So to anyone waiting for the next chapter of my HP story I promise that it will come out soon, I only have 10 pages left of the chapter from the book and I am already 35 pages in so the next chapter will be about 40-50 pages long and may make you cry.
To anyone who has no idea what I am talking about ignore what I just said and I hope you like this story!
The Doctor loved parks. Small parks hidden in a large city like a secret, huge parks full of tediously perfect blades of grass and flowers erupting into all sorts of colors, old parks with the carving of previous visitors decorating every surface, or new parks that people would flock to like a child on Christmas. The Doctor loved them all.
The quiet and the calm parks were his favorite right now, the ones where he could disappear into the shadows of other people's Busy lives. The Ponds has started to disappear into their own busy lives too. There they were trapped in the past and started to live their own life, and letting the Doctor live his own.
Of course the Doctor wanted nothing more than to burst in on their life and whisk ten away to some place new and amazing, but he had lost them. No one ever stayed with him, could ever stay with him. Even River would leave in the end and in a way she already had, he had watched her die before he understood what it meant.
No one could stay with him forever.
So here he sat, on a rickety swing set in The middle of a 1990's suburbia cursing life. He had parked the TARDIS a ways away and had walked through a neighborhood where every house looked the same looking for a park. He had found one eventually, right in what he would imagine was the center of a collection of homes with brown roofs and nothing remotely exciting about them. It was nice sometimes though, pretending that this was normal, that he was normal. But he was alone and when you're alone you can never be normal because normal people aren't alone.
The Doctor didn't notice when a small boy with messy black hair sat down slowly on the swing next to him, or did he notice when the boy started to slowly swing back and fourth. In fact the Doctor was so caught up in his own thoughts he didn't realize the boy was there until he started talking to the raggedy man.
"Are you alone?" The small boy said quietly next to the Doctor making the Doctor quickly turn his head to look at him.
"Yes." He answered slowly as his feet move back-and-forth into the gravelly sand. "Are you?"
"Yes." The boy answered still keeping his voice barely above a whisper.
"No friends?" The Doctor asked taking a good look at the boy who had sat down next to him.
"No one would want to be friends with someone like me." The skinny black haired boy said solemnly, staring down at his feet and refusing to look up.
"And what are you like?"
"A freak." He said with a twisted bit of confidence in his voice as if he knew this information had been long regarded as fact and it hurt the Doctor. He always met sad people wherever he went and he always wanted to help them but he never could.
"Who told you that?" The Doctor said watching the boy as he stopped moving his feel back and forth and started to just stare at them.
"My relatives."
"You live with them, your relatives?" He asked as the clouds started to brake and far little raindrops started to fall on the two of them, but neither seem to realize it.
"Yeah, my parents died in a crash when I was younger." The boy said with a small catch in his voice that he instantly tried to stamp out, there was no point missing his family they weren't coming back.
"My children are dead." The Doctor said quietly to, trying not to get too caught up in the happy memories he had from back on Gallifrey.
"I'm sorry." The child muttered finally lifting his head up to look at the lonely man.
"That's life though, people die and leave you on your own." Harry was starting to get the suspicion that this man wasn't talking to him anymore. But his words were still true, Harry was alone, his relatives would never be a family to him, they were just forced to raise him.
"One day I'll die too, but I don't think there'll be anyone to feel alone 'bout it." The boy said slowly choosing his words.
"Why not?" The doctor asked "Everybody matters to someone."
"Not me." Harry said folding his hands tighter around the chains of the rusty swing set.
"I'm sure there's someone." The Bow tie man said smiling down at him.
"No." Harry said flatly. "Do you have someone?"
"I used to, they left though, couldn't stay with me forever."
"Do you matter to them?"
The Doctor had to think about that, did he really matter to the Ponds? He used to come around a lot and they would always welcomed him when he came, was that enough? He had hurt them both, in so many ways, some he knew he couldn't even know. Was it worth it to them? Was all of time and space worth leaving your life and your home behind forever?
Had it been for him?
The Doctor was looking last the boy now to something Indescribable in the distance. Had it been enough for him? Was leaving everyone he knew a loved worth it for him when he started? Of course it had been. He had never really thought about it he just got up and left Gallifrey one day and hadn't looked back, and it was worth it. All the beautiful things he had seen, all the amazing people, it had all been worth it.
Maybe it was worth it for the Ponds too. It had to mean something if they kept coming back. Amelia Pond wasn't a strong-willed little girl anymore and Rory Williams was no longer just a draft boyfriend. This had been there choice, and they had chosen him. Over and over again they had chosen him. Maybe it had been worth it.
"Yes, yes I think I do matter to them." The Doctor said smiling widely at the little boy who was still in deep thought.
"Then you do have someone. Even if you can't see them you still have someone, right?" The Child asked with big green eyes staring up at him.
"Sometimes it's the people we can't see anymore who care the most." The Doctor said putting his hand on the boy's shoulder.
"I wish I had some who would care." The boy said quietly to himself, just loud enough for the Doctor to barely hear.
"I'll care." The man said in a matter of fact voice "I'll care until you find someone else to care."
"What if I never do?" Harry said looking away again. There had never been anyone for him and the Dursley's kept saying that there never would be, how could this man be so sure?
"We all find someone in the end," the man stood up off the swing and helped Harry get off as well. "Even raggedy old doctors."
"Thanks." Harry muttered as he took the man's hand and jumped down off the tall swing.
The two of them started wandering away from the sad little park that looked much to lonely now. "What's your name?" The child asked suddenly.
"The Doctor." The bow tie man said with a smile that Harry couldn't quite describe, it made the man look like he knew something no one else did.
Harry let out a little laugh "The Doctor?"
"Go on and say it, they all do." The bow tie man who called himself The Doctor said with a smile.
"Say what?" Harry asked staring at him.
"You know," The Doctor said staring at Harry like he was waiting for him to say something important. Of course Harry had no idea what this man wanted to hear and he could see The Doctor visibly deflate when Harry just answered with a shrug. "Doctor Who?"
"Well you said you were just The Doctor." Harry said shrugging.
The Doctor stared at the little boy who was walking just slightly ahead of him in shock. "Yeah but- The Doctor, it's not really a proper name is it."
"Well," Harry said looking pretty confused "you said it was your name so- Do you want me to call you something different?"
"No my names the Doctor, just- but really you don't find it strange that I call myself a title?" The doctor said unable to take his eyes off the small boy Who had just done what had never happened before in the history of the Doctor.
"Well a little, but adults are always calling themselves strange things." Harry said thinking back to all the times the Principal or the school nurse had told the class to just call them by their titles.
"Yes I'm sure they are." The doctor said letting out a little laugh.
The Little boy stopped and the Doctor realize that they must've reached his house as he started going up the walk.
"Good bye Doctor." The small and skinny boy said giving the Timelord a little wave and a rare smile.
"Wait." The Doctor said suddenly, it just felt to painful to hear another person tell him goodbye. "What's your name?"
"Harry Potter." The boy said keeping up his smile and shocking the Doctor.
Harry Potter. He had just met Harry Potter? The Doctor never messed with wizards much because they either reminded him too much of the Timelords or because last time he had met one the man had tried to kill the Doctor. Wizards were really like Timelord though, too full of themselves with too many rules. But Harry Potter, the Doctor was a huge fan. On Stella Erratica 5 he had found a book about the 'savior of the Wizarding world' and had instantly looked up to the man. Harry Potter had been through a gruesome war against a crazy psychopath who had killed his parents and Harry Potter had still managed to remain forgiving and noble. The man had instantly become the Doctor's role model.
"Your Harry Potter?" The Doctor asked in disbelief. "How old are you?"
Harry stared at the man in confusion, what was so special about him? "I'm ten, I'm going to be eleven this month though." He said slowly.
Suddenly the Doctor ran up to the boy wrapped him in a huge, bone crushing, hug. "Harry Potter!" He said beaming down at the confused little boy who would soon find out that he was one of the most important person in the world. "Harry Potter you're going to find someone to care very soon now."
"Really?" Harry said skeptically staring up at him.
"Really. And I'll tell you what I bet you're going to have a really great year." The Doctor said letting Harry out from the hug.
"Thanks." He said awkwardly as he walked up the front steps before turning around to face the Doctor. "Even if I find some one else, can you still care about me?"
"Harry Potter, I will never stop caring." The Doctor smiled and winked before he turned around and walked off to go find his TARDIS, maybe that was enough. Maybe it would enough for the-boy-who-lived to know that someone cared. He could only hope now that Harry Potter would believe him, that through everything that was going to happen in the small boys life he would remember that someone cared about him.
And he did. In the years and hardships to come Harry Potter would not forget about the strange man in the park who called himself a title or would he forget what the man had told him. Harry would never tell another person about the Doctor or would they ever ask, but in years to come Harry would find himself thinking more and more about the bow tie man who was the first person to tell Harry that he cared.
