8TH SEPTEMBER 1994 - 9:30 AM

Evie woke up with a start as she felt someone shaking her and realised that she'd fallen asleep in the common room. The person who woke her was Hannah Abbot. "Hey, um, I don't know if. you want this, but breakfast is nearly finished and Meera told me what you like to have in the morning, so I brought this over."

Evie smiled at the younger girl. "Thanks."

"So...what are you reading?" Hannah asked as Evie sat up.

The fifth year had come back to the common room with many library books last night. It had been a pain to persuade Madam Pince to get them for her, but she somehow managed to do so in the end. They were all related to History of Magic, specifically, Camelot and Emrys or Merlin or the Druid King. She'd found a very small extract about his Queen as well, sadly she had been executed by Uther, a horrible tyrant who detested magic. It hinted in many of the books that perhaps Merlin still roams around today searching for ways to reawaken Arthur and defeat his foe for once and for all.

"Oh, it's just extra research for History of Magic. I'm looking to get some extra credits in History of Magic, Herbology and Muggle Studies to compensate for the credits I lose in Potions and Transfiguration...although if I didn't pick fights with McGonnegal she probably wouldn't be so harsh with my grading." Evie mused.

Hannah laughed. "That's probably true...exactly how did it start?"

"I swore, she didn't like it. I continued to swear. she still doesn't like it." Evie shrugged. "Hey, do you have any ideas on how to persuade someone to reveal the truth?"

"Well, there's always veritaserum, but you're not getting any of that, from Snape." she shrugged. "Why?"

"No particular reason." Evie shrugged returning to consult her books.

She frowned when she felt something move in her lap. A black and white cat, emerged from under her book stretching itself out on top of it.

The cat purred in as Evie stroked it behind its ears. Soon enough, she jumped off and ran over to her owner.

"Sorry about that, she likes to run around a lot." Cedric told her as he picked his cat up. The cat resisted initially but then allowed the boy to pick her up abd cradle her.

"That's fine. To be honest I prefer your cat's company to yours." Evie replied.

Cedric rolled his eyes and left. "Right, of course." 

Evie continued flicking through the pages and mulling over what she'd read as she chewed on the toast. Cedric returned from his dormitory now in his school robes. 

"Where are you going all dressed up?" Evie asked.

"Prefect duty runs through weekends as well. I also have to talk to a few teachers about some work." Cedric shrugged seating himself opposite Evie and pinching a hash brown. He noticed the Hufflepuff girl's glare. "Do you mind?"

"I do." Evie replied tartly pulling her plate closer to her. She held the book in her lap in a tight grip, to try and stop it from slipping. Cedric twisted his head with a puzzled frown. "What?"

"Is that Sir Cadogan?" he asked. Evie sat down and stared at the page for a moment. She noticed the small paragraph next to the large drawing of a short squat knight on a rather fat pony. 

Sir Cadogan was one of the famous Knights of the Round Table, albeit a little known one, considering he was excised from many Muggle Volumes of the tale, due to his magical backgrounds. It is widely believe that he achieved this position through his friendship with Merlin. He was just as brave as the other knights Sir Lancelot, Sir Bedivere or Sir Leon, although his bravery had no limit at times. If you take this into account with his hot-headed and peppery personality, you can imagine a number of times where he has taken rather foolhardy actions (details of such accounts are on the next page). All in all he was a good man at heart, and a dear friend to Merlin, fighting with his very last breath for the freeing of magic.

"Diggory you're a genius!" Evie exclaimed grinning. "This is what I was looking for all night! You can have the rest of my breakfast, I've got to go."

Before the boy could say anything the younger girl had started to make her way to her dormitory. "Thanks I guess." he called after her, utterly bemused by her actions.

She quickly got changed into new clothes after freshening up and bolted out of the Hufflepuff basement within five minutes. By the time she made her way up the many flights of steps to reach the north tower she was walking up the steps slowly holding tightly onto the railing with one hand and onto a stitch that formed with another. She really had not thought the process of running up seven flights of stairs through, and in her excitement and fallen prey to a number of trick steps. She was about to turn the corner to approach the portrait but paused when she heard voices. 

"Ah, it is good to see ya, old friend." she heard a voice say.

"Yes...you too, Cadogan." a fairly familiar voice replied. She tiptoed quietly and then a thought sprung to her mind...Harris had a secret middle name...that starts with 'M'...what if it's Merlin.

She grinned and then said with utmost casualness. "Hey, Merlin."

"Yeah?" Harris turned. Evie's grin grew and the Slytherin froze clapping a hand over his mouth. Sir Cadogan looked between the two with a surprised expression. "You know of his great secret too, young lady?"

"Yes...I know that he is Merlin, but what I want to know is what he is doing here in Hogwarts...you probably know all about magic...how did you fail Divination?" Evie asked.

"I am not an ancient sorcerer Evie, Merlin's my middle name." Harris lied...it was obviously a lie, cause he knew he'd been caught red handed, she could see the nervousness in his face. His ears going pink.

"Who responds to their middle name so quickly?" Evie asked sceptically.

"My mother called me that." he defended.

Evie knew this was true as she saw the brief flickered across his face.

"Birth mother." Evie said.

"No...adoptive." he lied.

"Why do you lie? I am merely a painting now...I can't help you...tell this young girl about your journeys..." Sir Cadogan suggested.

"I already know quite a few of them...that's the stories you tell me...the legends. They are your stories. Oh my God! That's why you said Camelot instead of Hogwarts at the Quidditch World Cup when you saw the stadium! You lived with Arthur, Uther, Morgana." Evie added. "And he calls you that!"

"He's got some brain problems, he's old." Harris...or Merlin, lied, her circled his finger around his ear in a he's nuts gesture.

"How dare you?!" Sir Cadogan fumed. "You indignant little priss, you insult an old friend!"

"Paintings don't get ill, unless they are physically damaged like the Fat Lady was." Evie said dryly. "I know this for a fact, because I go to a club, that teaches me to paint these kind of paintings and draw magical pictures."

"My name is Harris Smithson." He repeated adamantly.

"Alright okay, my bad." Evie said, she turned and began to walk away. She then added almost nonchalantly. "Meera had another nightmare by the way." 

"Wait, what?" 

"Yeah, she woke up screaming last night. Madam Pomfrey's strongest sleeping draught didn't work." Evie replied, she kept walking on."

"Tell me more...did she tell you what happened? How many has she had? Evie slow down!" Harris exclaimed jogging to catchup with her.

"I'll tell you more when you're ready to admit that you're name is Merlin." Evie replied. 

"Evie..." Harris began

"Don't Evie me, Merlin." the blonde girl cut off.

"Ok, ok fine!" He exclaimed. He looked around warily and exhaled deeply. "My name is Merlin. I was King Arthur's companion and my quest was to bring magic back to Albion. Hogwarts was actually one of the ways I did that. I helped the founders find students for this school, so that people with magic can have a safe haven. A haven that did not exist back in my day, leading to the death and misguidance of many young wizards and witches." 

"There...that wasn't so hard was it." Evie said calmly. "Goodbye, Merlin!" 

She walked away waving at him. 

"What about our deal?" Merlin shouted after her.

"Why hear a second hand account, when you can hear it from the lady herself?" Evie grinned. She then skipped down the stairs, feeling rather proud with her discovery. She was friends with Merlin . The greatest sorcerer of all time...more importantly, he chose to go to her for help. That day in Diagon Alley he had told her, he wanted to be friends with her...he actively sought it out, and that made Evie feel...honoured to say the least. She wondered what about her made him trust her so freely. Either way, she knew he will find her sooner or later and began thinking about ways to convince Meera to tell the boy she knew as Harris about her nightmare and more importantly, if she should tell her about Harris' true identity.

Little did they know a little shit had eavesdropped on the whole conversation.

------***------

Over the past two weeks Meera noticed a slight change in between Evie and Harris' behaviour for some strange. Meera had noticed how they  paused their whispered discussions when she arrived. It was as though the awkwardness that had surfaced between them in the Hogwarts Express had magically returned for some reason. What was suspicious though, is the fact that the pair were fine around Cedric and didn't care about how blatantly obvious the prying actions of the Hufflepuff boy was...at times Meera had  snapped her fingers in his face to stop him from gawking at them. Whenever, she came around however, they stopped and tried to pretend as though they weren't pouring over the same book.

Evie had stopped spending as much time with Meera as she'd used to claiming O.W.L.S kept her busy. While this was a reasonable excuse, it was most definitely a lie as she often caught her doing extracurricular reading with Harris. Evie had become more and more distant ever since the meeting with Dumbledore; last week the Hufflepuff girl had been strangely apologetic dedicating a drawing to her. Meera was very flattered and wondered why her friend felt the need to apology to such a great extent.

Meanwhile she herself had been kept busy with OWLs and the dream diary Trelawny insisted on. After she'd written about the dream, she hadn't had it again and most of her dreams had returned to normal. She just saw flashes of herself in strange circumstances within school, the strange thing being a muggle celebrity popping up in Hogwarts. Despite this Trelawny continued to insist that she's a seer and Meera was forced to listen to her drone on about how she must 'cast aside' her scepticism and embrace her 'true nature'.

She and Evie had planned to meet up at Hogsmede to dress shop. Evie had said she'd meet her in the town rather than in Hogwarts, as she had a few plans with someone else (that someone else obviously being Harris).

Currently, Evie was trying to get her to try on a dress that was peach in colour. Padma Patil who had joined them mid-shopping loved everything about it. Meera on the other hand kinda hated it. She really didn't like the flamingo coloured thing which was far too constricting and faffy for her taste. Meera just didn't feel right in the dress. Evie understood this and immediately started to look for a different dress. She rejected the black ones saying that this night was about fun and black was far too emo.

Because Padma had loved it so much Meera had passed it to her after she'd somehow wormed her way out of it.

Eventually, Evie had grown annoyed of Meera rejecting everything they picked out. She didn't mean to be picky but she just didn't want to end up with a dress that she'd end up hating by the time she has to wear it.

Thankfully, Evie had found a dress that she loves it. It was faded forest green with long sheer sleeves and embroidery of flowers. There were leaves on the shoulders and ends of the sleeve. There was a dark green ribbon that tie around the midriff and it was a leafy green colour. Evie looked perfect in her dress and if anyone dared say otherwise, they'd be getting a piece of Meera's mind (that piece being a fist in their face).

Thankfully, Evie didn't complain too much about Meera not having a dress as she understood why the Ravenclaw was so picky. Meera didn't wear dresses very much at all and had never ever worn any kind of western dresses so she didn't know what to expect before she tried them on.

"I'll let you slide this once. But next time we're getting you a dress." Evie declared. Meera nodded.

For a little while Evie and Meera said nothing, but Evie noticed the taller girl's coy grin. "What?"

"You and Harris are together, aren't you?" Meera asked her.

"What no!" Evie exclaimed.

"Oh, please a blind man could see you are dating that's how obvious you are." Meera snorted.

"It's not what you think Meera...in fact we have a lot to talk about." Evie said. "I told Harris about your nightmares...well showed him your dream diary actually.."

"What?" Meera asked. "My diary...Evie!"

"Don't be angry with her Meera. She was looking out for you...in fact I'm to blame I was the one who put her in this position. We have a lot to talk about right now." Harris said.

"Like what?" Meera asked. "No offense Harris but my nightmares are none of your business."

On the contrary...they must be discussed because they're not figments of your imagination. How about we start with this...I am Merlin and you are a seer. That's a good place go start right?" Harris asked looking down at Evie.

Evie nodded.

Meera looked at the pair with utter confusion...Evie simply shrugged.

Harris expression was graver than ever and so Meera nodded and let them lead her away. For the first time she wasn't really sure if she could believe what these two were saying. Perhaps they were joking...perhaps their just pulling a prank...

Little did she know what comes next is anything but a joke...lives could depend on it.