This is a very short chapter and perhaps the only one of this length in the whole story.

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: The world of Harry Potter belongs to Jo.

Chapter#4

Strangers in the Great Hall

20th December 1996

It was just another ordinary day at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The students were sitting around their respective house tables having dinner. The clutter of forks and spoons filled the whole great hall along with the light chatter from the occupants. Today had been a Hogsmead weekend after all and almost everyone was busy enjoying the weekly gossip.

In a certain part of the Gryffindor table however the atmosphere was quite heated. Ronald Weasley was stuffing food into his mouth as Lavender Brown, his girlfriend, fussed over him. His gaze was fixed on his plate as he tried his best to remain oblivious to the scathing glare that his best friend, Hermione Granger was giving him. His other best friend, Harry Potter or better known as the Boy-who-lived found his whole predicament highly amusing as he had a stupid smirk plastered across his face and every once in a while he would share a knowing smile with Ron's sister, Ginny Weasley.

A teasing remark was on Ginny's lips when she was distracted by a loud crash at the front of the hall. All heads turned ahead to find the source of the crash and some students drew out their wands, one could never be too careful nowadays.

Harry, Ron and Hermione were the first ones on their feet, wands raised ahead of them. However the sight that greeted them as the smoke from the crash cleared was not the one they had expected.

Instead of death eaters, which was everyone's instinctual assumption, there was a group of teenagers and children that lay in a heap on the floor. Ron looked from Harry to Hermione and then to the front, where Dumbledore stood. He was unsurprised to find that each one of them looked equally shocked and dumbstruck. Before any of them could overcome their stunned state and ask the newcomers any questions, someone yelled and Ron found himself following the voice to the mound of tangled limbs.

"Dom you're crushing me."

"Shut up Fred! I have about three people lying on top of me."

"Next time try to phrase you sentence better!"

"Get your mind out of the gutter, you OAF!"

"James, get your bloody foot out of my face!"

"I can't move you idiot!"

"Sorry to disappoint you Al, but none of us can."

"SHUT UP ALL OF YOU!" hollered a voice from the bottom of the pile. "Who is on the top?"

"I am." Said a small voice

"Alright Luce, now I'm gonna have to ask you to climb off. Be careful, don't fall off." Said the same voice from the bottom, but really softly this time

"Okay", with that a little girl stumbled off from above the pile; she swayed a little and then caught her footing. Ron still as stunned as before, observed her with anticipation, the little girl wasn't more than seven or eight years of age. She had dark red hair and blue eyes; both of these features seemed oddly familiar to Ron.

"I'm down Teddy" she called

"Good girl Luce! Now everyone get off one by one."

As instructed, by whom Ron assumed was the in charge, everyone slowly piled off until after a few minutes, none of them was left on the floor. By the time that they had straightened up, it seemed as if one of them had finally noticed where they were, for a blonde girl, who Ron again thought looked strikingly familiar, was now pointing a trembling finger in the hall's general direction.

"Look" she managed to squeak out

None of her companions seemed to notice her though and realising this, she suddenly yelled, "LOOK!"

The visitors' heads all turned at the same time to see what she had been meaning for them all to look at and all of a sudden, as though somebody had drenched them all in cold water, their expressions turned to one of pure shock and dread.

"Oh my God!" whispered a terrified young man with the oddest hair colour Ron had ever seen: turquoise. Ron recognised him as the one who had been giving everyone instructions before.

"Are you guys seeing what I am seeing?" said a blonde teenage boy

"What exactly are you seeing Louis?" counter-questioned the young brunette girl standing beside him.

"Forget it; I think I might be hallucinating." said the blonde boy his eyes, like the rest of them never leaving the scene in front of him.

"If you can see your teenage parents and aunts and uncles then I suppose we might be hallucinating the same thing." said a red haired girl. Teenage parents?! Aunts and uncles?! Who were these kids, and why did they for some reason thought that some of the people in the great hall were their relatives? None of it made any sense to Ron whatsoever.

"I am afraid, I think we aren't hallucinating..." it was the same turquoise haired young man who had been directing orders before that seemed to come to this conclusion, "I think something's very, very wrong".

"W-what sort of wrong Teddy?" the blonde girl asked, tearing her eyes away from scene in front to stare wide-eyed at the turquoise haired man

The said young man visibly shuddered and turned to look her straight in the eye as he said, "Time-travel wrong, Vic."

WHAT? TIME TRAVEL?! This had got to be some kind of a joke. No, no that was impossible. Someone must be playing a prank on them, Ron thought as he looked at Dumbledore for some kind of explanation but he found the headmaster looking just as flabbergasted, shocked as himself and shock was not something that Ron associated with the brilliant headmaster. It was unnerving to see him standing there like he had no idea how this could have happened. He was Dumbledore dammit! He wasn't supposed to look as stunned as he did now; he was supposed to know the answers. Ron was shaken out of his train of thought as Dumbledore finally moved from his spot and walked towards the group of strangers.

"Who are all of you?" asked Dumbledore in a stern voice

The strangers all turned their heads towards the sound of his voice and looked, if anything, even more stunned than before. Some of them even let out gasps of surprise and the others just looked on with wide eyes.

The young man with turquoise hair seemed to overcome the shock of seeing Dumbledore the fastest, as he quickly straightened up and fixed the headmaster with a steady, hard gaze as he spoke, "As ridiculous as it sounds, but we...we are from the future."

The whole great hall broke into a series of murmurs and hushed whispers as the revelation seemed to send them all into a state of frenzy.

Next Update on Sunday.

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