Title: Just A Wrong Turn
Author: TardisIsTheOnlyWaytoTravel
Pairings: None.
Story Summary: All libraries are one. Which is how Harry finds himself lost in the library of an eccentric man named the Doctor, and goes to see a Librarian about how to get back to Hogwarts… Harry Potter/Doctor Who/Discworld crossover.
Setting: Takes place in Harry's sixth year, and conforms to Harry Potter books 1-5. Takes place some time in Series Three of Doctor Who, before Utopia.
Author notes:
If things go to plan, this is the first in a series.
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JUST A WRONG TURN
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In some fashion, on some level, all libraries are one.
This is not immediately evident, of course, as it usually happens on a plane that most humans are not particularly aware of. What it means, however, is that to those who have the skill and the knowledge to perceive the way, all libraries are connected. It's not easy to find that connection. All the same, sometimes people find the way entirely by accident, through stumbling across it, say.
-
Harry was in the library again. This was not so surprising in itself, given that he was a sixth year and exams were coming up, but the fact that he was in the library in the dead of night wrapped din an invisibility cloak, was.
Harry tiptoed through the darkness with the aisles looming above him on either side. Harry was pretty sure that he'd have been freely admitted to the Restricted Section had he cared to ask (admittedly with a couple of teachers standing by ready to undo any damage caused by cursed or merely aggressive books) but Harry was less sure that he wanted teachers to know the kind of material he was reading. Somehow he doubted it would find approval. So instead of borrowing books openly, Harry was doing it the sneaky way. Although, he had a strong feeling that Dumbledore knew exactly what he was up to and was simply choosing not to say anything. It was remarkable how well he was coming to understand the headmaster's mind. Harry suspected that his own would be rather like it in a hundred years or so. It wasn't an entirely comforting idea.
-
Harry frowned to himself as he wandered through the darkness of furniture polish and slowly-disintegrating glues. Harry wondered briefly why books all tended to smell the same once they reached a certain age, but both train of thought and movement stopped abruptly at the sight of light up ahead. Harry approached cautiously and rounded the corner
… to find himself walking into a comfortably-lit, moderately-large room with a plush carpet, high ceiling, and a couple of red velvet wing-backed chairs next to a coffee table. A half-full mug of tea decorated with flowers sat on it.
Harry spun around, back the way he had come, to find himself facing a row of neat bookcases all a little taller than he was, and as comfortably-lit as the rest of the room. There was no sign of the existence of the Hogwarts library at all.
Harry's emotional response was somewhere between total panic and distraught terror. Peculiar though Hogwarts was, he'd never known it to just vanish on him before, which it evidently had done. And Harry's mind had helpfully pulled a whole group of relevant memories out of long-term storage, something that did not help to restore his equilibrium. He now recalled a rumour that a group of seventh-year Ravenclaws had once disappeared into the depths o the library never to be seen again, and while he had dismissed it as a ridiculous piece of mythology at the time he now found himself pondering their fate with a certain nervous intensity. Tales of various inexplicable accidents that had taken place in the library over the years also showed a tendency to rise to the forefront of his mind.
-
Taking off his cloak and doing his best to control his fear, Harry crept forward and slowly pulled the door open. He found himself looking down a long corridor. Creeping down it emerged into a large room that hummed faintly and was filled with electronics, and whose structural supports reminded him vaguely of coral.
In this strange environment it was something of a relief to see a pair of Converse shoes poking out from underneath what looked like some sort of weird control panel.
"Hello?" Harry ventured.
There was a bang and some cursing, as though someone had tried to sit up fast without remembering that there was a control panel over them. With a wriggling of long limbs a thin pinstriped shape came into view and stared at Harry in astonished perplexity. His hair, Harry noticed, was almost as messy as Harry's own; it looked like it was having some kind of enthusiastic party. It was hair that suggested its owner had just downed several highly alcoholic drinks and was about to start a conga line in a very cheerful way. Harry unconsciously touched his own hair. It just looked as though he'd rolled out of bed after a two-day nap.
"Who are you? How did you get in here?" The man's voice was high-pitched and slightly squeaky with surprise.
Harry pointed back the way he'd come.
"I sort of came through your library," he said. "I think I took a wrong turning somewhere, because I'm supposed to be at school."
"Through my library?" repeated the stranger.
"Mmm," Harry agreed. He felt compelled to add, "This sort of thing happens to me more often than you'd think."
The stranger's face cleared suddenly.
"Oh, you must have entered L-Space!" he exclaimed, as though that explained everything. "All libraries are one, you know, go the wrong way without paying attention and you can end up on a moon of Carpentaria."
He scratched the back of his head.
"Not a bad place, actually," he added in thought, "but a bit short of bananas."
Harry took this non-sequiteur in stride. A lot of wizards he'd met were even worse.
"Can you get me home?"
The man looked at him thoughtfully.
"Oh, probably," he said airily, and then with interest, "Where are you from?"
"Hogwarts library," Harry explained.
"No idea how to get there, sorry," the man straightened and Harry slumped, "but I know someone who probably does. Come on," he gave an inviting, mischievous grin that matched his hair somehow, "let's go find the librarian."
"The Librarian?" Harry repeated.
"Mm," the man agreed. "This library of yours, would you say, lots of old books, probably rare, some of them first editions…?"
"Loads," Harry assured him.
"Then the Librarian's probably beenthere a time or two." He frowned absently. "Martha should be alright, she was sleeping last I checked, so with luck she won't even know I've been gone." He looked at Harry. "By the way, I'm the Doctor."
"Harry," Harry said.
"Well, come on then Harry, let's go help you find your way home." The Doctor shot him a manic, mischievous look, and took off.
-
Harry ran after him, noting that for such a skinny guy the Doctor could sure run fast. But then so could he, so perhaps it was a general skinny-person trait.
The Doctor came to a stop in the library, looked around and dived down an aisle.
"Aha!" his voice came from among the bookcases somewhere, "here we are. This way, Harry!" Harry followed his voice and found him standing by an aisle much darker than the others. He waited for Harry to catch up, then went forward into the darkness, Harry following.
"An interesting way to travel, L-Space," the Doctor remarked as around them, bookcases became tall, then shorter, imposing mahogany or sturdy pine. At one point they passed through part of a muggle library with bookcases made of metal sheets slotted together and holding laminated engineering texts. "Not the most efficient way of getting somewhere though, so I usually just come here for books."
"Who's the Librarian?" Harry asked.
"Oh, he's the resident librarian for the Discworld's Unseen University. A sort of training ground fro eccentrics really, although officially it teaches wizards. Not that there's much difference between the two, at least not on Discworld."
"Discworld?" Harry repeated.
"Instead of a big round ball, their planets flat, like a plate. Bit peculiar, but everything's got to exist somewhere."
The Doctor glanced around at their surroundings – lopsided, dilapidated old bookcases, disintegrating tomes, a scratched and dusty wooden floor – and said, "We're almost there now. I must warn you though," he added in a low voice, "the Librarian may give you a bit of a shock."
"Why?" Harry asked warily, but they were in an enormous building now, and the Doctor was walking across the marble floor.
"Let's see," he muttered, "let me think – ah…" He changed direction, Harry following, ducked around a bust of someone with a portentous look, and beamed.
"Hello!" he called out in delight. "Any of the books been rowdy lately?"
Harry stared. The Doctor was talking to a monkey.
And it was reading.
The creature carefully marked the page, and set the book down, before greeting its visitor.
"Ook."
Well, it wasn't actually a monkey, Harry thought as the Doctor chattered brightly, he knew that much, but it was definitely some kind of ape. Covered in orange hair with extraordinarily long limbs and a face like a deflated leather balloon, the ape looked as though it could take on both Dudley and Uncle Vernon at once without any effort. Its mass appeared considerable. Harry hoped that its disposition was amiable.
"Oh, while I think of it," the Doctor was saying, rummaging around in his pockets, "I've got a new 23rd-century species just developed in one of Cassiopeia's breeding farms." He pulled out a large, very yellow banana. "Let me know what you think of it, coz I haven't quite made up my mind."
The ape accepted the banana gravely and with a sound of thanks.
"The reason I'm here, by the way, is that my young friend here stumbled into L-Space by accident and got a bit lost. I was hoping you could give him some directions."
The Librarian looked at Harry curiously.
"Ook?"
"He wants to know what library you were in," the Doctor explained.
"Oh, um, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," Harry said uncertainly. "The main library."
The Librarian looked surprised. Then he blinked, and pointed at something over Harry's shoulder.
-
Harry turned. A figure had emerged from between two overly-tall bookcases, carrying a stack of books. It was clad in black robes and had bushy brown hair. It was also distinctly feminine. Harry couldn't believe it.
"Hermione?"
The figure dropped its stack of books.
"Harry?"
Hermione immediately realised what she'd done and gasped in horror, scrambling to pick up the books she'd dropped. Harry sprinted across the marble floor.
He bent and helped Hermione gather her books.
"How on earth did you get into L-Space?" Hermione asked breathlessly as Harry handed her several books. "It's a secret!"
"It was accidental. I got lost in the library – a library," he amended, considering recent events.
Hermione looked flustered.
"But it's the middle of the night!"
"And yet you're here," Harry pointed out. "It's a good time to visit the library. No one's policing the Restricted Section."
"Harry!" Hermione exclaimed.
"What?" Harry asked defensively. "I've got a psychopathic Dark Lord to take care of. What am I supposed to do? Use the power of love? Toss him into a volcano?" He considered this. "Although that'd probably work, actually," he mused. "Probably even Voldemort couldn't survive a volcano."
Behind them, temporarily forgotten, the Doctor raised his eyebrows in question. The question was something along the lines of, 'don't you have some books on how to deal with Dark Lords?' He receive a stare, which meant something like, 'of course I do.'
"How'd you find this place, then?" Harry asked.
"Back in second year, when we were trying to work out what Slytherin's monster was," Hermione said matter-of-factly, "I ran into the Librarian while he was returning Thelucid's General Discourse Upon Magical Theory. When he left, I followed him – I mean, an orang-utan in the library? The Librarian realised I was following him and stopped, and explained about L-Space. I've been entering to occasionally borrow books from elsewhere for years now."
Harry's brow furrowed.
"And no one minds?"
"Well, there's rules, of course; L-Space could be terribly dangerous in the right circumstances, so you're not allowed to tell anyone about it, you have to return books before they were last borrowed, and you cannot interfere with the nature of causality."
"The nature of what?"
Hermione gave a long-suffering, depressed-by-stupidity-or-ignorance sigh.
"Causality," she explained patiently. "The relationship of cause and effect. It more or less means you can't interfere with established events or alter history."
"Ohhh." Harry let out a sigh of relief. "That's all right, then."
(Behind them the Doctor raised his eyebrows a little.
"Ooh, she's clever."
"Ook."
"That's why you let her know all about L-Space?"
"Ook.")
Hermione glared at Harry's reply.
"And since when have you been able to avoid interfering in events, Harry?" she asked tartly. "You don't mean to, but it always happens. Fate hates you, Harry."
(The orangutan looked at the Doctor knowingly.
"Oi, what you looking at me like that for?" the Doctor asked, annoyed.)
Harry huffed at Hermione, but couldn't really think of any way to argue the point. He sighed and walked back to the Doctor and the Librarian.
-
"Of course I have a 'saving-people thing'," the Doctor was protesting indignantly, "universe'd go to pieces if it weren't for me."
Harry interrupted before the Librarian could remark upon the size of the Doctor's ego.
"Listen," he began, "I was wondering… er – might I be allowed to travel through L-space? I'd stick to the rules and everything," he added hastily, "and well I'm not that academic, but I've come to learn the value of knowledge and well, some things I'm really interested in – " He came to a stop, seeing that the Librarian was regarding him critically.
The orangutan turned to Hermione, who had come up behind Harry.
"Ook?" he asked her.
"Oh, yes," Hermione replied, apparently interpreting this piece of interrogation easily, "Harry's one of my best friends. Quite trustworthy. Doesn't care about books particularly, but takes reasonably good care of them."
"Eek?"
"Well, yes, he might," she admitted, "but not without very good reason. He really does respect libraries."
The Librarian gazed at Harry assessingly.
"Ook," he pronounced, giving Harry a level stare, then turned and clambered back to sit on top of his desk. He nodded at the Doctor politely, before resuming his reading.
"Right," the Doctor said, turning to Harry and Hermione, "I take it you can both get back all right?"
Hermione nodded.
"Oh yes, I've been doing this for years."
"Right. Good, then," the Doctor said absently, and looked at Harry seriously.
"This Dark Lord of yours," he said, "L-Space can't be used for a lot of things, but it can give you knowledge. You find yourself stuck, come talk to the Librarian. He's good with this sort of thing." He grinned brightly, switching so suddenly from solemnity to manic it was almost unnerving. "Well, things to do, people to see, planets that need saving, that sort of thing." He grinned at them both. "Good luck. The Doctor vanished behind a bookcase.
-
Harry followed Hermione back through the changing landscape. Through a musty old shop, a pleasant community library; a strange, awe-striking place with electronics instead of books and calm men and women clad in brown robes, calmly studying. Then a brief duck through what Hermione told Harry was the Malfoy library – her gaze darted around nervously as she told him this, adding that some of the books there were really nasty – until finally they were back in the old, high ceiling-ed darkness of the Hogwarts library.
Barring her nervousness in the Malfoy library, Hermione had travelled without fear and with great familiarity, taking the flickering surroundings in stride. Like Hermione Harry had moved from library to library with ease, but he marvelled at her calm. This was a somewhat different Hermione to the one he usually saw.
"We're back," Hermione said in low tones. Harry nodded and pulled his invisibility cloak out of his pocket. All his pockets were spelled to be larger on the inside these days: it made things easier.
Hermione let Harry throw the cloak over both of them.
"Do you have to get anything, or can we go back to Gryffindor tower?" Harry whispered.
"I'm right. Back to Gryffindor Tower," she whispered back. They walked quietly, cautiously back through the hallways, taking care to remain beneath the cloak, until they were in front of the Fat Lady.
"Persimmons," Harry said without bothering to remove the cloak.
"About time you got back," she said sleepily as Hermione shot him a reproving glance, just visible in the torchlight.
"Sorry," Harry said, as the portrait hole swung open.
Inside the common room Harry stuck his cloak back in his pocket.
"It's two in the morning, Harry," Hermione said disapprovingly, as though she herself had not been up all night also, "you should be in bed."
"Right." Harry didn't remark upon the hypocrisy of this statement. Hermione could be a bit funny about rules when it came to acquiring knowledge or books. "Um… Hermione?"
"Yes, Harry?" she paused on her way to the girl's dormitories.
"Next time… erm, I'm going to take the Doctor's advice and use L-Space to help with Voldemort. Do you want to come with me? I could use your advice."
Hermione stared at him a moment in what seemed to be surprise, before smiling.
"I'd love to, Harry."
And she went up the stairs, leaving Harry to make his way up to his own dormitory.
END