Here's the first part of my Factors two-shot. I wasn't going to publish this yet, but as a sorry for a late updating of my other story, here it is.

The "Woops" Factor

"Harry!"

Harry Potter, defeater of Voldemort, jumped and fell off his chair as his long time friend, Hermione Granger, yelled his name and ran up to him.

"Hermione," he sighed from the floor. "I know I'm the auror and you're just a researcher for the DOM, but don't do that!"

"That's not important." She waved his complaint away and joined him on the floor. "As you already know, because you somehow know everything my department does - there's still some people angry with you for that - that I've been working with timer turners." Harry snickered, thinking about the shadowy group that he kept tabs on. "And we had a break threw! We're pretty sure-" "Oh no." "-that we've discovered a way to send someone forward in time."

She looked at him expectedly, making him groan. "Why me?"

She shrugged. "Who better then the boy-who-lived?"

"Uh huh," he raised an eyebrow. "And if I agreed to be your lab rat the last time, the time before, and so on, I would have been the boy-who-was-mutilated."

"Mutilation only happened once. We fixed the problem and gave the cat a funeral." She informed him matter-of-factly.

"How lovely." He said dryly.

"It'll get you out of your office." He raised an eyebrow, wondering how that would be enough to make him say yes. "And your fan girls may have happened to be tipped off where you are."

"Well?" He quickly stood up. "Let's get this thing under way."

Hermione stood up as well, "Follow me."

She led him through twist and turns, through the maze of the department of mysteries and into the room of time.

"Harry, these," she waved at the others gathered in the room, "are my co-workers. Everyone, this is our monkey."

Harry shifted nervously at the grins the group gave him. He felt like a shark facing down a drugged up killer whale that wanted to eat him.

"Excellent." One of the gathered men started laughing maniacally.

One of the others, the lone female apart from Hermione, shot a silencing charm at him while the rest of the group continued to give Harry creepy smiles.

"You know," Harry smiled nervously. "I just remembered I have to do…paperwork."

"No problem," the youngest of the group waved his escape excuse away. "When our time catches up to you we'll just let you use a normal time turner."

"Wait," Harry flailed his arms. "What do you mean, when time catches up?"

"It's a one way trip," the female started explaining as Hermione led him to the middle of a platform. "It's just like going back in time; you go, and then wait for the timelines to connect again."

"Okay Harry," Hermione handed him what looked to be a time turner with pink sand. "Spin that once and you'll go forward one hour. We'll be waiting." She stepped back off the platform.

"Well, here goes." He slowly tilted the hour glass and looked back up, surprised they were all in the same places, albeit frowning.

"It didn't work." One of the scientists pouted.

"Try another turn." Hermione prompted.

Nervously, Harry did so. Once again, nothing happened. The group tried to think of what was wrong when a pile of pink sand was dropped on Harry's head. "It's needs more ompf." The man who had laughed earlier claimed, even before they could guess what happened.

"Yeah, okay." One shrugged. "Try it again Potter."

Harry was a little nervous by this point, but he wasn't a Gryffindor in school for nothing. He turned it.

Nothing happened.

One of the scientist broke down crying, devastated the experiment failed in such a boring manner. A sharp retort in an unknown language from behind Harry shocked them all into pulling their wands.

"Identify yourself!" Hermione demanded from the man who looked to be in his mid twenties.

The stranger, who was covered in pink sand, said nothing. Their wand tips started glowing and the man held his hands up, showing his lack of wand, and said something in the unknown language with a sneer.

Harry looked at Hermione out of the corner of his eyes. "What language is he speaking?"

The muggleborn know-it-all looked down right annoyed. "I don't know."

Harry lowered his wand slightly and looked at each unspeakable. "Now what?"

The cloaked figures shifted nervously and wouldn't look at him. He sighed and looked back at the annoyed man. He was average height - though he held himself like he thought he was tall - for a man with black hair spilling past his shoulders, tied at the base of his neck with a ribbon. His face was angular, in the same way as most purebloods. His eyes were dark brown, and his skin pale. It was his clothes however, that stood out the most; most guys would not be seen in tights.

"My vault on you guys having brought Mr. Tights from the past."

Nobody took Harry's bet.

/"Pink is so degrading."/ The group turned their heads as a thin, triangular head poked out of the pink sand. /"Whatcha'll staring at? You never seen a snake in pink before? Am I gonna haveta beat ya?"/ A scaly tail waved threatening at them.

/"What art thou speech?"/ The group whipped their heads back to the man as he hissed at the snake.

/"English, dude."/

/"Be it not any English thy know."/

/"Do I look like I care?"/ The snakes forked tongue wiggled at the man.

/"I don't think he does."/ Harry mused.

This time it was the mans head that whipped. /"You know Parseltongue?"/

/"Holy pregnant cow,"/ the snake interrupted any response Harry could have gave. /"You're Harry Potter."/ The snake tilted it's head. /"Dude, aren't you dead?"/

"Harry?" During the hissed conversation Hermione had made her way to Harry. "What's going on?"

"Well," he blinked at his friend. "The guy is definitely from the past with his 'thou's', and I'd say the snake is from the future since according to him I'm dead."

Hermione processed this. "Ask them who they are."

He nodded. /"You know who I am,"/ he directed at the snake. /"But I don't know who you are."/

/"Hi,"/ the snake waved it's tail. /"I'm Theodorus, and I'm a mouseaholic."

Harry grinned. /"Hi Theodorus."/ He turned to the still irritated man. /"And you are?"/

/"Thou shall assume you art inquiring to thy's name."/ He sneered at Harry. /"Thy be Salazar Slytherin."/

The snake and Harry stared dumbly at Salazar.

"Harry?" Harry numbly turned to his friend. "What's wrong? What did they say?"

Harry pointed at the long dead man. "Salazar Slytherin."

There was a clatter as wands were dropped from shocked fingers. "Holy shit, we brought Salazar Slytherin here."