The moods aboard the good-ship Starbug were mixed. They ranged from "I'm gunna see my kids! Yee Harr!" to "This is a really, really smeggy idea!"
The Cat piloted the bug away from Red Dwarf so it wouldn't be caught up in what Holly called the "Holly Zone;" a field of about 500 kilometres that would take anything else within that range with them when they travelled inter-dimensionally; and then they all prepared to Holly Hop.
Is everybody ready?" Holly asked, not really caring if they were or not.
The four non-senile life-forms on board all looked at each other, mouthed "are we doing the right thing" silently, then shrugged their shoulders and said that they were.
But they were really actually extremely petrified.
Then they turned around and watched the Holly Hop drive-box with trepidation.
"OK" said Holly. "Holly Hop activated, countdown begins. Five… Four… Two…"
"You missed three again Holly" remarked Rimmer, smugly.
"Holly ignored him and continued the countdown.
"… One; Holly-Hop!
There was a brief flash of light then nothing. Lister asked "did it work Holl?
"Of course it worked Dave" said the computer.
"How do you know Holly?" Dave asked.
"Well, for one. That time hole wasn't there before."
"WHAT TIME HOLE!" the rest of the crew yelled.
"That green one, right in front of us" Holly replied in a smug way.
They all turned and looked though the window.
"Smeg!" said Lister. "Not another one."
"Smeg!" said Rimmer. Why is this one green?"
"Oh dear" said Kryten. "Damn my panic chip!"
"Wow!" said the Cat. "Green; I can live with green, it even matches my outfit."
And that was the last thing they heard before being sucked into the time hole to smeg-knows where and when.
In a high tower of an ancient castle an old, kindly looking man with a very long, incredibly white, beard and hair sat at an antique desk; writing on a piece of parchment with a quill made from an eagle's feather. He was deep in thought and stopped writing occasionally to look up at the pictures on his wall.
The thing was; the pictures were also looking at him. And they were moving!
"Haven't you finished writing that spell yet, Albus?" said the picture of another wise looking man, but with much shorter, and less greying hair.
"My dear Headmaster Dippet , this particular protection charm is quite difficult as I am actually making it up as I go along. Please be a little more patient."
The picture of Armando Dippet, who was the Headmaster at Hogwarts before Dumbledore, simply huffed and went back to whatever it was that he was doing.
Dumbledore just smiled and went back to his writing.
Not long after that the sweet trill of a bird in song began. It was unlike any other birdsong you could imagine, as it came from the rarest of all birds; the Phoenix.
"Ah, Fawkes; your songs get more beautiful every day and…"
The song of the Phoenix turned into a slightly annoyed squawk. Dumbledore looked a little perplexed for a moment then realised what the bird was trying to tell him.
He looked at his extremely old pocket watch and said "yes, of course; you're right. They should be here any second now."
Dumbledore stood up behind his desk and walked over to the window. As he scanned the, sky a massive, bright green vortex appeared in the night sky.
"There's the Time Hole, right on the mark and… Look Fawkes, here they come now.'
In another tower of the same castle, an eleven year old boy sat on the wide window ledge looking out into the darkness, wondering. Wondering about his new life, his new friends; wondering about his new school and the fact that he was a wizard.
"A wizard" he said as he turned to look at his sleeping bunk mates.
Of course, they all knew who they were. They grew up in wizarding families. Some were from families where both parents were magical; others had a mum who was a witch and a dad who was just an everyday ordinary person; and a number of them had a dad who was a wizard and a mum who wasn't magical.
And some, like his friend Hermione, came from a family with no magical background at all.
This still confused the heck out of poor Harry Potter, whose mum and dad were both magical, but died when Harry was a baby and he was brought up by his mum's sister and her husband.
And it sucked!
They treated him worse than a dog and he only ever got to wear his cousin's hand-me-down clothes.
But now he was at Hogwarts and he had never felt more at home anywhere else in his life.
The thought of his "family" – the Dursleys, was beginning to make him nauseous. So he opened the window and looked back outside, taking the cool, crisp night air deep into his lungs.
Harry was just about to go to bed when something appeared in the night sky.
"Wow!" Harry said in a whispered scream. "What's that?"
He watched as the green vortex got bigger and bigger until Harry thought it might be big enough to swallow up everything.
He ran over to his friend Ron's bed and began to shake him.
"Ron! Ron!" Harry whisper screamed.
Ron Weasly woke up with a start and his bright red hair and freckles were almost glowing in the darkness.
"What! No! I don't like spiders!" he said half asleep.
"Ron, wake up" said Harry. "Ron, you have to see this!"
"It's still dark, what could you possibly see out there at this time of night?" said Ron groggily.
But Harry grabbed him by his arm and dragged him to the window. "Look! What is that? Is it magical?"
Ron rubbed his eyes and stared out of the window.
"Whoa! It's a big green swirly thing in space."
"I know that Ron, have you ever seen anything like this before?" Harry asked, frustrated with his friend's lack of concern..
But poor old Ron was mesmerised, he just stood there with his jaw wide open and a glazed look on his face.
"RON!" Harry yelled as loudly as he dared right into his friend's ear.
"Ouch" Ron said, holding his had to his ear. "What did you do that for, Harry?"
Harry smiled and pushed his glasses back along his nose. "I said have you ever seen anything like that before?"
Ron looked back out the window and said "no, but forget that, look!"
Harry looked at where Ron was pointing, the centre of the vortex.
"Something's coming out Harry" said Ron, trembling. "Wh… What is it?"
Harry concentrated and then something in him knew what it was.
"Harry?" said Ron, whining.
"It's what the Muggles call an Unidentified Flying Object, Ron. It's… …a space ship!"
"Status report!" aid Lister as he and the Cat fought the ship, trying to control the uncontrollable.
"Main engines are off line" said Kryten. "Thrusters at half power and the light that says "Please fasten your seatbelts" has blown a globe."
Rimmer looked at the android once voted "most likely to kill his crew" and said "you really are a smeg head aren't you Kryten."
"Coming out of the clouds, now!" said the Cat, wishing he'd brought those damn brown trousers with him.
"Smeg" said Lister, knowing the answer to his next question before he even asked it. "What's that?"
It's a castle Mr Lister" said Kryten. "And it looks very old."
"Were the smeg are we Kryten."
"Well, Sir. According to the Navicomp, it's Earth; again!"
"Earth?" Lister asked. "Are you sure, Kryten? What year is it?"
"It's the year 1991, Sir"
"Is there anything about this year we should know about, Kryten" asked the heroic Ace Rimmer's dimensional twin. "Are we going to run smack into a war, or a coup or wose, an election?"
Kryten search his data banks for an answer to Rimmer's question. You could tell when he was doing this because his eyes went all squinty and his shoulders hunched up like he had constipation.
"Well sir, apart from a small skirmish in the Middle East, the fall of the Soviet Union, a volcanic eruption in the Philippines and a teensy Cholera outbreak in Peru; there's not much really happening."
"Oh, good" aid Rimmer looking panicky. "So there's nothing to worry about then?"
Lister had a flash of intelligence and asked, "But Kryten; if this is a parallel dimension, maybe these things didn't happen; maybe it's a better world than ours?"
"Yea, right Chipmunk Cheeks" the Cat quipped. "I've read up on Earth history, I doubt anything like that would ever happen in any of the Earth universes. You guys are just so intent on killing each other its nuts!"
"Says a member of a race that went to war over the colour of the hats for the donut diner" smiled Lister, sarcastically.
"Oh yea" said the Cat, embarrassed. "I forgot."
"Sorry to interrupt your United Nations meeting, gentlemen" said Rimmer, all panicky like. "But I think we're going to crash."
Their attention once again turned to their dilemma and the Cat yelled "we're gunna hit the tree."
"All power to the thrusters, Kryten" yelled Lister as he desperately tried to manoeuvre the 'Bug clear of the biggest, most deformed tree he had ever seen.
"I've never seen a willow grow like that before" said Rimmer.
"Urg!" said the Cat, disgusted with what he saw. "That's the ugliest tree I have ever seen."
"Cat, forget what it looks like, man" said Rimmer who was sweating like he had just had a volcano hot curry and forgot to buy any lager. "Help me fly this thing!"
How they missed the tree they'll never know. But unfortunately they didn't miss the ground. Starbug landed with such a force that all the landing stanchions snapped, one main engine hung by a single bolt and their only bottle of salad cream fell out of the fridge and made a huge, gooey mess.
Oh, and a piece of the 'bug broke of and shredded the Cat's shirt. As you can imagine, he was devastated.
"Oh, my god" cried the Cat. "My absolute favourite shirt in the entire galaxy is ruined."
"It's a small hole, Cat" said Lister, checking himself for injuries as he tried to console the Cat. "With your sewing skills, you will never even notice that that hole was ever there."
The Cat stopped crying, smiled, and said "hey! You're right Gerbil breath. I'm a tailoring genius, thanks!"
Lister smiled sarcastically and checked on the others. "Kryten, Rimmer! Are you guys ok?"
"Yes, I'm fine, thank god" said Rimmer, smirking smugly.
"I'm fine too, Mr Lister" said Kryten, groggily; despite the fact that his left arm waving at him from the other side of the cock pit.
"Kryten" Lister yelled; his concern for his robotic friend obvious. "Your arm's off!"
"No it's not" said Kryten.
"Yes it is, man!"
"It's just a flesh wound."
"But your arm is over there waving at you!"
"'Tis but a scratch" Kryten said, trying to smile.
Rimmer was beginning to lose patience and said "can we stop the 'Monty Python' references please?"
The Cat laughed, Lister smirked and Kryten fainted.
Well, I think he fainted. Can robots faint?
Lister rushed over and said "are you ok, Kryters?"
"Of course I am, Mr President" said Kryten as he sat up with a jolt. "Just continue what you and Miss Monroe were doing and don't worry about me." And he fell back to the floor just as quickly.
"We'll attend to him later" said Lister. "Let's see what it's like outside. Cat, hit the cloaking device."
With the ship cloaked three of the crew of Starbug began their descent to Mother Earth.