Well, it took a bit longer to write this chapter than I intended, but here it is. And two years haven't passed to get here! This story is starting to move in very different directions from what I originally plotted out, but that's not a huge issue. If anything, I think this way is better, and I hope you will agree with me. It will take far less time to get places than I thought.

This chapter is longer than the last one, so enjoy. I'm hoping to write longer chapters, but that may mean it's a bit longer between updates. Nothing as long as it was, hopefully, but we'll have to see what the muse decides. For now, enjoy!

Merlin woke early with a sense of satisfaction sitting in his breast. The first session with potential Old Magic users had gone well. None of them had Rowena's exact problem, but there were a fair few of them in the school. Neville Longbottom in particular seemed powerful. He needed control, but all of the students needed that. And although there was a higher than average collection of Purebloods in the group, there were also a few muggleborn and several half-bloods.

For the Purebloods, the commonality between them related to how old their family was and where that family had come from. Old Magic, the variety that Merlin was teaching, was from Britain. Only those whose ancestors had been born in and lived in the UK could wield it. They were, when he thought back on it, the descendants of druidic families. Rowena certainly was and her magic had essentially reset itself to that period, preventing her from using new magic. It wasn't an insurmountable obstacle in her learning, but there wasn't much in the Hogwarts practical curriculum that she could use. Magic was magic to a certain extent, but it could be general or specific, preferring one language of command over another. Latin magics were more common only because of the extent of the Roman Empire while it stood and how easily it could be used by those with a sufficient amount of magic within them.

The others were more fortunate as their magic extended to encompass both styles. He was sure as they developed and honed their skills that they would show a preference for one over the other, though he couldn't yet say who would lean toward which style.

Freidle was hovering above him, waiting expectantly for breakfast more than likely. The small owl didn't have much to do, but he lorded over the room as his own personal fiefdom. Merlin didn't bother to disabuse him of the notion as he would likely get some other idea in his head that would be harder to dislodge.

He had a few classes that day, but he was pleased with the progress they were making. It seemed everyone had been waiting for someone to make history interesting, and they would take it in whatever form they could get it.

By encouraging debates in the classroom, he challenged his students to think about what they knew and to put in context against what they were told. It wasn't easy, as there were some firm opinions of how the world worked on both sides of the blood purity issue, but it was the half-bloods that were bringing both sides along. Those with experience on the muggle side of things were able to explain the thinking of the muggleborn to the purebloods, which the magic raised were able to find some common ground with the muggleborn on pureblood perspectives.

It wasn't breaking down any barriers by any stretch of the imagination, but it challenged both sides to think about what they accepted as fact or as proper behavior.

As he dressed, he reflected on how difficult it was to not react when someone used his name as an expletive. He knew it happened, but he hadn't taken into account how often it would be used in a school full of teens and pre-teens who lacked parental supervision. Every so often, he thought he heard Arthur calling his name, only to turn around and see a student gesticulating wildly about some story they were telling. Somehow, no one had yet noticed the way he twitched every time someone said his name, and he hoped it would stay that way. At least until he grew desensitized enough not to react.

Down in the Great Hall, he took a seat beside Filius Flitwick. For the Welcome feast, the teachers were assigned but during the general school year, it didn't matter who sat next to whom.

"So," Filius said, smiling up at him. "I hear from Minerva that everything went well yesterday."

"Yes, it did," Merlin replied. "There were more here than I expected to have an affinity to Old Magic. But I suppose I should have considered that the ability might still exist in the descendants of the druids."

"I understand that part of the lessons will include some history?"

Merlin smiled. "It seems I can't help that. Although the primary goal is to teach students control of Old Magic, I think it would be prudent for them to understand the world that this magic was used in. It wasn't a safe time, certainly not for magic users." He sighed. "It was far worse than witch trials five hundred years later. One of the most influential kingdoms had a king who held a grudge against magic users because his wife was killed to bring his son into the world."

"I can see why that might set him against them. What came of it?"

"Hundreds of magic users were killed. The druids were hunted to near extinction, and after a year of deaths, Magic chose a champion to set things right."

"A champion?" Filius smiled. "Merlin?"

"Yes, but the druids called him Emrys in their writings. One of the theories is that Merlin was born with the magic of all the magic users that were killed in that year, which was why he was determined as the one to set things right." Merlin sighed. "But Camelot still fell."

"And Merlin disappeared." Filius fiddled with his wand. "Sometimes I wish we knew what happened to him. But I suppose if anyone knew where he was buried, it would become something like a magical Mecca, and put the Statute of Secrecy at risk. Other times, I simply wish there were more of his writings that we could study. I'm sure he knew some impressive magics he could teach us."

Merlin's cheeks burned and he was glad most of the blush could be disguised by his beard, otherwise it would have been difficult to explain. But he was technically teaching a select group some impressive and largely unknown magics. It was fortunate that most thought he had died, because he didn't want to face the level of hero worship he would be met with if he made his presence known. But it was good to know that the anti-scrying spell he had placed on himself was still working as intended. It would have made disappearing infinitely more difficult in the beginning if he hadn't discovered it as a useful and simple way to hide. No one, after all, was going to look for some young man living beside a lake.

He turned to his food, but rather recklessly decided to throw the professor a bone. "Well, the druids don't believe that Merlin died. Their name for him, and even what is largely regarded as his surname, translate to 'immortal' or 'undying'. Those who believe he was gifted with the magic of the lost practitioners also believe that he was born to live out their lifetimes if they had not been killed."

"I shall have to look into some of the druids' writings. As a Ravenclaw Head of House, I find my own lack of knowledge on this matter disturbing." Filius didn't sound disturbed though. He sounded excited, and Merlin supposed that was what came of a love of learning.

For his own part, Merlin thought he would have fit in well in Hufflepuff house. He was neither cunning, nor did he desire knowledge he didn't really think he needed. And he would always leave the reckless, charging heedlessly ahead behavior to Arthur and his knights. No, Hufflepuffs' defining characteristic was loyalty, and he couldn't think of a greater expression of loyalty than waiting for his king to return by the side of a lake. Even if he didn't spend all his time there, it was still the place he inevitably returned to in the end. He would probably be back there after he determined why Old Magic was suddenly making a resurgence in the magical community.

Later, when Merlin was on his way to his classroom, only to come across an odd ginger cat with a squashed face. It sat itself down directly in his path and stared up at him as if it expected him to do something.

"Er... hello?" he said cautiously.

The cat sneezed at him.

"Do you need something?"

It sneezed again.

"I'm afraid I'm on my way to a class at the moment. But if you'll find me later, perhaps I can help then?"

The cat, whose tail had been swishing throughout their one-sided conversation, stopped swishing its tail and looked up into his eyes. It stared at him before blinking slowly. Then it stood and began walking away, leaving Merlin to wonder if the cat would find him later of if he offended it by not being immediately available.

He wondered who the cat belonged to-or, given the attitude of cats, who belonged to it. But that was something he could ponder later because, as he had said, he had a class to teach.

There weren't many students in his NEWTs level History class. Of course, given the stories he'd heard about Professor Binns and his tendency to focus on the niche bits of magical history, there wasn't much for people to get interested in. Of the six students in the class, four of them were Ravenclaws, one Slytherin, and one Hufflepuff. All of them were either purebloods or half-bloods raised in the magical world.

"Good morning, students," he greeted, receiving a cautious greeting in return. He was sure that they had heard some stories about his class from their housemates and were wondering if he was going to begin their class with a discussion of that nature. But he had different plans for this class.

"As you have no doubt realized, my name is Emery Balinor, and I am very much alive, no offense intended toward your usual teacher." The students tittered at that, though it was clear they were still trying to size him up. "As such, I take a different approach to history. So, for starters, tell me why you are in this class. What drew you to history when Professor Binns is more widely regarded as a soporific than a teacher?"

The students glanced at one another daring someone else to speak first. After a moment of silence that had Merlin wishing a Gryffindor had chosen to take the class, the Slytherin girl raised her had.

"Yes, Miss Fawley?"

"It's history," she said as if it was obvious. "We should know where we come from." The others were nodding with her.

"Hmm." Merlin stepped around his desk to sit on it facing the students. "By that logic, every student in Hogwarts should be made to take History all seven years they attend. But I think you've misunderstood my question. I want to know what made you, the individual, decide to take History beyond OWL level. Was it something you discovered, an event you read about? Perhaps it was something you experienced for yourself. What made you decide to take this class?"

Again, the students glanced at one another before one of the Ravenclaw boys spoke up. "I was reading a different history book during Professor Binns' lecture and I realized that the things he was talking about were actually more complicated than what he was telling us about. Like the fact that the goblin-rebel Vargot, who he mentioned mostly in passing, was discovered to be a house-elf after he was killed, one that belonged to the Selwyn family at the time. The fact that their house-elf was on the side of the goblins in a rebellion against wizards made the Selwyn family suffer a dip in prestige that they still haven't been able to recover from more than two hundred years later."

"That is interesting," Merlin allowed. "And one of the reasons for that is because witches and wizards are extraordinarily long-lived, and so they have long memories. Two hundred years may seem like a long time when you're young, but think about how old your parents are. What about your grandparents or great-grandparents? Some of them might even remember the incident itself." He flicked his wand at the blackboard, and the boy's name, Edgar Burrows, appeared followed by 'realization of rich and interconnected history'. "Does anyone else have a story like that? Maybe something else?"

The Hufflepuff boy, Elliot Burke, raised his hand. "I realized that history could be fun because of all the information on the Chocolate Frog cards. Some are serious, but most are interesting or funny as well as informative. I wanted to know about the people who didn't get cards but were still pretty incredible."

Again, Merlin flicked his wand, and the boy's name was followed by his own words, 'history could be fun'. "Anyone else?"

The Slytherin girl raised her hand again, hesitantly this time. "I discovered that if you study enough history, you can sometimes predict what people will do and how certain kinds of events will play out."

"Ah." Merlin smiled at her. "That is true of all history. In fact, a muggle writer and philosopher by the name of George Santayana has rather famously said that those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it. Can you think of an instance when this has come true?"

"The goblin rebellions, for one," she replied neutrally. "They're always about the same thing, the goblins getting representation in the Wizengamot and wand rights."

"I think that might be a subject we shouldn't touch at the moment. But one thing I can think of is the Purge of sorcerers in 1165 under the reign of King Uther, father of Arthur, and the witch trials throughout Europe that led to the International Statute of Secrecy in 1692, just over five hundred years later." Merlin flicked his wand toward the board yet again and added Estella Fawley's name with 'history can repeat itself' beside it. "In both instances, magic users were being persecuted for possessing magic in some form or another, and they were forced to flee for their lives into hiding, though the main difference being that magic users have not emerged from hiding since the Statute was put in place, so in that perhaps someone was paying attention to their history."

The other three Ravenclaw students looked at one another and seemed to select a spokesperson for themselves. Zinnia Macmillan raised her hand. "The three of us need this course for the jobs we want to get after Hogwarts."

"And what jobs are those?"

"A clerk in the Records department of the Ministry," Miss Macmillan replied.

Franklin Sayre shrugged. "My father had me take this class for when I take his place on the Wizengamot."

Eleanor Blishwick seemed to shrink ever so slightly. "I want to work in the Department of Magical Law, where they create and refine the laws."

Merlin smiled at her. "Well, it's good to know that having a basis in history is important for such a position." He flicked his wand, and the board filled with their names and what they wanted or needed to do with the class. "As you can see, everyone is here for different reasons, but it is my hope that by the end of this class there will be some crossover between what you brought you to this class and what you get out of it. In the years I have spent studying history-and the white in my beard should tell you well enough that I've been doing this the long way-I have found that I fit into every one of the categories you currently embody. History is my chosen profession, so I come into this as work, but I also consider it fun. Much of the pleasure I derive of it comes in how interconnected every event in the magical and non-magical worlds are, and the effects they have on later events. However, it can sometimes be frustrating when I see that the way the world is heading is somewhere they have gone before and the end of the story wasn't particularly nice."

He sighed. "I will tell you right now that I will be bringing in information and events from the non-magical world. I do not expect you to know these ahead of time, but I do want you to think about why I bring up the events I do. Some will be obvious, other less so, but I will always have a reason connected to whatever we are discussing to bring up non-magical history. I'm sure that many of you have heard from other students that I intend for their classes to be more discussion oriented. I intend to do that in this class as well. I feel it is a better indication of understanding and a better way of learning to have an open and intelligent discussion with one another. Opinions are welcome to be brought to the table and debated, but you should all be old enough to know that not everyone will have the same view of any given situation. I trust that you will behave as adults. If you feel that someone is attacking your position, feel free to offer a counter argument. But one thing I will not tolerate is my classroom devolving into a shouting match because one or more people won't agree on something."

He looked around the room for signs of dissent, but they all seemed agreeable to the conditions he was putting forth.

"Now," he began after a moment, "I want all of you to write an essay about historical events that you have experienced in your lives. You are all old enough to remember when the last Wizarding war ended. From each of your perspectives, what was happening? How did it affect you or your family? I also want you to think back on how that might have affected the way your family was viewed or how they went about life in the time since. Remember, no event happens independent of another. Now I realize that you will need some time for this, perhaps to ask your families about what life was like for them before and during the war, so I will give you two weeks to work on this. For next week, I want you to read the first chapter of your textbook on Druidic History, and come prepared to discuss what you have read. Understood?"

"Yes, Professor Balinor," the students chorused.

They gathered their things and a couple of the Ravenclaw students looked mildly disappointed that he didn't start with the verbal pop quiz he had done with his other classes. Miss Fawley of Slytherin, however, looked pensive. Merlin could only hope that was a good thing, but he was almost certain that she was going to enjoy this course. If nothing else, it would expand her knowledge on how events are interconnected and make it easier for her to predict what can happen.

History, Merlin had discovered, was a different kind of divination, one that takes dedication and careful attention to exercise. It was a lot clearer and more obvious than trying to peer into the future. The patterns and the series of cause and effect could be predicted and traced to determine why something was going to happen a certain way.

As he was thinking, the orange cat who crossed his path before class hopped up onto his desk.

"Oh. Hello again," Merlin said, holding out a hand for the cat to sniff. "Well, I'm free now. What do you need from me?"

Turning, the cat swished his tail at him, fixed him with a piercing cat stare over its shoulder, and hopped off the desk. It was an obvious cat sign for 'follow me'.

"If you say so." Merlin tried not to think about the absurdity of following a cat through the castle, but he didn't know what he would do if, after all this effort, the cat led him to a dead rat or something of that nature.

The cat, a half kneazle by his estimation, followed a seemingly random path to an unused corridor of the castle, and it seemed instinctively know which route would get them there without the interference of the moving stairs. Finally, it stopped and sat down in front of a painting of a white dragon. A very familiar white dragon. Merlin didn't know when Aithusa would have permitted herself to be captured on canvas, but it seemed she had even stayed to sit for the portrait as the white dragon was sitting in a glade mottled with light and shadow.

The portrait moved, but it seemed to be asleep at the moment. He wasn't sure if the picture would be able to speak like the other paintings. Most people didn't think dragons could talk because they called bastard wyverns dragons. Besides that, the language he used to command the dragons was magical, and he had no idea how that would translate into a painting.

"Why did you bring me here?" Merlin asked. He didn't want to wake the sleeping dragon, and he was fairly certain something of that nature had even become the school's motto. But it was something deeper, an ache he didn't want to exacerbate. He had not spoken to or even called Aithusa in years. Kilgharrah had died less than a century after Arthur was killed, but he had asked Merlin to ensure that his remains would not be ravaged by the magic users that were slowly emerging out of the dredges of declining Old Magic. The only part the old dragon didn't want destroyed was a single scale, which he told Merlin to grind up and make a wand like the other mages were making so he wouldn't stand out as much. Seeing Aithusa's portrait brought back the memory of another death brought on by time, which had passed him by. Pulling himself from his thoughts, he looked back down at the cat. "Is there something you need me to do?"

The cat looked up at him and blinked slowly. Then, with a swish of his tail, it began sauntering away. Pausing before it turned the corner, it fixed him with a pointed look, then disappeared.

Merlin sighed in frustration. "What is this world coming to when even the damn cats are ordering me around?" The cat was bonded to someone else, which meant he was unable to understand him. The only reason he could hold conversations with the overgrown pigeon someone generously called an owl was because he had formed a bond with the creature. Or rather, Freidle had bonded to him and Merlin decided it wasn't the effort to fight with a stubborn bird.

He looked back at painting and discovered that Aithusa was awake. Her violet eyes gazed into his own and Merlin suddenly felt as exposed as he usually had around Kilgharrah, where he was unable to hide and everything he had ever done or thought to do was on display. But she didn't speak, which he took to mean that she couldn't.

When he could take the staring no longer, he averted his eyes and offered her a small bow before going back to the more inhabited sections of the castle. The painting was a pale imitation of the real Aithusa, who he hadn't talked to since she disappeared into hiding from those who might try to harm her. That was almost six hundred years before, and he had never bothered to find out where she had gone.

Resolving to find out where she had gone and to call her back when he could, Merlin made his way back to his classroom. He had a while before his next class arrived, but he had things he wanted to think about, and it wouldn't do to be late because he got lost in thought.

The most immediate thought in his mind: how did that cat seem to know exactly who he was? There was no reason to lead him to the painting of Aithusa if it didn't know, and Merlin had been the errand boy of Fate and Destiny far too often to believe it to be coincidence.

To determine that, he would first need to figure out who the orange half kneazle belonged to. The identity of that person was likely significant in some way. Or, since the cat was aware of who he was, its owner might also learn that information, which would make life at Hogwarts difficult.

Sitting down at his desk, he hoped the person who owned the cat was a Hufflepuff. That was the only way this was going to end well with his secret mostly intact.

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