So I was on tumblr and I saw this: AU where Amy Pond is only the Girl Who Waited until she's twelve or thirteen, at which point she finds a wizard's manual and completes her Ordeal by sealing the crack in her wall and bringing Prisoner Zero back to the Atraxi. (Maybe Prisoner Zero is overshadowed, I don't know, work with me here.) The Doctor comes back six years after that and finds her holding a conference call with a bunch of prospective Alfava tourists who want to know why they have to go undercover if they want to visit London …

And you know what, Amy's eternal, rather passive waiting is something that really irks me, because her character had the potential to be-and often was-awesome. Now I'm not going to get into a rant about Moffat's writing here (that would take pages). But the point is, I like Doctor Who, and I am a huge fan of the Young Wizards series. And when I read that prompt, I was hit with a scene of an independent, badass, wizarding Amy Pond yelling at/negotiating with a bunch of aliens via her Manual. And I had to write this. Probably a oneshot, hence me marking it as complete (because it is), but with possible additions and related drabbles to come.

Also there is a name for planets that don't know about wizardry yet, but I cannot for the life of me remember it, unfortunately.

"Look, I know that everyone knows about wizards on your planet, but you have to understand—"

Hissing and clacking came from the other end of the call, relayed through the translucent display, like a computer screen, in front of her.

"Yes, and that's all well and good, but—" continued the sole human voice, speaking the ancient words of the Speech.

Then came more language that, to the normal passerby, would sound like a bizarre compilation of obscure percussion instruments, kazoos, and snakes hissing.

"Seriously, guys, you can't just prance through the streets of London without some sort of disguise. I mean, you have six main appendages, not to mention predominantly green and blue pigmentation, so you'd stick out like—"

Protesting clacking sounds, quick-paced and harsh, cut the woman off again.

"What? No, no—" More voices chimed in again, interrupting her. The woman's flat stilled, her eyes narrowing as she brought her hands up near her face, muscles tightening, making her open palms vibrate with aggravation.

"Shut up! No! All of you sit down, be quiet, and listen to me!" Amelia Pond shouted at the conference call of aliens—Dolkmr from the planet Ninvenem, specifically. Their faces were displayed on the screen, signal coming across 10,432 light years in real-time, thanks to wizardry.

The aliens did, indeed, shut up.

"Right. Thank you." If Rory had been there to see, he might have thought that the set of her head, the way she nodded slightly and redirected her focus, looked decidedly self-satisfied. "Now then, I understand that your Alien Cultures Throughout Developmental Stages wants to visit London, and that's fine. All in the interest of furthering education, and such. But you can't come to Earth without some sort of disguise, because humans haven't discovered other planets yet, and don't practice wizardry openly, which if I recall is the reason you want to come here in the first place! But what that means is that Dolkmr—who are very plainly not Human—walking around in plain sight is a tiny bit of a problem."

Amelia paused. After a few moments of hesitation and several wary, eight-eyed, multi-directional glances between the people on the other end of the conference call, one of the Dolkmr spoke up, and some soft, inquisitive clicking issued from the display.

"Yes, it's fine, that's what I've been trying to tell you for the past half hour. We can some local wizards—myself included—put together some Human seemings for you guys. We will need your information, including—"

The door to her study burst open. "Amelia!? Amelia Pond!? What happened?" shouted the man who burst in, cutting off the list of highly technical specifications that Amelia had been about to rattle off. His hair was floppy, his face looked weirdly undefined, and his outfit was a mess; his shirt was torn, his necktie was askew, and he was frantic.

He paused, reassessing as he finally noticed what was actually in the room. "Well this is unexpected."

She'd put up a muffling spell around the room to block out the racket of the construction next door—truly, there was no sound as lovely as jack hammers drilling into cement—which explained why she hadn't heard him in the rest of the house, but that was a bit of a problem because now he was intruding on her video conference.

Her eyes darted back to the screen, which was hovering above her Manual without visible wires or any physical support, but more incriminating were the Dolkmr, displayed on the screen in all their turquoise and chartreuse glory.

"Excuse me, but who do you think you are!" Amelia demanded, leaning forward and hopefully blocking the view of the aliens—not that she had any hope the strange man hadn't already seen it. Practicing the Art meant no self-deception, where possible, and all that. In the meantime, she'd always found that mounting an offensive was a good first step when confused.

And speaking of no self-deception, the man looked familiar, and the reason why was just beyond her grasp, the memory almost there, rattling around in the back of her mind like she knew there was something to remember, but couldn't remember what she was looking for.

"Who am I? Who are you? I came here looking for a little girl, ten years old or so, and I find a grown woman on a video call with—are those Dolkmr? They are, aren't they, so unless I messed up horribly with the timing, you're a wizard. So, Ms. Wizard, tell me, where is Amelia Pond?"

"She's busy," was the answer from a visibly irked woman.

"Busy?! Busy doing what? There's a scary crack in her wall, Prisoner Zero has escaped, I know what he wants, and she needs to get out of here immediately! And you too, for that matter—" The Doctor cut himself off before changing tracks: "Wait a minute, you're a wizard! You should have noticed the crack, or Prisoner Zero, or the door, or something, how could you not—"

"Did you say Prisoner Zero?"

The Doctor abruptly turned to face her. "Yes. Yes I did. Why, do you know something about him?"

He might have leaned in closer than she was strictly comfortable with, but Amelia Pond was a wizard. She'd faced more unnerving things than the return of her Raggedy Doctor (which she was trying very hard not to react to, thankyouverymuch).

"Well, I think I'd remember my Ordeal. Those are usually the sort of thing that stick out, you know."

At this, the Doctor's face scrunched up, eyes almost crossing before going back to glancing furiously around the room from inside his tilted head.

She used the pause created by the Doctor's confusion to turn back to the screens. Switch back to the Speech, she said, "Hey guys? I've been interrupted, as you probably noticed. Can we pick this up later? Say, this time tomorrow? Sol III time and rotation, that is; about three-quarters of a planetary cycle for you."

The hissing and kazoo noises sounded mostly affirmative.

"Oh come on," she implored the one dissenting voice, "can't you move your schedule around? We were finally getting somewhere, and you know what, I'd rather not lose all this progress."

Clicking, this time from a single voice.

"Thank you. Dai." Gesturing with her hands, Amelia brought up the wispy, cursive script of the Speech and poked at it briefly, switching off the call and collapsing the screen.

Then she turned back to the Doctor, who was visibly straining, as if there were a hundred and fifty-three questions he was holding himself back from asking. As soon as her attention was free, he dashed forward, seeming to analyze her as he plopped into the adjacent chair.

"Your Ordeal—your trial by fire, so to speak, for wizardry. But it typically occurs around early adolescence, for humans, between the ages of twelve and fifteen, and you're definitely not fifteen. So how could you have dealt with it, I was just gone for a tiny bit and now you're at least twenty, probably more, so many years past your Ordeal. But I came right back! So this, this is not adding up, definitely—"

"Twelve years is not 'right back.'"

That brought the Doctor's monologing to a halt. "Twelve years? I'm sorry, did you say twelve years?"

The girl the Doctor had left behind all those years ago just glared.

"Then—you're Amelia Pond! And grown up. And a wizard! That's brilliant, yes, fairy tale name indeed!" The Doctor was practically bouncing in his chair, his mouth drawing into a wide, goofy smile. For her part, Amelia just tried not to let on that his prophetic comment had been part of the reason she had kept the name Amelia, after taking the Oath and becoming a wizard, instead of changing it to Amy. A fairy tale name, perfect for someone who could literally cast spells.

And if most wizards defied stereotypes and usually appeared like relatively young, modern, normal people (or animals), well, maybe she was just a bit eccentric like that. Besides, the girl who had found the Manual in a dusty, old, wooden box at a church rummage sale had been named Amelia, only thinking of changing it to Amy. And the girl who captured Prisoner Zero, confronted the Lone One overshadowing him, and returned the prisoner to the Atraxi was named Amelia.

She'd decided, about a year of wizardry later, that that wasn't a history to run from. So, Amelia it was.

"So if Prisoner Zero was your Ordeal, does that mean it's dealt with? You dealt with it?"

"Yeah. Returned him to the Atraxi. Lots of paper work after; turns out, they were planning to burn the planet to get Prisoner Zero out, if they had too—they were being influenced by the Lone One, although less overtly than Prisoner Zero who was actually being overshadowed—but anyway, turns out that's against interplanetary law, so the local Senior Wizards made me report to people up the chain and everything, because apparently it's not enough to survive your Ordeal, you have to deal with bureaucracy, too.

"That was when I was thirteen, by the way. Three whole years after you said you'd be back."

Amelia's tone, when she got angry, had been known to strike fear into the very beings of many, many different species. To his credit, the Doctor did look ashamed; also to his credit, he was not frozen by the weight of her wrath.

"Yeah. No, I am sorry about that. I really am. It was an accident, but I am apologizing to that little girl who waited for me when I told her I'd be back in five minutes, all those years ago. And now, look at you. Amelia Pond, would you like to come with me on an adventure?"

Amy flipped her Manual closed with a snap and picked it up off the table. True, she'd lost faith in the Doctor years ago, and moved on years ago, as she discovered magic.

But then, adventure was part of what she loved about being a wizard. It made her blood rush and her magic sing and it just made her whole being feel alive, to be out there, experiencing something almost no one else on Earth could, making an actual difference in the preservation of life. "Were you telling the truth, when you said it was a time machine?"

The Doctor looked mildly affronted. "Of course I was! Would I lie?"

"Yes."

"Okay, fair enough," he grimaced before continuing, "but I'm not lying now, clearly, because it's been twelve years for you and five minutes for me, and you know that. And look! I even still have the apple you gave me!" He reached into his pocket, grinning a bit like a maniac the whole time, and tossed her a fresh, crisp, red apple with a pale smiley face carved into it.

Amelia Pond tossed the apple back and said yes. She'd been to other planets, the far reaches of the galaxy a few times, mostly on Errantry. But all of time and space? Everything?

That was an adventure worth taking.