Chapter 485: Merlin - Part 1
Nicholas’s footsteps echoed softly against the flagstones. The castle walls rose familiar on either side, their stones worn smooth by centuries of passing hands and feet. He’d walked these halls before, once as a boy with nothing but a satchel, a borrowed name and a face of an orphan.
At the time, there was no Sorting Hat. The Founders chose their students themselves, sitting them down for questions sharper than any written test. It wasn’t the Hogwarts people now imagined, there were no long queues of first-years in neat lines, no songs about houses. It was a fortress that doubled as a school, and only those the Founders personally deemed worth teaching were allowed through the gates.
The wars had emptied half the countryside then, leaving villages with more crows than people. Families broke apart, some hiding, some dead, some just gone. A boy turning up at a castle door alone wasn’t unusual. Nobody stared at him in pity. An orphan wizard was already better off than a whole family wiped out.
He sat on the low stool in front of them, the four of them seated behind a heavy table that looked like it had been carved straight from the castle itself. To a boy’s frame, they seemed impossibly tall, and that was before you counted the weight of their presence.
It was a trick he’d learned from his sponsor, magic that pulled his body back to the years of boyhood. The name he carried now was false, but the face was his own, one he hadn’t worn in centuries.
The red-haired man leaned forward, eyes fixed on him. "Your name?"
Nicholas hesitated before meeting his gaze. "M-Merlin, sir. I was told this is where wizards learn. I want to learn."
After the interview, they placed him in Salazar Slytherin’s house, a choice that, on paper, was meant for those with ambition and cunning. Blunt questioning, skimming surface memories, and judging whatever expression happened to be on your face as truth... Logical enough, he supposed, the Founders didn’t bother imagining an adult would disguise himself as a child to get past their wards.
Those wards had given him more trouble than he’d like to admit. They’d been layered so tightly that even for him, slipping through had taken planning. No one else could have managed it.
"This is your house from now on, Merlin," Salazar said, giving him a pat on the head as they stepped into the common room. Merlin kept his face still, but the gesture grated.
A handful of students were scattered about, some reading by the fire, others murmuring over parchment. From the wall on his right, something tugged at his attention. He didn’t turn to look directly. The runes and wards were thick enough to taste in the air, woven to hide whatever lay behind them. If he looked too long, Salazar would know.
The years that followed were, by most measures, enjoyable. Salazar took him on as a personal pupil before long, which suited his plan. The closer he was to the man, the more doors opened. He became a fixture in the house, trusted to move through spaces most students didn’t even know existed.
He played the role well enough that even the other three Founders took notice. Godric tested his duelling until they both had the sweat pouring, and Rowena quizzed him on magical theory for hours, trying to catch him short. Helga fed him more than he could eat and roped him into helping with her endless experiments in brewing. Each of them found something about him worth the time.
But he hadn’t come to Hogwarts just to sit exams or play the dutiful pupil. There were two reasons he’d taken on the mask of a child again, and neither of them was simple.
The first was a witch. Not just any witch, but her, Time’s Champion. A trickster who slipped through centuries as easily as others crossed a room. No one ever caught her. How could they? You couldn’t trap someone who could vanish into yesterday before your spell even left your wand. Still, Nicholas had learned long ago that inevitability was an illusion. She would appear here, at this castle, eventually. He didn’t know the year, or the hour, but Hogwarts was a fixed point for her, and sooner or later she would walk its halls. He meant to be waiting.
The second reason was legacy. Survival wasn’t enough anymore. He had lived long, longer than most could dream, and seen how easily memory turned great names into half-forgotten stories. He wanted more than whispers on parchment. He wanted a legend strong enough to matter when the final reckoning came. For that, Hogwarts was the perfect stage.
On his seventieth year inside those walls, war broke out.
The Muggles had grown bold, their weapons sharper than the wands of many frightened young wizards. Villages burned. Entire families vanished. Wizards who once scoffed at the thought of defeat found themselves hiding like hunted game.
It wasn’t a question of pride anymore. It was survival.
When the war grew sharper, Nicholas turned from student to soldier without anyone noticing the seam. Wizards and witches, too few and too desperate, clung to any hope that could buy them another day. He gave them hope in the form of victories, small but sharp. Ambushes where Muggle knights found their armour useless. Camps saved from fire. Messengers who reached their destinations because he knew the right rune to cloak them.
By then, the four Founders spoke of him differently. Not just "Merlin, the boy," but "Merlin, the one who can turn the tide." Salazar whispered of him with pride, Rowena argued with him as if he were her peer, Helga set him to healing men twice his size, and Godric clapped him on the back after each skirmish, calling him comrade.
Nicholas accepted it all with a smile. Let them believe the child they’d taken in had grown into a genius warrior. That was part of the plan. The longer they believed, the stronger the story became.
He remembered one night, smoke still rising on the horizon from a raid turned back. Godric had leaned on his sword, sweat matting his hair. "Merlin, if half the lads fight like you, we’d have this war ended by week’s end."
And the men who overheard carried that tale like gospel. The boy called Merlin had wit as sharp as his wand.
That was how legends grew. Not by truth, but by retelling.
***
Merlin stood beside Arthur Pendragon, their shoulders level. Both were young men in their prime, mid-twenties, clad in the simple trappings of warriors rather than kings or legends. Behind them, the Founders of Hogwarts stood in a loose line, each wearing expressions that ranged from stern to outright displeased. None of them tried to hide it.
The open field stretched wide before them, dotted with soldiers and banners, the air thick with smoke from torches and campfires. The clash between Muggle kings and wizard lords had dragged on for months, and today was meant to be different. Today Arthur made his claim.
Arthur raised his sword high, voice carrying clear over the field.
"Today, I, Arthur Pendragon, claim this land not for Muggle or wizard alone, but for all who live upon it. No man shall be divided by blood or magic. This kingdom will hold both."
Murmurs rippled through the gathered men. Some nodded, some scowled, but all listened. The Founders did not move.
Merlin watched the man at his side speak with a confidence most kings never mastered. It had taken months to push Arthur here, months of counsel, victories, losses, and late-night talks by firelight.
That night, Salazar pulled him aside. The others had gone to their tents, the camp grown quiet but for the shifting of horses and the occasional cough from the watch.