I don't own Harry Potter.

It took a moment for the students and teachers of Hogwarts to notice the incredibly thin, bespectacled, dark-haired man standing before them brandishing a wand, but soon enough notice they did.

Everyone at the staff table jumped up, prepared to fight for the castle and their students; everyone, that is, except for Dolores Umbridge, who rose slowly from the head chair, nostrils flaring. The sheer loathing that she felt for this-person, this invader, was perhaps more immediate than it ought to be, but- no, it was perfectly called for. It was her school, after all. Yes.

Meanwhile, Severus Snape, who was holding an aggressive fighter's stance- not dueling but fighting, that was the significance- was rather viciously attempting to figure out who this person was and why he was at Hogwarts. People didn't suddenly appear in the middle of Hogwarts, after all. There was something to this, there had to be something to this, some reason…. He could feel his heart pounding, the sheer adrenaline. He could feel the cool metal of the blade in his left hand, contrasting with the smooth, warm, nearly vibrating wand in his right. He couldn't suppress a wicked smile. There hadn't been a good fight in a long time.

Seated at the farthest end of the Slytherin table, a tall, thin girl with dark, glinting eyes and long brown hair mimicked his position without difficulty. Seeing her professor like this, body tensed and prepared to fight . . . she shuddered. Oh Merlin, he was beautiful just then, with power practically rippling off of him, dark hair shook back to show his face, his eyes moving quickly, his hard, calculating expression. He- no, there was someone at Hogwarts, and there were first years nearby who no one else would bother to protect.

Whispers broke out in the Great Hall; the sight of their professors, wands aimed at the intruder, who simply stood, wand raised and staring back at them, was rather shocking to the Hogwarts populace. Harry Potter gripped his wand in hand, staring at the strange man before them from the far end of the room, the near-constant dead seeping into him again. Who was this person?

Eventually Professor McGonagall spoke, nearly unable to keep her voice from quivering. "Who are you?" She stopped talking to rearrange her face, feeling that smoothing her expression would necessitate literally pulling at her skin. "Why have you come here?"

"How can a person come to a place where they already are, Professor?"

Minerva paused at that, attempting to puzzle out what had been said.

Sitting alone at the Ravenclaw table, a girl with dirty blonde hair and odd, light blue eyes tried to answer the question. Indeed many of the best minds at Hogwarts were attempting the same thing- yet many of them were without an answer. All of them, really, except for that one. That one was Luna Lovegood, who idly twirled a strand of soft, thin hair, feeling it against her sensitive fingertips. She smiled and did not hesitate before she began to speak.

"He means that he's already here, of course. But were you already here all along, Mister, or are you here in more than one entity?"

The entire hall, as one, seemed to turn from the vague direction of the voice to the stranger; perhaps the candles, magically floating high up by the ceiling, even flickered a bit with the movement of the air. Either way, something in the hall seemed to tense- or loosen, really- the people there had a tendency to disagree. Both of the girl's prospects were disturbing, the second impossible. It could be said that the people of Hogwarts all at once considered and even realized that the current, miserable way of life had been thrown askew for the better.

At these words Umbridge could seemingly take no more. "What-is-this?" she screeched. "Why has nobody attacked him?"

"Perhaps," Severus drawled, "somepeople wish to follow through on the promise of a proper justice system before they capture someone and cart them away." (Memories flashed briefly over him; his hands tied; the cramped little boat on the thrashing sea; the island, and the horrific purpose that it had been put to use for; the guards, shielded from the sickening feeling surrounding him, leading him down, down. He pushed the thought away and focused.)

Despite the point behind his statement he was still prepared for some sort of a fray. All that he knew was that this person, whoever they were, had done nothing yet; their neutrality held them higher than Umbridge, and he saw no reason to attack. Still he did not relax his stance.

Before Umbridge had the chance to retaliate- and oh, she planned to retaliate- the stranger spoke. Several teachers who had glanced at Severus in rare appreciation jumped a bit. "Actually, Luna, you're right. I'll explain more fully in a minute; but first of all. . . ."

He flicked his wand, and Umbridge was trapped inside what appeared to be a giant ball. She screamed and beat at it with her fists; she shot a spell at it and it bounced off it and struck her in the chest; she fell unconscious.

There was a beat of silence.

Then the cheers came. They seemed to nearly raise the enchanted ceiling with their sound, their enormity, and if the candled hadn't flickered before they did then. A minute after the initial roar of sound Minerva McGonagall sent off a firework that silenced the room with a faint smile on her face. She faced the intruder, and her smile faded.

"You have not properly answered what we have asked you. We at Hogwarts do not favor violence, but you have come without warning of your arrival and openly attacked our headmistress." She paused a moment and looked around the hall. "I assume no one knows how this person has slipped through our wards?"

He smiled easily at her - it had been years and he had long since learned to fake different expressions. "Really I ought to introduce myself and then explain," he said. His smile turned wry. "Thanks for not killing me, by the way."

Though it wouldn't be unwelcome. He heaved a deep sigh and inhaled, and then he began to speak.

"I imagine that none of you will believe me - or really, only a few - but I was born in the year nineteen eighty."

The quiet of curiosity and attentiveness dropped into a heavy, disbelieving silence. All around the hall students were calculating; this man had to be at least thirty-five. No, he had a medical condition that aged him. He was under Polyjuice; he had taken a potion. He had magically altered his appearance. A person born in nineteen eighty wasn't thirty-five in nineteen ninety-six. He would be in two thousand fifteen. . . . It was everywhere. No. It wasn't true.

Surely, he thought darkly, a school of magic would have left them open-minded. It seemed not.

The teachers, meanwhile, where running through the list of names from over four years ago, of their fifth years' first year at Hogwarts; the group with the most children born in nineteen eighty. Severus Snape scanned the room, expression blank. He was the only one who seemed to have considered that the man was lying, and was thinking then of all the people from his own Hogwarts years, and of the possibility of this person having come from somewhere else. Somewhere else- he locked on to that thought and did his best to think about it. This was going too slowly, no one was moving, no one was speaking-

"I arrived at Hogwarts's gates after apparating from my . . . residence . . . and I arrived at my residence by the use of a Time-Turner." He paused and looked around at the blank and shocked expressions before adding the worst and final part. "I came from the year two thousand sixteen," he breathed deeply, wishing that he could comfort himself somehow in this, the last scenario of his life, "and I am Harry Potter."

Thanks everyone for reading, reviewing, favoriting, and marking for alert! Sorry I'm taking so long on this.