Gingers and Quantum Physics
Summary: George says goodbye, with the help of a new friend.
Warnings: crossover* (Doctor Who/Harry Potter)
Rating: K+
Pairing(s): mentions of Romione and Hinny
Length: Oneshot (2,336 words)
Disclaimer: All characters belong to the wonderful J.K. Rowling. We've already realized that I can't write multi chaps, do you think I can write seven 500 page books? I don't think so, darling!
*This is my first time writing a crossover, but I think it ended up alright, Reviews are very much appreciated! Thank you for taking time to read. :)
(Timey Wimey Placing Stuff: I'd like to think this would be set as a bit of a side trip when the Doctor is trying to find Clara again.
The joke shop greeted him with silence, another one of the many things that had changed with the war.
Before the war Fred had always kept him company after hours, even though George had often urged his twin to go up to the flat, which lay above the shop.
Fred, though, always had excuses. It was an incredibly annoying (but still somehow charming) trait of his.
When they were caught giving the toffee to Harry's cousin, it had been little 'Diddleykins' fault for being the pig they were both convinced he had been in a previous life.
When Mum stumbled upon the stash of Dungbombs under the bed while trying to find their hidden merchandise, Fred merely grinned, slowly drawling that she shouldn't go looking in places where she wasn't wanted. Mum had blown her top, and put them both on two days of house arrest. Little did the poor woman know, but they had worked like dogs in those two days, locked in their stuffy room to make more of the outlawed merchandise.
Verity, though, was much easier to convince to let him lock up by himself. He supposed her willingness also had something to do with the way she had been treating him, like he could break down at any moment.
He appreciated the space, though, so he didn't complain, although the silence was starting to get to him. He needed company, someone to laugh at his jokes, someone to tease and make fun of.
He would never really admit it, but he wasn't dying from a broken heart, so much as loneliness.
Broken hearts can be mended, but loneliness? He wasn't sure he could fix the ache that spread over him whenever he heard his brother's name.
At that moment, a sound, something that was between a dolphin with strep throat and the screech of long nails being dragged across a chalkboard filled the room, seeming to inflate and deflate like a person breathing. He swiveled in his chair, alarmed. He had never heard anything close to the sound in his life.
Slowly, as if coat of paint was being stripped layer by layer, a deep blue object appeared to his left. George half stood up, bewildered at the object that had appeared before him.
If asked later, he would have told you it was a small blue box, from the late 1950s or so. A small light at the top flashed as it appeared, ceasing as the noise faded away into a deep thrum. The top of the box had glowing letters that announced that it was a Police Call Box.
Yes, he could have told you that all later, but at the moment all he could focus on was the person that was clumsily emerging from the door of the mysterious box.
He was dressed in a brown tweed suit with old-fashioned brown leather elbow patches, complete with a crooked maroon bow tie. His hair was rather long and ruffled, atop an oddly bare forehead. His eyes were wide, and his mouth slightly open, highlighting the outrageous chin that jutted out like something out of a Muggle's pop up book.
Without giving any notice that he saw George, who was watching him with an astounded and slightly weary expression, he turned sharply, his long arms swinging with him as if he hadn't learned how to use them correctly quite yet. He touched his box gently, brushing his hands over it, muttering oddly to it, finally leaning his forehead against it. George let out a sigh and stood fully.
The man, hearing him turned alarmingly towards him again, large hands drifting towards his bow tie and straightening it. "Oh!" he exclaimed, pointing at him, his face lightening up like a child's on Christmas. "You're a ginger!"
George lifted his hand towards his head, patting the red hair that lay there down slightly, not taking his eyes off the stranger. Before he could say anything in the reply, though, the man continued.
"Doctor." He said, sticking out one of the large, long fingered hands. "Well, I am, not you. I don't think so at least," he frowned then, and circled around him, only to trip over the chair that George had been sitting in.
George made a move to help him, only to jump back as his head popped up again, alarmingly quick. "I'm alright!" He told him cheerfully, jumping up and sitting in the offensive chair.
His scuffed dress shoes tapped excitedly on the floor as he rubbed his hands together. His head snapped up to meet George's, the playful, cheerful eyes turning up at the corners, reminding him off an over eager puppy dog.
"Well then?" He asked, making George wonder if he had missed something.
"What?" He asked awkwardly.
"What's you're name? I've told you mine, I mean it's only fair that you tell me yours, too-"
"It's George." He cut off the stream of babble that flowed effortlessly from the man's mouth. Merlin, he thought. He was worse than Ginny!
"Well that's not very imaginative, is it? George." The Doctor wrinkled his nose and sighed as if George had somehow offended him. "I met someone with the oddest name recently - Sherlock or something. He didn't take to the TARDIS very kindly though. He huddled in the corner in a ridiculous trench coat muttering something about 'quantum physics'. His companion John was pretty interesting, though - blogger, you know."
George stared at him. No, he most certainly did not know. TARDIS...quantum physics...and what in the world was a blogger? This guy couldn't be a Muggle, he appeared in a bloody invisible box, but then who in Merlin's saggy left ballsack was he?
"Sorry, mate, I'm not exactly following." He stammered.
"Oh, sorry...mate." The man - Doctor, George corrected himself - smirked as if congratulating himself on the use of modern slang. "Forgot to introduce this beauty," He patted the blue box affectionately. "This is the TARDIS. Time and Relative Dimension in Space. I call her Sexy." He smiled crookedly, as if this was just a normal conversation that he had everyday. "Want a look inside?"
"Er, isn't it a bit small?" George asked.
The man smiled knowingly, and without answering he pulled open the door, and George warily followed inside, more due to pure human curiosity than the fact that he wanted to be inside a tiny box with a potential ax murderer. Though where he would hide that ax was a little mysterious.
However, when he saw the inside, George stepped out quickly again, surveying the size of the apparently tiny box. Stepping inside again, he let his jaw drop.
"Go on, then." The man leaned on the railing that encompassed the weird console-like object in the middle. He bounded around the console and leapt up the small staircase, taking two at a time. He spread his arms proudly, beaming like a younger, skinny St. Nick. "Say it."
"Is- is it magic?" His voice lowered, as he surveyed the vast amount of space in the small box.
The man draped himself across the edge of the railing, as his purpose in life had been lost. "No, it's time lord technology, but that's not point! It's bigger on the inside!"
"Yeah, I know that, but I've never seen anything like this that's not magic." He'd seen things like the tent they'd used for the Quidditch Cup and Hermione's beaded bag, but nothing to this extent.
"Nope! No magic needed my friend!" The man flipped a lever on the console, causing the machine to jolt heavily, making the annoying (and slightly scary) dolphin noises.
He turned to him again. "Closet's that way," he pointed straight ahead. "Library's that away," he pointed the other way. "And if you keep going down six and on your left would be the...swimming pool or kitchen? I don't know. If you get lost and find the kitchen, make me a soufflé won't you? I have a hankering for one at the moment. Humany-Wumany things, I suppose." He shrugged and ran down the staircase again. "So, where do you want to go?" He tepee-d his hands, resting his over pronounced chin on top of them and looked up at him patiently, dark, wise eyes practically drowning in crinkles as they turned into small crescents. "All of time and space." He tapped his long fingers on the dash. "Literally at my fingertips."
"Wait, who said I wanted to go anywhere?" George asked, bewildered.
"I did," he said amusedly. "And you could go for... who knows? A year, and be back in exactly two seconds in the real world." George's face pulled into a skeptical frown, and he smiled. "Trust me, George," he told him reassuringly. "I'm the Doctor."
George shrugged. "Well then, Doctor, there is somewhere I want to go."
…
The Doctor took some convincing, but he finally agreed, though he was quite amazed that George hadn't picked a different planet, or Paris in the 1930s or something. Something interesting. "You know, you can't…interfere, George."
"I know, Doctor." He knew how time turners worked, and this wasn't much different, he supposed. George had filled the Doctor in on his world, sheltered from non magic people, and, apparently, time lords that traveled in small blue boxes.
"It's so much more interesting than Sherlock and his blogger!" He had exclaimed excitedly. "Except, his name was much better..."
Eventually, they arrived at their destination, but as George exited the TARDIS and asked if he was coming, the Doctor shook his head sadly. "I don't really like goodbyes." He finished, looking down at his console and fiddling with a button. George nodded understandingly. As he closed the door gently, he heard the last words of wisdom: "Don't do anything stupid!" and laughed quietly to himself.
Before him was the Burrow. It leaned heavily to one side, like a replica of the Leaning Tower of Pineapples , or whatever the Muggles called it. George took a deep breath and walked toward it.
The Doctor had taken him to the one of the many enjoyable summer days, before his seventh year. The sun was just starting to settle over a hill in the distance and the yard was cast in a wonderful orange-y glow.
He looked through the window, smiling at all the happy faces he saw there. His family, except for Percy, of course. Those had been his Ministry days.
Harry and Hermione were there, too, with Ron in between them. He smiled as he pictured them now, Hermione and Ron with Rose and Hugo and Ginny and Harry with their kids. They'd always been a part of the family, but now they were officially Weasleys, he supposed.
Even the faces that were so dearly missed were there, filling the seats that now lay mostly empty at the Weasley's large dinner table. Tonks, Remus, even Moody had dropped by. Sirius laughed with Harry, his dark eyes bright with life.
He looked at his own, younger face. He fingered the spot where his ear had been, and traced the lines that had started to appear in his reflection in the morning. The battle scars of age and war, decorating him like a victor. He saw his younger self turn, and caught his breath when he saw him.
Fred.
He was laughing at a joke, something George had whispered in his ear, throwing his head back, one of the many things George had loved about him. He laughed without abandon, without pause. He laughed with his entire body.
George realizes that he could have picked anywhere. Anywhere in the entire universe. Merlin, he could have gone back in time and killed Voldemort for God's sake!
But then he remembered.
He remembered the feeling that he got every time he looked in the mirror.
Every single morning he saw his twin staring back at him. He couldn't even brush his goddamn teeth without feeling uncontrollable waves of sorrow wash over him.
With the feeling that he'd made the right choice, he settled in to watch his life as an outsider from the time when he'd been happy.
…
By the time he made his way back across the yard towards "Sexy" it was twilight, the first stars starting to twinkle icily above his head.
His feet squished into the soft grass that was already wet with nighttime dew and he reveled in the silence of the moment.
The TARDIS's door swung open squeakily and the Doctor stepped out, leaning against the blue frame. "So?" He asked quietly. "How'd it go?"
…
The Doctor, George mused as he watched the man run manically around the console, understood him.
He didn't know exactly how he knew it. Maybe it was his eyes. The deep brown wells that mirrored his own suffering, but ten times over. The way he joked and laughed and teased to forget his pain; 'put it on the back burner' as his mum would say.
But this was also a man, he realized, who had run for his entire life. Maybe he'd stopped to consider the damage before, but he didn't any longer.
His was a face of someone who was world weary. Going through the motions.
And that was when George made his decision. He knew what the Doctor was going to ask. He was going to ask George to run away to the nearest planet and the farthest star.
But he wasn't going to go.
He wasn't going to run from his problems and leave the others who didn't have that option.
He was going to stay. For his family.
For Fred.
"Sorry Doctor, but running from my pain isn't an option." George smiled ruefully. "But," he added, "Feel free to drop by the joke shop anytime!" He tipped him a humongous Weasley wink and leaned against the door struggling to open it.
A dolphin with strep throat called out into the night, and a few leaves bustled around George's feet, but when he turned back around, the TARDIS was gone.
A/N – So…
…first crossover. Was it okay? *Hides behind hands* *whispers* Was it terrible?
Tell me! Please! I beg of you.
Thanks for taking the time to read!
:) Paradox~