Harry found finding their way around the manor was extremely difficult. They passed through several rooms twice, walking through one hallway nearly four times before finally finding the main staircase. He then had to go to the Doctor's office first before he could even begin to proceed his way to the dining hall; since that was the way they had gone earlier. When he ended up in the office, he found the Doctor sitting behind the desk, scribbling into a book with a quill. The Aunts were tittering away. Draco wasn't behind him any longer and had probably gotten lost, but Harry found himself less worried about him lost in the Manor rather than lost out in the forest.
"Oh, sorry," Harry said when the creak of the door interrupted the Doctor's proceedings. "I didn't mean to disturb you, I was just heading to the dining room. May stopped by our room and said breakfast was ready, so I'll just be going now."
"It's quite alright," the Doctor said cheerfully, closing his book and putting his quill away. "I actually wanted to speak with you about how you came here. Take a seat," the Doctor stood and pointed to the chair on the opposite side of the desk with flourish. Harry moved across the room and took the chair offered to him. "You see, I came to this island during the great World War and cast many, many charms around it to keep others out. I've seen enough of war in my time, so you can understand that I wanted solitude. But I cast so many wards on the place that I found that even I couldn't get off the island. The villagers think it's a curse put on them, but it applies to everyone, you see.
"What I can't understand is how you got here, and I wish to know all the details so that I may unlock the secret to getting off this dratted island," the Doctor explained, peering over a pair of reading glasses. "And I'm sure you don't want to stay here forever."
"No – I mean, you have a lovely place but… well, there's a war going on now, Sir, and I'm a – a leader of sorts and I'm afraid that they won't get by without me," Harry answered. "As to how we got to the island – we really haven't any idea. The thing is, Draco and I were on opposite sides of the war and we cast spells at each other and they just sort of… blew up in our faces and we ended up here."
"What spells did you cast?" the Doctor asked, looking immensely intrigued and excited.
"Um. I cast a displacing spell to move our enemies to the furthest place I could think of. I said Tractus Amitto and I'm not sure what spell Draco cast, but the words were Tempus Embolium," Harry explained, watching a toy soldier move about the Doctor's desk. "There was this gold light and when it disappeared, we were on the beach on the other side of the island."
"Quite, quite," the Doctor said, his chin in his hands. "I've got it. You wait here a moment while I fetch a few books from the library," he said excitedly, jumping up and nearly knocking over his chair. "Feel free to talk to the Aunts. It may take me a while to find my books." Harry nodded and the Doctor dashed out of the room.
Harry, now alone in the room with nothing but the portraits to keep him company, stood and walked about, examining the odds and ends the office held. It reminded him of Dumbledore's old office, the way he always had trinkets that didn't seem to have any purpose lying about.
"Doesn't he look like the Doctor when he was younger, Scarlet?" one of the Aunts said, jerking Harry out of his thoughts and memories of his old Headmaster. "The messy hair and all."
"He really does, doesn't he, Violet? Except the Doctor had that nasty scar on his forehead, all disfigured and the like. This boy hasn't got a scar at all," Scarlet said, and Harry raised an eyebrow in surprise. There was a small trophy-like object on the mantelpiece of the fire and Harry examined himself in its reflective surface. No, his scar was still there.
"But I do have a scar," he said, looking up at the Aunts and they both leaned forward as best they could in their portraits, and the left Aunt even dug out a pair of specs.
"My word! He really does have a scar on his forehead," Violet cried, placing a hand on her chest, apparently taken back by surprise. "How fascinating. How did you get it?"
"I got it as a child," Harry answered, now puzzled. The Doctor had had a scar when he was younger, too? But his head looked perfectly fine now. Harry then remembered that the Doctor was a master of illusions. It was quite possible that he'd simply covered it with an illusion.
"Ah, the Doctor got his in war, so he says. In a great battle! He often regales his days of war to us, you know, when he's lonely and reminiscing," Scarlet said, sipping at a glass in her hand. "In 2000 something or other. He always says 2000, but I think he means the 20th century, after all, it's only 1990 something by our calculations."
"1997," Harry said, taking a seat in the sofa by the fireplace, thoroughly puzzled.
"He was famous back in his day, he once said to me," Violet said in a wispy voice.
"He never said that to me!" Scarlet said indignantly.
"You were sleeping. You're always sleeping," Violet admonished. "They were losing the war, you see, and the Doctor was nearly entirely by himself. He didn't have the heart to carry on so he came here. He bought us a bit before that, but you see, people kept coming and knocking at his door here so he charmed the entire place up and began a self-imposed exile. When he wanted to go back to the civilized world to see what had become of it, he couldn't, the poor dear."
"I thought it was because he lost his true love," Scarlet questioned. "They were losing the war and he lost his true love and that was what disheartened him so."
"No, no. He never had a true love to begin with."
"Yes, yes, he did! It just wasn't reciprocated."
"You're getting it all wrong again, Scarlet, he loved that boy but he never told him so," Violet sighed. "She was never a very good story teller. Then the war was lost and he came here."
"I remember now! He charmed this place all up because of the last person that showed up told him the boy he loved had died."
"Oh yes, that was the way it went. Anyway, here we all are today."
"Who is the Doctor, anyway?" Harry asked.
"It is hard to figure out, isn't it?" said the Doctor from behind Harry, and Harry turned around quickly. "The Aunts can never get a story straight," he chuckled before sitting back at his desk, setting a pile of books down on it. "First it's this, then it's that. Perhaps I should tell you my entire story myself. First I'd like to show you, something."
The Doctor plucked a book off the top of the pile he'd carried in and opened it to a marked spot. He then picked another one out of the pile and opened that one, too, to a marked spot. They were the spells Harry had told the Doctor that he and Draco had cast. He pushed them forward and allowed Harry to read for himself.
Harry already knew about his spell, but he was surprised to find that Draco's spell had been a spell cast to stop time. He wasn't sure why Draco would want to have stopped time, or how it could have countered Harry's spell, however, so once he was finished reading, he looked to the Doctor even more confused than before.
"I don't understand."
"I thought not," the Doctor said. "But before I explain that to you, I'll tell you about the island and who I am. I'm very sure it will clear some things up.
"I became a Doctor in 2004. That's seven years from now. Not a normal muggle doctor, of course, I neither have the skill for that or the patience. In fact, I couldn't even heal a wizard until I was nearly forty-five. I once attempted to heal a girl I was fighting with and ended up removing all the skin from her arm. It was horrible. But anyway, I became a Doctor of Magical Science. A new path the Ministry had created. It was not for diseases or genetic purposes, it was entirely a section devoted to creating new magical weaponry to fight against the very people you are fighting now.
"I was never very good at it. I solely wanted to go out and fight and defeat the greatest menace of our time – Voldemort," the Doctor continued with flourish. "You see, I took the job because one of my best friends died in a moment I will never forget. I thought it was a good idea. In the end, this section of the Ministry destroyed us. The Death Eaters took over the Ministry of Magic and used the weapons we had devised against us. They killed everyone I ever loved, and so I came here.
"I found this island by chance and luck. I apparated away, as far as I possibly could and I ended up here. I'm not sure how it happened or why. When one of the last people I trusted showed up at my door, I was surprised and worried. They were dying, you see, hit with a degenerative spell, one that even I couldn't fix, and I had fixed many back in my day. They simply came to tell me everything that I had missed and escaped. I was unsurprised by most of what he told me until he told me that a man that I had loathed with every fiber of my being died trying to save him.
"The thing was that since my years in Hogwarts, I always knew there was something in this man that I hated that was good. Something smart and intelligent, and I was fascinated by him. Yes, I hated him for a very long time, but after a while I begun to see that he was merely doing what he had to do to survive. And I thought he was incredibly strong and willful, and I found myself loving him despite knowing that he was everything I should hate. He had been the one that had killed one of my best friends and yet I forgave him, because in my heart, I loved him, no matter what he did.
"It was blind and foolish. But I grew so angry and so saddened, that I warded this island so defensively that it warped the very fabric of time around it. This island is neither in your time or my time. The only way to get off or on it is to astral project yourself, but it seems you have found a way around it and I now understand why.
"You and I are connected, you see," the Doctor finished. "I thought when I sent my message out that there was a small chance it would be received. I didn't expect it to change everything I knew."
"Wait – I don't understand. How has anything changed? How do you know?" Harry asked, entirely confused by the man's story. None of it seemed to make sense or even seemed relevant to their current situation.
"Because you're here," at Harry's confused look, the Doctor continued. "I am a Master of Illusions, you recall." He stood, sweeping his robes and taking his wand out of his sleeve. He tapped his own head and it appeared to Harry that he seemed to be melting away. But underneath the façade of the Doctor, was the man that Harry had found so familiar to him before. Of course, it made sense now. The Doctor slid his wand across the desk towards Harry.
The Doctor was shorter than average, but rail thin. His hair was gray and long, but still messy, as the Aunt's had described it. Beneath the reading spectacles were two very bright green eyes, and above his right was a grotesque, lightning shaped scar.
"You're me."
"I am," the Doctor said, taking a seat. "I am Harry James Potter – or what is left of him."
"But – are you kidding? I mean, you've fooled me before, how do I know this is real?" Harry asked, stunned and taken off guard.
"My wand is proof," the Doctor said and Harry now looked at it. He laid his own wand beside it and they were identical, save for the scratches and worn marks on the Doctor's.
"But why Montague Kane?"
"I couldn't very well tell you I was you," the Doctor said. "I was surprised to see you in my forest and even more surprised to see you with Draco."
"So – so all of that was…"
"In my timeline, at the precise moment that yours and Draco's spells connected in your timeline, Draco murdered Ron Weasley. He had meant to kill you, of course, but you had moved and it hit Ron instead. It had been fear that drove him, not any inclination of hate towards you or your friends," the Doctor – or rather, the older Harry Potter said.
"So this message…"
"I sent a message in the form of a dream to Draco. I wanted to change history. I know, history should not be changed, but I couldn't let Voldemort win. And I couldn't let the man I loved die again and again forever in history. I simply told him that you – or I – could help him," the Doctor said softly. "And the test I did earlier… I did not have to read your mind to know your memories. I was testing to see if you loved Draco even now, as a teenager. I didn't realize my love for him until I was much, much older."
"This is entirely…"
"Confused, yes, I know, even I had a hard time comprehending it for the longest of times," the Doctor said, taking his wand and slipping it back up his sleeve.
"But… you're telling me we won't win the war?" Harry asked, disheartened and trying to gather his thoughts.
"Oh no, I have every belief that you will win the war with Draco at your side. He will give you strength and courage and all of those other things," the Doctor said encouragingly. "I never defeated Voldemort. I gave up at the most critical of moments. I have confidence that you will not give up."
"But if we can't go back, how will I defeat Voldemort?" Harry looked at the books. How would they get back?
"I believe that your coming here has had some sort of effect on the island. I have seen birds come and go, when they haven't been able to before. You may not be able to apparate on and off the island, but I have ever belief that you can Floo."
"Floo? Are you serious?"
"Yes. And you will leave right away without a moment to spare, as soon as we find that dratted Malfoy," the Doctor said with a wink and Harry grinned. Mind-boggling was what this entire conversation had been, but it explained so many things and the fact that they were finally able to go home made everything else so small in comparison. He jumped up and practically ran for the door, eager to find Draco before a thought came to him.
"How do I know if Draco loves me, though?" Harry asked, looking back at the Doctor, who gave a sly smile.
"He does, I guarantee it. You wouldn't be here if he didn't," the Doctor winked again before waving his arms in an effort to shoo him off.
- -
Author Notes: Oh lord, that was poorly written – it was extremely hard to write. Yes! The Doctor is future!Harry. XD But how did Fleur and Bill get there, you ask? Well, that's not important, so there. And after explaining all that, I don't think I can explain much else. P If you notice any discrepancies, I would love you forever if you told me about them? This really is still just a first draft. BUT IT'S NOT OVER. No, we still have a chapter or so to go!