Author's Note: This is a Doctor Who/Harry Potter crossover fanfic that is just a one shot, though we all know that now the idea is in my head it's likely to evolve into something else.
Dedicated to ElfIcarii, who I blame for this. You are an absolutely wonderful bad influence on my muse.
Enjoy and leave a comment. Let me know if you'd be interested a more in-depth story of the like.
A Weasley in the Tardis
Umbrae Calamitas
She supposed one became a little odd after spending years traveling space and time in a blue box with a mad alien, but somehow Ginny didn't think that excused the strange looks she was getting from the other students as she walked into Transfiguration class on Tuesday morning.
"Miss Weasley!" Professor McGonagall cried. "We've been looking for you for A WEEK!"
"A week?" Ginny squeaked, and then felt herself flush with familiar annoyance. She was late. Again. She could kill Luna.
"Good morning, Miss Weasley."
"Morning, Professor Dumbledore," Ginny said, resisting the urge the ask what day it actually was, because McGonagall had not been very forthcoming. Ginny suspected if the woman pressed her lips any tighter they would meld together. That was a difficult thing to reverse. She'd seen it before on Saisen VI. What a mess.
"I suppose you can understand why everyone has been concerned at being unable to find you. It has been a week since you were last seen leaving the Great Hall."
Ah yes. She'd left the Great Hall after eating lunch when she heard the familiar grinding sounds of the TARDIS echoing down the stone corridors. She'd bounded off in excitement, always pleased at the prospect of another adventure, never quite knowing when the Doctor would get tired of pretending to be a witch and decide to go whirring forward or backward in time.
One jostling and exhilarating ride later, Ginny had stepped out of the Tardis into medieval Scotland at the same space that she had just entered from. Hogwarts was just forming around her, great stone blocks being carried by magic to lay on top one another and form vast walls.
She'd dashed excitedly off at the sound of voices, tripping over her own feet in startled glee at a face she had only seen in paintings. This part was what she loved best - meeting people she never would have met without the Doctor.
Red of hair and face, Godric Gryffindor was arguing with a narrow-faced Salazar Slytherin about the great big snake that kept crawling down the corridors and how that wasn't befitting a school. Basilisks, even young ones, were huge but not so big as they wouldn't fit inside pipes and Ginny said so. Some alterations to magical blueprints later and there was an entire chamber underneath the school created for the basilisk to live in and pipes large enough for it to travel all around.
"Now it can come and assist when it's help is needed," Gryffindor said. "Happy, Salazar?"
"Much, Godric. Now about all those alterations Rowena wants to make to the library..."
Off she and the Doctor went, meeting Rowena Ravenclaw and Helga Hufflepuff and wow that basilisk is huge, but how strange that she could understand it.
"That's the Tardis," the Doctor said proudly. "Gets in your head and translates for you. Doesn't have everything, though. Not like here." She tapped her head. "Tardis can't speak horse."
"But you can?"
"Of course."
How could she still be flabbergasted even after all this time?
And then back to Hogwarts only she was late and everyone was freaking out about her but how was it they never noticed a first year Ravenclaw missing for just as long?
"Yes sir, I see," she said, because she knows how much she scared her mum in the past by disappearing for a month when she was nine and really, all this time and the Doctor's driving hasn't improved at all.
"Well, do try not to make a habit of it," Dumbledore said with twinkling eyes and a clear dismissal and Ginny wondered if maybe he did know and he just kept it to himself. It seemed a very Dumbledore-ish thing to do.
So Ginny went back to her classes and her schoolwork and life went on as normal as it ever did for her, at least until the attacks started.
"What's causing it?"
"Ooh, could be a number of things. We'll have to narrow it down," the Doctor said in that absent-minded voice of hers, but her eyes were clear and direct and excited and they were off on another adventure.
They found the Chamber of Secrets that they'd watched Salazar design and in it was the basilisk - ancient, massive, and with a memory as long as it's body. They'd spoken to it without a problem, the Tardis still translating even though they were inside events and couldn't travel anywhere, and it had complained of the spirit that was trying to command it and of the creature that lurked the halls, petrifying her students in her halls.
One timey-wimey detector ding later and they were chasing after what the Doctor insisted was not a ghost and Ginny wondered how she managed to still believe ghosts didn't existing after living at Hogwarts for months.
They found the not-ghost surrounded by three petrified students and the Doctor pulled out her metal wand - sonic screwdriver, Ginny, don't be a muggle - and there was a noise like a whirring and the ghost - there is no such thing as ghosts, Ginny. This is something much more interesting! - froze in place with a startled expression.
"Oh, but you're gorgeous!" the Doctor said in that vague voice, blue eyes sparkling. "Look at that, Ginny! He's tied himself to time, holding himself in this plane. Well, part of himself. And not the good part either. You're a very naughty boy, aren't you?"
"Release me this instant!"
"Ah, no, I don't think I will. You're quite unstable, as a matter of fact, and very dangerous. Tying yourself to time is against the rules, you understand, and I should know. Time Lord, me."
"I am the Lord of Slytherin and you will obey-"
"Um, no, you're not," Ginny said hotly, suddenly very angry for Salazar Slytherin, who had seemed far nicer than common belief painted him.
"What?"
"You're not the lord of Slytherin. I met him a couple weeks… and a lot of years ago and he's much more reasonable than you. That basilisk you're trying to sick on people is his and it's there to protect this school." She paused for a moment. "And for that matter, so am I."
"Couldn't've said it better!" the Doctor cried in obvious delight, and then the wand - screwdriver - was whirring again and the not-ghost was being sucked into the strange marble-like earrings the Doctor was wearing until it had completely vanished, leaving the earrings smoking. She cocked her head as smoke billowed out from beneath her ears, curling around her long blonde hair.
"Oh, and I really liked these," she said sadly, fingering the orbs.
"Ah, Miss Weasley, Miss Lovegood," the headmaster greeted, smiling knowingly. "How are you this fine morning?"
"Good, sir," Ginny said, while Luna grinned cheerfully and looked around the office in obvious interest. Her wand was stuck behind her ear where it usually sat. She used that far less than her sonic screwdriver.
See, Ginny could learn. She was not a muggle, thank you.
"Now, what is it I can do for you ladies?"
"Well, there's a thousand year old basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets who is very hungry and a little annoyed at being ignored for so long," Luna said cheerfully. "And there are all these phantasmic creatures pressing in on this side of the Rift who keep trying to pass themselves off as ghosts. Honestly, you really need to do something about that. Not right they're pinching identities even from the dead.
"And then there's these, of course." She put her still-smoking earrings on the center of the desk. "Right interesting bloke, that Tom Riddle, though his moral code could use some work before anyone decides to release him. He certainly seems to know quite a lot of obscure tricks for hanging on." She stuffed her hands in her pockets and rocked on her heels. "But I suspect you have plans for handling that bit of it, what with the Department of Mysteries holding that silly prophecy for so long like they're waiting for someone to come and get it."
Dumbledore was staring between the earrings and Luna with a startled expression.
"But… the prophecy said…"
"Yeeeeaaaaaah, about that born as the seventh month dies bit. Technically it's not a birth but I did regenerate at the end of July, least so far as your Julian calendar goes, though I was quite a bit outside this solar system at the time and probably a far bit removed from Julys of any sort, but really, you just can't trust prophets. They love to word things just so you'll have no idea what's coming. Rude, really." She tilted her head, looking at Fawkes with a bemused expression. "Rude and still not ginger. It's not fair, you know."
She perked up, bouncing on the balls of her feet and looking back at the headmaster. "Anyway, I hate cleanup and paperwork, so I've got to run, and since I'm going to be saving people and worlds and getting into all sorts of interesting things, I'll need Ginny there with me. Far more interesting with two and the Tardis needs at least one ginger. You'll understand if she's gone for a few days, of course."
"Could I stop you?" Dumbledore asked, eyes twinkling.
"Nope!" The Doctor grabbed her arm, spinning her around. "Come along, Weasley!"
Ginny stepped out of the headmaster's office but paused as the Doctor turned back to look at him. Luna's voice was still a little fast, excited, but she could never quite shake the vacant quality that personified this regeneration. "You could come with us, you know."
The headmaster laughed. "Oh, I'm a bit old for running, Doctor, however much I might wish otherwise. Besides, I've had my turn in your magnificent blue box."
Luna's eyes sparked with interest. "Really?"
"Oh yes. It was quite a long time ago, almost a hundred years in fact, but I remember it like it's still happening, even now."
"Well, time is funny like that, all wibbly and wobbly." She smiled cheerfully. "Be seeing you, Headmaster!"
She spun around and then the both of them were racing down the stairs, the Doctor looking as vacantly gleeful as Ginny had ever seen.
"So where are we going now, Luna?" Ginny asked, and the mad alien grinned at her.
"Oh, it's not where, Ginny, it's when! We've got a young man to pick up in 1897, lad by the name of Albus Dumbledore, and we don't want to be late."
"Well, with your driving…"
"Oi! Manners, ginger!"
The two laughed and ran, into a box and across space and time. They were both more than a little odd, but when you sometimes come back before you've ever left, you might expect to be just a little unusual. What was normal changed over the years anyway. What really mattered was that they had a blue box, a hand to hold, and all the time in the world to keep on running.