The Gathering: The New Order of Merlin Book 1

50. Bundle up for the game

       Minerva sat at her desk and tried to understand the paper in front of her. The essay was written so poorly, she would write a recommendation for this Hufflepuff student to be admitted to the extracurricular English class. She had already made a similar request for her twins. Elsa seemed particularly appalled at the thought, and Minerva tried to convince her that it was a very common problem for home-schooled children.

She pondered if English should be a part of the core curriculum for all first-years and optional for the following years. Over the last few decades, children had arrived at their school with poorer and poorer basic writing skills. This argument had been discussed repeatedly with no action ever taken. She had to bring it up again during the next Board of Governors meeting. Change was difficult. The Board liked to keep things the way they were. She needed to get the support of influential Board members if she had any hopes of success.

Someone knocked on the door and she welcomed the distraction. Honestly, she was bored.

"Come in."

Merlin Ealdor and Jack walked in.

"Good Afternoon, Professor," Merlin spoke up. "If you have a few minutes, we'd like to discuss something important with you."

She motioned for them to sit in the two chairs in front of her desk. Merlin appeared confident and relaxed and looked around her office with a detached curiosity. Jack looked nervous and just stared at his hands in his lap.

"Professor," Merlin started, "we brought this request to you first, but I imagine that we'll have to speak with the Headmaster as well. It is about the curriculum of the Transfiguration class."

Minerva did not like where this was going. Did this boy dare complain about her teaching methods? It wasn't her fault that he was so bad at this subject. Some wizards did not have the natural aptitude for this difficult branch of magic. "Go on."

"Some of the spellwork required in this class is against the values of our religion, and we would like to be excused from practicing it."

Minerva's eyes locked onto Jack. What was this boy up to?

"Let me guess," she said shortly. "Old Religion?"

"Precisely. Our religious beliefs forbid senseless harm done to other living beings. Practicing spells on animals just for the sake of practice is against the values of our faith."

Minerva tapped her finger on her desk absentmindedly. She didn't take her eyes off of Jack who sat quietly and wouldn't look at her.

"Mr. Ealdor, no matter what your faith is, do not think that you can get special treatment just to get through a class you are struggling with."

"That is not my intention at all, Professor. I fully accept that you would give us assignments of a similar difficulty which did not require the use of animals."

The boy thought he had everything covered. "Mr. Ealdor, if we were to proceed as you request, that would require me to give you assignments from the second-year curriculum. Seeing as you struggle with current tasks, how do you imagine you'll keep up?"

"I have an excellent tutor now," Merlin said with a smirk. "I am confident that my performance in your class will improve."

Minerva shifted in her seat. "Jack," she said and the boy reluctantly lifted his eyes to her, "what is this? You or your sister have never said anything about practicing any religion."

"The question never came up," Jack said quietly.

This was all too neatly wrapped up. Were these two boys making it all up? The only way to find out was to probe them further until they slipped up. Sticking to a lie wasn't as easy in the long term. It was all in the details. "Is there anything else you require that your religious practices demand?"

"We need to have a similar talk with Professor Snape," Merlin said.

Minerva couldn't imagine how they could succeed in that task. Severus was not a tolerant man. "I do not imagine that you will be able to avoid preparing certain potions."

"We could substitute some of the ingredients," Jack offered.

Minerva sighed at the boy's cluelessness. "It isn't that simple, Jack."

"We'll take it one potion at a time," Merlin said, leaning back in his chair.

The boy's confidence unnerved her. His attitude bordered on arrogance. "At this point, I believe we should speak with the Headmaster. This isn't a simple matter that I alone can decide. It may have an impact on your O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. examinations. A request like that has to be submitted in writing to the Board of Governors by your parents," she looked at Jack, "or guardians."

Jack hunched his shoulders. Minerva was his acting guardian for the time being. Did she want to draw attention to this boy? The Ministry wasn't accepting of those who had a shifty background. A pair of twins who came out of nowhere and demanded special treatment would not sit well with the officials. Minerva wasn't even convinced that they were orphans, though they'd told her their mother was dead, but she checked recently, and still, no one reported them missing. Yet they escaped from someone. Whoever was looking for them did not want to alert the authorities and that just made her worry even more. Just what type of trouble were they in?

"That is not a problem," Merlin said with a smile. "My uncle can make the request personally to the Minister if that's what it takes."

"Then, your uncle will be the best point of contact. I will bring up this issue to the Headmaster and will inform you of his decision." She waved her wand to open the door for them. "Mr. Ealdor, I would like to meet that uncle of yours."

"I can arrange that," Merlin said with a sly smile and she had an uneasy feeling that he was humoring her but she didn't understand exactly how.

"I suggest you both bundle up for tomorrow's game. I recommend winter attire." She looked firmly at Jack. "This includes shoes."

Jack nodded while Merlin sniggered. She supposed the boy's roommate had already noticed his barefoot obsession.

After the boys left, Minerva couldn't shake an uneasy feeling in her gut. Before she took any action, she wanted to dispel her doubts that these boys were trying to trick her. It wouldn't be the first time that a naughty student had cooked up a scheme to get out of an assignment.

She visited Irma Pince at the library and asked for help with locating information on Old Religion, suspecting that the term was made up, but Irma returned with a book written in an ancient rune that spoke of Old Religion magic.

"It's real?" Minerva asked incredulously, admiring the hand drawn celtic knot decorating the title page.

She dived right in and spent her whole afternoon trying to decipher it. Her comprehension of runes was rusty, she hadn't read anything as old as this book in a long time, but she gathered from it a description of the customs and practices of ancient Pagans. This included the worship of multiple gods, silly rituals, and questionable magical practices, such as rites involving human sacrifice.

She put the book down, having read enough. It disturbed her to think that these children wanted to observe such barbaric customs. Some things shouldn't be revived. The magical community had evolved above such crude methods a long time ago.

She had an awful suspicion that the Ealdor kid was the instigator here. Was he trying to brainwash her Jack? Every time she laid eyes on him, something tickled her intuition like she was missing something important, but his arrogant confidence was what irritated her the most. What did he have to feel so confident about? His spellwork was barely above passing, he didn't come from one of the prestigious families, or was particularly popular among other students. She had to find out more about him because if he was going to be a problem, she'd rather be prepared.