Like Magic
by Waterfall

Title: Like Magic
Fandom: Torchwood and Harry Potter
Rating:G
Characters: Toshiko Sato and Hermione Granger, with brief appearances by Jack Harkness and Ianto Jones
Disclaimer: The Harry Potter series belongs to J. K. Rowling et al, and Torchwood belongs to the BBC. Please don't sue!
Author's notes: For some reason this fic meandered all over the place while refusing to behave, which among other things led to a slight undertone of Tosh/Ianto. You can see it if you squint. Also, the spells I've used come partly from an online Latin translator and partly from the Harry Potter Lexicon, so they may seem kind of weird.
Additional author's notes: This was written for the dw(underscore)cross ficathon over at LiveJournal before DH came out last year. I thought I might as well post it here, too.
Thank you: To my mum for beta reading, and to the computer malfunction at work.

oOo

When Toshiko Sato was little, she wanted to believe in magic.
"There's no such thing," her mother told her. "You're too intelligent to believe in nonsense like that."
Toshiko wanted to believe in faeries and wizards, magic swords and immortal men.
"Everything can be explained," her father said. "It's all just tricks and science, easy to do when you know how."
She wanted to believe in true love and happily ever after, but her parents both taught her that those things didn't exist. To defy her parents she believed anyway, until she learned about Torchwood and realised that they had been right all along.

"A magic book?" Toshiko gave Jack an incredulous look and scoffed contemptuously. "That's nonsense."
Jack laughed, placing the plain-looking book in her hands.
"Don't be so sceptical, Tosh! There's more between heaven and earth than you could ever dream of – trust me, I know." He gave her a wink and a leer, and she couldn't help laughing.
"I'll take a look. It'll turn out to be alien technology anyway." She turned and made her way back to her work area, dropping the book unceremoniously onto her desk. "It always is."

oOo

Hermione Granger, junior member of the Order of the Phoenix and one of Britain's most intelligent witches, was lost. In Cardiff.
"This just isn't right," she muttered, glaring at the piece of parchment in her hand and carefully pointing her concealed wand in different directions. "The trace stops here by the Millennium Centre, but there's nothing here at all!"
She turned slowly, looking at the open space around her for any signs of magic. There was nothing, not even a tingle, and she ran her hand through her hair.
"If I could just modify the spell to pinpoint its location… I need a hotel room. And a couple of hours."

More than a couple of hours later she jerked awake, grabbing for her Everlasting Quill and one of the many pieces of parchment that were strewn across her bed. It was in situations like these that she was really grateful for her tendency to fall asleep with the lights on.
"No magic… there was no magic at all! Not a single trace of it, but there's always some background magic, even in the most boring and muggle-like places!"
Before she was even completely awake she started writing, trying to turn a spell for locating a specific type of magical object into a spell for finding places where there was no magic at all.
"But if there's no magic something must be absorbing it," she continued, still talking out loud, trying to wake up and get her thoughts in order at the same time. "Who or what would do that? And why?" She thought furiously, and the pen looked as if it was flying over the parchment as she wrote.

A short while later she was back at the Roald Dahl Plass in front of the Centre, once again waving her wand and a piece of parchment around. It was several hours after midnight by now and still completely dark, and Hermione was thankful that she was the only person there. However this time her wand-waving was getting results, and she wavered across the Plass in something resembling a game of Hot and Cold, trying to pinpoint the place with the least amount of magic. As she neared the Centre the readings inched down to zero… and continued moving.
"Negative magic?" she exclaimed, staring at the paving in front of her. "But that's impossible!"
Her stare turned briefly into a glare as she contemplated the impossibility of the paving stones, before she shrugged her shoulders.
"And just to do this in the most Gryffindor way possible… fortune favours the bold, isn't that what they say?"
She stepped forward – and then there was magic.

It prickled in her nose and made her skin itch, and for a moment she couldn't even breathe.
"Oh!"
All the magic that was missing on the outside was here, concentrated in one small spot, reaching down and spreading out underground. And looking down at her feet she could see what had been invisible from the outside… the magic wasn't the only thing that went downwards.
"This stone is loose! Like an elevator or something!"
A simple spell was all it would take to move it, but even under the influence of this much magic Hermione knew that would be a bad idea.
"There could be anything down there," she told herself sternly. "And even with my invisibility cloak it would be too big of a risk, although…" She pulled the cloak out of her bag (always prepared!); together with the parchment that she'd used for her original spell. "…it doesn't hurt to check."
But there was no trace of the magic she was looking for, and she was just about to give up when the readings changed.
"Yes!" she exclaimed, before looking around to see if anyone had heard her. There was still no-one there and she focused on her parchment again, continuing to voice her thoughts out loud.
"It's exactly the kind of magic I'm looking for – it must be the book!"
Impulsively, low on sleep and high on too much magic, she threw the invisibility cloak around her shoulders and cast the spell to operate the lift. It wasn't until her shoulders were level with the ground that she started contemplating exactly what a bad move this might be.

oOo

After two weeks of studying the book in between more urgent tasks, Toshiko was getting fed up.
"I've discovered two different forms of encryption so far and there must be more – even when I'm sure that I've got it right I end up with gibberish and strange Latin half the time," she complained to Ianto.
"Why don't you go home then?" he suggested reasonably. "It's past midnight and we're the only ones left – and being alone with Myfanwy isn't what I'd choose to do on a Friday night."
The idea made her laugh, but she still shook her head.
"I'll take my chances tonight, but thanks for the warning. I'm on to something here, I know I am!"
"All right," he sighed, and refilled her cup of coffee on his way out. She gave him a grateful smile.
"Thank you."
"Just don't fall asleep at your desk again," he called as he walked out the door, disappearing before she could come up with a snappy retort.

A few hours later her determination was all but gone, and Toshiko felt just about ready to give up. Sighing, she put her head in her hands and stared down at her translation.
"It just doesn't make any sense!" In desperation she started reading the first page out loud, hoping that it might reveal something new.
"I am hidden, meant for few to see. If you are not like I then leave me be: Protego occultus per chaos!"
As she spoke the last words there was a bang and a flash of light, and a strong wind suddenly swept through the room.
"What the–" she started, interrupting herself as she ducked to avoid the chair that was hurtling towards her.
"Aah!"
A shower of small objects slammed into her, and as she scrambled for cover she could see that the whole Hub was in a state of complete chaos. Pens, papers, coffee cups and even chairs were moving around at breakneck speeds, carried by the wind that had appeared as she read from the book.
"I must have triggered something," she realised, moving towards the door as fast as she dared. "But how? The technology must be more advanced than anything we've ever seen – I'd swear it was just an ordinary book!"
Still dodging and moving through the storm she was caught by surprise as something heavy slammed into her from behind, pinning her against the wall.
"Ow! And now the desks are moving too!" she moaned, trying to get out of the way before it could squash her completely. Pushing against the wall she moved it slightly, but not enough to get away. Still struggling, she looked to her left, and froze.
"Oh, no…"
The wind had picked up the very sharp alien weapons from Jack's collection, and now several of them were moving towards her at full speed.
"No!" she shouted, pushing desperately against the wall. This was it, she knew it, this was how it would end…
"Finite volaticus!"

The weapons froze in mid-air, and then fell clattering to the floor. With a final push Toshiko managed to wriggle out from behind the desk, looking desperately for the speaker. But there was no-one there! Around her there was still chaos, except for around the book that had started it all. Although… As she looked at it the book moved slightly, before it suddenly disappeared altogether.
"Hey!" she yelled, running towards her desk. "I don't care what you are – give that back right now!"
Almost tripping over a low-flying lamp she stumbled into the desk, hitting something invisible in the process. Suddenly there was fabric under her hands, and she clutched at it to stop herself from falling. The fabric fell away, and she found herself looking into the eyes of an astonished young woman.
"But… you're not an alien!" Toshiko exclaimed, surprised.
"No, I'm a witch!" the woman replied, just as surprised.
There was a brief moment of silence, only broken by the sound of several expensive objects smashing into the walls, the ceiling, the floor, and each other. Then Toshiko shook her head firmly.
"Do you really think I'll believe that? Magic doesn't exist; it's just technology beyond our comprehension!"
"Then how do you explain this?" the woman asked her, beating a pen away from her face.
"I don't. What part of 'beyond our comprehension' did you not understand?"
The "witch" sighed in exasperation, and Toshiko wondered why she didn't feel apprehensive of her. It was usually a very bad thing when someone (or something) strange got into the Hub, but this time she felt nothing but a desire for the two of them to sit down, share a cup of tea, and have a long and serious discussion about magic versus technology.

Part of the explanation might be because her whole capacity for worry was taken up by the environment, she decided as the desk next to them started rattling furiously.
"Look, let's discuss this later, ok? Can you stop this?"
Slowly she let go of the other woman and stepped away, a little voice in the back of her head demanding to know exactly when she'd gone completely insane. Her trust was proven right as the young woman pulled out the book from under her cloak and started leafing through it.
"There should be a spell to stop it somewhere…" her voice trailed off in dismay. "It's in code! I should have guessed!"
"I broke the code, but my notes are out there somewhere," Toshiko explained, waving her hand at the chaos surrounding them. The woman shot her an impressed look.
"Really? How long– never mind, we'll talk about that later. Accio notes!"
She shouted the command, waving an honest-to-God wooden wand in front of her. Toshiko's notes came sailing through the air and she grabbed them, feeling the old excitement from her childhood running through her again, refusing to be restrained.
"There's no such thing as magic," she repeated to herself, even as she handed the untidily scribbled notes to the other woman.
"You keep on believing that," the woman retorted dryly, whilst looking through them. "Aha – just as I thought." After clearing her throat she read out a stream of nonsensical Latin, while once again waving her wand through the air. Unbelievably the wind died off, and the furniture fell noisily to the floor.

In the silence that followed the two women stared at each other again, taking each other's measure.
"You have to give the book back now," Toshiko said calmly. "It's ours – we found it."
"That may be, but we need it. And if you're going to be technical about it, it was ours first." She cocked her head and grinned. "It'll take some time to prove it, though."
"Really?" Toshiko grinned back. "Well, I'm not going anywhere."
Still smiling, they started to tidy up, righting desks and stacking papers. Then Toshiko realised that there was still something they'd forgotten.
"Hang on – who are you, anyway?"

FIN