Potions and Snitches
Snape and Harry Gen Fanfiction Archive

A Sword For Merlin
Harry met with Severus in his quarters for three more nights of Occlumency that week, and each time they finished a lesson he felt exhausted. Thankfully Jo wasn't protesting the fact that he needed to learn these things anymore, or if she was, it wasn't to him.

He didn't fall asleep in Snape's quarters again, but he was exhausted enough he thought about staying the night there more than once.

"You look cold," Jo told him when he and Severus stopped for a break Wednesday evening.

"Yeah, a bit," Harry said.

"I'll stoke the fire."

"Thanks." He watched as she added wood to the fire and sent a spell at it to make the fire burn hotter and last longer.

"Do you have a sweater Harry?"

"Erm... Mrs. Weasly usually knits me one at Christmas but I outgrew mine from last year."

"Why don't I pick one up for you? What color do you want? Would you rather have a soft sweater or a soft hoodie?"

"Oh, um, that's ok. You don't have to do that. I- I can send away for one I guess. I just didn't think about it until now."

She gave him a perturbed look but let it be since Severus had come back to continue their session. Despite that he kept assuring Harry that he was ahead of where he'd been the previous year in their lessons, Harry didn't feel any closer to keeping his mind clear and keeping Severus out.

It was hard to keep his mind clear during lessons with Severus when there were so many other things to think about. He needed to plan another lesson for the upcoming meeting of the DA on Saturday, and the instructor of the Swordmaster's Club had promised they'd be using real blades this week. Harry was both nervous and excited to abandon the wooden swords they'd been using.

Ron and Hermione shared his feelings, and Harry was surprised to hear Ron say he was nervous the next day at lunch.

"Well I have to be don't I?" he asked. "If Hermione broke my arm with a wooden sword what will she do to me with a real one? Mum won't approve if I can't play Quidditch anymore because I'm missing all my limbs."

"Please don't make me keep apologizing for that," Hermione said, face heating up.

"Oh no, I didn't mean it like that," Ron said, giving her a soft look. "But real blades are a bit nervewracking aren't they?"

Hermione nodded and Harry was glad he wasn't the only one feeling nervous.

After dinner that night as they waited for the Swordmaster's Club to begin, he noted everyone seemed to be feeling nervous.

"I would have you remember," said the instructor as he strode into the Great Hall, "all of the injuries you've suffered to this point. If you wish to leave the club, now is the time." Everyone gave each other a curious look to see if they'd be leaving, but nobody made a move for the door.

"Very well," said the instructor. "From this point forward I will be casting a spell on each of you that will keep the blades from making it all the way to your skin. If force is used and the blade hits the spell, you will still end up bruised. You will still end up cut. You will not however be losing any limbs during the remaining sessions of this club."

Ron let out a sigh of relief beside Harry, and Harry gave a silent nod in agreement.

After the spell had been cast on all of them the instructor said, "A healer is waiting in the staff room behind the staff table and will be on hand from this point forward in case the spell fails or there are any serious cuts or gashes." He walked over to the wooden stand that usually held their wooden swords, and pulled the sheet covering it away to reveal a variety of swords. Some of them were broad and heavy looking, and others were thin and light.

"Choose your sword. You will be using a different one during the next meeting. All of these are blunted, though they can still cut you through the spell. If you choose a heavy sword this time, choose a light one next time. Over the next few meetings you will begin to get a feel for which kind of sword fits your fighting style and physique."

Harry immediately went for a broad sword that looked to be the size and shape of what he remembered of Arthur's sword, but as soon as he had it in hand it felt wrong. Wrong how he didn't know, just wrong. It was heavy and felt big and awkward compared to the wooden swords they'd been using. He wanted to try another sword, but they'd all been taken by others, who were pairing up to fight.

Harry ended up paired against Ginny, who had also picked up a broadsword.

"Mines heavy," Harry told her.

"Yeah, mine too, but all those drills we do during Quidditch have built up my muscles."

Harry laughed. "That's easy for you to say. I don't do all those drills with the Quaffle!"

The instructor told them to begin and Harry and Ginny began their fight. Harry immediately nixed the idea of lifting this sword over his head, because it was far too heavy to do so more than a few times. Ginny didn't hesitate to lift hers high though and brought it straight down towards Harry's shoulder. He struggled to get his sword up to block the blow, and did so just in time, though the force of her blow pushed his blade down and away, allowing the tip of hers to slice through the spell and cut the shoulder of his shirt.

"Did I hurt you?" Ginny asked.

"No-" but as soon as Harry had confirmed he wasn't hurt, she went on the offensive again. By the end of the meeting no one had been severely hurt, but Harry was exhausted. So were the others.

"If you have minor cuts, have them tended to before you leave," the instructor told them as they put their swords back in the rack.

Harry moved to walk Ginny to the staff door because she had a thin bead of blood drying on her cheek, but found that Madam Pomfrey and Jo had come out to watch at some point and were waiting for them at the staff table.

He held Ginny's hand as Madam Pomfrey said a quick spell to heal her cheek, and then they walked out of the Great Hall together, Jo's eyes following after them as she set to work healing a cut on Hermione's side.

"That was pretty wicked," Ron told Harry and Ginny as he and Hermione caught up with them on the second floor.

"The sword was too heavy," Harry said.

"Yeah, but can you imagine when everybody carried and fought with swords? Their muscles must have been huge! Ours will be too if we keep using them."

Maybe, Harry thought to himself, but he doubted it. He'd always been lean, whether from lack of food or forced labor. He had muscles, but he doubted he'd ever get strong enough to lift a sword that felt as heavy as he was with any consistency.

Harry wished he could see and hold Arthur's sword again. He didn't remember it feeling so heavy and awkward when he'd pulled it from the stone. After he and Ron had gone to the dorm for the evening, Harry was still thinking about it. He startled Ron when he dropped to the floor between their beds and began casting a spell at the floor in the dark space.

"What're you doing?"

"I want to see the sword again."

Ron quickly cast a locking spell at the door and warded it to keep the other boys out, and then joined Harry on the stone floor.

Harry lifted and unsealed the stones under the bed and then reached in carefully to feel for the handle, and pulled the sword out. He and Ron both stared at it in the candlelight.

"Can I?" Ron asked.

Harry handed it to his friend who held it with some reverence.

"Just think. Aside from us, Arthur was the last one to hold this."

"Or Merlin," Harry said.

"Well he was a Slytherin," Ron said, as if Merlin didn't matter at all.

Harry laughed and held his hand out to take the sword back.

"Does it feel heavy to you?" Harry asked.

"It's strange, because it's not as wide as the broad blades, but it feels heavy like them."

"Really? To me it feels light." He stood up carefully with it and Ron stood back. Harry swung it slowly through the air back and forth. It was so well balanced, and sharp. There had to be some sort of spellwork on it keeping it polished and in shape.

"Hey, there's no sock on the door!" called Seamus from the other side of the door, and Harry knelt down to the put the sword back and seal it back under the stones. It was a shame, he thought, to seal it in stones again when it had spent so long sealed in a stone in the forest.

Ron unlocked the door and Seamus and Dean came in.

"Thought Neville had a girl up here," Seamus said with a laugh. "He's been hanging around with that Ravenclaw so often, and he's not down in the common room."

"Luna?" Ron asked.

"I think that's her name," Seamus said. "Bit of a loon if you ask me."

"Don't call her that," Ron and Harry said at the same time.

"I wasn't talkin' about Luna," Seamus said as if Harry and Ron were crazy. "But Neville's been right mad lately, don't you think?"

When Harry and Ron didn't answer Seamus said, "Always walkin' around with a dreamy look on his face, like he's far away. Yeh ask him somethin' an' he don' hear yeh til yeh repeat it three times."

They laughed and a moment later Neville came in to get ready for bed.

"Am I the butt of a joke?" he asked, because they'd all quieted.

"Nah," Dean said, slapping him on the back. "We were just admiring the fact that you're the only one of us with a girlfriend."

"Hey," Harry said. "I'm dating Ginny."

"The only one of me, Seamus and Neville," Dean said. "We know you and Ginny have been going together and Ron's been sweet on Hermione for so long we figure they'll be together before Seamus or I find anyone."

Ron's ears turned red but he didn't say anything as he went about getting ready for bed.

Harry couldn't go to sleep however, and instead rifled through the drawers of his shared desk with Ron looking for the notes Hermione had given him about the Sword In The Stone. She'd finally written out pages of notes and quit pestering him to study it all word for word page by page himself.

He found the small stack of pages and took them to bed, closing the hangings around him so he could light his wand and not bother the others as they went to sleep.

As he settled in to read, he appreciated that Hermione had written out page numbers and the names of books next to her notes so he could read more in depth if he wanted to.

According to her notes, the legend of the sword said that Arthur pulled the sword from the stone when he was 15, just a year younger than Harry. Later when the sword that Arthur pulled broke during a battle, he was crossing a lake by boat and a hand appeared from the water holding Excalibur. Harry thought about that for long moments. He'd thought Excalibur had been the sword in the stone, but apparently not. Something else he pondered on was the fact that the first sword had broken at all. It had been magic since Merlin had supposedly crafted it right? Magic objects didn't break easily. And why would Merlin stick the broken sword back in the stone? The sword Harry had pulled from the stone certainly wasn't broken. Unless Merlin had taken Excalibur from Arthur after his death and put that into the stone. Harry kept reading to see what else Hermione's notes had to say on the matter.

Hermione's notes went on to describe other types of swords she'd researched. There had been swords made by goblins, wizards, elves, and even dwarves. Each sword seemed to have it's own special powers or abilities depending on who had made it and what their needs were. So many races with magic had made swords... was it possible the mermaids had made a sword too? He couldn't think of who else might be in a lake that would thrust a sword out of the water for Arthur to take. Had mermaids made Excalibur, and if so what for? He didn't think a person could swing a sword underwater very well and couldn't see why mermaids would need a sword.

Hermione's notes said that the sword of Slytherin was able to smash through rock and metal, despite being thin and light. Gryffindors sword was loyal to those who had Gryffindor's preferred traits. If a mermaid made a sword, might it have some sort of power to do with water?

Harry thought back to an hour ago when he'd held Merlin's sword in his hands. It had seemed so familiar, like when he picked up his wand off the desk. It had magic like his wand, so he knew it had to have some kind of power.

He fell asleep that night hungry for more information and unsatisfied that Hermione hadn't written more down for him to read. He dreamt of carrying Merlin's sword around with him to classes. No one looked at him as though he was doing anything out of the ordinary or paid him or the sword any mind at all.

The next evening his friends found him huddled over a book in a corner of the common room usually occupied by older students studying for NEWTs.

"Oh, so you've finally decided to read about it have you?" Hermione asked, sitting down next to him and pulling out an essay she had to finish.

"Your notes didn't have enough."

When his friends didn't answer, Harry looked up and found Ron looking wide eyed.

"What?"

"Just waiting for Hermione to smack you or something. You insulted her note taking skills."

Harry turned and grinned at his friend and she slapped him lightly on the arm with her notebook and the three of them began laughing.

Harry found all sorts of good information in the books Hermione had indicated in her notes about the legend of Arthur and the sword, and on Merlin, who was described as a scrawny, lean wizard with messy black hair, much like Harry. Harry in fact, felt like he was reading about himself when reading some of the details of Merlin's life and felt an immediate connection to him.

Despite reading well into the night however, Harry still felt like his curiosity hadn't been satisfied. He needed to know more. Maybe Severus would know of another book he could read. He didn't want to wait though. He wanted to know more about the sword now, and wanted to inspect it to see if it looked like the description of Excalibur.

Harry peeked out of his curtains and noted that all the other boys were sleeping. It was past one in the morning. He moved to the side of his bed that faced the door and faced away from the other beds, and began spelling the stones away from the sword. He reached in and took it, leaving the stones out of place. They were out of sight under the bed so he didn't feel like it mattered if they weren't put back in place right away.

He ran his fingers along the hilt of the sword and noted the minor detailing in the metal. It wasn't fancy, but it mesmerized him all the same. It looked like the brief description of Excalibur. If this was Excalibur, and it was made by Mermaids, could it have been made by the Mermaids in the Black Lake? It was in a sword in the West Wood, so Harry thought it was a possibility.

Excitement filling him, he pulled his shoes on and borrowed Ron's coat. He rifled through his trunk as quietly as he could until he came out with the invisibility cloak, and then wrapped the sword up in it and stowed it under his arm. He hoped that to anyone who looked, it would look as though he was empty handed if he were caught.

Harry was happy to find the common room empty as he headed through it and out into the rest of the castle. It had been some time since he'd been out late at night, and it filled him with a little thrill of excitement he hadn't expected. Ten minutes later he eased the great oak front doors open and slipped out into the chilly air of the night. Luckily it hadn't started snowing yet, as it sometimes did in late fall.

When Harry was certain he was far enough away from the castle so no one could look out a window and spot him, he pulled the sword out from the cloak, folded the cloak up, and set it on the ground beside him. If this sword had some kind of ability, he wanted to find out what it was. The books had had no idea. He spied a boulder and this time when he lifted the sword above his head, he didn't feel like it was too heavy like the one at the Swordmaster's club. He brought it up easily and brought it down with force against the rock. The sword glanced off of the rock with such force it pulled Harry away from the rock with it. When he turned back to the boulder however, he found it had been covered in ice.

Harry breathed and noted his breath was frozen and visible in front of him. The air had chilled in the space around the rock as well. "Whoa."

He took a few steps back and when he couldnt find another boulder to hit, he stabbed the sword down into the grass. It didn't freeze the grass or the ground, and he frowned. He turned back to the frozen boulder and struck it again. The ice melted immediately and turned to water, which gushed down the face of the boulder and down onto Harry's shoes and the grass around it.

"So you turn some things to ice, and you turn ice to water. Can you turn water into vapor?"

Harry didn't know how to test that other than taking it to the lake, because the water that had come down off the boulder had already seeped into the ground.

Gathering the cloak up, he walked down to the lake, and when he reached the gently lapping waters, he set his cloak down again and stuck the edge of the blade into the water. He waited for almost a minute, but none of the water had frozen or turned to vapor. Why did it only affect some things and not others? Or did it only affect boulders? He didn't know. Trying not to feel disappointed, Harry pulled the sword out of the water, ready to return to the castle.

After a long trek back to the castle, and then sealing the sword back in the floor, Harry was ready to fall asleep and save further thought of the sword for a different day. His mind had other plans for him however, and he was swept into a dream of Merlin forging a blade when he was younger and apprenticing as a blacksmith. He needed the blade for something, but for what Harry could not remember later after he awoke. Merlin went on to lose the sword in the dream in a lake as he was crossing it, only to have it returned later by a hand from the water. Merlin was surprised to find the blade had had magic added to it, and layered over the small amount of magic Merlin had put into it at it's creation. Not long after he had received the blade from the hand, Merlin used the blade's powers to put the sword into the stone so that Arthur could pull it out and use it to win a war.

"Harry. Are you coming to classes today or not?"

Harry sat bolt upright in bed, breathing heavily.

"Whoa mate, bad dream?"

Harry turned and found that it was Ron who had woken him, and that sun was shining into the room. The other boys were all dressed and gathering their books to head to breakfast.

"No, not a bad dream," Harry said, feeling like he'd taken a calming draught or some other sort of sedating potion because his limbs felt heavy. "I had a dream about... swords."

"Swordmaster's club is tonight," Ron said. The other boys left and Harry pulled on a fresh shirt and pair of pants and said, "I was dreaming of the sword. It was so real. Merlin was apprenticed to a blacksmith and he made it with some magic instilled in it, then he lost it in a lake and Merpeople gave it back to him with new magic."

"You were reading about it pretty late last night."

"Yeah but-"

"What?"

"I didn't read any of this stuff. My dream was so... detailed. It felt so real."

"You think you dreamed the real story of the sword?"

"Well when you say it like that-" Harry started.

"I didn't mean anything by it. You've dreamed real things before."

"Only when Voldemort's in my head." Harry said, feeling slightly panicked as he felt around his mind for any hint that the dream had come from Voldemort or that he was still there. When he was certain his mind was free of Voldemort, he finished getting dressed and headed to breakfast.

At the Swordmaster's club that night Harry tried one of the lighter swords, and though it felt like it was the same weight as Excalibur (Harry felt certain it was Excalibur under his bed), it still didn't feel right. This blade had no magic, and everything about it felt wrong. He was distracted and Neville sliced his shirt from shoulder to hip and his skin along with it. It was just Madam Pomfrey waiting to heal them that evening, and she had him set straight in short order.

Harry didn't stay up late that night reading or sneaking about out on the grounds. Instead he went straight to bed, hoping he might finish the dream he'd been having the night before, and was rewarded for his effort.

Arthur took the sword from the stone, never noticing that Merlin was hidden in the woods nearby, using magic to release the sword from the boulder. The blade didn't perform magic for Arthur though. He won the battle he had to fight, but the blade broke in two before the battle was finished. Merlin took the two halves of it back to the lake and threw them out into the center of it, wondering if it would come back to him whole again. Some time later Arthur was passing by the lake and saw a hand appear out of the water holding the sword.

Arthur was stunned, though he took it. "I will have to call you Excalibur," he said in awe. "A good blade."

Harry's dream dissolved into something else not having to do with the sword, and when he woke in the morning he struggled to remember all of it.

Before they had to go to the Room of Requirement that night to teach the DA, Harry asked Hermione if she thought Arthur and Merlin had ever been to the Black Lake.

"Merlin was a Slytherin," she said. "He must have seen the lake." She pulled Hogwarts A History from her backpack, and considering how heavy a book it was Harry wondered that she carried it around with her. "It says here Arthur and Merlin made several journeys through the area around Hogwarts." She was thoughtful for a moment and said, "I'm certain I read somewhere else that Hogwarts wasn't always so guarded against Muggles, or maybe it was the greater area of the grounds I'm thinking of."

Harry couldn't stay focused on what they were doing that night at the DA, because he had decided to take the sword out again that night and stick it back in the water to see if the Merpeople would come talk to him. He didn't want to wait until late at night though because he had Quidditch Practice in the morning and thought he might also like to play Lacrosse with Sam and Ron again as well.

"I'm going out as soon as we get back to the tower," Harry told Ron after the DA was over and they were alone.

"Where?"

Harry explained briefly about taking the sword out earlier in the week and about wanting to try it in the water again.

"You realize if I get caught out after curfew I could lose my Prefect's badge."

"You don't have to come."

"Oh I'm coming. I just wanted you to know."

"If we get caught, you can say you followed me to tell me off and take points."

"Nah," Ron said, "imagine what Fred and George would say if they found out I was out stopping rule breaking instead of breaking the rules. Then Percy would start hounding me to join the Ministry after school like him."

Harry and Ron set out together after the DA with the sword under the cloak once again, but just as before on Harry's previous night time outing, nothing happened when they stuck the sword in the water.

"Tough luck," Ron told him as they made their way back to the castle. It was nearly ten, and curfew had passed for them an hour ago. "Maybe the Mer-people were sleeping. I'd rather not see them anyway." Ron had mentioned before how much the Mer-people in the Black Lake freaked him out since his brief stay with them at the bottom of the lake during the Tri-Wizard tournament.

Harry felt disappointed, and though he did not dream of Excalibur, Merlin, or Arthur anymore, he still returned to the lake the next night just before curfew, and the night after that. Eight nights he went to the lake and put the edge of the sword into the water, and eight nights there was nothing that would suggest the Mer-People had any interest in Harry or his sword.

On the ninth night, the air was growing chilly and even in the borrowed coat from Ron, Harry was beginning to think he wouldn't be able to come out here for many more nights before it was too cold to continue on. As Harry sat on his haunches, tip of the sword ten inches into the water, he lost himself to thoughts of the DA, his studies, and the latest game he'd played with Sam and his friends on the front lawns. Harry barely registered that hours had passed and the night was creeping on into the wee hours of the morning.

He yawned, and his eyes came into focus where he'd been staring absent-mindedly at the dark glassy surface of the water. The only problem he wasn't staring at the water, he was staring at a pale scaly hand. His heart quickened and Harry reached forward over the water and brushed the fingers of the hand, then fairly fell backwards as a Mer-man surfaced.

They stared at each other for a moment in the moonlight, and Harry took in his pale skin and dark blue hair. It was so dark it was almost black, but it glimmered in the pale light of the moon's reflections on the water. Finally Harry asked, "Did your people create Excalibur and give it to Merlin?"

The Mer-man gave a single nod and Harry got excited.

"And you gave it to Arthur later? Is this Excalibur?"

Instead of answering, the Mer-man sank into the water slightly so his mouth was underwater and said, "You are the stubborn one from the tournament."

"Yes," Harry answered.

It was the Mer-man's turn to look Harry over. "You're scrawny like Merlin and foolhardy like Arthur," he said, and disappeared back under the water, leaving Harry feeling perplexed and full of questions.

"I guess Arthur would have been a Gryffindor then if he weren't a Muggle." He waited for ten more minutes to see if the Mer-man would come back to talk to him, but when he didn't Harry rose and stretched and made his way back to the castle.

The Mer-man hadn't confirmed that this sword was Excalibur, but Harry was certain it was. And if Merlin had crafted the sword as a Blacksmith's apprentice, and he was scrawny too, it made sense why the sword wouldn't be heavy. It had never made sense to Harry or his friends why a king would carry such a light blade, but now it did. Merlin had made the sword for himself, not for Arthur, even though he'd put it in the stone later for the prince to pull out.

Harry felt more connected to the sword now than he had before, knowing more about it's past, or at least believing he did after his dreams and his brief chat with the Mer-man.

* * *

"Geez mate, did you sleep at all last night? You look like death," Ron commented as Harry made his way to breakfast Saturday morning at nine.

"Some," he said.

Hermione tutted at him about staying up so late, but at least she kept quiet about his late night excursions out of the castle. She had to have known even though Harry hadn't told her.

As Harry sat and Hermione pushed some eggs and toast onto his plate, Harry said, "I looked something up."

His friends were quiet and Harry looked at them.

"Yeah..." Ron said, urging him to continue. "Feel proud of yourself do you?"

Harry gave him a cross look and then realized he was more tired than he thought, because he hadn't finished his sentence to them.

"Hermione, you said the grounds weren't always warded against Muggles. And we figured that was how Arthur was able to cross the area and go to the Black Lake. But I found a book that said Hogwarts wasn't built until 8 years after Arthur died. I mean, he died when he was only 18 or 19."

"But that can't be right mate," Ron said, mouth full of bacon. "Merlin was Arthur's age wasn't he, and Merlin was in Slytherin. He couldn't have gone if he was in his twenties."

"That's not true," Hermione said. "Magic education wasn't really formalized until Hogwarts had been around for a hundred or more years. Witches and wizards learned magic by apprenticing others who already knew magic. When Hogwarts was first built they let anyone who could do magic in. The older people stayed in their own rooms. Some of them taught younger students what they knew in the daytime, and learned from wiser older witches and wizards in the evenings."

"I wonder if making magical blades was a common thing then," Harry said, "or only at Hogwarts, or maybe only because of Merlin. You know, because Slytherin had a blade and so did Gryffindor."

Apparently Neville was listening in and thought the discussion had something to do with the Swordmaster's club, because he asid, "Hufflepuff had a sword. Luna might know if Ravenclaw had one."

"What could Hufflepuff's sword do?" Ron asked.

"I heard whoever wielded it won every duel they fought, but only if the duel was in defense of another person."

Later, as Harry sat down to study for an upcoming Charms exam, his tired mind wandered back to Excalibur. He found it ironic that a wizard had made the sword, Mer-people had imbued it with more magic, and then a Muggle had used it for years to bring peace and stability to the kingdom. To top it all off, the sword had eventually returned again to Merlin who stuck it back in the stone, and then found it's way to Harry... a young wizard who looked something like Merlin.

Chapter End Notes:
More Harry and Snape in the next chapter. There is more about the sword too but it's not the focus of the rest of the story.

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