Harry sprinted down the road toward the phone booth, swearing continuously under his breath and ignoring the occasional late-night pedestrian. This would make phone booth number eight, and it didn't help that he was getting more and more unsure as to whether he was remembering the damn number right.
He ripped the phone off the hook and hammered in the number he had memorised long ago, and almost cheered as he finally heard that damned voice reply. "Welcome to the Ministry of-"
"Harry Potter, Rescue Mission, go down already!"
"I am sorry, but Harry Potter has already entered the Ministry of Magic."
"What? Well, obviously I bloody well exited it again! Let me back in!"
"...thankyou. Visitor, please take the badge and attach it to the front of your robes."
The voice sounded rather miffed, and the telephone box started descending without further ado. Harry glanced at the badge - 'Harry Potter (Again); Is Being Very Rude' - before tucking it into a pocket. He was way too late, and he knew it.
Damned if it hadn't been worth it, though.
---
Ten minutes, a quick dodge through the milling crowds, and a painfully slow elevator ride later, Harry was bursting through the door where he had been slammed backwards through time, hoping against hope that no-one had thought to check the spot where the boy-who-lived had disappeared.
No such luck. Dumbledore and Flitwick were standing over the shattered remains of what was once a really large hourglass, and presumably magical, before Harry had smacked into it. Dumbledore had looked up from the wreckage on Harry's entrance, while Flitwick continued inspecting one of the larger fragments. Dumbledore looked more frazzled than Harry ever remembered seeing him, and did not seem pleased at the interruption.
"What do you want?" he asked, already half-turned back before realisation dawned. He turned back to Harry, looking rather surprised.
"Uh... hi, Professor."
---
Poppy embarrassed easily, Harry decided. Possibly something to do with the shock of having the teenage boy you were all motherly to reappearing as a rather lean, wiry fellow of indeterminate but advanced age, complete with a couple days worth of stubble and an inclination to flirt shamelessly. She had blushed wildly and stammered something indecipherable before fleeing back to her office at the most basic of offers from him.
Still, such amusements could wait. Harry had pressed his ear against the door, all the better to hear the discussion going on in the corridor.
"So he's pure Harry? No polyjuice, no ageing potion, nothing like that?"
"Well, there is some lingering temporal magic there, but I'm not entirely sure what effect it would have on him. If I'm right, it wouldn't be ageing him. Pretty much the opposite, in fact."
"Alright. Is he just aged physically, or mentally as well?"
"I, uh, am fairly sure he's aged mentally as well, Headmaster."
"Oh? Why do you say that?"
"Take my word for it."
"...very well, I shall trust your judgement. Once you've finished the examination, send him up to my office. The paintings will keep an eye on him."
---
An hour and a half later, leaving an extremely hot and bothered Matron in his wake, Harry arrived at Dumbledore's office after taking the scenic route through some of his nostalgia hotspots. The few students he had passed on the way had largely ignored him, preferring instead to spread gossip of the event at the Ministry of Magic.
He stopped at the Gargoyle, eyeing it with distaste.
"Look, I'm not playing your guessing game. Open up or I'm going back to the Infirmary to keep Poppy company."
After a moment of sulky silence, the gargoyle reluctantly moved out of the way, revealing the staircase.
"Good. Damn self-important hunk of stone..." He took the steps two at a time, ignoring the faint protests of his knees with the ease of centuries of practice, and bursting dramatically through the doors at the top of the stairs. "Dumbledore!"
"Harry, good of you to join me, my boy. Have a seat." If he was taken aback at the dynamic entrance, he didn't show it. Blasted gargoyle.
"I understand that this has been a trying night for you, and that you're feeling the effects of some... rather unusual magic at the moment. However, Madame Pomfrey has informed me that she could find no immediate negative effects, and that you seem to be in perfect health. Most of your friends have picked up the odd injury, but nothing St Mungo's won't have fixed in a trice. Do you have any questions thus far?"
Harry just bit back a chuckle and shook his head.
"Excellent, excellent. Well, come the morning we'll send for the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad and a member or two from the Temporal Department of the Unspeakables, where you had your encounter. But their job will be eased greatly if you were to tell me what you experienced, so that we can get you back to your usual self without any further ado."
Harry paused a moment before speaking, pondering how much to tell the Professor. Sure, he could play dumb, and let the various ministry workers try to reverse the effects of nothing more or less than old age, but no doubt their 'cures' would become wilder and wilder as they repeatedly failed to 'heal' the Boy-Who-Lived. He'd rather not have to go through that particular ordeal, thank you very much.
"Sorry to say it, but in your conclusion that that little device aged me, you've overlooked a far more prosaic culprit for my aged appearance, Dumbledore."
"Oh? What's that, Harry?"
"Actually being old."
Dumbledore blinked for a moment, before reaching under his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose. "There are immutable laws of magic that say that what you're about to tell me is impossible..."
Harry leaned back and grinned, revelling in the spectacle of Dumbledore shocked. "Rejoice, Dumbledore, for you are no longer the oldest inhabitant of Hogwarts. Feel young again."