Merlin Prompt #3: HOGWARTS MERLIN AU. NOT THEM BEING SORTED BUT MERLIN BEING THERE FOR REASONS. - by Anonymous

There was a professor named Merlin, but no one thought much of it. Merlin was a common name among wizards, especially as a name for people with parents that had high hopes for greatness for their children.

Professor Merlin, however, had been known to say that his mother's hope for him was that he would survive to adulthood.

He disappeared around the time Lord Voldemort came into power, and many people assumed he went to join the Death Eaters. When the Dark Lord was defeated, however, and the Death Eaters were accounted for, Merlin was not. Many people had forgotten him by then, though.

Harry Potter defeated Voldemort for good a full generation later, and the next year Professor Merlin was back at work.

One person, another professor, asked him where he'd been, and why he didn't look any older when by all rights he should be exiting his middle aged years. He said that he spent part of his time waiting by a lake and then realized that he could do more good from Avalon. Turns out, wizards don't believe in silly legends like Avalon. Merlin was told next time just admit he wouldn't tell, not make things up.

Professor Merlin just smiled and nodded.

Professor Merlin was an odd man, but then, weren't most brilliant men eccentric? And the professor was brilliant. He had to be, because when an overwhelmed student once asked him when he had mastered nonverbal spells, he had to blush and admit that he'd always been good at non-verbal spells. Still, he was very weird. He sometimes stopped to talk to the giant squid. The mermaids had a particular liking for him, and sometimes they'd pop out of the lake to screech at him. The professor only ever laughed. He would carry on full conversations with the portraits, and once a pudgy third-year boy caught him crying in front of a picture of a lovely dark-skinned woman.

People don't know very much about Professor Merlin. They don't know his last name. He never won any awards. He didn't even attend Hogwarts – and this they know because a lovely seventh-year asked him once, and he said he didn't. People kept asking him if he went to this school instead, or this school, and eventually he said he was privately tutored. A loud-mouthed first year asked if his parents were rich. The professor laughed out loud.

One time a second-year came into his class crying because he'd been called a mudblood. Professor Merlin kept him after class, and he walked out looking different. He was smiling and he had so much confidence that he was rarely picked on again. (When his younger sibling asked about it, he told the younger boy that there are much worse things than being different and special andchosen.)

People liked Professor Merlin. He was goofy. He had a tendency to perform magic during class, often without thinking about it, and it would always be something ridiculous. He once claimed that he invented the trick where you pull a rabbit out of a hat. He claimed it had saved him during hunting trips before.

The rumor was, he could defy one of the greatest laws of magic and create something out of nothing. He had no comment on this allegation.

No one had ever seen his boggart, but one fifth year with a horrible crush on him once sadly concluded that he must be gay, because his Patronus was a young, blond man.

When he heard the troubles of a vivacious fifth year, he asked her to his office to explain to her the dangers of letting your whole life revolve around one boy. "But how do you know what's best for me?" she asked him, sniffing.

"Experience," he told her. "And heartbreak."

He cringed at the sight of a dragon once. "Just a dumb beast," he said. That night, he was spotted on the grounds – apparently roaring at it. The dragon didn't seem to be reacting, and the professor was in a bad mood the rest of the week.

He hated potatoes, and the house elves liked him so much that they made special meals for him without a whisper of discontent.

The professor was an amazing storyteller, but his stories were fantastic, and there was no way they could be true. The stories sometimes included the legendary Merlin, but that character was never really the hero. King Arthur or his knights usually were. No one knew why he was so obsessed with them.

Once, he asked a bully second-year to see him after class. The professor told the boy about power. About loneliness. About losing your power. And about how having that power isn't what makes you important. Thirty years later, that man would say in a speech how that chat was one of the first examples of real compassion he ever saw, and how a sad professor had turned his life around.

He was quietly but unmistakably defiant. Once, it was said, the headmaster came in and gave him an order. The professor considered it, and then said no. While the students held their breaths, he and the headmaster stepped outside. Ten minutes later, the professor came back. He never followed the order, and it was never mentioned again.

A seventh-year once asked him if he was immortal, because he always looked so young but he'd been here for years – he'd even taught her parents. Professor Merlin had laughed, winked, and held a finger to his lips with a small smile.