The Rising of Merlin

The One With the Goblin Incident

Chapter 23 The One With the Goblin Incident

Merlin walked aimlessly around the castle, a little irritated by Morgana's question. He had told her he didn't want the others to know yet, why did she have to be so stubborn? He didn't look where he walked and soon he found himself on the seventh floor, outside the Room of Requirement. He figured he might as well create Gaius chambers again but was interrupted by someone calling after him.

"Marcus!" It was Hermione that called after him.

"Hermione! What are you doing here? Don't you have a lesson now?" He asked puzzled.

"I needed to talk to you." Hermione said when she had caught up to him.

"I'm guessing it's important, since you're skipping class." He said

"Yes, it is." She confirmed with a nod.

"Then we should probably go somewhere private." He said with a furrowed brow before he started pacing in front of the wall three times. On the third lap, a wooden door appeared. He opened the door and indicated for Hermione to walk in.

"Where are we?" Hermione said breathlessly as she took in the room. Just like last time he was in here, it was cluttered with potion bottles and books. This time, there was two plates of food on the table as well, looking very inviting.

"This is how my chambers looked in Camelot, when I was living with the court physician. Unfortunately, most books and potions are just empty copies." He said and sat down at the table, Hermione following his example soon after.

"What do you mean by empty copies? We have used this room before and every book that has been in here has been real." She asked perplexed.

"That's because those books still existed. Most of these books were destroyed long ago. They are only here because that's how I remember it. You see that there are empty spaces in the bookshelves?" He pointed to the shelf behind her. She turned around and looked and then nodded in confirmation. "That's because I don't remember the books that stood there, and most of the other books, I only remember the backside of. If I were to open one of them..." He stood up and walked over to the shelf. He took one of the books and put it in front of Hermione, who opened it.

"It's blank!" She said as she flipped through the book. Page after page was empty, even the front.

"See? But if I were to open one of these." He took one of the books on the workbench and gave to Hermione. She opened it and there were some empty pages but most were filled with text. "This one isn't completely empty because I looked through it so many times, I remember most of it." He said and took the books back.

"So, you can't look through these books and learn something new, because everything that's in these books, you already know?" She asked. "That sounds annoying." She gave a half chuckle.

"Yes, but that's just how it is." He shrugged. "I managed to retrieve most of these books when Gaius died, but the rest was destroyed when Camelot fell." He said a little sadly and sat down at the table again.

"Then why do you conjure up this room then?" Hermione said with curiosity.

"Because it's home." He sighed and he could see that Hermione understood. "That door over there..." He inclined his head to the door up the stairs. "That was my room. My bed and everything I remember is in there, because I spent so much time there, it's edged into my memories." He smiled. "You can eat the food, by the way. It's fresh." He said when he noticed Hermione glancing at the plate in front of her with hungry eyes.

"Well, I am a bit hungry." She said and took up a piece of bread. "I missed lunch earlier." She dipped the bread into the vegetable stew on the plate. "Hmm, this tastes amazing." She said and licked her lips appraisingly. "What is it?"