The Legacy of Salazar

St. Mungos

Black hair tangled, splayed across twisted sheets, a sheen of sweat across trembling lips—the sight of Merlin Evans sleeping was not one of peace. The cool blue light that emanated from the intricate rune on the boy's pillow threw his strained features into sharp relief, stressing the sickly pale hue of his skin.

Severus Snape rubbed the sleep from his eyes and leaned back in his armchair. He hadn't slept all night. As much as he hated to admit it, he was worried. Far more worried than he'd ever been about a student. Finding the boy wandering about the Great Hall, delirious and in pain—well, it'd been a long time since he'd acknowledged the word panic. Not that the feeling had been entirely alleviated...

No time to set up a portkey, they had taken Merlin by floo powder to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. It would have been amusing, the way Dumbledore swept up to the front desk and half a dozen Healers came running without his saying a single word, were it not for the situation. They took Merlin to the fourth floor, to a tiny little ward called Grecian Herpo: Dark Curses. The only other occupant remained sheltered by their privacy curtains—something about a facial disfigurement charm. But though Healer Alan Chilton and his trainee Healer Freesia Bloom had managed to put the breaks on the curse, they were no closer to removing the thing than when they'd arrived.

Nothing like this curse had ever been seen before.

Diagnostics had revealed it could devour memories, but then it should have just kept eating them away until there was nothing left. Residual evidence implied that some of Merlin's memories had indeed been devoured—impossible to say how much without talking to the boy. But, the curse had moved on from eating memories to causing brain inflammation. Perplexing, was the word Healer Chilton had used.

"Still asleep, then?"

Dumbledore had returned, holding two steaming purple mugs with golden crescent moons. He strode into the room and handed one to Snape, who took the tea gratefully, before taking a seat in the chair on the other side of Merlin's bed. Snape didn't reply, the answer was clear to see, and instead inhaled the steam rising from his mug. No sugar. No cream.

"You can't be blamed for this," Dumbledore went on, and Snape found he suddenly couldn't look at Merlin's sickly figure.

"I should've seen it," Snape said. "He came to me twice for a headache draft. I was going to take him to the infirmary if he came for a third—" he trailed off.

"We had no reason to suspect it was anything more than a common illness," Dumbledore said gently.

Snape watched Merlin's chest rise and fall, the sweat on his brow. It was more than that. They had all noticed that Merlin looked off-colour, it had been so obvious to the staff that the boy had been struggling with some illness. Someone should have realized there was something more to it. Now, Merlin's life was in danger. The runes they had drawn into the boy's pillow and sheets were only a temporary fix, not to mention the damage—

Merlin's eyelids fluttered.

Snape rose from his chair, setting the mug of tea on the windowsill. "Merlin?" he said, softly. Across him, Dumbledore had straightened in his chair. Then, just when Snape thought he'd been mistaken, Merlin's eyes snapped open.

"Why—" he started, his voice weak and rough. He blinked, his light blue eyes darting around until they settled on Snape. "Why can't I move my head?"

"That would be the work of your healers," Dumbledore said as Snape waved his wand and Merlin's bed shifted upwards until he was at a soft recline and could see them more easily. "There is a rune on your pillow and it is very important that you do not move your head from it at present, so it seemed prudent to limit your mobility."