❝ MERLIN'S GHOST! ❞
❝ I MEAN, YOU'RE NOT WRONG. ❞
▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Albany Bronwen was no Chosen One by any means, but being haunted by the ghosts of the greatest sorcerer of all time and a former king had to count for something, right?
❃ in which a lone...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
▬▬▬▬
Come seek us where our voices sound, We cannot sing above the ground, And while you're searching, ponder this: We've taken what you'll sorely miss, An hour long you'll have to look, And to recover what we took. But past an hour — the prospect's black Too late, it's gone, it won't come back.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN'T SWIM?"
Albany huffed, crossing her arms defensively as Merlin shot her a weary look.
"Don't look at me! I grew up by the woods, not the seaside," she snapped, turning away from the judgemental ghost. "I'm just as stressed as you are, no need to harass me about it."
Stressed was an understatement. She had frantically dragged Carly and the twins to the lake after Moody's tip to dunk the egg into the water; while at first, she'd thought nothing happened, it took dunking her own head under the cold waves to hear the eerie words. The song was like that of a siren, and after listening to it as many times as Albany could tolerate the freezing water, the four figured they couldn't be far off. Carly confirmed their theories with a quick library sweep later that evening: there were mermaids in the Black Lake. And they were going to take something from Albany, and hide it. In the lake.
She had an hour. To search a lake.
And that wasn't even the worst of it. Oh, no.
"We covered the Bubblehead Charm at the start of the year, remember?" George had prompted her optimistically, upon noticing her sullen expression. "You still have a week to practice it. That's plenty of time."
Albany had hummed in agreement, too embarrassed to mention her bigger problem. Being able to breathe underwater did nothing for her if she couldn't navigate underwater. Or move at all.
Naturally, she couldn't hide it forever. And so, after a horribly sleepless night, she confessed to Merlin, too exhausted to fully freak out.
"So you've never gone swimming... like, ever?" Merlin pressed, raising an eyebrow at the girl.
"No!" Albany retorted, though was chewing relentlessly on her cheek to hide the tremble in her fingers. "I'm a pureblood, you think my parents thought swimming would be a valuable life skill?"
"What do I know? I'm only halfblood," Merlin reminded her.
"Ah yes, the great Merlin's biggest secret," Albany announced dramatically, raising her hands in the air and wiggling her fingers. "Slytherins hate him."
"You're Slytherin—"
"It was sarcasm, you — you...."
"Clotpole?" Merlin offered.
Albany snorted. "What the fuck does that even mean?"
