Cornish Pixie Blues
“What did Albus say exactly?” Merlin asks curiously. His tone isn’t scheming or suspicious, not unwilling to share. It would be enough for most people, coming from Merlin. Minerva is not most people.
“I want to hear it from you, first,” she invites, watching them through narrowed eyes and interlocking her gnarled fingers.
“I don’t mean to test you, Professor. I don’t think he’ll have told you much, is all, and you deserve more than that. Am I right in assuming he told you you could trust us?”
Minerva nods once after a moment’s pause. “He called you old friends of his.”
Arthur scoffs and her eyes snap to him at once. Merlin purses his lips and hums.
“Not as such. We’re old friends, but not of Albus’. Of Magic’s. And of Hogwarts. We’re here because an incident like last year’s was inevitable, and it’s only the beginning. Riddle doesn’t realize that there are forces in the world protecting the things he’s provoking. He believes he only opposes people when he commits the things he does. With our intervention last year, he may be rethinking that now. But we’ll stay. Just in case.”
McGonagall takes it all in stride, but her eyes are wide by the end. She keeps straightening her robes subconsciously. They couldn’t get any straighter.
“Why should I believe you over Albus Dumbledore?” she asks briskly, like she needs the information for practical purposes but it really makes no difference to her.
“You don’t have to,” Merlin shrugs. “Whether we’re old friends of Albus’ looking out for his students or on the side of Magic and standing against Riddle, doesn’t change much. Hell, you can think of us as imaginative students if you want. I just don’t see a reason to lie. Albus does, evidently, but I don’t care because as we’ve covered, I’m not here for him.”
Arthur coughs into his fist and Merlin tilts his head in apology.
“-We’re not here for him,” he amends.
Minerva is quiet for a while as she considers all of this. Merlin can hear her brain working. He knows she’s serious because her tight lips forget to purse.
“...Posing as students is quite extreme,” she says finally, voice trembling the tiniest bit, enough that no one else would notice. Her eyes cut between them and her brow gradually unravels as she comes to her conclusions. “...Who are you? Perhaps I should say, what, are you?”
Merlin looks to his husband and shakes his head stubbornly, stepping back.
“I took the twins, it’s your turn.”
Arthur rolls his eyes. It’s just like Merlin to throw him under the McGonagall bus. He steps forward and folds his arms over his chest. He opens his mouth to tell her the honest truth, and at the last second chickens out and rounds on his husband.
“Why do we have to tell her? She won’t believe us.”
“Because we like her, and we don’t like lying to people we like. There’s no need, anyway, she can believe what she likes. Just tell her.”
“Yes, do that,” McGonagall agrees sharply.
Arthur sighs. Clicks his tongue. Glares at his stubborn husband.
“I’m Arthur Pendragon. That’s Merlin,” he blurts tactlessly. “We’re immortal.”
Merlin whacks him upside the head. Arthur looks unrepentant. Eventually his husband will concede that it really is just better to get it over with.
“Come on, she needs to process and Harry’ll be wondering what’s up,” Merlin rolls his eyes, grabbing his useless husband by the arm to drag him out. Minerva gets herself together enough to choke something out before they disappear back to class, though.
“Merlin- ?”
She’s definitely not addressing him, they’re not there yet, but Merlin hears his name and looks up anyway. She blinks at the natural reaction.
“Why would they… you … come here and do this?” she asks faintly, sounding uncharacteristically clumsy.
The couple exchanges a look.
“Well it makes sense, doesn’t it?” Arthur replies, Merlin nodding along. “Riddle’s focussed on Harry and Albus. They’re both here. He’ll pop his head up at Hogwarts and we’ll be here to whack him back down again, right?”
“Like whack-a-mole,” Merlin offers.
“Whack-a-what?” Arthur asks.
“Whack-a-mole. Do you remember when moving pictures came out, there was a game palace beside the theatre, we’d go out to the piccies and go play at the game palace? There was, um–”
“The casino?”
“No, not the cards. Pacman. You remember pacman? No, wait, that would’ve been later. But there was whack-a-mole, where you hit the targets with a mallet, you won me a flying frog, remember?”
“...I thought that was training.”
“Oh, to hell with you,” Merlin grouses, giving up and slipping past them both back to class.
🕳🪧
Merlin and Arthur almost forget about Mcgonogall through lunch. It’s a little hard to think past the dead obvious tail they’ve picked up somewhere making itself known with short little breathless gasps and nervous fiddling with a very complicated camera.
“I think he’s Harry’s,” Arthur hisses under his breath around a mouthful of mutton.
“Well then Harry better deal with him before I do,” Merlin growls back. That much unabashed attention on them without reason is giving him the feeling of cockroaches crawling under his skin.
“Why,” Ron asks Hermione with mounting horror, “have you outlined all of Lockhart’s lessons in hearts?”
Hermione blushes furiously (they assume she does, her skin’s rather too dark) and stuffs her schedule hastily back into her bag, getting it crumpled like she hates. Merlin deflates even further, looking like someone’s stabbed his puppy and he’s about to be a John Wick about it.
Out in the courtyard, Harry’s shadow finally works up the courage to scurry into their lie of sight, clutching that ridiculous camera. He’s a mouse of a boy, and the camera’s about twice the size of his whole head, wavy brown hair and all. The second Harry looks at him he flushes a brilliant red almost bright enough to hide his many freckles.
“All right, Harry? I’m — I’m Colin Creevey,” he stammers out breathlessly, taking a tentative step forward. “I’m in Gryffindor, too. D’you think — would it be all right if — can I have a picture?”
“A picture?” Harry repeats blankly. The idea that anyone would want a reminder that he exists in any form is probably a novel concept to him. He’s probably wondering why. Well, that’s ridiculous, Merlin’s wanted one of the three of them for a while now, he’ll have to get on that.
“So I can prove I’ve met you,” Colin Creevey continues eagerly, edging further forward. “I know all about you. Everyone’s told me. About how you survived when You-Know-Who tried to kill you and how he disappeared and everything and how you’ve still got a lightning scar on your forehead,” (his eyes rake Harry’s hairline) “ -and a boy in my dormitory said if I develop the film in the right potion, the pictures’ll move.” Colin draws a great shuddering breath of excitement, “It’s amazing here, isn’t it? I never knew all the odd stuff I could do was magic till I got the letter from Hogwarts. My dad’s a milkman, he couldn’t believe it either. So I’m taking loads of pictures to send home to him. And it’d be really good if I had one of you” — he looks imploringly at Harry — “maybe your friend could take it and I could stand next to you? And then, could you sign it?”
Oh, no. This isn’t the kind of attention Harry needs. This’ll send him right back to square one, and he’s made so much progress since last year! Harry needs to know his value isn't in his fame!
Merlin’s stomach sinks as he catches Draco skulking around the edges of the courtyard, listening, watching. He’ll just eat this up, too. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
But Draco doesn’t move. He watches the golden opportunity to dunk on Harry pass him by serenely, in an unpracticed, purposeful way, eyebrows knitting together unhappily, looking between Harry and Colin. And Merlin feels himself smile proudly.
His grin falls as Draco spurs into motion, striding across the square towards them, cutting Harry’s awkward stammers off and grabbing him by the arm without pausing–
“Don’t bother, I need to speak to your celebrity crush,” he snaps without so much as looking at Colin. Harry’s forced to start walking or be dragged off, but he’s too stunned to do anything but march. Ron starts forward with a shout on his lips, but Arthur stops him. Hermione chokes, but at Merlin’s look she stops herself going after them too.
Harry stumbles along in Draco’s vice grip as people stop and stare, jaws dropping, especially when Harry’s friends don’t go after them. Draco doesn’t slow down, not when they’re out of the courtyard, not until they’re on the other side of the stone wall overlooking Hagrid’s.
“What– w- stop, would you slow down? Draco– !”
The taller boy freezes and whirls on Harry all at once, who nearly falls over at the sudden halt, frozen by those silver eyes.
“What did you call me?”
Harry’s mouth gapes like a fish. He didn’t realize. He didn’t mean to. Since they talked about him at the Burrow, he must’ve forgotten to go back to calling him Malfoy.
He finally lets Harry go, turning around fully to face him, and Harry is forced to realise Draco’s taller than him when he squares his shoulders and stares him down. A couple of strands of shock blonde hair have wrestled free from his constraining slicked-back style. There are light bags under his eyes, made all the more prominent by how pale he is. It makes his cheeks and lips pinker, too.
“Why did you say that to my father?”
Harry blanks. He tries to summon the exact words Em used, knowing how much sense they made. It’s just hard to think at the moment. What does he say?
“ Why did you say that?! ” Malfoy demands, just keeping himself from shaking Harry by the shoulders.
Harry tries to square his own shoulders and stare him right in the eye. His reasons are good. He is in the right.
“Because family is off limits,” he says clearly.
It hits Malfoy so hard he actually takes half a step back like he’s been struck, silver eyes going wide. There’s a whole lot swimming in them that Harry can see better up so close. He never noticed. Draco looks nothing like his father, if you really look.
“I insult your family all the time. Weasley’s too. Why is it different for you?”
“Em thinks you’re better than that, and he’s usually right. I want him to be right. I don’t want you to be a pompous, arrogant, selfish git because your father is.”
“ My father is more important than –”
“I don’t care about important!” Harry spits. “There are more important things!”
Harry blinks. Malfoy blinks. That was a poor choice of words. Harry shakes it off and charges on.
“Slytherins have good qualities too, don’t they?” Harry demands challengingly. Malfoy snorts.
“We’re cunning, Potter. And loyal-”
“-To the right things?”
Malfoy’s voice stutters to a stop, brought up short. He stares at Harry until Harry thinks he might be about to get punched.
“You can hate me if you want to,” Harry says, finding himself short of breath like he’s been running, “you can call me names and give me shit. If you want. But do it ‘cause you want to. Just do what you want, Draco .”
And then he storms off just as the bell sounds, ears ringing, wondering what the fuck he just did.
“This doesn’t mean I like you, Potter!” comes a defensive yell from behind him, and Harry finds himself laughing.
🐍
“If you say so, Em. I just don’t see it. Malfoy’s been horrible,” Hermione is saying as they all pile into Defense Against the Dark Arts. Merlin isn’t even listening anymore, rather preoccupied with the changes to the classroom.
Not one, not two, not three, but six separate portraits of Gilderoy Lockhart decorate the room, one of them almost too large to fit in the room (and it’s not an insignificant room). An entire bloody balcony straight out of Romeo and Juliet complete with dramatically sculpted pillars swirls up the wall to one side, overlooking the classroom. The complete skeleton of a bird twice the size of a man that Merlin knows never actually existed dangles from the ceiling, posed purposefully in such a way as to make it look regal and imposing. Nothing’s neck works like that, it couldn’t hold up its head. There are bloody peacock feathers in the tailbone, for Avalon’s sake. Lining the walls are trophies- heads of marvellous beasts and the swords used to kill them, tribal spears with the carvings polished out of them, and a million framed awards for things like ‘most charming smile’ and ‘most blonde’. Seriously, that’s one of them. And then the ones claiming actual accomplishments- the creatures they name don’t even exist!
A wounded sound punches out of Merlin at the proud head of a Zouwu hung on the wall behind the teacher’s desk, framed in gold detail. The poor thing’s feathers and fur are repainted and brushed up to make them as brilliant as they were in life, but it’s a truly dead thing. Its glorious golden eyes that would’ve glowed like suns in life are forced open with discrete pins as it bares its impressive teeth, forced into a mimicry of fierce power. It just looks like a desecration to Merlin, but he is well familiar with desecration. He was familiar with the concept before he could properly read.
The four of them hurry to set up around Harry, who’s stacked all seven of Lockhart’s books in front of his face to block the man himself from sight. Merlin sets about copying him.
“What the hell happened? Did Malfoy pull anything?” Ron demands immediately, shoving himself over Arthur’s lap to get closer to Harry.
“No. He wanted to know why we said that at Flourish and Blotts. I think he’s as confused as we are,” Harry responds.
“Everyone’s confused at eleven,” Merlin assures them both. “Bet he comes around. Well done, Harry.”
When the whole class is seated there is a deliberate dramatic hush, and then Gilderoy Lockhart sweeps onto his actual, honest-to-gods balcony.
His robes are a shimmering turquoise today. He stretches out his arms grandly to either side of him, settling his hands on the bannister like a lord overlooking his kingdom, beaming. There are a few audible lovesick gasps from the students and a few snickers too.
Arthur gapes in morbid fascination at the luxury train wreck happening before him. Merlin props a book over his head, flat against the desk, like a hat. He can’t look.
“Me,” Lockhart begins, pointing at the cover of one of his books and winking in sickening tandem with it. “Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly’s Most Charming Smile Award but! I don’t talk about that. I didn’t get rid of the Bandon Banshee by smiling at her!”
He waits for the scripted laugh. A few of the girls giggle, and some others smile weakly.
“Order of Merlin, is he?” Arthur mutters out of the side of his mouth dryly.
“I order him to shut up,” Merlin returns in the exact same tone.
“I see you’ve all bought a complete set of my books — well done. I thought we’d start today with a little quiz. Nothing to worry about — just to check how well you’ve read them, how much you’ve taken in —”
Once he’s handed out the test papers he returns to the front of the class and declares, “You have thirty minutes — start —now!”
Some of the questions and Merlin’s answers include:
- What is Gilderoy Lockhart’s favorite color?
A: The colour of his own eyes, probably.
- What is Gilderoy Lockhart’s secret ambition?
A: To bottom himself.
- What, in your opinion, is Gilderoy Lockhart’s greatest achievement to date?
A: I don’t care.
- For extra points: What is your favourite thing about Gilderoy Lockhart?
A: The generous time he spends away from me.
“Em,” Arthur mutters, “Play nice.”
“I am playing fair.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“I know.”
“ Em- ”
“No talking back there, please, just do your best!”
Half an hour later, Lockhart collects the papers and rifles through them in front of the class.
“Tut, tut — hardly any of you remembered that my favorite color is lilac. I say so in Year with the Yeti. And a few of you need to read Wanderings with Werewolves more carefully — I clearly state in chapter twelve that my ideal birthday gift would be harmony between all magic and nonmagic peoples — though I wouldn’t say no to a large bottle of Ogdeds Old Firewhiskey!”
He gives them another roguish wink that makes Merlin consider blinding himself. Ron has now bypassed hatred and fallen into complete amazement that someone this vain could really exist, looking at Lockhart like he’s a strange rare animal. Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas, sitting in front, are silently laughing themselves stupid, tears in their eyes. Hermione is listening to Lockhart with rapt attention and nearly falls out of her chair when he says her name.
“... but Miss Hermione Granger knew my secret ambition is to rid the world of evil and market my own range of hair-care potions — good girl! In fact” — he flips her paper over — “full marks! Where is Miss Hermione Granger?”
Hermione’s bristly hair seems to raise with her trembling hand, her eyes wide and full of stars. Merlin looks heartbrokenly at her and then murderously at Lockhart.
“Excellent!” beamed Lockhart. “Quite excellent! Take ten points for Gryffindor! And so — to business —”
But he freezes there, his stalwart smile flickering. His perfect brows crease together in confusion, staring at one of the papers. A delicious grin creeps across Merlin’s mouth. He’s found his paper.
As Lockhart’s face continues to fall until he looks properly perturbed (but still appropriately handsome, of course), the class starts to take notice. Whispers break out, and everyone looks up as he calls, “Myrridian Emrys?”
“Right here, Professor,” Merlin calls beside Hermione, not giving an inch. Arthur stops listening. This might as well happen. It was always going to. It’s a miracle Merlin made it this long, really.
“See me after class. Miss Granger too,” Lockhart calls. Hermione straightens, and he barrels on, grin fixed back in place as if nothing’s amiss. “ So , to business!”
He bends down behind his desk and lifts a large covered cage onto it.
“Now — be warned! It is my job to arm you against the foulest creatures known to wizardkind! You may find yourselves facing your worst fears in this room. Know only that no harm can befall you whilst I am here. All I ask is that you remain calm.”
Harry leans around his books to get a better look, successfully intrigued. Merlin raises an unimpressed eyebrow. Arthur tries to place where he’s heard the tittering from the cage before. It's making him uncharacteristically nervous.
“I must ask you not to scream,” warns Lockhart in a low voice. “It might provoke them.”
As the whole class holds its breath, he whips off the cover with a dramatic flourish he definitely practiced.
The cage rattles as about fifty little blue hands shake it violently, gnashing sharp little teeth and blinking black beady eyes.
Merlin falls off of his chair. Arthur reels back into a defensive stance.
“No,” he breathes in horror.
“Yes,” Lockhart says knowingly. “Freshly caught Cornish pixies.”
Seamus Finnigan snorts. Merlin scrambles around under his desk trying to make a makeshift fort out of his chairs with defensible infrastructure. Neville looks worriedly at his unshakeable friend and then back at the horrid blue beasts.
“You don’t think he’ll let them out,” Arthur scoffs unsurely to his husband. Merlin sends a look.
“You don’t help with the insulation, you’re not getting in.”
Arthur looks back at the pixies (fifty of them, holy goddess), looks at their twit of a Professor, and starts helping Merlin with his fort.
“Yes?” Lockhart addresses Seamus the unimpressed.
“Well, they’re not — they’re not very —dangerous, are they?” Seamus chokes.
“Don’t be so sure!” Lockhart booms, waggling a finger annoyingly at Seamus. “Devilish tricky little blighters they can be!”
One of them pulls their sharp little features into a bizarre face at him to prove it.
“Right, then,” Lockhart exclaims loudly. “Let’s see what you make of them!”
And he unlatches the cage.
Hell breaks loose in the Defense Classroom. The pixies explode like so many pinballs, whizzing past people, pulling them by their tongues, biting toes, breaking glasses, tugging hair. They snarl their sharp little fingers into anything they can grab, pulling and tangling and snatching and scratching. They also make liberal use of their teeth, which are exactly as sharp as they look. Lockhart’s portraits are the first casualties, but far from the last- pages and pages fly, shreds of paper float through the air, buffeted by passing pixies. Ink splashes across the walls and students. Bags are thrown out of the window still full. Shoes adorn the chandelier. The skeletal bird comes crashing down, narrowly missing the teacher’s desk. Down goes the Zouwu. Down goes Lockhart. And down goes Seamus Finnigan.
Neville, ever the exception, goes up. He’s hanging from the chandelier by his robes.
“Come on now — round them up, round them up, they’re only pixies,” Lockhart shouts, wrestling with one for his wand. He shakes it off rather viciously, rolls up his sleeves, brandishes his absurdly embellished wand, and bellows, “ Peskipiksi Pesternomi! ”
It has absolutely no effect; one of the pixies avenges his brother and seizes Lockhart’s wand and that goes out the window, too. Lockhart gulps and makes a mad dive for his desk, narrowly avoiding being crushed by Neville as the chandelier gives way. Arthur fights a pixie for the splintered half of a desk chair they’re using as the front gate of their fort. Merlin doesn’t bother with his wand and goes straight for biting back at the little buggers. It confuses them enough to give him an edge.
The bell rings over all that mess and a stampede makes for the exit. In the relative calm that follows, in which only Ron, Hermione, Harry, Neville, and the Destined Duo are left, Lockhart straightens up, fussing habitually with his hair.
“Well, I’ll ask you three to just nip the rest of them back into their cage,” he pants genially, and he sweeps past them quick as lightning and shuts the door behind him.
“Can you believe him?!” roars Ron as one of the remaining pixies bites him painfully on the ear. Arthur slams said pixie with his makeshift shield, stepping out from under the desks fluidly. He makes it look very easy.
“He just wants to give us some hands-on experience,” Hermione says, immobilizing two pixies at once with a clever freezing charm and stuffing them back into their cage.
“Hermione, if you still believe that, you’re not half as smart as I thought you were,” Merlin says harshly, snapping his wand aside with an impatient flick and freezing all the pixies in place at once.
She looks back at him with an astonished gape as hurt creeps in. Merlin returns her gaze with a clenched jaw and no mercy. His nostrils flare, and then he’s out the door behind Lockhart.
Hermione turns to Arthur, but the best he can give her is an apologetic shrug. She looks to Ron and Harry, but one by one, she realizes they’re all in agreement against her.
She whirls around and storms out of the classroom, hair bobbing behind her like an entire coral reef.
Hermione doesn’t come to lunch.
She sits apart from them all in Charms, and Harry and Ron’s grades suffer for it. Then again in History of Magic.
“Do somethinggggg,” Ron whines pathetically after an abysmally boring hour that felt more like ten.
“You’ve gotta talk to her,” Harry agrees desperately, underlining the gravity of the situation.
“I said what I meant, and I was right to,” Merlin replies stubbornly.
“We can’t go on like this!” Ron begs. “Arthur, tell Em to fix it.”
“I learned a long time ago never to get between Em and a brilliant woman. Besides, he’s right. She needs to come to her own conclusions, Ron.”
“Her own conclusions are stupid!”
“And yet they’re hers,” Merlin says finally, and that’s not a tone you argue with.
The next few days are miserable. Hermione avoids them all with single-minded determination. Arthur starts snapping at people, and forgets to check his strength more, resulting in a few accidental bruises as he slams into shoulders and steps on toes. Em’s no fun anymore, and he glares more than he smiles. Every now and then frustrated red and gold sparks fly out of Harry’s wand, singeing his wild hair. Ron’s prone to random outbursts, still convinced that Em could just fix it already but won’t. Harry and Ron both having detentions for their untraditional arrival at school puts them in an even fouler mood, Ron more often than not covered in polish from shining trophies and Harry spiralling from every second he has to spend answering fanmail with Lockhart, who requested him specially. Both boys think they have it worse than the other.
Hermione doesn’t say a word except to answer questions in class or sniff disdainfully. She lives in her books, most of them Lockhart’s, and shows off twice as hard as if to make up for something, particularly around Em.
It all comes to a head on Thursday. Harry stays after class to serve his detention, but Hermione and Merlin are made to as well, having not had the chance since they were called out in the first one and then promptly overrun by pixies.
“You just wait here then, Harry, won’t be a tick. Come on now, you pair,” Lockhart hums, leading the other two out. Hermione sniffs and marches out after him without looking at Em, who grimaces and follows much more reluctantly.
He leads them off to a nearby classroom, empty for the day, with a table set up in the centre and most of the lights off. Well, at least they won’t be doing whatever they’re doing under the doleful gaze of the Zouwu and the beaming grins of all those stupid bloody Lockharts.
The real thing spins tightly on his heels in something resembling a pirouette and claps his manicured hands together, leaning against the table and looking at Hermione with a conspiratorial wink. She ducks her head shyly and Merlin tries not to throw up in his mouth.
“So! I brought you two aside for a few reasons. I don’t normally impart this insider knowledge to my students, but I think it’ll benefit you to know that you are currently my best and worst students. Miss Granger,” he soothes, tilting his head in her direction dotingly. “You are a star. Full marks on all my tests. I can’t throw anything at you you can’t catch! And from what I hear, I’m not the only one. You’re absolutely brilliant, my dear, there’s no denying. You remind me of me when I was your age- fierce, intelligent–”
“Where is this going?” Merlin snaps waspishly, mentally dissecting Lockhart with relish. Hermione glares hotly at him as much as she can in her terribly flustered state.
“Ah. And then we have you, Mr. Emrys,” Lockhart continues with forced cheeriness. “You’ve made it very clear that not only do you not excel in my class; you don’t want to try. I can’t help but feel as if somewhere along the line I’ve led you astray. Don’t- haha, nice try- don’t try to deny it. I can read all the signs. Try as you might to hide it, I know you have something against me personally. Is it, perhaps, as the case has been many a time, that a lover left you to chase my legend? Young love can be fickle. Someone you knew and loved, perhaps, that was infatuated with me to a harmful degree? It’s understandable, it’s not uncommon at all my boy, so don’t be shy–”
“It’s much simpler than that,” Merlin interrupts with solid, unyielding steel lining his voice with devastating strength. “You disgust me.”
Lockhart stops short. His bouncy little hair wave wilts a little with the corners of his mouth. He chuckles weakly. Merlin doesn’t budge.
“You could show some respect!” Hermione bristles, puffing up like a cat, hands curled into fists.
“You’re sweet, Miss Granger. This is why I knew you’d be perfect for this little job,” Lockhart assures her, scooping up his bearings with practiced ease. “I have to work with Harry tonight, lots of fans to write to, you know, and I don’t want a single one of them to feel left out! But I don’t think Mr. Emrys needs my company right now anyway. I know just what he needs. Since I became a teacher I’ve developed a sort of knack for knowing these things, but I’ve always known how to read people. What Mr. Emrys needs, Miss Granger, is your expert tutelage.”
Merlin’s face goes slack and he crosses his arms. Hermione gasps.
“M-me? My–? ”
“You are just the witch to do it. I have the utmost confidence in you,” Lockhart says with a wink. He brushes out the door again and then they’re alone, Hermione making little indignant scoffing noises and Merlin glaring daggers at the door as if to burn it with his gaze.
Merlin moves first, rounding the table and flumping down in a seat with a heavy THUD.
“ YOU don’t need MY tutelage!” Hermione all but shrieks. “ TUTELAGE!”
“Really? I thought you were the Lockhart expert.”
“Don’t be nasty,” Hermione spits venomously. “After all he’s done– “
“All he says he’s done,” Merlin corrects.
“What?”
Merlin slams his book closed and spins to face her seriously.
“Yetis aren’t capable of human speech. The only subsect that is lives in Alaska, not the Himalayas. Werewolves aren’t savages by principle, and their instincts are animalistic, not malicious, under the full moon. They don’t corner people in telephone booths. The cry of the Banshee isn’t of a frequency audible to the human ear. He’s a fraud , Hermione.”
Hermione blinks. She takes a step back as if struck, and then one forward, puffing her chest out and gathering her ire.
“And I suppose you know better than our teacher?” she challenges.
“This isn’t about me, but you of all people know age has nothing to do with brains. I’m not smarter than anyone else, I just bothered to check. You could’ve done it just as easily, but you didn’t. Because he has a pretty smile ,” Merlin mocks cruelly.
“YOU’RE JUST JEALOUS!” she screams.
Merlin reels, taken aback. His brow softens in confusion.
“What?”
Hermione stares into his eyes and she must find something horrible. She gasps into her hands brokenly. Then she turns on her heels and runs, Merlin yelling after her.