To say the man in the fireplace, who was a Time Lord, he had a terrible sense of time. His 'five minutes' had turned into ten. However, considering the future 'five minutes' this was good going.

Tired, and on the verge of giving up Hermione was preparing herself to stand up and make her way up the spiral staircases to bed, since it was nearing midnight at Hogwarts, and the man hadn't kept his word. Even though Hermione wasn't an impatient being, sometimes, her bed called her. Hermione had watched the fire reduce itself to embers and combined with the warm glow it emitted had made her extremely dozy. As she turned to stand she heard a familiar voice:

"Wait," the voice sounded kind even though it was an order.

Hermione jerked her head round trying to find the source of the voice. She thought it was one of the upper years that had caught her in the common room late at night. She then shyly laughed, uttering: "You stupid girl, it's the fire place." When Hermione was facing the fireplace again the face said, "I need a favour."

Hermione obliged, pulling out her wand. Although she was careful to not get her wand out in front of muggles, she thought that the man must have wizard born if he could use the fireplace connections. This is because the humans shouldn't have access to such things.

In response to seeing the girl retrieve her wand, the face commented, "Ahh, you've got one of those wooden fighty sticky things too! Mine's made of metal."

Hermione shook her head dismissively. Ignoring his comment, she asked him what he needed her to do.

"I'd like you to move all this clutter from around the fire place, please." He was talking about the metal bin of coal and logs, and the utensils that accompanied open fires such as the metal prongs and spokes. They were in mint condition, only used when curious wizards had seen what their purpose was as wands were usually the mode of putting and moving coal in the fire. In other words, they were there primarily for decoration.

Hermione did this hurrying about. Although she did not need her wand, she kept it in hand in case something malevolent occurred. As the bin of coal and logs was heavy Hermione resorted to dragging it across the floor a few steps away from the fireplace, under the direction of the man. Once Hermione had decluttered the fireplace the man spoke again, "I hope you enjoy this little trick, you can go back to sitting where you were."

Hermione did so, but because of the instruments from the fireplace she was precautious climb over it to reach and sit in the chair. When she had managed to get herself in a comfy position she noticed that the face had disappeared, but something even stranger than that had begun to occur. There was a scraping noise, like metal on metal, and then Hermione thought she saw the fireplace rotate slightly. She wasn't wrong. It did rotate, slowly at first, but slightly quicker when the momentum had been built up.

The young witch was flabbergasted. Hermione's first thought, and perhaps rightly so, was: How?! This was because the wall of the fireplace was on the outside of the building, which meant that it would have been more or less impossible to turn the fireplace around as there wasn't anything behind it other than a brick wall and a long drop. Somewhat scared as Hermione didn't know that this could happen (she hadn't learnt of it through school or independent reading) she tried to get herself as far into the chair as it would allow. Questions began to form and mill inside her head, as she was unsure of what she was witnessing.

Some of her thoughts included:

-What if the man is not of good force.

-What happened if he wants to kill me.

-Or kidnap me.

-Or if he was part of you-know-who's army

-It's a Slytherin prank.

Then the worst possible thought entered Hermione's thought and began to swirl around with the rest, and it began repeated and repeating itself like a parasite had attached itself to her brain.

-What if I get expelled.

Hermione did, however, know the logistics of the situation that was unravelling in front of her eyes – the fireplace was turning with someone behind it.

Although Hermione was watching the fireplace turn she was too engrossed in her thoughts that she had not noticed the fireplace complete its half circle turn. This, however, is unsurprising as it was identical to the original one. It did have a couple of major differences. Firstly, the fire had gone, and there wasn't any logs or coal in it. Secondly, there was a man crouching in the fireplace. When the fireplace had stopped moving completely the man jumped from his position with what appeared to be bounds and bounds of an endless amount of energy.

The man was dressed, Hermione thought, in a peculiar form of attire. It looked smart but casual, yet not informal. The man was sporting black converse, jeans of the same colour, a light blue vertically striped shirt with a brown tie, and a brown blazer which matched his tie. It was a little mix-and-match and after looking at what the man was wearing the young witch thought that fashion had changed dramatically since her time at Hogwarts. As she thought this, the man smoothed down his clothes that had been pulled up slightly by his crouching and also centred and straightened his tie.

As the man approached Hermione, the stranger ruffled his hair, put on his glasses which he had worn whilst he was just a face in the fireplace and proceeded to step forward, in what seemed to Hermione to be one smooth action. The man then extended his right arm to Hermione as a greeting offering. Taking this offer cautiously, she started with a weak handshake that quickly built up to a more powerful one as the man shook her hand overly enthusiastically. The man then gleefully exclaimed:

"Good evening! I'm the Doctor!"