Merlin, help me!
This time, Harry didn’t use his father’s cloak to stroll around the school and stumble upon the Mirror of Erised. This time, he had a clear goal and a plan; one that had easily formed, as soon as he had seen the silvery cloth in a package addressed to him.
He had felt ashamed at first, that he hadn’t even thought about the cloak until now, but now that he had it again, he would guard it with his life. It felt like coming home, when he wrapped himself in it and thought he could hear whispered words of old times, but dismissed it as getting overly sentimental.
His cloak did bear a lot of possibilities though and so he was sneaking out that very evening and stole one of Hagrid’s roosters, who was now living in his dorm room under a silencing charm. There were barely any students left for the holidays, but he saw no need to raise any unwanted attention. To his absolute glee though, the rooster had made himself comfortable in Malfoy’s bed immediately and Harry fully intended to let him stay there as long as possible. Yes, he was that petty.
Next were a whole bunch of mirrors, that Harry conjured – the first ones were partly cracked or clouded, but he got better over time. All of them he stuffed into a makeshift bag he had transfigured from one of Dudley’s old shirts, along with the school broom he had nicked the day before.
As far as he was concerned, he was ready to go. But he waited until the early morning hours to go on his way. He would need the rooster to cry and what better way to ensure that, than to bring him there in the morning.
And so it came to be, that Harry was opening the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets at half past three on Boxing Day.
A strange sense of nostalgia and dread overcame him when he looked at the exposed pipe. The last time he had been down there, he had almost died and lost Ginny.
It had been weird, to speak in Parseltongue as well. Part of him had expected this ability to disappear, now that – according to Death – he was no Horcrux anymore, but the entrance had opened just the way it had done before. – Which made the memories even more painful.
But this time he was alone. There was no Ron, no stupid Lockhart and – most important – no one was waiting down there for him. No evil dark lord and no eleven year-old girl on the brink of death.
It was at least somewhat reassuring. Still, it took some will power to jump down there again.
When Harry found himself on solid ground, he immediately lit up his wand, illuminating the dark, wet, slimy walls.
“You would think, that old, pompous Slytherin would build a chamber, that was more… sophisticated”, Harry muttered to himself. His voice echoed eerily in the tunnel. He threw off the coldness, that overcame him and moved forward, past the dozens of animal bones and the old Basilisk skin and with that, the point where they had barely survived the rockfall.
At least, this time he wasn’t afraid to stumble upon the Basilisk on accident. He knew it was safely locked away, until called upon.
But nonetheless, when he was standing in the main chamber again, a cold shiver went down his spine when he saw the serpentine columns.
“Merlin, help me”, Harry muttered. He wished anyone here, really. He had done this on his own once, he wasn’t keen on doing it again. But he would, if he must.
He felt his magic spark under his skin and without letting his eyes slip off the statue at the back wall, he pulled the stolen rooster form the bag he carried with him and released the silencing charm. The rooster just stared at him for a moment and then went to explore the chamber.
Harry took a deep breath and tried to recall what Riddle had once said to free the Basilisk.
“You know, you should stop thinking so much. I’ve told Salazar that so many ti –“, Harry whirled around, pointing his wand at an unfamiliar person, standing there, seemingly completely unfazed.
“Who are you?”
The man raised his eyebrows, looking amused. “Honestly? Damn, you would think people at least knew what I looked like when they used my name all the time.”
“What do you mean? I don’t know you, who are you? And how do you know of this chamber? Are you Tom Riddle?”
At that last question, the man looked truly affronted. “I am not associated with Tom Riddle in any way, thank you very much.”
Harry didn’t know whether to be relieved or even more on guard. After all, how many people knew of Voldemort’s real name? And by the man’s reaction, he clearly knew of the connection.
“What are you doing here?”
The man grinned. “Well, that’s the question, isn’t it? Can I say at first, that I love you for calling me? I will rub this into Salazar’s face till the end of time – in his own chamber as well!”, he said gleefully. It didn’t help with Harry’s confusion at all and the man seemed to recognize that. “Well, I will, once I helped you of course. It’s an honour to meet you, Harry Potter. I’m Merlin.”
This had to be a joke, right? Or a trap – yes, a trap.
“You’re Merlin”, Harry repeated and the man grinned. “In the flesh”, he stopped and gave it another thought. “At least I think so. Honestly, I don’t know what I am right now. Care to help me out here?”
“What?”, Harry cursed internally because his voice sounded so weak. ‘Merlin’ didn’t seem to care about that though. “Well, what am I right now? Am I alive again? Am I still dead? Am I a ghost?”, he held out a hand touched one of the columns. “Okay, not a ghost…” Harry didn’t know if to be weirded out by his sheer presence or that he seemed to be disappointed, that he wasn’t a ghost.
“Okay, stop your… mumbling! What are you doing here and who are you?”
The man seemed honestly annoyed. “I’m Merlin!”, he repeated slowly. “I already told you.”
“You can’t be Merlin!”
“Why not?”
“Because… Because he’s dead! Since hundreds of years! I mean, how could you –“
“Okay, I think I see the problem here. You don’t know how you called me here, do you?”
Harry paused. “What?”
“Well, I was living in the afterlife, going about my no-further-defined timely period, when I heard you call me. ‘Merlin, help me’ you said, didn’t you?”
Harry stared at him indecisively. “There are thousands of witches and wizards, saying that exact phrase every day. Why would you… listen to mine?”
‘Merlin’ raised his eyebrows amusedly. “I suppose Death didn’t tell you what comes with your second chance.”
Harry stopped. “How do you know about that?”
‘Merlin’ grinned. “Word travels fast in the afterlife, especially when it concerns Death. It’s the only thing of actual interest to us. So, do you finally believe me?”
Harry’s mind was reeling. To his horror, he did find himself slowly believing him. What other explanation was there for ‘Merlin’ to know who Tom Riddle was, that this was Slytherin’s chamber and about his deal with Death? He was still coming to terms with that himself!
Merlin smirked, as if he knew what was going on inside Harry’s head. He stepped toward him and put an arm around his shoulder.
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on here any more than you obviously, but I assume you are here for a reason. So, what are you doing in Salazar’s chamber? In my humble opinion, it’s not the most pleasant place to be. That guy truly lacked any sense for interior design.”
Harry contemplated not telling him what he was here for, in case, he was an imposter who followed him down here, but he didn’t exactly have anything to loose right now. If her turned out to be an imposter, Harry could just walk out and seal the chamber and he wouldn’t be able to get out. If he was also a Parselmouth, Harry would know about him, as Hermione had studied it extensively throughout their second year.
“I’m planning on killing the Basilisk hidden in that statue”, he pointed at Slytherin’s head.
Merlin frowned. “Why would you do that?
“Because it’s a Basilisk”, Harry said slowly. “And it’s going to kill or petrify people if I don’t get rid of it.”
“She would never!”, Merlin protested and Harry was taken aback. “She was put here for the protection of the school, she wouldn’t harm a student!”
“Then I guess I imagined to have almost died of Basilisk venom in my second year.”
Merlin paused, then turned, as if to run, then turned again and faced Harry with unmatched determination. “You’ll have to go through me.”
Harry was angry. “Get out of my way.” “No!” Merlin drew his… wand? – a staff-like stick with a gem embedded at the top - and Harry matched him. “I don’t care what you are, or who you are. Go back where you came from, I don’t want you here!” “That’s not what I heard when you called for help!”
“I don’t need your help!” He fired a spell, too fast for Merlin to react, but to his surprise, it went right through him and hit one of the columns behind Merlin.
Both stared at each other in confusion, trying to figure out what to do now. Then Merlin moved and fired a spell at Harry, who was about to dodge it, but it went right through his shield and left nothing but a cold sensation, when it went through him.
Merlin looked at his staff, intrigued. “Fascinating.” He jumped, once, twice, then walked over to a column and touched it. He then fired a spell at it and it hit, leaving a faint dark spot on the stone.
“Why can’t we hex each other?”, Harry asked. “I don’t know… My spells work fine on the room, just not on you.” “Neither do mine…”, Harry fired a spell aimlessly at the room and it hit the opposite wall, leaving a spot there as well.
“It’s not the magic”, Harry mused, feeling it hum under his skin. “I think it’s us.”
Merlin didn’t pay attention to him, but wandered around the room and spotted the rooster. To both heir surprise though, the rooster didn’t react at all to him – didn’t even spare Merlin a glance – and walked right through him.
Harry and Merlin shared a look. “We have to fix this.”
««»»
Harry was recounting the events leading to this point, but he found no clue, as to how they had arrived here – apparently cut off from the real world, and immune to magic at least by each other. Merlin didn’t help his thought process at all, since he was throwing stones at the rooter, who was continuously getting paranoid by the flying objects, but still wouldn’t react to anything else Harry and Merlin did to make themselves known. They didn’t dare to use magic on it, as the chance of injuring it was too high. And it was their only indicator if things were back to normal outside of each other.
Harry, meanwhile, was trying out any spell he could think of; Several detection spells, revealing charms, a tracking spell to track any hints of magic – he even contemplated conjuring his Patronus to call for help, but decided, that that would entrail far too much of explaining to anyone and so he dismissed that thought quickly.
thunk
Merlin kept throwing stones, while Harry was trying to think of a solution.
thunk thunk
Maybe he should just – thunk – just go upstairs again and – thunk – see if anyone else could see him and cast magic on – thunk thunk
“Merlin! Stop that!”
Merlin grinned devilishly and threw another rock right at Harry, who caught it easily with his seeker reflexes.
“What is your problem?”
“My problem?”, Merlin jumped up, crossing his arms. “My problem is, that you pulled me form the afterlife, just like that, and expect me to kill Guivra!”
“Who is – you know what, I don’t care. I don’t need you to do anything. You can just go your way and disappear. Goodbye.”
“Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it? I can’t just go. I’m stuck here, until you figure out how you called me here in the first place.”
“Well, then you should keep quiet and let me concentrate. Otherwise I might need to try if I can punch you in the face at least.”
Merlin glared at him, but at least he stopped throwing rocks.
««»»
“… He just called me here out of nowhere, totally rude! And then expects me to help him kill Guivra, I mean – no? She’s my friend!”
“Very rude indeed.”
“I know! I knew you’d understand.”
Harry was having a very bad day. One would assume, that meeting Merlin would be exciting – a bit like meeting Jesus –, but then it turned out, that Merlin was nothing but an unreasonable git, hell bent on protecting the murderous Basilisk under the school, and did everything in his power to annoy Harry into insanity. And now even Death was siding with the nuisance after Harry had called him – however that had even worked.
“… can’t understand, how he can be your master of all people. Did the years conversing with the dead not treat you well?”
“You’re bordering blasphemy, Merlin”, Death said more amused than anything and Merlin snorted. “The only blasphemy is, that you listened to that guy’s calling. I mean, he’s a dunderhead. He didn’t even know how he called me!”
Death chuckled – they sounded strangely human. “Oh, that would be my fault. I guess I didn’t properly explain what his powers would entrail.”
Merlin didn’t deign that with an answer, only held his nose high when he noticed Harry looking at him. “’He’ can hear you both, by the way”, he said irritated and Death chuckled again, patting Harry’s arm. It took all of Harry’s strength to not pull it away.
“You did good so far. You should practice more on your ability to call upon the dead though. It will take some time to get used to that. Approximately around four weeks to do it reliably. And then you can take care of Voldemort – or the other way around, in case you prefer that. The Basilisk will be no threat though, you should keep her some company in time. She’s lonely down here.”
Harry had so many questions. He kind of felt like he was eleven again, with Hagrid explaining magic to him. But what was worse, was that Merlin wore an incredibly smug expression – probably only barely refraining from blurting out an ‘I-told-you-so’.
“Anyway, I will be going now – much to do, you know. Welcoming corpses, ruling the afterlife, striking fear into the hearts of people..,”, Death smirked. “I will be taking Merlin with me, but feel free to call on him any time. He’ll be able to help you out plenty.”
“I didn’t agree to that”, Merlin muttered, but didn’t argue otherwise. Then Death snapped their fingers and he vanished almost immediately – but not before grinning at Harry one last time.
Death then turned towards him. “Don’t worry about Guivra. She won’t hurt anyone, she was just forced to obey Voldemort. It wasn’t her fault.”
Harry felt a headache incoming. “Of course”, he said, not even trying to argue. “I… will be going then. Bring Hagrid his rooster back…”
Death nodded shortly and then, with another snap of their fingers, vanished as well. Harry let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. His life had never been normal, but this was a new extreme…