“Oh, Merlin! I can’t believe you two—”
Merlin closed his eyes, praying that Arthur hadn’t overheard Hermione Granger’s exclamation. Unfortunately, the gods were not listening. Arthur stopped dead in his tracks and turned slowly to face her. No, thought Merlin frantically, oh, dear gods, no. “Erm, Arthur, we’d better be getting to class…”
Arthur waved him off without even looking at him. “Pardon me, milady,” he said politely. “I couldn’t help but overhear—did you say Merlin?”
Hermione paused in her diatribe to look up at him. “Er, yes. Why do you ask…I’m sorry, what was your name?”
“Tristan,” replied Arthur smoothly. “Tristan Dubois. But why you would say Merlin?”
“Oh! I suppose you must be Muggle-born? Well, you’ve probably heard of Merlin from the legends, haven’t you? He was real, actually, and he was a wizard. He’s known in the Wizarding World as the Prince of Enchanters. He used his talents to serve his king.”
“And which king would that be?” Oh, gods. Drat it all. Of all the times the prat had to go and be curious—Merlin bit his lip and began frantically waving his hands to catch the girl’s attention.
Unfortunately, Hermione Granger was eyeing Arthur with a curious frown and completely missing Merlin frantically shaking his head in the background. (Behind her, Ron and Harry shot him bemused-but-sympathetic glances.) “Why, King Arthur, of course. It’s so strange you don’t know it. It’s a famous legend in the Muggle world as well as the Wizarding world, you know.”
“I see. How peculiar,” said Arthur in a blankly pleasant tone that turned Merlin’s insides to ice. “Isn’t it peculiar, Lionel? Highly coincidental, in fact.”
“Er, yes! Coincidental! Completely coincidental. Just a happy accident. Yes. Quite.” Merlin bit the inside of his cheek so hard he tasted blood.
Hermione was looking between the two of them with an expression that suggested she was concerned for their sanity. “What’s coincidental?”
“Erm—”
“It’s a long story,” cut in Arthur smoothly. “It really is getting late, we ought to be going. Thank you for your help, milady.” And then he bowed over Hermione Granger’s hand as if she were a visiting lady at Camelot before sweeping off, leaving her blushing and flustered in her wake. Merlin stood frozen in place, still trying to convince his insides there was no need to rearrange themselves. Arthur would probably rearrange them for him anyway, in the very near future, whispered his brain unhelpfully. Meanwhile, Ron was having some difficulty picking his jaw up off the floor, and Harry seemed to be torn between confusion and amusement.
“Did he—did he just kiss her hand?” was what Ron finally came up with.
Hermione, already pink, was progressing nicely toward a shade best described as beet. “It was sweet,” she muttered.
Ron ignored this. “What kind of total creep goes around kissing people’s hands? Hang on, he’s not related to Lockhart, is he?”
Merlin realized that this last was being directed at him. “I do not take responsibility for the prat’s actions,” was out of his mouth before his brain could helpfully remind him, once again, that the prat was going to murder him in short order, and could Merlin please stop calling him a prat for the sake of self-preservation? “He’s not a creep, though,” he added weakly. “He just…had a unique upbringing.” One way of putting it.
Ron snorted, but seemed mollified. “Must have been some upbringing.” He seemed to notice Merlin’s pallor for the first time. “You alright, mate?”
“Er, yeah.” Merlin nodded jerkily, then more vigorously. “I’d—better go. Um, bye!” Before anyone could say anything further, he was halfway down the corridor, striding purposefully in the direction Arthur had gone. As he turned the corner, he heard Harry murmur, “You’ve got to admit Hermione, it is a little weird. No one says milady anymore.”
He found Arthur studying a portrait of a troll beating up a troupe of ballet dancers. He took a deep breath, steeled himself, and approached. “So.”
Arthur gave no indication that he’d heard him.
“I know it looks bad.”
Still nothing.
“But I can explain.”
That got a response. Arthur turned, one eyebrow lifted imperiously—something he’d picked up from Gaius—a corner of his lip quirking upward in something too cold to be amusement. “Oh, you can explain, can you?”
“Yes.” There was a beat before Merlin realized Arthur expected him to proceed with the explaining. “Um. Right. Well, you see, it’s a—a coincidence.”
“A coincidence.”
“Yes! A real coincidence. You know, you’re King Arthur and I’m Merlin and they’re King Arthur and Merlin, but they’re…not, um. Us.”
Arthur’s eyes rolled toward the ceiling. “Dear gods in heaven, I wasn’t aware it was possible for you to become even more nonsensical.”
“What I mean is, our names aren’t really that uncommon, are they, so you see, the legend is really about another King Arthur and Merlin, obviously, not us, because that would be preposterous, that would be hysterical—”
Arthur exhaled loudly and pinched the bridge of his nose. “This is what you came up with? Really?”
“Er.” Yes?
“Merlin,” and there was that soft, dangerous tone that set Merlin’s stomach roiling. “Do you think I am a complete idiot?”
“Um? No?”
“No,” Arthur agreed, his blue eyes glittering. “I am not. Have you noticed that we are standing in a school for magic?”
In fact, it was all he could think about, but what did that have to do with anything? Probably nothing good. “Yes?”
“Perhaps you have not been paying attention during History of Magic, but Hogwarts School is protected by a great many old and powerful enchantments. Only those with magic are able to walk its grounds. You’d be repelled from the school if you weren’t a sorcerer.”
“Witch or wizard,” corrected Merlin automatically, “That’s what they call it now, but—Oh.” The rest of Arthur’s sentence caught up with him and he blanched. “I—um—that is—”
“Merlin,” said Arthur patiently, “We are both walking school grounds without any difficulty.”
Merlin stared at him. Oh. Oh. “You—you can’t mean—”
“It would seem that we both have magic.”
“No.”
Arthur raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean, ‘no’?”
“I mean…that’s not possible. It’s just…not.” He was thinking of all the times he’d performed magic—big magic—in Arthur’s vicinity, with Arthur none the wiser. If Arthur had had even a speck of magical potential, surely he would have felt something. Surely Merlin would have felt something…Right?
Arthur sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Only a week ago, I would have agreed with you, Merlin. But it would seem to be the truth. After all, the professors here all seem to think we’re only another pair of students. That old shade—Binns—hasn’t any reason to lie to us. Has he?”
“Well, no, I suppose not, but—”
“Chin up, Merlin.” Arthur clapped him so hard on the shoulder, he stumbled several paces forward. “This isn’t exactly a party for me either. But perhaps…perhaps magic isn’t all bad.” He was gazing thoughtfully into the middle distance now, seeing something Merlin couldn’t. “You’ve seen the students here…they’re only children. No more evil or good than normal people. I don’t know if something’s changed since our time, but if it hasn’t…if perhaps, we were wrong…” He trailed off, his brow creasing in thought. Merlin watched him, holding his breath. There was an unexpected tightness in his throat. Arthur was silent for a few more minutes, his gaze troubled. Then, suddenly, he turned back to Merlin, and grinned. “One thing’s constant though. You’re as hopeless as ever. Prince of Enchanters, really! At this rate, the only people you’ll ever come first among are fools and drunkards.”
Merlin spluttered. “I hardly ever drink, you prat!”
“You’re a rotten liar, Merlin. I know from Gaius, anyway—all those times you were at the tavern instead of serving your prince.” Arthur shook his head sorrowfully. “We have our work cut out for us.”
“I wasn’t—I mean, I was! At the tavern. Yes.” He had never been, but it wasn’t as if he could admit what he’d really been doing—at least, not yet. “But I’m not a drunkard! And—hang on,” he said suspiciously, realizing something, “what d’you mean, we’ve got our work cut out for us? You can’t mean—”
“Training.” Arthur nodded solemnly. “Yes, Merlin.”
Merlin stared at him. “Training. As in—”
“Training with magic, yes. Do keep up, Merlin. You can barely levitate a feather—frankly, it’s embarrassing. If you’re to serve me as some sort of all-powerful sorcerer, we’re going to have to whip you into shape.”
Merlin had a feeling that his jaw was somewhere near the floor. “I can barely levitate a—wait. Wait. You think you’re going to teach me magic?”
Arthur raised an eyebrow. “Yes. Obviously.”
“Right. Right, of course. Obviously.”
Arthur flashed one of his infuriatingly smug, condescending smiles. The kind that said I’m the crown prince, and I’ve got it allll figured out, and I won’t listen to Merlin and I absolutely will get eaten by some mythical snake I was too thick to avoid. It had been a while since Merlin had felt the urge to strangle the prince, but he found that time had not diminished its intensity. Clearly the instinct for regicide had been simmering beneath the surface all this time, despite his best efforts to bottle it up. Arthur, after all, was too much of a prat for his own good. Even a saint would be hard-pressed to keep from stabbing him, at one point or another.
Arthur, blissfully oblivious to Merlin’s wavering restraint, said, “Well, don’t just keep standing around like a dolt, Merlin! We’ll be late to Transfiguration. Come along!”
And off he swept. Merlin stared after him, hardly able to comprehend what had just happened.
There was, however, one thing he knew with utter certainty.
This was going to end so badly.