“Erm, hi, Dad,” Ted replied, nervously flicking his fringe of his face. He was not used to getting in trouble” having known Haley and Emma for years, he was mostly just used to trying to prevent trouble from happening. But what he had done that afternoon was so completely unlike him that he didn’t know what sort of treatment to expect.
“Well, Professor Zabini agrees with me that it’s ridiculous to give you a detention, but Hermione thinks it’s for the best,” said Lupin, sitting down at his desk. “So that’s why you’re here, and you’re my only victim today, so I won’t have to keep up any stern, teacherly pretenses.”
“You mean you’re not mad at me?” Ted spluttered.
Lupin laughed. “Of course not,” he said. “What happened in the hall today wasn’t your fault.”
Ted felt like hunting around for a cue tip to clean out his ear. He couldn’t have heard that correctly. “Dad,” he said, disbelief evident on his face, “it was definitely my fault. I’m not surprised Charybdis broke her wand”I’d probably step on mine, too, if someone randomly went up and growled in my face like that.” His bony shoulders slumped. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately. Just little things sort of set me off. I mean, I’m not usually like that.”
“Don’t worry,” the Professor said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I was expecting something like this to happen sometime soon.”
Ted squinted. “What do you mean?”
“Well,” sighed Lupin, “This is quite a long explanation that I should have given you before, but I never really got around to it.” He shifted uncomfortably. “I guess I always tried to believe what the experts have been saying for centuries”that it’s all nurture, not nature, and that it wouldn’t apply to you because you’re just you...”
Ted’s forehead wrinkled. “Er, Dad… I’m not following this.”
His father sighed again. “I’m sorry. I just don’t know how to say this. Now, I have to tell you”this is not scientifically proven at all. It’s just a theory about certain… behaviors… that most wizards have just dismissed as something preventable.”
This sounded worse than the diabetes talk. “Go on,” said Ted, noticing that his voice was shaking slightly.
“You know, wolf cubs are fairly sweet and playful, like puppies. It’s when they mature that they get to be more dangerous. You’ve been a werewolf for a bit over two years, and it’s always been easy for you to control yourself, right?”
“Er, yeah…”
“But you’ll come of age in June,” he continued, “and now that you’re almost a man, the wolf is maturing and becoming more dominant as well.”
Ted blinked several times, trying to make sense of this. “You mean that since I’m almost of age, the wolf is kind of showing up even when it’s not a full moon? But it’ll stop when I turn seventeen?”
“No,” Lupin said quietly. “No, it’s just starting. There’s a reason why wizards come of age at seventeen. You’ve probably heard this so many times before, but on a wizard’s seventeenth birthday, he comes to his true magical potential. That doesn’t just mean casting spells. It also applies to… special situations. Believe me, you’re not the only person at this school who’s come to me for this reason. For example, your mother couldn’t completely control her metamorphing skills until she turned seventeen. The same goes for vampires. And… Seers…” He coughed slightly for some unapparent reason. “And werewolves turn more wolfish once we turn seventeen. In the six or so months before your seventeenth birthday… things start to change.”
He smiled a bit sadly. “Take it from somebody who should know. Once you’re seventeen, your senses and instincts start to sharpen like they do right before a transformation, and it’s not unusual to get more aggressive and territorial, especially around the full moon. Tomorrow’s a full moon, that’s probably why you lost control in the corridor.”
Ted’s mouth hung open. This could not possibly apply to him. And there was no way something like this could be permanent. He would be like this”no, worse than this, as he wouldn’t even turn seventeen until June”for the rest of his life? No wonder he’d always been so much more comfortable with his ‘condition’ than any other werewolf he’d met. It was because until right then, he’d never known what it meant to be a werewolf, not really. It was certainly a lot more than just getting a little fuzzier each full moon. From what he was hearing, it was a lifestyle.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Ted asked quietly. “What if I really hurt someone because I didn’t know what was going on?”
Lupin looked extremely tired. “Like I said, it isn’t proven, and I assumed that you wouldn’t be… all right, Ted, I’ll be honest with you. I wanted you to be able to be a normal teenager. I didn’t want to consider that that would change. And I didn’t want to scare you, either, especially if you didn’t have any trouble at all.”
“Being a werewolf is taking over my life,” Ted mumbled
“What?”
Ted chewed his lip, trying to think of the right words to describe how he felt. “It’s like… everything I do has something to do with being a werewolf. Like, when I helped stop Malfoy, I was a wolf. Half of everything that happened to me last year was ‘cause I’m a werewolf, like how I got to know Arden and the stuff with me and Ivy and her becoming an Animagus for me, and going to catch Tancred Apple. And this year… well, Mrs. Malfoy hates me because of the whole part-human thing, and… now all of this, and it’s like I don’t even get to be me anymore.”
He drew in his shoulders. “The thing is, I really am sick of always being sore and sleepy, and looking like I just crawled out of some grave or something.” He paused and looked up at his father, and his blue eyes were round and sad. “Dad,” he said softly, “I don’t want to be a werewolf.”
“Neither do I,” said Professor Lupin, his matter-of-fact manner spoiled by the catch in his voice. “And I would probably give literally anything to see that you weren’t one, either. I don’t like to talk about this sort of thing, but you have no idea how I felt when I learned you had to suffer everything I’ve had to go through. I just wanted you and your brother and sister to grow up normally without having to worry about all of that.”
Ted rested his chin on his hand. “How do I control myself?” he asked. “I really don’t want to hurt anybody.”
“Well, it seems like there are two camps”werewolves who turn their anger outward to the world, and those who turn it inward toward themselves. Most teenage werewolves don’t even notice the changes,” his father told him, sounding as though he was teaching a Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson on werewolves. It was actually kind of funny, like a cheesy Human Growth and Development video from the eighties where the wise teacher has a talk with the frightened and confused adolescent.
“I don’t need to tell you that puberty’s a big enough change as it is, and teenagers are usually already irritable enough that they can’t even tell that there’s anything else going on. But you’re different, and you’ve always been observant, too. If you just use common sense, you’ll be all right. You know better than to hurt anyone.”
But as comforting as these words were, Ted wasn’t sure that they were true. There hadn’t been time for common sense when he had shoved Charybdis against the wall and growled in her face. It had just sort of… happened. He had no difficulty whatsoever being a monster, and that scared him. But he wasn’t exactly eager to explain that to his father.
“You do have an advantage, though,” Professor Lupin said. “You were fourteen when you were bitten, not a little boy like I was. You grew up thinking of yourself as a person, not a freak, and I think the most important thing is, you kept your healthy attitude even after you were attacked. It should be much easier for you to deal with all of this than for those who were bitten when they were small.”
This sounded hopeful. Ted’s father had never seemed particularly wolfish, and he certainly was not aggressive, and now his father was saying that Ted had an advantage over him.
“When I was almost seventeen, Sirius tried to read out loud a poem that I wrote about a girl named Alexandria Cromwell who I used to like,” said Professor Lupin, smiling reminiscently. “Normally, I’d just sit there feeling sorry for myself while I watched him make a fool out of me, but that day, I just snapped and I dive-bombed him right there in the Great Hall and… well, I beat him up. He was so stunned, he didn’t even try to fight back.”
Ted had to laugh. He couldn’t imagine his mild-mannered father fighting anyone, let alone someone who was as much bigger and stronger than him as Sirius Black.
“I still can’t believe I did that,” chuckled Professor Lupin, “but once you get used to the wolf side of your personality, it’s much easier to control.” He paused in thought, trying to think up a comparison his son could understand.
“Remember your first transformation, when you first felt like a wolf, but you were able to handle it after you reminded yourself who you are? That’s what this is like. You just have to tell yourself who’s boss.”
“So you’re saying,” the boy said slowly, “that it’s not like I’m turning into a wolf, it’s just that the wolf that was already there is acting up a little more than before?”
Lupin nodded. “Yes,” he affirmed. “You’re not any less of a person than you were before. You’re just more of a wolf. That’s extremely important, Ted.” His eyes turned serious.
“It’s a difficult balance to maintain. Some werewolves even lose their human side almost altogether because the wolf part of them is so strong that they just give into it. They start to hate all humans, and let their aggressiveness overtake their human intelligence and better judgment. They’re feral werewolves, like Fenrir Greyback was. And then, there are the werewolves who are so good at suppressing their anger that they simply turn it to sadness and self-loathing because they hate who they are and what their condition has done to them. They’re lucky because they can be useful to society and sometimes even stay undiscovered, but they’re unlucky because they just slip into deeper and deeper depression all of their lives. And the unluckiest of these werewolves… will die young, helpless, and alone.”
His eyes were shining with tears, and Ted had to look away. His father rarely spoke to him about this sort of thing, and it was really strange watching him get emotional like this.
“Is there a door number three?” Ted asked gently.
His father blinked. “Excuse me?”
“You know, a third choice? Other than turning into a rabid maniac or a miserable loner?”
He thought suddenly of Arden DuBois, who must have been nearing her seventeenth birthday herself. She was just beginning to gain confidence in herself as a werewolf, while he’d never been lacking in it in the first place. But now, he felt unsure of himself all of a sudden. He couldn’t help but wonder how Arden was coping with all of this.
Lupin smiled sadly. “I’ve never heard of a werewolf who isn’t one of the two to some degree, not really. But it honestly would not surprise me if you’re the first one to lead a completely normal life.”
“Hey well, what about you?” asked Ted. “You live a normal life!”
“I have a fantastic job and a wonderful family, yes,” said his father, his smile fading away slowly. “But too many horrible things have happened to me in the past to let me be a normal person. You’re special, though.”
Ted grinned sheepishly. “I’m just a regular guy,” he insisted.
“Exactly,” said Professor Lupin. “You’re a happy, well-adjusted person. That’s unusual enough among teenagers as it is, let alone werewolves. But you also have so many gifts- even if you don’t always turn in your Defense Against the Dark Arts homework on time. You understand feelings far better than most people”according to your sister, she wishes more men had that talent”and you’ve shown kindness and understanding beyond your years. A little bit of extra aggressiveness shouldn’t make you dangerous, not by a long shot.”
Ted looked down at his hands, rough and chapped with blue veins visible in his skinny wrists. Very improbably, seeing as he was around six-and-a-half feet tall, he felt very small.
“This is so weird,” he remarked in a voice that was as tiny as he felt. “I mean, I usually just go with the flow… I don’t mind change. But if I’m changing enough to hurt people… I mean, that’s scary.”
His father met his eyes. “You know,” he mentioned offhandedly, “it’s a proven fact that werewolves are supposed to be very romantic.” He tried to sound serious, but there was a distinct underlying humour in his voice. “Wolves mate for life, after all. And by the way, wolves are extremely loyal”we care a lot about protecting… well, sometimes when I’m not really thinking, I can’t help but think about protecting my pack. That’s what you were doing when you cornered Charybdis Nott, wasn’t it? Protecting Ivy?”
The boy nodded, relieved that he was not the only one whose mind worked that way. It was good to know someone who had been through what he was going through now, even if it was weird that it was his father.
“I don’t think your friends have anything to worry about,” Lupin concluded warmly, “and neither do you. You’ll be able to keep it under control.”
Ted smiled, and it was sincere. His father was usually a pessimist who saw his own lycanthropy as a curse, and he himself was usually ‘Mr. Sunny-Side Up,’ as Emma called him. If Remus Lupin thought his son could handle the onset of wolfhood alongside the onset of manhood, then things were sure to be fine.
He picked up his quill and dipped it in a pot of ink. “So, Professor,” he said brightly, “what lines should I write?”
“Self-transfiguration is the coolest thing I’ve ever done in school!” exclaimed Haley, who now sported extremely long cascades of curly blonde hair. “I mean, it’s kind of hard, but it’s awesome once you get used to it, don’t you think?”
“Fwahahahahaha!” replied Emma, who suddenly had some fairly lethal-looking fangs as she lunged across the desk.
Haley blinked. “I guess I’ll take that as a yes?” She shook back her newly blonde locks. Although she liked her own straight black hair, she’d always wondered what she’d look like with fairytale princess hair. Now she knew, and she had to say she liked the effect.
“You actually look kind of good with long blonde ringlets,” Emma commented around her fangs, with an appreciative nod. “A lot better than Capshaw does, anyway. It really makes your eyes stand out.”
“You really think so?” asked Haley, batting her eyelashes to emphasize her eyes, although she wasn’t sure she wanted her fashion sense admired by someone who had chosen to transfigure her lovely straight teeth into fangs. “Dahhhhling, you are too, too kind.”
Emma looked at her, cocked her head to the side, looked over at Jordan, then back at Haley. “You know,” she remarked, “I don’t think it’s just the hair, actually. I’ve never notice it before, but you and the evil twin don’t have the same eyes.”
“Yeeeeeah,” said Haley, furrowing her forehead in the futile attempt to raise one eyebrow. “My eyes are in my head, and Jor-jums’s eyes are in his head.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Emma told her. “His are way darker. I always just thought yours were the same because your dad’s got green eyes, too, but”” She trailed off when she noticed the unusual stream of objects being flung onto her desk.
First, a paper airplane made out of a failed essay. Next, a green eraser that smelled like pears, bearing the insignia, “ERASER MART.” Then an ancient tuna fish sandwich in a Ziploc bag, sprouting fuzzy mould. Next, a boy’s muddy and sweaty sneaker, size 11¾. Then a Peter Pan snow globe.
“What the…?” she exclaimed, whipping around to see what had caused this shower of strange and disgusting items.
Behind her, Tyrone Thomas was lounging casually, his feet (one of which was bare) propped up on top of his desk and his customary grin plastered across his face. He gave Emma a strange little wave, wiggling the six fingers he suddenly had on one hand. “Hey, Ems! Love the fangs!” he said brightly. “Check it out, I’m the six-fingered man!”
Emma snorted. “Nice,” she said, nodding appreciatively at his piece of magical handiwork. (Ha, ha. Hand-iwork. Get it?) “Why six fingers, though?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” smirked Tyrone. “It’s like Count Tyrone Rugen, the super-evil six-fingered man from The Princess Bride?”
“Count who from the what?”
The boy recoiled in horrified shock as though Emma had just informed him that she was hungry for some puppies. “The Princess Bride,” he said in a low, mystical whisper, “is the greatest film in the history of the world. You can’t… you can’t call yourself human if you haven’t seen it.”
When he saw Emma’s blank face, he sighed. “I keep forgetting that not many wizard people watch films. My dad’s Muggle-born, so we watch a lot of them… yeah, I’m a total geek about that kind of thing.”
“And pretty much everything else.”
Tyrone wagged an angry finger at her. His sixth one, to be precise. “Hey,” he admonished, “fantastically gorgeous people have feelings, too, you know.” He shook his head slowly. “Tonight, you and me are going to the Room of Requirement, and we’re going to watch The Princess Bride. Together. Period. There’s no way to get out of it, so don’t even try. I mean, death’s no excuse for missing it… I’ll just, like, lug your stinking corpse in and prop it up or something. Dunno.”
He was babbling now. Emma gave him a half-smile. “Well, since you asked so politely,” she shrugged. She fiddled with her hair, pulling up into a ponytail away from her face and securing it with the shoelace from the sneaker that Tyrone had thrown onto her desk.
“Once condition, though”after the movie, we’re going flying again. And if I don’t like the movie”and I’m pretty sure it’s going to stink worse than your shoe here with a sappy name like The Princess Bride. ”then you have to come to Hogsmeade with me tomorrow to make up for it so we’ll at least get to do something cool.”
“Deal,” agreed Tyrone. “Only if you do like the movie”and there’s no way you won’t unless you’re a idiot or an android with no heart”then we’re one-brooming it.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “That means we’re going to share that new broom I helped buy for you for Christmas, and I get to steer. After all, I paid. I deserve to try it out. And we’re going clear through the Forbidden Forest.”
“Deal,” Emma told him, putting on her game face, and they spat on their palms and bumped fists in mutual agreement.
At the same time, Jordan looked up from the essay he was writing, his forehead puckered in a characteristically serious frown. It wasn’t just because of the shockingly unhygienic saliva coated fist-bump that had just occurred. There was no way in the world he was letting Tyrone and Emma back into the Forbidden Forest. He’d seen in his dream clear as day that his cousin would die in the forest, and he had absolutely no desire for it to happen that night. He saw it replaying over and over in his mind, day after day until he thought he was going to explode.
He knew that all of this Seer business had to be nonsense, and there was a one-in-a-million chance that Emma would have anything bad happen to her, but in the slight chance that he was a Seer, well, he didn’t want to risk it.
He simply could not understand why the two of them did such stupid things sometimes, especially together and especially on school nights. But he couldn’t just tell them, “You can’t go in the forest because surprise, I think I’m a Seer and I had a vision that says so.” He still was not comfortable with the idea of any of his friends knowing about Professor Lupin’s theory about him, and besides, weren’t there simpler ways to prevent them from going into the forest?
He would merely meet them at the door of the Room of Requirement that night with a distraction. That would keep them. Merlin had said that it was possible to change the future; even Merlin’s real visions were not always accurate, after all, and if he did a good enough job of keeping watch, there would be no need for Emma to deal with even a tiny scratch. Perhaps he could even recruit other people to help him do the job, different shifts and posts.
Suddenly, a familiar voice rang through his head. It was Haley, but different, older, more mature. It was the voice of the glamorous adult version of Haley, who he’d seen in his first strange dream that summer.
He recalled clearly one sentence in particular that she had uttered: “Everyone pretty much hates you, especially for what happened to Emma Weasley, but you can redeem yourself.”
He had to do this alone. If anything went wrong, he wanted to be able to take full blame for his own stupidity and cockiness in his attempts to twist fate. He’d taken on ambitious projects before, many of them, but this one might truly be a matter of life and death.
And the scariest part was, no one else could know.
An endless list of names and titles scrolled down the screen of the giant television set, accompanied by soft music. The ending credits for The Princess Bride were rolling, and Emma Weasley was wishing for more.
“Admit it,” Tyrone said, poking his companion in the side. “You liked it. I think I even saw a tear in your eye at that one part.”
Emma snapped her fingers as though she was an FBI agent whose cover had just been blown. “Okay, okay,” she groused, “I loved that movie. But you’re wrong about the tear. Though I could have sworn I saw you wiping your eyes on the couch cushion.”
She hugged her knees, which were clad in baggy yellow silk pajama pants covered in a print of popcorn. On top, she wore a Chudley Cannons jersey, and her ponytail was still secured by Tyrone’s shoe string, though he had made up for this by wearing one of her own shoelaces tied in a big bow on top of his head.
“You know what?” she remarked. “That guy from the movie, Westley? He was awesome.”
“Well, yeah,” replied Tyrone affably. “He’s the best. I like the scene where he poisons that short, Sicilian bloke with the lisp in the battle of wits. And I like the machine that sucks out people’s lives, though that might just be because the six-fingered man named after me made it.”
“Westley wasn’t too bad to look at, either. I thought his mustache was kind of cool,” Emma acknowledged.
Tyrone’s eyes lit up like as though he was a three-year-old in a sweetshop. “Aha! You said it! You secretly love mustaches, don’t you?”
“Oh, it’s no secret that I like mustaches,” Emma shot back. “It’s just your stupid bit of fluff on your top lip that annoys me, really. I’m sure that if you had a mustache, it’d be great and all, but you don’t.”
Tyrone rolled over. “That was cold,” he said, giving her his best puppy-eyed pout of all time. “Don’t be hating on the mustache.”
“There’s no mustache to be hating on!” Emma insisted gleefully, sticking out her tongue.
Tyrone put his hand to his heart and flinched. “Ow, that hurts,” he said. “To make up for that one, you’re grabbing your Vortex 97 and we’re one-brooming it through the forest.”
Emma smiled. “I could think of worse punishment,” she told him, nudging him in the side. And the two of them set off down the hall together, protected by a magically forged hall pass allegedly from Emma’s mother, eagerly anticipating their moonlit broomstick ride.
So where was Jordan? What had become of his heroic plan to stop the pair of them before anything happened? He was asleep, sprawled out by the dormitory door like a squirrel freshly killed by a sixteen-wheeler.
It wasn’t his fault, really. ‘Those’ dreams just seemed to happen to him, and he’d never woken up before the definite end. And now, once again, he’d slipped into a dream, from which nothing, not a herd of mad bison, not a brass band parade, not a jackhammer, not even Haley could rouse him until it was finished.
In the dream, a man paced catlike back and forth, his shoulder-length red hair swirling behind him. A sturdy, compactly-built individual, he moved with grace, authority, and purpose, even in his current rather distraught state.
He did not break his smooth, even stride, even when a sharp knock sounded at the door. “Ah, Merlin,” he said. “Please, come in.”
“Thanks, sir,” replied a dark, wiry boy in his late teens, stepping through the door and into the light. His head was bowed respectively, his thick black hair falling across his shoulders, but his dark and clever eyes were turbulent. Clearly, much more was going on inside his head than he wished to acknowledge to the general public.
The red-haired man stopped pacing and nodded toward Merlin upon his entrance with just as much respect as the teenager showed toward him. Although he was a few inches shorter than the boy, who was far from tall himself, he seemed larger than life, full of strength and charisma. He was certainly the kind of man who no one dared call ‘Shortie.’
“Have a seat,” he offered, gesturing toward a chair while remaining standing himself. He was obviously a man who constantly had to be in motion, a person of action. “Now, I’m sure you know why I’ve sent for you.”
Merlin nodded. “I think so, Professor Gryffindor. Professor Slytherin’s walked out, right?” His voice was soft and low, almost questioning, but Jordan could tell that any uncertainty in his voice was merely a product of politeness. One glance into his eyes was proof enough that he had all the answers.
“Yes, yes he has,” sighed Gryffindor, his yellow-green eyes troubled. He rubbed the well-trimmed bristles that accentuated his strong chin and jaw. “I feel horrible for allowing it to happen. I never though one of us could leave the others… I mean, Salazar is… was my best friend.” His perpetually active fingers now raked through his red-gold mane. “I should have paid closer attention to the warning you gave us a few years ago. I was just obstinate enough to believe that it would never come true.”
“You did what you could,” Merlin said gently, taking it in stride. “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”
Gryffindor looked confused. “Excuse me?”
Merlin gave him a sheepish little smile. “Sorry, I was quoting again. A Scottish poet named Robert Burns is going to write it in a few centuries… I really need to stop doing this. I like Scotland, you know. Sometimes, I wish I could live at Hogwarts all year.”
“Yes, I do know,” agreed Gryffindor. “And that’s the real reason why I asked you to come here tonight. Rowena, Helga, and I were discussing how talented you are and how fond you are of Hogwarts, and I suggested that you would be an excellent replacement for Salazar.”
Merlin was silent for a moment, considering this. He looked bashful at the praise he’d received, despite the fact that he was clearly a person who clearly received a lot of it. “Sir,” he said at last, choosing his words carefully, “I am very honoured. I may not agree with Professor Slytherin on many issues, but he’s a brilliant and admirable wizard, and I’m flattered to be considered as a replacement. But…”
He cupped his chin in his hands and slumped over in his seat, and it was suddenly striking how very young he looked. It was easy to forget about his youth amidst the tangible aura of knowledge and understanding that radiated around him. His entire character was a discordant mish-mash of teenage awkwardness and the self-assurance of wisdom.
“I… I don’t always relate well to other people my age,” he admitted quietly, flicking a strand of hair out of his eyes. “I feel like I know them all so well, almost in the kind of way I know myself… but I can’t seem to find a way to let them understand me. I’m not like them.” He looked down at his hands, looking vulnerable and uncomfortable. “I’m different, really different, no matter what time period I use as a frame of reference. There are so many remarkable, unique people before me and after me, but I can’t see myself in any of them, at least not that I’ve seen so far. I don’t fit in anywhere, especially not here.”
Gryffindor looked astonished to see his young prodigy looking so unhappy. “Surely you’re exaggerating. You’ve always had so many friends, and you’re so bright that it would be a shame for you not to teach.”
“I do have friends,” agreed Merlin, “and I like them a lot. I know they like me back, too. But there’s nobody who really knows who I am, how I see things. Because I think they think I see things like… well, like normal people do.” He paused. “And I know I sound whiny, but it’s lonely,” he said, almost casually, “understanding everything and having no one to understand me.” He laughed bitterly. “There I go again. What a stereotypical teenager thing to say. But it’s still true.”
The boy drew his cloak around him, although the room was not cold. “I’m just not good at explaining things to people.” He looked the teacher straight in the eye, and his eyes were so hardened and full of knowledge and experience that even Gryffindor looked intimidated. A shadow passed over the boy’s face, and he curled his fingers until his knuckles turned white. “I just wish that I could find the key to Telemency. It would make it so easy to show people what I know. If I can find a way to transport a person through thin air, why can’t I transport a thought? In the future, they’ll have telephones and the internet to transfer data, so why can’t I transfer it between human minds?”
Gryffindor crossed toward him, and the balance between the two of them shifted again. Now, the scene was of a confused young boy and his strong and worldly mentor, not of a man overwhelmed by the young genius on display before him. “But Merlin, you are astronomically talented. It would be tragic if your gifts weren’t used to teach others.”
Merlin looked up at the professor. “Oh, I do plan to teach,” he said, his voice strengthening. “I can remember the future, you know, and I know how my life’s going to go, at least based on the choices I’ve made so far. It’s my duty to teach the next king of England what I know about magic, make a sort of bond between Muggles and wizards. The king’s going to make the perfect kingdom, and the plans were made before I was. I’m part of the story.”
He slipped back into apologetic teenager mode, the grandeur of his previous speech leaving his face and his voice. “Professor, I really don’t mean to offend you. Teaching at Hogwarts with you and two of the other Founders is, well, a chance that I know most wizards can only dream about, I really do… but I have other plans. Well, I mean, the future has other plans for me.”
“We need a teacher who is as charismatic and clever as Salazar to fill his shoes, and it’s urgent that we find one quickly,” Gryffindor stated, his normally deep and booming voice hushed. “The school’s already beginning to fragment. Students in Salazar’s house are starting to turn against my own house’s pupils, and they need to be brought back together before the damage can be mended.”
Merlin shook his head. “There’s nothing I’ll be able to do,” he said awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck as he moved toward the door. “Not anymore. The tides have already started to turn… as they say. But don’t worry.” He turned around to face the professor, wearing a small, hopeful smile.
“Some things are best left to future generations.”