Harry knew the TARDIS could go anywhere, but as he stepped out of those little blue doors, he found himself standing in the exact last place he expected to be.

Hogwarts stood before him. Not half destroyed, or teeming with aliens, but whole and standing proudly in the sunlight.

"How?" asked Ginny, as she, Ron and Hermione stepped out of the box too. "How is this possible? What are we even looking at?"

The Doctor joined them, closing the TARDIS doors behind him and taking a deep breath of the fresh air. "April," he replied. "1975."

Ron shuddered. "I wish you had asked beforehand, you know. I hate time travel. I'm always paranoid I'm going to kill my grandfather."

"Nah," said the Doctor confidently. "I've met your grandfather, he's ace."

"It's so funny to look at," said Hermione, of the castle in front of them. "Given where we've just come from, I mean."

"Couldn't be helped, I'm afraid," the Doctor replied. "This is just about the only place we could be right now." He turned around, back towards the path leading towards Hogsmeade, where the villagers could be seen happily strolling about in the sunshine. "We can go get a bite to eat, if you like? While you pepper me with questions. I'm assuming you all have lots and lots of questions?"

"Yeah," said Harry, who was both the only one who had not spoken and the only one who hadn't taken his eyes off the castle. "Are my parents in there?"

A tense silence followed. The others realised the same thing Harry had done as soon as he'd heard '1975', and then they looked to the Doctor. No panic came across his face, nor sympathy. In fact, his reply was quite casual and matter-of-fact.

"Yes," he said, coming to join Harry in looking up at the castle. "Yes they are."

Harry's imagination moved faster than his better judgement, and he found himself picturing it. They were probably in class. Maybe Charms or Divination. His Mum was likely up front, listening intently. His Dad would have been a few rows back, dozing off. Or maybe stealing glances at Lily when no one else could see. Sirius was probably right next to him, Harry realised with a jolt. Remus too, and even Dumbledore. All of them. People he'd spent nights lying awake and yearning to speak with, were now within walking distance.

And each and every one of them was a ghost.

He turned away from the castle. "I'm starving. Let's go get that food."

They piled into a corner booth at the Three Broomsticks and ordered five butterbeers. Evidently not reading the mood of his companions, the Doctor seemed oddly relaxed and settled into his seat with a smile.

"So how's stuff in general?" he asked them. "This might be slightly off topic, but did you guys know about this thing called Pac-Man? I just discovered it for the first time the other night, now I'm obsessed."

"Who else would know that Harry had a dead Weeping Angel?" asked Hermione.

The Doctor's smile slipped away. "Oh. We're jumping straight to the question-y bit then?"

"We do have a lot of them," said Harry with a shrug. "Ginny especially probably has no idea what going on."

Ginny nodded in agreement. "For starters: time travel is apparently a thing?"

The Doctor sighed. "Fair enough. As long as nobody asks me why I don't use my time machine to go back and stop this whole situation from ever happening in the first place."

At that, a look of realisation came over Ron's face. "Hey…!"

"No," said the Doctor. "Just no. Paradox, is the answer to that question. Let's just leave it there."

"Here's an easier one then," said Harry. "Where've you been for seven years, Doctor?"

The Doctor held Harry's gaze for a second, then turned his guilty eyes to anywhere else. "I'm not just some idiot with a time-turner. This isn't a hobby for me. Time travel is my life. It's in my DNA. And that comes with a certain amount of responsibility."

Ron scoffed. "Something tells me you've never met a responsibility you haven't instantly ran away from."

The Doctor gestured to the four people sitting around him. "Yeah I have." They still look unconvinced, and the Doctor struggled for words they'd comprehend. "You four… you're like Winston Churchill. Who's a mate of mine, so that's a bad example. You're important, is what I'm trying to say. For a lot of people, the fact that you four exist is the difference between life and death. It's very dangerous for you to be around someone like me. My life is full of threats that I just simply have to keep you away from."

"You're doing a terrible job of that," Hermione noted, examining some of the scrapes and cuts on her forearm.

"Exactly!" the Doctor pointed at her. "See what happens after half an hour in my company?"

Harry heard all this, tried to understand it, but found himself shaking his head. "No. If we'd never met you, we'd be dead. A few times over. You might attract danger, Doctor, but I wouldn't want anyone else except you around when it gets here."

The Doctor shifted uncomfortably at the compliment. "I don't know," he said suddenly to Hermione. "How the aliens found out about Harry and the Weeping Angel."

"I'm assuming none of us at this table ever told anyone else?" Ron said, glancing to Harry and Hermione, who shook their heads in reply.

"Yeah, but we weren't the only ones there that night," the Doctor reminded him. "We have no way of knowing if Snape, Lupin or Dumbledore ever told someone about that time a stone statue zapped them into the past. And if they did, it's plausible someone put the rest of it together themselves. But that's all really irrelevant at this point, because the secret's out. They know there's a good-as-dead Weeping Angel on Earth and Harry Potter is the one that's got it."

"They'll tear the world to bits looking for me," Harry worried aloud.

"Which is exactly why we're here," said the Doctor, producing his sonic screwdriver from his jacket. He held it up, letting them see the green light at its tip blinking softly. "When they saw us leave, they will have tried to track the TARDIS, so I'm sending out a little signal to tell them our location."

"Err," said Ginny nervously, "is that wise?"

The Doctor didn't reply, turning to Hermione with a smirk. Hermione took a second, caught up to what he was getting at, and then smiled.

"Oh! That's clever," she said, then turned to the others. "Don't you see? We haven't really gone anywhere."

Ron looked around, as if to make sure he wasn't hallucinating. "Erm, yeah we have."

"No," she said, "we haven't. We just saw Hogwarts, didn't we? And we're sitting in Hogsmeade, aren't we? We haven't moved more than a mile at most."

"None of those alien races are time travellers," the Doctor explained. "Well, some of them dabble in it, the Daleks mostly, but they're amateurs. The point is, they'll be looking for where the TARDIS is, and not think to ask when it is. And currently, speaking strictly in terms of location, the TARDIS is the same place they are. They won't tear the world apart looking for Harry just yet, they'll be too busy digging through that empty castle because they think he's just out of sight."

"Fair enough," said Ron. "That is pretty clever."

The Doctor raised his butterbeer in a thankful toast and then took a good sip. Harry sighed and leaned back in his seat. "So what happens to us now?"

"How do you mean?" said the Doctor, wiping foam off his upper lip.

"Well, what are we supposed to do while you go flying off to find a sun to throw the Angel's body into?"

The Doctor paused delicately. "Well, not to contradict all my previous worrying about what a danger I pose to you, but I thought that maybe, this time, you might want to help?"

The four humans shared a confused, cautious glance.

"What exactly are you suggesting?" said Ginny.

The Doctor shrugged, and looked to be trying very hard not to grin. "You know, you lot must think all the sights capable of taking your breath away are behind you. Because really, what can live up to the things you've seen? Enchanted castles and dark wizards. Dragons. Giants. What if I could take you somewhere that would make all of that look mundane?" He pushed his empty glass to the side so he could lean in and fix them all with a twinkling gaze. "I suppose what I'm saying is… fancy going into space?"