A/N: Hey guys. Last chapter set in Arthurian England coming up.

"So, get all your answers last night?" I asked Lily as we ate the breakfast brought up to our room.

"Yeah, Binns isn't going to know what's hit him." I opened my mouth to reply, but Lily cut me off. "I know, I know. He's a ghost, nothing can hit him; it'll just go through him."

"Actually…I was just going to say I'm glad you're being so conscientious. It's nice to not be the only who cares about grades and all." I watched as she flushed red right up to her hairline, ducking her head. "Hey," I said gently, "being smart isn't a bad thing. Just because the rest of your family apparently has mush for brains, doesn't mean you have to be the same."

Still she refused to look up at me.

"You know, Al wasn't always such a…" I trailed off, searching for the right word.

"Moron," Lily suggested.

"Right, he wasn't always a moron," I laughed. "He used to sit and do his homework in the library every evening with me. He used to sit at the front of the classroom; not the back. Sometimes he even used to beat me to the punch answering the teacher's questions."

Lily looked surprised. It wasn't difficult to imagine Al writing home during First Year and telling her all about fabricated escapades. "So what changed?"

"A lot of things, I guess. He became better friends with Scorpius than with me. James and Fred stepped away from all the trouble making and everybody just looked to Al and Scorpius to take their place. That kind of pressure…well, it was no surprise that when Oliver Shaw and Sam Swarek asked them if they wanted in on a prank on Filch they said yes."

"Shaw and Swarek?! Really?"

"Really," I replied, shaking my head at Al and Scor's naivety. Even Fred and James wouldn't have believed the pair of Slytherin seventh years were being sincere when they said they would guard the hallway outside Filch's office. "Look, what I'm trying to say is don't change who you are for other people. Just be yourself, Lily."

"I will."

I smiled, shaking my head as Al pounded on the door from outside.

"Oi! Girls! Hurry up!"

"Guess we should probably get dressed," I muttered to Lily, already taking my school robes out of the wardrobe.

After hurriedly zipping my skirt up, tucking my shirt inside it and pulling my woollen jumper down over the top, I worked on my taming my hair into submission. Unfortunately for me, I had inherited my mother's frizzy gene and every day was a battle. But no matter how much I palmed my hair, it seemed that I was fighting a losing battle.

Lily had already finished changing into her own uniform and thrown open the door to admit the boys.

"Give it up, Rosie," Hugo said. "You're never going to get it to lie flat. Not without a potion, anyway. Just accept the fact that you're always going to have a haystack on top of your head."

Grumbling, I turned and shot him a glare. He knew that my hair was a sore point.

"Hugo, you might be my little brother but if you don't shut up, I'll turn your whole head into a haystack. And I'm pretty sure I wouldn't even feel guilty."

"Let's be honest for a second here, Rose," interjected Al. "You're afraid of spiders, but you still feel guilty after letting Poppy loose on them."

"What is this? Gang-up-on-Rose day?" I complained. "Jeez, guys."

"We're not ganging up on you. We're simply stating the facts," Al asserted. "Fact one: like Hugh said, you're never going to get your hair to lie flat, at least not in this century." When I turned to look at him, he added, "Come on, you don't even have a hairbrush to use. Fact two: you wouldn't give Hugh a haystack for a head because he's your brother and you love him. And finally, fact 3: you're a wuss."

Whilst Hugh, Al and Scorpius fell about laughing, the three of them touching fists, I rolled my eyes at Lily, mouthing, "Boys."

When I'd had enough of their laughter, I cleared my throat. "Alright, enough. We need to go back to school, remember?"

Sobering up, Scorpius replied, "We're in our uniforms and ready, aren't we?"

"It was you we were waiting for," pointed out Albus.

"Well, if we're all ready, we should be on our way. Let's go." I waited for the boys to leave first, took one last look around the room to make sure we weren't leaving anything and walked out the door Scorpius was holding open for me. "Thanks."

I'd been hoping to get away quickly, but I should have realised Morgana would have had other ideas. When we got out of the Castle and back to the time machine, she was already waiting for us with Merlin, the two of them holding hands.

"Thought you'd leave without saying goodbye?" Morgana asked.

"Right, sorry, we've just got to get back to…"

"The future?" Merlin suggested, smiling gently at me. I gaped. "You wear curious clothes, speak differently and you most certainly aren't druids. You really thought you could fool me? So, am I right?"

"Yes," I reluctantly admitted. "We're students at this school-"

"-Hogwarts," Al butted in.

"Right, Hogwarts."

"And Lily and I have to write an essay on you, Merlin, for our History of Magic teacher," Hugo said, continuing on from me.

Merlin and Morgana shared a look of shock.

"Seriously? You two are the most famous-"

I slapped my hand over Hugh's mouth before he could finish that sentence. He was as bad as Al, putting his foot in everything.

"We're famous?" Morgana asked incredulously.

"Well done, Hugh," Lily muttered out of the corner of her mouth.

"What? What did I do?" he hissed back as Scorpius and I frantically backtracked, trying to fix the mess Hugo had just made. It was bad enough that Merlin had worked out we were from the future, but now he was getting a peak into his own future. Who knew what kind of damage that would do.

"Er, well, Hugo didn't really mean famous," Scorpius said, rubbing the back of his neck. "See, it's kind of difficult to explain, and really we've probably said too much already."

"Yeah and we really don't have time to get into all that," I added.

"Yeah, wouldn't want our teachers to notice we're missing. You wouldn't believe the trouble we'll get it," Al said. "I've already got detention this weekend. Don't want to get any more."

"So we should really get going-"

"-Relax. Obviously this is something you can't really talk about. We won't force you. If you need to go, go," Merlin told us, his benign smile never leaving his face.

I smiled back gratefully and nodded to the others, each of us taking our places around the time machine, leaving the world's most famous wizard and the woman he clearly loved behind us.

A/N: So they're heading back to Hogwarts again. I hope you enjoyed these few chapters with Merlin. Thanks for reading!