"Fancy having a bit of a snog with your boyfriend, Potter?" a disturbingly familiar voice jeered from behind them.

Harry's head snapped up and he blinked hard. The stone walls of the Ministry of Magic were no longer around him; he was somehow outside on a lawn, by a lake, and the sun wasn't quite enough to be warm but was still shining brightly.

"Oh, did I interrupt?" the voice said again, this time accompanied by laughter.

"Shove off, Malfoy," Harry responded automatically, then nearly clapped his hand over his mouth. What had happened to his voice?

He scrambled to his feet, his mind taking in turns his robes, his hands, the castle walls vaulting up to their left, and finally the teenaged Draco Malfoy, in robes of green and silver, leaning jauntily on his broomstick, flanked by likewise youthful Crabbe and Goyle.

"Harry?" Neville asked from the ground, his voice wavering. "What's going on?"

"Yeah, Harry, why'd you stop? Longbottom's disappointed," Malfoy taunted. Neville's face clouded as he took Harry's hand up, but it was the much more rounded face that Harry remembered from school, not the face he had recognized in the hall some few minutes ago.

Was this some sort of hallucination?

"Go away, Draco," Neville said, dusting himself off. "We don't have time for you right now."

Malfoy practically shrieked in laughter. "He hasn't time for us! And why's that, Longbottom, figure some of Potter's pitiful talents will rub off on you if you grope him long enough?"

"Malfoy," Harry said, "Get. Now. I'm not telling you again."

"Or what?" Malfoy asked, glancing to either side as though to make sure Crabbe and Goyle were still there.

"Leave. Now." Neville said with a tone of authority that even seemed to throw Malfoy off his stride for a split second.

"Looks like Longbottom thinks he's grown some teeth," Malfoy said, plunging his hand into the front of his robes. "Let's see how he -"

He did not get to complete his drawled threat. With the practiced, no-nonsense air of trained Aurors, Harry and Neville had drawn their wands in one quick motion and were aiming them unwaveringly at Malfoy's torso. Malfoy froze, wand half-drawn. Crabbe went as though to draw his own wand and Harry flicked his wand to the side just slightly, as though to show he had both Crabbe and Goyle in his sights as well.

"Go ahead and finish what you were going to say," Harry said in a low voice. "I'm sure I'll be fascinated to hear it."

Glaring, Malfoy shoved his wand back into his robes. "You might want some better places to play slap and tickle, Potter," he spat before spinning and striding away, Crabbe and Goyle watching over their shoulders as they followed. The group of students who had gathered to watch the altercation started to drift slowly away.

"Bollocks," Harry muttered. "Of course we've been seen - come on..." and he took off across the lawn, striding purposefully toward the castle. Neville nearly had to trot to keep up.

"Harry, what is going on?" He asked in a low voice as they reached the wall of what could only be Hogwarts Castle and began walking alongside it.

"Time," Harry said simply. He stopped suddenly, Neville nearly bowling into him, and looked rapidly around. They had walked enough of the wall that there were no other students to be seen, and Harry wordlessly knelt on the ground and motioned Neville to follow. From his school bag he produced a length of silvery fabric, which he draped over their heads without preamble.

"What -"

"Now they can't see -" Harry said, producing his wand, " - Muffliato - or hear us. Neville, that light that we saw. We've seen it before. When?"

Neville thought back briefly. "The Department of Mysteries. In that room with the hummingbird and all the clocks."

"Right. Remember what we figured out it was?"

A feeling like ice cold water seemed to seep into Neville from the torso outward. "Time...it was time."

Harry nodded. "I think I know what they do with it. It's carefully controlled, but it's pure time...they use it to infuse Time-Turners and the like...but something went wrong, and we were there and got caught in the aftermath." He looked like he badly wanted to pace. "Except something's not right. When Hermione and I used her Time-Turner -"

"When did Hermione have a Time-Turner?"

"Not important. When we used it, it sent us back in time, but in the bodies we had when we used the Time-Turner - we didn't outright replace ourselves from previously." He looked down at his hands. "But now we're...how old? What year is this?"

"Has to be fifth year," Neville said, brandishing his wand. "It's my dad's wand, so it's before it got broken at the Ministry, but Malfoy was wearing Quidditch robes, and there wasn't any Quidditch fourth year - and we weren't allowed out on the grounds much in third year because of Sirius Black."

Harry looked impressed. "Right. Okay. So we're in our fifteen-year-old bodies again, which is not supposed to happen when you do any sort of time travel - you're supposed to get sent back and you exist with the past version of yourself, not instead of..." Harry shook his head. "I have no idea what this all means," he admitted, looking straight at Neville. "I imagine the Ministry is putting things right as we speak, but...if it were just our adult selves sent back, we could go hide somewhere we wouldn't be seen until they put things straight, but I think we've replaced our past selves..."

"Which means we can't hide away," Neville said, cottoning on. "Else everything we're supposed to have done doesn't happen -" He stopped short. "Harry," he said urgently, "I don't remember every little thing I did back in fifth year at school."

"Neither do I," Harry said grimly. "I don't even know what day it is, we could be missing classes, and who knows what chaos that could cause - remember, Umbridge is in charge of discipline right now and she wants nothing more than to expel me..."

"It's late afternoon, and Malfoy was heading to the Quidditch pitch," Neville pointed out. "Classes are probably done for the day."

"Hmmph." Harry scowled. "What books do you have in your bag?"

Neville looked. "Potions, Defense Against the Dark Arts..."

"So, assuming I remember right, either a Monday or a Thursday," Harry said, also opening his bag. "Ha!" He pulled out a thin diary triumphantly and let it fall open to a page that said TODAY in bold letters across the top.

"Leave for tomorrow what can be done today and your work will increase while you go and play!" the book admonished him. Neville raised an eyebrow and looked pointedly from the book to Harry.

"It was a gift from Hermione," Harry mumbled. "But at least we know it's a Monday now. The one before Easter holidays, it looks like." He paused. "Great, so now we have to figure out what we're going to do this week to avoid crashing the entire space-time continuum."

"You're taking this awfully well," Neville said bluntly. Harry shot him a Look.

"Ignoring everything that happened to me - to us - before we were even twenty, let's see. My Auror combat trainer ended up being a Dryad warrior princess with a glamour so powerful it had been duping the Ministry for centuries, I've had to save the ghost population of Bath from a crazy Russian necromancer, my youngest son has accidentally turned my daughter into a chicken twice, and just last week someone sent our floor a cursed parcel that made the direction of gravity change based on the position of the minute hand on the clock." His mouth twisted into a wry smile. "I'm actually surprised you're not coming over all hysterical yourself."

"I teach in a school where 'Weasley Wizard Wheezes' are practically holy artifacts," Neville said flatly. "Once I was stuck in a fishbowl for three hours. I've learned to take things in stride, and have the hysterics later. What?" he asked, for Harry had just blanched and started patting his pockets as though he had lost something.

"Monday before Easter hols...Neville, we've got a D.A. meeting tonight," Harry said breathlessly, pulling out the Galleon that they had used to communicate meeting times. "And it's the one that gets raided. Which means that tonight is the night Dumbledore leaves." He looked intently at Neville. "We have to go see him. He can..."

"Do what?" Neville asked shrewdly. "As I understand it, we're already violating a whole bucketful of laws concerning time travel just by not being where we were twenty-something years ago. What are we going to do, waltz into Dumbledore's office and tell him we're visiting from the future, could we be let off of classes until such a time as we can go back? He'll think we're mental."

"No," Harry said, "He won't think we're mental." He sighed forcefully. "I'm going to go see him. You don't have to come, but I think you should. I think he can help us, somehow - he's one of the greatest wizards to have ever lived, I'm certain he can come up with something -"

"Harry," Neville said firmly, reaching out to grab Harry's arm. "Are you sure you're not just going to see Dumbledore alive again?"

Harry paused. "Of course I am," he admitted. "But I also think that he's the only person who can help us right now. The two don't need to be mutually exclusive. If nothing else, he can give us some perspective on what we need to do. What time d'you think it is?"

Neville glanced at the sun. "Five o'clock? I think the meeting is at seven?"

Harry nodded and they carefully stood up to keep the invisibility cloak around them.


It took a great deal of guessing the password at the gargoyle guarding Dumbledore's office; Harry suspected that the gargoyle let them in out of impatience rather than having remembered the correct one. Once inside the winding stairway Harry pulled off the cloak and stuffed it back in his bag before knocking on the office door at the top.

"Come," came Dumbledore's calm response.

Harry's hand paused on the doorknob, almost fearing to open the door. Emotions were at war inside him, some half-forgotten in the blur of time. Behind this door was the man who had shaped Harry into who he was now. To see those gentle blue piercing eyes again, from behind the half-moon spectacles...knowing that they would be closed eternally in little more than a year...

He pushed open the door and he and Neville entered the office.

Harry gave a little start to see the man behind the desk, fingers steepled, looking straight at him.

"Mr. Potter. Mr. Longbottom. I am surprised to see you." His eyes twinkled. "I do believe you have an appointment later on today, do you not?"

Somehow, the knowledge that Dumbledore had known about the D.A. was not surprising. Neville opened his mouth as though to speak, but Harry glanced at him.

"Sir," Harry said, "We need to tell you something that is going to sound absolutely nutters, and is probably breaking a thousand laws to boot."

"Business as usual, then," Dumbledore said wryly. "You may continue."

"We're not supposed to be here," Harry said. "We're supposed to be some twenty-some-odd years from now."

If Dumbledore was surprised, he did not let it show on his face.

"There was some sort of accident at the Ministry of Magic," Neville supplied. "Something in the time room, where we think they make the Time-Turners. There was an explosion, and we were caught in it."

"It's not like using a Time-Turner," Harry said. "Probably because we got hit with pure time. If we'd used Time-Turners, we'd be here as adults. We've been forced into being fifteen years old again instead, but we know where - er, when - we're supposed to be. We remember everything leading up to the accident. We're sure the Ministry is working on cleaning up the mess, but in the meantime, we're not sure what is the best course of action to take."

There was a pregnant pause. "I see," Dumbledore said.

"Professor, I swear it's all true -" Harry began, but Dumbledore put up a hand and Harry fell silent.

"I need no more evidence to know that things are as you say," he said, rising from behind his desk. "If nothing else, the way Mr. Longbottom is currently comporting himself is proof enough." Neville gave Dumbledore a quizzical look and Dumbledore smiled kindly at him. "Neville, you have never once been in my office before, nor have we ever really spoken. If we were to go by your track record up until this point, I would assume that your first visit to me would have reduced you to a nervous wreck. Am I much mistaken?"

Neville smiled self-deprecatingly. "No, Professor," he said. "That's a rather succinct way of putting it."

Dumbledore beamed at him, then turned his gaze back to Harry. "An accident much as you have described it has happened once before at the Ministry - that I know of," he said, stepping slowly towards one of his many silver machines on the small spindly tables dotting the room. "Some eighty years ago, it was. I am, of course, forbidden to speak to any of it." He winked as he drew his wand and prodded the machine.

Instantly, it began emitting razor-thin threads of the diamond bright light, trailing away from the device like spider's silk on a breeze. Harry's breath caught as they began to dance in the air about them, assembling themselves into something that almost appeared to be sheet music, but infinitely more complex.

"Time," Dumbledore said, as though nothing out of the ordinary was happening, "is an incredibly intricate tapestry. Wizards can study it for many, many years and never truly understand how it works the way it does. Consider this line here, Harry," he said, raising his wand and tapping one infinitely fine line. It glowed gold for a moment before settling back into its bright silver shine.

Harry squinted at it, tried to follow it as it whirled and touched other lines, doubled back on itself once, and continued on to the other side of the room where Neville was standing. "What is it, sir?" he asked.

"It is your own timeline," Dumbledore said. "Your life, as it were, currently unfolding. Neville, I do believe this one to be yours."

Harry reached out a trembling finger to his. "And the other lines..."

"Are the other people your life is twined with," Dumbledore finished.

Harry gazed along the line. Yes, there were the two lines he was sure were Ron and Hermione, winding about his at some points and straying off to the side at others...his eyes scanned forward and he reached out a finger to touch three shorter lines stemming from his and another's. "And these?"

Dumbledore glanced at them, then adjusted his spectacles and looked more closely. "How fascinating," he breathed, looking up to scan lines around him. He looked sharply at Harry. "This device is only supposed to show timelines up to their current point, not project into the future...at least not unless..." He turned as though to seek another line, then stopped. "Those three lines would be your children, Harry. I shall assume you already know of them?"

Harry smiled. "Yes, sir."

"I see," was the response. Dumbledore shot a glance at Neville. "And your children appear on your timeline as well, I assume?"

"Yes," Neville said simply, with a slightly wavering tone. Harry wrenched his eyes away from his own timeline to see what was disturbing Neville so.

Neville was tracing the ragged ends of the white lines across the room, where they waved as though trying to find a place to attach. They did not shine with the bright light of the rest of the lines, but looked...dull. Frayed.

Dumbledore stopped next to Neville and sighed. "Yes. This is what I feared when you described the accident at the Ministry." He raised his wand and gestured, so slightly Harry almost couldn't make it out, and dozens of tiny red dots appeared at various intersections of Harry and Neville's lines. At the beginning of the lines there were very few, but as the lines progressed they became more and more clustered until finally the lines themselves from one point forward glowed red.

The red spiderwebbed along all the other lines as they intersected theirs, like spilled ink on parchment, giving the whole map of twisting and whirling lines a diseased look. It spread to the end and the red light bled into the air, no longer confined to the timelines, seeping uncontrolled. It was a remarkably unsettling image, for no reason that Harry could put his finger on.

Dumbledore gave another twitch of his wand and the red dissipated, leaving only the white lines twisting in the air.

"Sir?" Neville asked. "What...was that?"

"That," Dumbledore said, his voice heavy, "Is what happens to Time when there has been a mistake."