The school year was cut short.
After the events transpired at Hogwarts, the school administration was bombarded with letters from concerned parents who wished to have their children back home to safety. The sheer amount of letters, along with parents who had directly descended on Hogwarts to take their children, had forced Hogwarts hand to end the school year before time.
The examinations were canceled for everyone except the fifth and seventh years. OWLs and NEWTs were postponed by one week, and it was decided that the two essential tests would be conducted within a Ministry-approved venue.
Quinn rose early on the last day at the school. He was already packed; the Hogwarts Express would leave one hour after breakfast. But before he left the school for the last time, he had to do something important. He canceled his morning workout with Eddie, and instead of going to the grounds like every morning, he headed to the sixth floor.
Quinn stared at the narrow corridor in front of him; it looked no different than any other of its types scattered around Hogwarts. He could clearly see the end of the corridor where a wall stood ending the path. He glanced behind him for a fleeting moment before taking firm steps towards the portrait hung on the dead-end wall. There wasn't a single soul anywhere near the place— just him and the portrait.
He looked up at the posh man with a goatee sitting on his ornate chair with a rod-straight posture, elegantly reading the book in hand from behind his small-lensed glasses that hung on the tip of the nose with a long bridge.
Quinn stayed silent, waiting for the portrait to look at him, which he knew wasn't going to happen from the dozens he had visited the place, but he waited. . . he wanted to. The result was as expected, the painted man continued to read his book, and Quinn watched him do it with only the sound of the occasional flip of the page sounding in the lonesome corridor.
"Headmaster Viridian," Quinn finally broke the silence.
The man didn't respond immediately; instead, he raised a finger towards Quinn and kept it raised as he continued to read the book. It was a minute later that the portrait of Vindictus Viridian placed a thin bookmark between the pages and closed the book upon it. He lowered his finger and, for the first time, focused his eyes anywhere other than the book.
"Yes," he said simply.
Quinn blinked in surprise. That was different, he thought. He requested entry into the Room of Rewards.
"Password?" asked the portrait.
Quinn's surprise grew. That was yet again wildly different from what he was expecting. ". . . No condescending jab, or asking me to return?" he asked.
"That was only warranted when you, time after time, accosted me and disturbed me when I was preparing to slumber or was already asleep. This is early morning— the appropriate time to gain entry in the room."
It was that simple for some basic politeness?
". . . Finalis Visita," Quinn said the password picked up from Recon.
Viridian nodded and opened his book again as the portrait swung open to allow Quinn entry and let out cold, dry air from within.
Quinn exhaled a puff and stepped inside the Room of Rewards. The room hadn't changed a single dust grain since the last time he had entered. The grid of standing double-sided bookshelves occupied the space with their black binders full of records on every Hogwarts student that ever studied in its classrooms.
He picked the middle aisle and made his way to the room center, where the Hogwarts crest decorated the floor and hid the secret beneath the floor. . . hid the demons beneath the road. Quinn kneeled before the crest, channeled his magic, and uttered the magic words. The different parts of the crest jumped in their place, with a white glow leaking from within. The crest vanished and left behind a gaping hole.
'Why am I here? Why am I doing this?'
Such thoughts passed through his mind as he dropped him into the gaping tunnel. As he descended, his thoughts were doubting his actions, but his body was fearless— so fearless that he didn't create an elevated platform for him to stand upon and landed directly upon the bare floor of the vault. He immediately crushed the magic from the floor that tried to knock him out.
The Sin Vault wasted no time to open business. The heptagonal walls glowed up in their seven-colored glory. Quinn's furrowed brows eased a fraction when he felt the magic from the runes fill the room. It felt familiar, he could recognize it, and it wasn't the absolute unknown it was as earlier in the year. He raised his magic as the runes reached saturation. The seven-colored beams burst out of the runes, but instead of infiltrating Quinn's soulscape without any hindrance, it halted like water before a dam at the boundary of the soulscape.
Quinn had no sense of achievement as he thwarted the waves of soul-based magic. All he could wonder as he operated his magic was — 'Was Greed right? Is my greed too much for me to control?' — he had come down into the Sin Vault without even thinking about it; his first instinct had led him into the place that had derailed his life two out of two times. Was his greed for some semblance of reward so strong that he had yet again ignored a sense of safety, even after all the lessons he had experienced.
The magic from the runes ran out, and the beams dribbled out until the room was again in darkness with Quinn in the middle. His body eased up as he looked around the room. He wished he knew if there wasn't any other "offensive" surprise, but he didn't; however, something told him that everything that could worry him was over.
There was a quake in the room, making Quinn twitch. The wall directly behind him broke into rectangular brick blocks and turned inwards until there was a path opened up to him. Quinn slowly exhaled all his previous tension to make room for a new batch that arrived with the appearance of the new door.
He took out a miniature stone tablet from his pocket, enlarged it to full-size, and leaned it against one of the walls with ample magic to ensure it would not topple over. On the stone tablet were concise instructions on finding him if someone did reach here and screwed themselves over.
He cracked his knuckles just to break the heavy silence in the antechamber. Then followed with the sound of his footsteps. His heartbeat in his chest blared in his ears as he stepped across the threshold and wisely sent his magic forward for scouting, which reported back with zilch in response. But Quinn knew better to believe that his skill with magic would be reliable in the Sin Vault. He kept his eyes forward and his ear listening with his skin tingling in attention.
After deliberate and careful walking, Quinn reached the end, where a humble room awaited him. There was nothing in the square room but a single portrait.
Quinn recognized the portrait. It was unique in Hogwarts. It was the only non-magical portrait inside Hogwarts, proudly displayed in the Entrance Hall outside the Great Hall. Yet, here it was. . . present inside the Sin Vault.
The man in the portrait, with his long white beard and long flowing hair, opened his sparkling blue eyes with specks of green. The man blinked a couple before his eyes turned to the front, focusing on Quinn.
"Oh. . . Quinn West," the man's first word delivered a punch to Quinn. "It seems you have finally made it to my humble abode."
". . . Merlin."
The Grand Sorcerer of the King Arthur's Court, the founder of the Order of Merlin, an organization that promoted non-magical rights, and the greatest magic user in the Western world and one of the greats that the world had ever seen. The person that had permeated himself through the generations and immortalized himself in the minds of every single person who ever heard of his legend so much that he had become part of the magical vernacular.
Quinn gulped. "You were behind the Sin Vault?" he asked. Why?
"Sin Vault?" Merlin repeated. "Ah, the seven sins. . . yes-yes, I'm the creator of this magic."
Quinn asked the question that plagued his mind: "Why. . . ?" Why would the greatest of all time create something so horrifying?
"Why? Hmm, let's say. . . because of Morgana."
"Morgana. . . Morgan Le Fay?" Morgan le Fay, more commonly known as Morgana, was a medieval dark art practioner famous for being the enemy of Merlin and the half-sister of King Arthur.
"Yes, Morgana," sighed Merlin. "In one of our tussles, she displayed a surprising skill in soul magic, which worried me because I was lacking in that area of magic, and by now, you must know how tricky soul magic can get. I couldn't risk falling behind, so I started to dabble in soul magic. Alas, I was naive in those days— Morgana was using wizards and muggle alike in her experiments to learn more about soul magic, and I, by my lonesome, couldn't keep up her progress. . . so I made this place and cast my magic in it."
"You wanted to use children?!" Quinn exploded. He and Alan had come to this very conclusion the first time Quinn had suffered from the Sin curse. But having that theory confirmed was infuriating.
"I did," said Merlin, nigh a regret on his face. "Where else better but at a castle full of young children with their bubbling and growing magic? Hogwarts was the best place I could think of to experiment to catch up with Morgana."
Quinn's magic flared out of control. It lashed on the walls of the room, but they remained unharmed even under the unrelenting angry assault. Even Merlin's portrait remained unscathed.
"Do you have any idea what I went through?" Quinn's voice distorted like a demon. "You egotistical piece of shit! Give me one reason I shouldn't make it my life's goal to erase every trace of your legacy from the world. I will find a way to destroy all physical traces and erase the entire planet's memory if that's what it takes."
"That's a bold claim, boy. I've become quite famous after my death," said Merlin. "As for if I know what you went through— I do— I was watching you all the time, after all."
Quinn's furious momentum pressed a break, while still angry, his magic abated.
"I have eyes all over. As long it is in this castle, I can travel to any portrait in every castle, even the deer painting in your room. Anywhere you went, I was followed, observing you. So, I know exactly what you went through, and I did construct the magic, so piecing together whatever I missed was easy enough."
He was being watched? Quinn's heart quivered.
"Also, don't worry, all of those who went through some version of the magic I cast here left relatively unscathed. . . okay, you caught me, a couple of them did suffer later, but I did compensate their families. Ah, don't worry, no one entered here after my death; you're the first one."
"That doesn't change anything, you crazy bag!"
Merlin then went on to tell the tale of the Sin Vault. How he used to visit Hogwarts once a year to teach for a week, and by then, the Sin Vault would've lured in some students. When Merlin arrived for his one week, the curse's progression would reach a level where Merlin could study the student to gain some insight and then fix the affected students before he left. It continued for two decades, with a couple of students getting caught every year. Over the years, the Sin Vault changed as Merlin learned more and more and became what it was today. He told Quinn that every person would be affected in a different way and what Quinn went through was unique to him, something Merlin was proud of because he could gain new insight from every subject.
". . . . When Morgana died, I stopped experimenting with Hogwarts students, but I didn't want what I created to extinguish, so I put a puzzle in place and put in a portrait here so that if someone stumbled in here, I could know what happened, even if it was after my death," said Merlin before asking, "Do you mind telling me how I died? Even after so much time here, I could not find how I died."
Portraits were copies of the person, but they only held memories until the person had last refreshed the portrait. So not having the remembrance of death was a trait of a magical portrait.
"According to what I have read, you fell in love with a girl, taught her all your magic, and then were done in by her," said Quinn.
Merlin's eyes seemed to shine with realization. A sad look passed his face before it went to the normal, smiling one. "So, what are you going to do now?" he asked. "I don't think you can destroy me. . . at least, not now, not for a good while."
Quinn didn't even have to think about his answer, "If I can't destroy you, then I will take you with me and keep you isolated until I am able to do so." He fixed the portrait with a baleful glare. Merlin didn't look one bit regretful for his actions; he had played with innocent students' lives. And he had made his life miserable.
"Or, you don't do that, and maybe I will teach you a thing or two when I feel like it," said Merlin with a smile. "You will find that I can be very knowledgeable about a wide variety of magicks."
Quinn's expression turned. He stared at Merlin, unblinking. After an unknown amount of time, he walked to the portrait, removed it from the wall, and walked out of the wall with the portrait in hand.
Greed was right. Maybe he could never get rid of him.
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Quinn West - MC - Finally over.
Merlin - Portrait - Sometimes, sacrifices are needed.
FictionOnlyReader - Author - Well, I did drop ONE clue about Merlin. The reason why I chose Merlin was that I think that anyone that great must have some skeletons in his closet. Also, I don't know if I am going to show Merlin that much— he will maybe work in the background with Quinn, but do let me know. . . .
