A week had passed since the strange visit of Mister Smith and Miss Tyler at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Over the span of that week and in the hands of the students' imagination, the mysterious visitors managed to be Ministry inspectors, crazy runaways from St. Mungo's, Death Eaters in disguise, and a pair of very confused Muggles.
None of the rumours involved a traveling alien and his companion.
Draco Malfoy was the first to glimpse the arrival of the blue box on the school grounds. The third years were making their way back from a rather nasty Care of Magical Creatures class, involving Fire Crabs.
"Look there! It's the visitors!" he called out. "Bet they're friends of Hagrid's, and he gave them that failure of a spell! What were you trying to hide that box for? What were you doing in there together, anyway?" A few of the nastier looking Slytherins sniggered.
"Oops," Rose whispered, noticing the small crowd. They were supposed to have landed somewhere empty. "Was that intentional?"
The Doctor shook his head. "What a fun trick!" he said loudly to the scattered students, smiling with confidence.
"Zonko's. Cheap spell," Rose added with a grin. "You'll want to ask 'em for the Extremely Loud Invisibility Spell. Only two galleons a kit!"
They began to make their way through the students and towards the castle, trying to ignore Malfoy's shouts regarding what they may or may not have been doing in the supposedly crowded box at the edge of the Forbidden Forest.
"Did you find anything?" Hermione Granger had come up next to them, leaving her friends behind.
The Doctor shook his head. "Can't tell you your future. You'll have to live it yourself."
She gave them a perplexed look, quickening her pace to keep up with them.
"I asked what happened to the time turner. In the past. I didn't say anything about the future."
"Well," the Doctor replied, "that's in the future."
"You have no idea what happened to it, do you?"
"Not really," Rose admitted.
"And to figure it out, you travelled to the future."
"Time machines tend to do that," the Doctor said.
"What are you going to do now?" Hermione asked.
"No idea."
"Well, I'm assuming you didn't try to follow the time turner into the future, did you?" she said. "You should have. There must be something that connects it with your time machine. I could feel a sort of connection from my pendant when I wore it next to that... box. If you just-"
"Took both time turners-" the Doctor interrupted, "That is, both versions of the time turner, into the TARDIS and got them to let it absorb their time stream-"
"It'll result in the ability to travel anywhere the time turner has been or will be until the point in which you found it!" Hermione concluded.
"Brilliant!" He smiled, turning to Rose. "She's smarter than I thought."
You would think the Doctor had learned by now not to underestimate humanity.
Rose's hand in his and Hermione close behind them, they set off toward Dumbledore's office once more.
