See If I Care

~4~

Alex stared at the castle in front of them before their attention was pulled away from the impressive sight to the magic surrounding the castle. The wards around the land and the castle itself were vast and imposing, a huge array of colours, patterns, textures, and movements. The magic surrounding the castle was much more concentrated magic than they had seen in one place at a time, and it was slightly overwhelming, but they managed to pull their attention away from the wards as they approached the castle. They were glad, however, when they passed through the wards, and the front gates, meaning they didn't have to try and look through the imposing colours. As they moved up the path towards the castle, Merlin continued to tell them what they would be learning.

"Godric will teach you hand to hand combat and blade handling and will fit you with blades that suit you best. He will teach you Offensive and Defensive magics, and he will teach you Light magic. He will also be your flying instructor.

"Salazar will be the one to teach you the art of Potions and everything they can do, from brewing them to creating your own unique potions. He will teach you Dark magic. He will also be the one to teach you everything there is to know about Mind magics, from the most advanced Occlumency, to basic Legilimency, and everything else to do with the magics of the mind. Salazar will also teach you how to wield a bow.

"I will be teaching you the various techniques that let you harness you magic in ways that go beyond what most can do with a wand. I will teach you aura control, which is battling with pure magic. I will teach you to control your Mage Sight. I will teach you elemental magics if you have any affinity to them. I will instruct you in the animagus transformation if you have the ability. I will also be the one to teach you about history, both what is history for us now and what will be history for you in the future.

"And finally, Salazar, Godric, and I will all combine lessons once a week to teach you to duel. We will teach you to duel using a combination of all the magics we will teach you and how to incorporate your blades, and possibly your bow, into duels," Merlin finished. Alex was extremely excited now. They loved learning and they would learn so much in however long they were going to be with the five. They were approaching the large doors that led into the castle now.

"How long will I be here?"

"You will not be able to remain for your second magical maturity. That is to say, you will have to be sent back before your fifteenth birthday, because you can not go through a magical maturity and then get sent back to the body you are currently in," Merlin said. Alex nodded.

"So, seven years. It sounds like the next seven years are going to be amazing," they said, bouncing up and down as they walked once again. Merlin smiled at them and pushed the doors open, leading Alex into the large entrance hall.

Merlin led Alex through the large castle, heading to the main common room for the founders of the castle, telling Alex all about the castle and what they were doing to change it to make it a school. He also told them some stories about the people in the paintings they passed as they moved through the castle. They reached the founders common room, where Merlin knew the other four would be at this time of day and stopped at the end of the corridor.

"Do you want to surprise them?" Merlin asked and Alex grinned.

"Why not. Keep them on their toes," Alex replied with a small giggle. Merlin grinned playfully before he apparated, landing in the middle of the common room with a loud crack.

Alex laughed at the reactions of those in the room at their sudden arrival. A broad, robust man with wiry and curly rust red, shoulder length hair and a short beard of the same colour, fell off the seat he had been in with a yell. A tall, slim woman with long, dark brown, almost black, hair in a plait down her back dropped her book in surprise. A second woman, shorter than the other and plump, with honey gold hair that fell in waves down to just past her shoulders jumped and gave a yelp at their unexpected arrival. The fourth occupant of the room, a slim, compact man with a small goatee and black hair tied at the back of his neck, gave no indication of surprise or shock at their sudden, loud arrival; he barely reacted at all, simply blinking.

"Merlin," the man who hadn't reacted said, as if Merlin randomly appearing was a daily occurrence; it could have been though, Alex wasn't sure.

"Salazar," Merlin replied.

"What did the goblins want?" the short, plump woman asked with a smile.

"They wanted to introduce me to this young one, Helga," Merlin replied, releasing Alex's hand, and placing it on their shoulder to bring more attention to them.

"Godric, Rowena, Helga, Salazar, meet Alex. Alex, meet Godric Gryffindor, Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff, and Salazar Slytherin," Merlin said. Alex smiled.

"It's a pleasure to meet you all," they said, not looking any of them in the eyes, very nervous about how they would be received, especially by the four founders of Hogwarts.

"It is a pleasure to meet you to dear one," said the tall woman with the plait, Rowena.

"Is this the one you said we would be teaching Merlin? The Guardian of Magic?" the robust, wiry-haired man, Godric, asked.

"Yes. Alex is the first of Magic's Chosen in ten centuries since the five of us, and we are going to teach them how to control and harness their considerable amounts of magic," Merlin said.

"Can you tell us a bit about yourself Alex?" Helga asked. Alex thought about what they could say for a moment before replying.

"My name is Alex and I use they/them pronouns. I've known I wasn't a girl since before I was six, and I finally found a word for how I feel, agender, only a handful of days ago. I turned 8 yesterday and today my godfather, Remus, was going to adopt me, which is why we were at Gringotts in the first place. He can't adopt me though, because he has lycanthropy, but he is getting guardianship over me." They bit their lip, trying to think of what else they could say to explain more about themself.

"I love learning and that extends to basically anything that I can research or learn about. I enjoy learning about etiquette and customs and taught myself Gobbledygook over the last year from various books I was able to find. My magic is really fluid, and I enjoy playing with it when I get bored, watching the colours change as they swirl around my arms and twist around my fingers. I'm able to manipulate my magic and have been able to for a while now. Since I was 4 or 5, I think, was when I started being able to control my bursts of accidental magic, which started when I was about one and a half to two.

"What else? Oh. You probably worked it out, but I have Mage Sight, something which I only learnt today was not a common ability and is actually pretty rare. I also have an eidetic memory and, according to the Nurrak, the goblin who conducted my first inheritance test, I could cause destruction easily without meaning to unless I am taught how to control and harness my powers due to my core type, colour, and inclination," they said.

"Why was your godfather going to adopt you? What happened to your parents?" Godric asked. Alex scowled slightly before completely blanking their face of any emotion.

"They don't matter. I may have a mother, father, and brother by blood, but none of them consider me family, so I don't consider them family," they said coolly, shocking the five adults in the room at how quickly they had changed to completely emotionless.

"Why don't they consider you family?" Helga asked gently.

"James and Lily, my father and mother, stopped paying attention to me in favour of Harry, my twin brother. It started slowly, when we were about two, and got worse from there. The past three and a half years I have basically lived on my own in their house; no interaction with any of them or any acknowledgement that there is a fourth person living in the house. The only one who pays attention to me and seems to remember that I exist it Remus, my godfather. I used to hope that they would remember me, but that hope slowly died over the past year as still nothing changed," Alex said, voice still cool and emotionless.

"You will simply have to take everything we teach you and use it to show them that you are better than all of them and make them regret ignoring you," Salazar said. Alex's emotionless mask vanished at the reminder of everything they were going to learn, and they grinned again, slightly shocking the others at how quickly they could switch between emotionless and a happy, expressive child.

"When do we start our lessons?" they asked eagerly.