Only A Boy

Unicorn Blood

The next morning, Merlin met with Draco and Hermione in their usual place at the back of the library. As they passed the counter, Madam Pince glanced up at them. She pursed her lips but as they disappeared into the shelves, Merlin thought he caught the smallest glimmer of a smile before she vanished from view. Once they were settled into their little alcove, Merlin told them that the dragon Norberta had been safely removed from Hagrid's hut. They were silent while he talked, but the moment he'd finished Draco folded his arms.

"Okay, spill."

Merlin glanced at Hermione. "Spill what?" he asked slowly.

"What do you mean, what?" Draco said and he frowned. "You haven't really told us anything. What made you run into Hagrid's hut like that? How did you calm the dragon down?"

Merlin hid his hands under the table so they wouldn't see him fidgeting. "I dunno," he said with a careless shrug. "Just a feeling."

"A feeling?" Draco repeated, and he shared a glance with Hermione.

"Merlin," Hermione said and she hesitated a moment before continuing, "that—that dragon perched on your shoulder like a parrot or something. I've never even heard of dragons doing anything like that."

Merlin swallowed, "I guess she liked me," and he managed a weak smile.

"Really? What did you say to it?" Hermione pressed. "I couldn't hear most of it, but what I did hear didn't sound English at all."

"And how did you even know it was there?" Draco added.

"I didn't—" Merlin tried to say but Draco interrupted him.

"You took off like a bat out of hell—you knew there was something going on in Hagrid's hut."

Merlin didn't know what to say. He looked from one friend to the other, the gears in his mind working furiously in order to think of how he could both be honest with them and yet keep his kinship with dragons secret. But he couldn't just write off what happened as nothing – they'd seen him speak the tongue of dragons, though he doubted any soul alive would recognize the language. This wasn't something he could lie his way out of, even if he had wanted to.

"Did you—" Hermione said, a look of dawning realization on her face, "did you realize the troll was in the castle too? Is that why you went to look for it?"

"I didn't know it was a troll," Merlin said quickly.

"But you knew something was there, didn't you?"

"What are you saying?" Draco scoffed. "That Merlin can somehow sense animal magic?" He laughed nervously, shaking his head. "But he can't," and then his smile faltered. "Can you?" he asked, addressing Merlin now.

"Well," and Merlin shrugged. "It would explain a lot," he said with a sheepish grin. He was trying to play it off as nothing, as something he had discovered alongside his friends but his heart was beating painfully fast. He didn't want to lie to them. It would be easy to tell them that— well, actually, I'm the last living Dragonlord so I have access to some pretty awesome archaic magic.

Yeah, that conversation would go over so well.

"Anything else?" Draco asked, gesturing his hand almost rudely in Merlin's direction. "Can you make the birds do your laundry, ask flies for exam questions, you know something else that's completely bonkers?"

Hermione giggled and they both looked at her. She flushed a light shade of pink and said, "Sorry, you just—" and she giggled again. "You make him sound like a Disney Princess."

For one long moment, Draco just stared at her and then he started laughing too. Merlin, who was stressing over how to repair the situation he found himself in, frowned. "Guys," he said shaking his head. "It's not like that—I can't do those things."