A/N: Hey everyone! I'm glad that you decided to read this story :D I forgot to put a disclaimer in the first chapter, so I figured I'd do it now. I'll try not to forget from here on! Oh, and updates will hopefully come once a week. Every Thursday if all goes as planned, but if I don't update on Thursday, it will hopefully be added on a weekend. Just to let you know (in case you haven't already noticed) this is a Hermione/Merlin fic. There won't be anything, but friendship for a while as Hermione is only seven at the moment. Figured I should explain as I don't want anyone getting the wrond idea. There will hopefully be some romance after a long while, but I'm letting it progress slowly. Enjoy the next chapter! It's early and a bit longer than the last one :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Merlin...I'm just borrowing their characters in order to move the story along!

Chapter Two

Hermione woke up confused. Her throat was hoarse and her eyes hurt. Her face felt wet and puffy. It was also dark, too dark. Her eyes cracked open, and she tried to sit up. She ran a hand threw her hair and realized that she had leaves, dirt, and small twigs stuck in her curls. Wondering why she was in the forest, she tried to stand. That was when she noticed her legs and knees were raw and bloody as she had scraped the skin off somehow. It was then that her memories came to her. A sharp gasp crawled its way out of her throat. Her parents…what had happened to her parents. She felt empty, so horribly empty. The screams rang in her head. She began to stagger threw the forest, not really paying attention to her surroundings.

The trees blocked the moonlight. It was so very dark. She should be frightened. She wished she was frightened, and then maybe she could feel something. It felt like she had walked for hours when really it had only been a few minutes. She stumbled into a small clearing, the moonlight bathing it in soft light. The rocks shimmered and glowed. Miniature lights floated and danced in the clearing. She barely noticed that the rocks had odd symbols etched into them. A pleasant feeling settled inside of her, and she wandered further into the clearing, allowing the lights to dance around her head. A warm wind whispered unknown words of what she assumed to be comfort into her ears. She longed to understand what it said, maybe then she wouldn't feel so…sad.

The warmth of the wind made her realize how cold she felt, cold in both body and soul. She moved closer to the center of the clearing, stumbling and falling. If she could just reach the center, everything would be alright her mind told her, but in her heart she knew nothing could be alright at this moment, not even knowing if her parents were alive or not. She moved around one of the rocks and looked into what she assumed was the center of the clearing. A rock (not as large as the one she just passed) lay at the center. The odd markings glowed gold on this rock. The gold stood out from the silver moonlight everything else was bathed in, but it wasn't this that astounded her. It was the boy standing on the rock with his back to her.

"There is someone else here," she quietly murmured as she scooted closer. He suddenly turned around startling her. Her mind went blank as gold eyes peered at her. His eyes glowed the same color as the symbols! "How can that be?" she wondered to herself. He hopped off the stone. His golden eyes faded into an astounding blue. She found herself unable to say anything. She shivered. There was power here.

The boy looked at her his brow furrowed in confusion. "Who are you?" his voice gentle and light called. "Are you alright? You look a right mess." Hermione shook her head, unsure of herself. She didn't know what she was doing. She needed to leave. She shouldn't be here. Her mum had told her to run, get away. She needed to get to the camp and find help. She backed away from the strange boy. He wasn't normal. Something was off about him. But before she could run, the strange boy grabbed her hand.

"You're hands are cold. Are you lost?" he looked worried. He pulled her to the opposite side of the clearing. "Don't worry. Everything will be okay." He gave her a beaming smile. It made her feel safe. "I'm Merlin by the way."

They soon entered the forest and made their way toward a small cottage if you could even call it that. He gave her another one of those smiles to reassure her. "This is my home. You're safe here." She gulped as he dragged her into the hovel. It looked worn out and old. The roof was made of twigs and mud and the walls of stone, but the inside was cheery enough. When they walked through the door, the boy, Merlin, said a word, "blæcernleoht"(1). It sounded odd and definitely was not English. The room became bright when he said it. Candles and lamps burning allowing her to see the room she was in. He pulled out a chair for her. Well, she assumed it was him as his eyes flashed gold, and a chair moved out from underneath a small rough wooden table. She was dreaming this. It all made sense now. Her parents were in their sleeping bags or perhaps she was in her own bed at home, her parents a floor above her in their bed. She truly hoped this was the case as her logical mind could not wrap around anything that was happening.

She was sitting in the chair watching cups and water and herbs move through the air. Soon a cup of warm drink was in her hand and the boy seated across from her. "Don't worry," he said gently, "it's just tea. You can drink it without fear." He gave her one of those smiles again. His eyes, she realized, looked old as if they had seen many things. She sniffed her "tea". It smelled pleasant enough. She took a sip. It tasted warm and a lot like the chamomile tea her mum would make her when she had a nightmare.

"Now, can you tell me your name?" Hermione stiffened and looked at Merlin.

"Hermione…my name is Hermione." Merlin nodded and smiled as she took another sip of the warm fluid in her hand.

"Ok, Hermione, are you lost?" His gaze shifted to her legs. "You scraped your legs pretty badly."

She shrugged. "I don't know…my parents…something happened." The words just weren't coming out right. She shivered as she remembered her parents. What happened to them?

He seemed to sense her distress and gave her a gentle look. "Why don't we figure this out in the morning? You're exhausted. But first let's clean your wounds." He gently washed the dried blood off her legs. They stun, but felt a lot better when he put some sort of cream on them and bandaged them up. "There we go." He led her to a bed and covered the blankets over her small figure. He gave her a smile and a little pat on the head. Before he could leave, she grabbed his sleeve.

"Don't leave. Please, I'm…I don't want to be alone." Her eyes shifted. Her face froze with panic. Merlin wondered what had happened to this girl to make her this frightened. He nodded and crawled into his bed with the poor thing. She was trembling and soon she was crying into his shirt. His magic surrounded her trying to calm her as well as protect her from whatever was distressing her so. As his magic wrapped around her in a protective blanket, she seemed to become quiet and sleepy. Her sobs stopped and the only sound of her distress was a sniffle here and there. He noticed something odd as his magic covered her though. He felt something reach out and touch his magic. It was then when he realized that this girl had magic of her own.

The next morning Hermione woke up to the smell of something delicious. Her eyes cracked open, and she tried blinking away the crusty feel on her eyelids. The morning light streaming through the windows made her wince. She remembered the strange dream she had last night and stretched. She then realized that she was in a house, the same house from her dream. She screamed.

Merlin who had been making breakfast jumped about two feet in the air and spun around looking towards where the bed lie (the house he lived in only had one room). "You scared me half to death! Are you alright? You aren't hurt are you?" His eyes widened and he looked around for adversaries, but saw no one.

She stopped screaming and gave him a panicked look. "Tell me it was just a dream. Please, let it just be a dream." She jumped out of bed and ran out of the house. Merlin paused and then ran after her.

"Where are you going?" he yelled. "Do you even know where you're going?" He caught up to her at the druidic shrine, the place where he first found her. She was standing there, her face mirrored shock and confusion. He stretched out a hand and put it on her shoulder. "What's wrong? You don't look so good. We should go back, and I'll get some food in you." He led her to his house wondering what happened to her as she didn't seem like a lost child. Not that he's one to talk considering how he'd probably be mistaken for a lost child at the moment.

"There," he said, seating her on the same chair she had sat on the night before, "now can you tell me how you came to be wandering the woods by yourself?" He put a plate of food in front of her, and she stared at it blankly. He sighed thinking that she wasn't going to say anything, and went over to pore himself a glass of water.

"We were attacked," she said quietly breaking the silence. "They came out of nowhere, and my parents…I don't think…I heard screams. Mum told me to run. I couldn't do anything." Tears started to trail down her face and drip from her chin and nose. Merlin knelt in front of her and took out a piece of cloth drying her tears.

He nodded. "Shhh, I'll find out what happened, okay? Everything will be fine. I know it doesn't look it now, but it will be. You'll see." He gave her a reassuring smile, and she nodded hoping everything would work out in the end. "You are going to finish your breakfast, while I go do a little exploring. You were on the path right? The one where all the people come and go…"

"Yes," Hermione whispered.

"I'll go check it out and be right back. Eat up!" Merlin dashed out the door and left Hermione to eat her breakfast. As she ate she noticed how the "house" really only was one room with a small kitchen (that had a pump instead of a sink), a small bed in the far corner, and a table with two chairs in the center. Everything looked rough and "homespun". Breakfast was really good. She didn't realize how hungry she was until she had taken the first bite.

Merlin on the other hand had just reached the path and was walking along it keeping an eye out for people. He really didn't want to be mistaken for a lost child. It would be too much of a hassle. He sighed. He really wished he had his old body back. Sure it didn't seem like that much of an inconvenience at first, it was only every five hundred that he had to go through "the change" as he and Kilgharrah often called it. He hated being so short and having to go through puberty again was the worst, but hey, being eight had some advantages. Nobody ever expected an innocent little eight year old to be the legendary Merlin. He even used his real name half the time as most thought he was being cute or funny when he told them it.

Shaking his head and trying to focus on the task at hand, he stumbled upon a place where he knew magic had been used. He could practically taste it. Magic permeated the air like a fog. Normally he wouldn't mind too much, but this magic tasted foul. He walked a bit further trying to see if Hermione's parents were in the area. His eyes widened. He had found them, or at least assumed he found them as there were two bodies lying somewhat off the trail. He ran to them and knelt beside their still forms. His hand gingerly turned the first body (one that he believed to be a woman) over. He felt sick. He could barely even tell that she was a woman as the damage to her was extensive. He turned the other body over too. They were both dead. His magic flared with his anger. Hermione shouldn't see this, but she had to know.

He left the bodies where they were and made his way back to his home. He had a decision to make. Something had to be done with Hermione, but he didn't know what. Perhaps he could just keep her? He mentally berated himself. He couldn't raise a child, not to mention, he himself appeared to be eight. But what else could he do with her? He supposed he could leave her at the edge of the campgrounds and hope for the best. That would make sense. Leave her with her own kind…but she had magic, so technically that made her part of magic-kind. This was getting him nowhere!

A sudden idea came to him – the druids. They would be able to take her in, but is that the best choice? He sighed. He would have to ponder it and come up with the best plan of action. Asking Hermione about what she wanted to do couldn't hurt either. This was turning out to be an eventful couple of days.

(1) Light pertaining to lanterns or candles