus asked excitedly.
Merlin shook his head he knew it wouldn't work like that.
Then Merlin spent the rest of the lesson trying to do the same spell non verbally without professor Enford noticed. He didn't want any more attention.
Then just as the bell rang he succeeded in turning the match into a needle without saying a word.
"Comin'?" Albus then asked. He had succeeded in doing nothing more than setting fire to the desk which professor Enford quickly had to put right as Merlin had been too busy concentrating on doing non verbal spells that he couldn't produce water because he still needed the incantation for that.
They left together and were soon overtaken by Grace who gave Merlin something like an admiring look as she passed.

After transfiguration they had break which Merlin and Albus spent trying to find their way down to potions which was their next lesson.
For Albus potions went a slight better than transfiguration. At least he didn't set fire to anything except the fire under his cauldron. When they emerge Merlin felt an awful lot better. He had done just as well as Grace which was still better than Albus, but at least he didn't stands out any more than Grace. Who he noticed seemed pleased that she got some attention having been completely ignored through most of transfiguration despite the fact that her match had definitely gone silver and started to go round.
After potions they had lunch and then herbology in the greenhouses with professor Longbottom.
Here too Merlin was delighted his reputation as best of the year fell about around him as Grave and the occasional other people answered all the questions.
"Herbology not your strong subject," professor Longbottom muttered in his ear, "I heard about your performance in transfiguration, quite remarkable, but of course I saw what you did at the orphanage,"
Merlin looked at him as though he didn't have a clue what he was on about and continued pruning the shrivelfig bush they had been set.