Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling, Bloomsbury, and Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended and no money has changed hands.

A/N: This story gets its name from the Star Trek:TNG episode of the same name. The plot will be similar to that episode, but is not a crossover and will have no other references to the Star Trek universe. It's in Season 5 if anyone cares to look it up. The story will mostly be told in flashback, 7th year for the Trio, HP/OFC pairing. Enjoy!

Harmon awakened groggy and aching, but the aches weren't in the places he expected them to be. His neck and his back were complaining, as were every muscle in his body, but his hands, hips and knees seemed remarkably pain free. Taking a deep breath, he found that the congestion that had been his constant companion for the last twenty years was gone. Scents inhaled along with the air triggered long-forgotten memories of the past, specifically of a certain infirmary. He was back! But how?

Harmon opened his eyes carefully, wary of being blinded by bright light. The world was blurry in a very familiar way, appearing as it had before the accident. Wondering how long he'd been out, Harmon called out, hoping that someone would be there to hear him. "Hello?" His voice was so young, it startled him, and his hand went to his throat.

The soothing voice of Madame Pomfrey answered him. "Well, Mr. Potter, finally awake, I see." She held his glasses out to him, and he took them gratefully. He'd have to see about getting a vision charm again. After so long without them, suddenly having to focus a half inch in front of his face was disorienting. He looked at his hands and found smooth, clear skin. Scars were missing, wrinkles had vanished, and discolorations were gone without a trace. He was truly young again!

The mediwitch said, "You've been out for about three weeks, so I imagine you'll be stiff and sore for a few days. There's been a lot of strange magical activity going on around you, so I'm going to need to know what you remember of the accident."

Three weeks! It had seemed like a life-time to him, literally! Distractedly, Harmon nodded. "All right, but I'd prefer to not have to repeat myself, Madame, so if you wouldn't mind, please get the Headmaster, Professors Snape and McGonagall, Hermione, Ron, Ginny, Neville and Luna? We could record it for the rest of the Order in a memory sphere."

Pomfrey looked a bit put out at being made to wait, but she did as she was asked. As she made her calls, Harmon looked around the bed. Cards, candies, flowers and other gifts lay around him. A comfortable chair and a reading lamp were situated next to his cot, indicating that someone had been in here often, probably reading to him to keep him company. Three weeks. How could it have been so short a time?

The first to arrive were Ron and Hermione, both looking as though they had run quite a distance to get there, but ecstatic to see Harmon awake and apparently well. They both hugged him fiercely, ignoring the nurse's protests. Ron said, "Thank Merlin you're awake, Harry! You really scared us, mate."

Harmon knew that the grin on his face had to qualify as a geological event. Merlin, how he'd missed these two! Hermione said, "What happened, Harry? Fred and George said something had to have happened with that time turner they gave you."

But, Harmon shook his head. "Let's wait until everyone's here. It shouldn't be too much longer. But I'll warn you, this is a very strange story." They're so young! And he was again, as well. That was going to take some getting used to.

A voice came from the entryway. "I should imagine so, my dear boy." Professor Dumbledore walked sedately into the room, his eyes twinkling unbearably. Harmon just smirked. He was no longer the angry little boy that he had been, and he hadn't resented the Headmaster for a long time. He better understood now, how hard decisions like his could have been.

After Dumbledore, the other professors and Harmon's friends followed quickly into the infirmary. The Headmaster conjured enough chairs for everyone, but Snape suubbornly remained standing. He looked as though he would rather have been anywhere else but in a meeting called by The-Boy-Everyone-Adored. Cutting through everyone else's attempts to ask questions all at once, he said, "Why have you called me in here?"

Harmon nodded. Three reasons. One, I thought you might want to know what happened to your lab. Two, my story might interest you. And three, I've learned a lot through my misadventures, and some of it you will most definitely want to know about. Whether or not you stay is your own decision, but it was only right to invite you."

Surprised at the straight answer and intrigued despite himself, Snape crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall of the infirmary to listen.

Harmon turned to Dumbledore. "Sir, would you mind recording this for the rest of the Order?"

"Of course, Harry. I dare say, they will find it most interesting." And with that, the aged wizard skillfully cast a recording charm. The charm manifested as a memory sphere just like those in the Department of Mysteries. Neville saw it and shuddered, but said nothing.

Finally, Harmon began to tell his story. "You all know that, with the death of my godfather, I had become an angry, sullen boy. Guilt for my part in that was eating me alive, and I was taking it out on everyone around me, far worse than I did following Cedric Diggory's death. For that, I'd like to apologize to each of you personally after I've finished."

Harmon paused, gathering his thoughts. "It's common knowledge that traveling through time cannot prevent someone's death, but a lot of things that are common knowledge are not necessarily the truth, and I was desperate to fix the mess I'd wrought. I started researching time, seeing if I could find a loop-hole in it's properties so that I could go back and prevent Sirius from falling to Belatrix LeStrange's curse. From what I found, a power boost for a time-turner seemed to be the way to go.

"I wrangled Fred and George into my scheme, and they did their best. I'm the one who dropped the Quaffle. The Thyme Draught was meant to soak the turner and give it extra strength, hopefully allowing events to actually be altered, rather than creating a loop. But before the final ingredient was added, the chain of the turner caught on the edge of the cauldron, breaking the chain and letting the turner fall in." Snape hissed from where he stood against the wall, knowing full well that this had been a recipe for disaster. Unaccountably, Harmon grinned. "Yes, Snape, quite the foul up. The cauldron exploded and I was knocked out. But that's not the end of the story. The power was there in the potion, but it had no controls on it. It could have had many effects, but it took the form of a temporal distortion, and it flung me backward in time, about a thousand years."

Reactions to that statement were varied and rather loud. Hermione said, "But you've been here this whole time!"

Harmon shrugged. "I still don't know exactly what happened, and I have no idea how I've gotten back, but I can tell you what happened when I got there."

The story was long, and though it was still morning when he began, it was well past midnight when he finished. Throughout the recitation, Dobby and several other house elves discretely brought food and beverages around so that no one went hungry and so they could also listen to the tale of their favorite human.

And that's the prologue. The name thing will be explained later. The last paragraph is an indication of how long this story is going to be, so be patient with me. The first chapter should follow soon. Review please!