Disclaimer: All characters and stuff belong to JK Rowling. I'm just a fan who dreamt a little harder.


"2…2010?" Hermione stuttered. "Thank…thank you…Sir," and with that she began walking to the front door with a blank expression pasted on her face. The others followed her out.

"Oi! Lassie! Yeh still haven't told me what business yeh all have 'ere! Get back 'ere or I'll call for security! HEY!" But the sextet had already left and the old man was left wobbling towards the door, slowly. Outside the out-of-order phone box and into the blinding sun light the group silently followed Hermione to safer grounds.

When Harry, Ron and Ginny could no longer handle the silence, they broke it in unison, "Hermione!" That snapped Hermione out of her reverie.

"You want to explain why you just left the old bloke back there? Or are you going to keep us in the dark - like you always do?" asked Ron, irritably.

"Yeah, Hermione, why did you leave the Ministry? Surely inside is better than outside? How are we going to find out anything being away from our only magical source?" Harry asked.

"I mean, what were you thinking? Are you going to say anyth -"

"Guys! Let her breath and maybe she will explain!" Ginny cut in, before Ron could continue his rant.

"Ok. Had we stayed, we would have had to give the old man an explanation as to why we were there…I can't just very well say something like, 'oh, all of us had a hearing for underage magic!' and we don't want - "

"So that warrants you to walk away from our only source of informa -"

"SHUT UP, RON!" Harry and Ginny yelled.

" - and we don't want to rouse up any more attention from the Ministry than we already have! I mean, we don't know what happened in the past of this present - we don't know if..if Vol..Voldemort is still around!" Hermione explained, whispering the last part.

After a few minutes of eternal silence, Neville spoke up, (Luna was gazing at a young muggle frolicking around across the street.) "So what should we do now? How do we get back to Hogwarts?"

"Flag down the Knight bus, perhaps?" suggested Luna, shocking the others who had forgotten she was with them.

"Good idea," said Harry sarcastically. "Because Stan Shunpike won't recognize me or any of you from earlier this year."

"No…no, she's right." said Hermione. Harry andRonstared. "How else are we going to get there? we're no where near King's Cross and we don't even know if the train would be there considering it's not September, we can't possibly run into someone's place and use their fire, we're not old enough to apparate, we can't use muggle transportation because they won't know where Hogsmeade is- so that leaves us with the Knight bus." She had said all this very quickly, earning a gradual widening of eyes from Harry and Ron. "What? There isn't any other way is there? We could ask to go to Hogsmeade and - "

"What if they recognize us? What if Stan is still around? He'd suspect because we haven't aged a day! Or what if he'd recently seen my older self? Or what if…what if…I'm suppose to be dead?" Harry interrupted. At this, Hermione went back to thinking.

"Can't we just dress up a bit? Go into a muggle store and buy a shawl or something and cover our faces? I mean, they get odd people on there all the time anyway." said Luna, matter-of-factly. "Don't worry, I have about £10 - it should be enough to buy some material to cover at least Harry."

"Why do you have muggle mon - " Ron began.

"Great idea. That's what we'll do then." Hermione decided. After fifteen minutes of looking for a muggle material shop and buying the material, the six of them walked out with Harry and Ron's face and part of their bodiescoveredwith shawls ("So two redheads won't look so suspicious! And Harry, give me your glasses." Hermione reasoned skeptically.) It took them five more minutes to find a reasonably quiet road before Hermione stuck her wand out to flag down the Knight bus. BOOM. A huge purple, double-decker bus burst our from nowhere and skidded to a halt in front of them. Harry's worst fears were confirmed. And older version of Stan Shunpike hobbled out to the door and began his speech, "Welcome to the Knight bus for the stranded witch or wizard, my name is Stan Shunpike and I'll be your conductor this afternoon. Well, what ar' yeh all waitin' for? Hop on!" The sextet climbed up the bus and deposited their fare before they began walking to the upper deck. Just before Hermione followed the others, she turned around to request for a stop at Hogsmeade.

"Odd bunch they are, Ern." Stan commented. "'Specially the first two with the shawls…wonder who they are. Well, let's get goin' then Ern! Take it away!"

When Harry reached the upper-deck there were only a few people there, unlike the bottom-deck which was full to bursting.

"I think Stan got suspicious!" Harry blurted out after a few minutes of silence.

"Don't worry, Harry, we'll be off quite soon." said Hermione soothingly. Quite soon, after Hermione had offered comforting words to Harry, they stopped twice for some other passengers to get off before they reached their stop. As they walked down the stairs and towards the door Stan grabbed Harry's shoulder.

"You got some pretty green eyes there, lady. Hope you had a nice journey!" he said, winking at Harry. Harry shuddered.

As soon as Harry and the others had gotten off the bus and it took off again, Harry breathed a sigh of utmost relief. Ron started sniggering.

"Yeah, Harriet, nice eyes!"

"Shut it, Ron." Harry snapped. "If he thought I was a girl under that shawl then you must have made an ugly one." Ginny fidgeted around a bit when Harry had said that.

"Come on! We're almost back at Hogwarts!" Neville piped up, excitedly. As they trekked back to the school Harry fell silent. "Harry? Are you still worried About Sirius?"

"Hmm? Oh…I..I don't know…I mean…we're in the future now, so there isn't much I can worry about," Harry sighed. Suddenly, if not out of irritation, it was out of curiosity, Harry asked Ron, "That reminds me, what did you touch back in that arch-room?" Ron turned a bright red.

"Well…I, er…when you guys began to walk back to that circular room, I got really curious, like I was drawn to it or something - "

"- Me too…" said Harry in a hushed voice.

"And I got so curious that I climbed onto the arch and as I was examining the engravings on the arch, I traced them with my fingers…and…er…that's when we all got sucked through." he finished, rather lamely.

"The arch had that much force to suck six of us through?" asked Hermione in an awed voice. "I'll need to research on that when we get back to school." said Hermione as they walked up the stone steps to the main door. When Ginny and Harry reached the top step Hermione was on, Hermione flung out her hands to stop them from going any farther.

"What was that for?" asked Ginny, massaging her ribs.

"We can't just…barge in there, can we?" Hermione asked uncertainly.

"What are we suppose to do then? Stand here all day?" asked Ron.

"Come on, Hermione, there won't be any students who'll know us or recognize us at this point. Maybe the teachers, but that won't matter will it? They're safe." Harry reasoned. Hermione nodded and the six students from the past pushed open the main door of their future Hogwarts.