The Lonely Swing
Disclaimer: *whines* Do I Have to? *sighs* OK *sobs* I don't own them! Only the Plot! *runs off*
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In which Harry meets a lost man on a swing, Runs away, Falls in love, and they learn that there is such a thing as happily ever after. Set during the summer hols between OOTP and HBP
A.N: This is AU, and I don't think that Harry would call out during nightmares. He just thrashes around a bit. Also, Hermione died in the DoM and Ron's in therapy. Mentioned Cedric/Harry
The Doctor does know about Owen. Just so ya no. Is 11!Doctor
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Part One – Strange Man on a Swing
Harry started walked down the street towards the park in Little Whinging. It was a place he frequently visited, now that the Dursleys had decided to ignore him. The only acknowledgement of his existence that they made was having meals for 4, and even during them they didn't look at his chair. Harry often wondered if he had a permanent Notice-Me-Not charm on him. The bright side of it was that he had no more chores, so he could do whatever he liked. Which was mainly wandering the streets until dusk, when he headed back to Number 4. He had recently realised that wasn't home to him, which meant that technically there were no wards there, and he would be no more protected from Death Eaters than he would be on the street. But he liked having a roof above him when he slept.
A few minutes later, Harry turned the corner into the park, which was just as he remembered it, with the dry grass (it was summer), the slightly rusted swings and the spinning-round thing (Harry had been calling it this ever since he was five: it had kinda stuck). However, today Harry wouldn't be alone in the park: there was a stranger, with black pants, boots and a tweed jacket over a red-and-white checkered shirt sitting on the swing beside Harry's, and he was swinging back and forth ever-so-slightly.
Harry walked over to the swings, and sat down beside him. He offered a greeting, and the man responded in kind. Now that he was closer, Harry saw the bow-tie (the man made it look rather cool), and that his hair flopped over his face, giving him a slightly boyish look, and that he didn't seem to be over 30, if not for his eyes.
"Who'd you lose?" Harry questioned cautiously.
Oh, those eyes. He'd never forget those eyes. They looked as though he'd lost all dear to him, and had seen to much death for his age. Rather like Harry's own.
"Who says I've lost anyone?" The strange man replied, his voice slightly husky, as if he'd been crying recently.
Harry appraised the man before him, raising an eyebrow as he did. "The boy sitting next to the lonely man in the abandoned park." he answered smartly.
The man looked as if he was going to pout, then smiled slightly, before sobering. "I lost my friends. I've known one of them since she was a child. I won't ever see them again."
He said it sadly, but with a tinge of something that told Harry that they weren't dead: just out of reach. The out of reach that meant, despite them living, if they were dead, your life wouldn't change, you'd just be sadder. He reached out to touch his hand. The man looked at him.
"I'm sorry." he said simply, but it was heartfelt, because there was nothing else to say.
"Sorry about it happening or sorry you mentioned it?" the man said, but it was with a tinge of humour, and accompanied with a small smile, showing that he appreciated the gesture. He then frowned slightly.
"Who've you lost?" he asked, genuinely interested.
Call Harry hypocritical, but he really didn't enjoy people poking into his private life. "Who's asking?"
The strange man smirked slightly, a bit of light returning to his eyes. "The man sitting next to the lonely boy on the swing." he said smugly.
"Recently? My godfather and my best friend. In general? My parents and my boyfriend, Cedric, to name a few."
The man sucked in a breath of air between his teeth. "Death on legs too, hey?"
Harry smiled "Join the club."
The man smiled excitedly, most traces of seriousness gone. "We can have T-shirts! Better get Owen one too. Seeing as he's dead."
Harry came to the rather obvious conclusion that this man was immature. Maybe that was how he 't seem too bad.
"Who's Owen?" Harry asked.
"Oh, he works for a friend of mine. We can visit, if you like!"
The man seemed genuinely pleased. Harry could tell he was hoping he'd say yes. He looked around him at the park. It was getting late, the tell-tale orange sky signalling close to nightfall. But it was all the same. Maybe he did need to get away. But he couldn't just leave with a stranger.
"Ask me again tomorrow."
"Why?" The man quizzed, frowning slightly.
"Because I might say yes."
Harry got up to leave. After five paces he turned again. "Who are you, by the way? What's your name?" he called.
"I'm the Doctor. See you here, 4 hours ago tomorrow?"
"Y-Yeah, OK." Harry kept on walking. The next time he turned back, the Doctor was gone.
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That night, Harry dreamt of a stranger in tweed, and, for the first time in weeks, there were no nightmares.
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Part Two – Stories and Jelly-babies
True to his word, Harry did go to the park the next day, but he and the Doctor never went anywhere. They just sat on the swings and talked over a bag of jelly-babies.
Oh, the things that they talked about. The Doctor told Harry tales of the universe, of planets with seven suns and a world made of diamond. He told tales of a planet where the trees talked and of a universe ruled by beings in the stars. He told Harry of a world with red grass and silver trees with two suns in an orange sky, and the Doctor looked so sad at this point that Harry knew that that world was gone and squeezed his hand to let him know that he wasn't alone.
In return, Harry told him some stories of his own. Harry told the Doctor of a castle made out of magic and a lake with mermaids. He told the Doctor of a young boy who fought a deadly monster and won. He spun a tale of a traitor at midnight and a saviour at a lake, but the Doctor never learnt that Harry was the young boy, and the saviour. He told the Doctor of a girl with bushy hair that knew everything, and how she was the young boy's second friend, but she died before he could tell her how much she meant to him. He told the Doctor of a boy who fought in a tournament and showed the saviour at midnight that he was worth something, but was murdered by an evil being. And at this point, the Doctor just squeezed his hand and offered him a jelly-baby.
And after all their stories, the sun had set and the sky was spattered with stars, so they promised each other tomorrow, and parted ways. But Harry got to keep the bag of jelly-babies.
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That night, Harry dreamt of the world with the red grass silver trees and the twin suns in an orange sky.
Little did he know, the Doctor dreamt the same briefly, before dreaming of a magic castle and the saviour at midnight.
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Part Three – Choices at Midnight
For the next week, the two men went to the park to talk to each-other, before going their separate ways at nightfall. Harry didn't ask how the fiery planet was lost, and the Doctor didn't ask who the boy was, as they were too respectful of each-other to pry that far.
However, one day Uncle Vernon decided that he didn't like Harry's frequent visits to the park, and beat him before going to work, effectively breaking Harry's ankle. Harry was bed-ridden for the rest of the day, coated in bruises and cuts, and when bringing him his dunner, Uncle Vernon smiled smugly.
"We warned you not to get in contact with any of those freaks." He snarled. "Hopefully this will show you to listen."
He gave him a final present (a vicious beating to the ribs- he gave a smile when he heard one crack) before leaving the room and locking the door.
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That night, Harry had a nightmare for the first time in weeks.
That night, Harry made a choice.
That night, Harry collected his belongings.
That night, Harry ran away to the park, where the Doctor had promised he would be if Harry ever needed him.
One way or another, the Doctor always kept his promises
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POV CHANGE! PRESENTING... The Doctor
The green eyed, black-haired boy with the curious scar had been on the Doctor's mind for most of the week (he was thankful for this: it kept his mind off Amy and Rory). He would often be found on the swing below the glass floor, tinkering with the TARDIS while stating aloud everything he knew about him.
He was aware that the boy (he still didn't know his name) was soon-to-be 16, but he had the physique of a 13-year-old. He was quite obviously malnourished, and the first time the Doctor met the boy, he seemed to be an insomniac, though that had passed. From the look on his face, he could tell that he had lost too many, seen too much for someone of his age. From the way he carried himself, the Doctor could tell that a great responsibility was set on the boy's shoulders (and personally, he thought that the boy's shoulders were too thin to put anything more than a bag of books on them).
However, when the boy turned up at the park in the middle of the night (after promising the boy that he would be there if he needed him, the Doctor had told the TARDIS to alert him if he went into the park) the Doctor rushed out the doors, to see the boy limping towards him with what seemed to be a trunk. When the boy saw him, he gave a relieved smile, and collapsed, unconscious, and the Doctor rushed forwards to catch him, and brought him into the TARDIS, and to the infirmary. The TARDIS gave a worried hum at the state of the boy, and the Doctor became his namesake.
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Part Four – Comfy Beds.
We're back to Harry's POV until later notice – I just suck at writing action/pain.
When Harry came to, there were three things he noticed, in this order: One, he wasn't wearing his glasses, Two, this bed was really comfy and Three, the Doctor was sitting next to the really comfy bed Harry was currently lying on and was staring at him rather intently. Once he noticed that Harry was awake, the Doctor started talking.
"Alright, so I fixed your ribs, plural: one broken, two fractured; your ankle, broken; your leg, which healed incorrectly from the last two times you've broken it, and discovered a rather nasty energy transferral hovering around that scar of yours."
Harry gave a wince.
"And, not that it's really any of my business, not at all, it's rather rude actually, but I'm still not ginger, so never mind, but when were you going to tell anyone about this abusive uncle of yours?"
Harry felt his blood run cold. How had he known? No-one at Hogwarts (except for Madam Pomfrey, but she was like a surrogate mother for him) knew. Not even Professor Snape, who had searched through his mind, had found out that he had been abused. Two of the teachers at his primary school had found out, and had run investigations, but they never even got through, and each time Harry had been locked up in his cupboard for a month, with a broken leg.
After looking at the emotions running across Harry's face, the Doctor came to a conclusion. "Or have you told someone about it, and they haven't done anything?"
Harry, as he was inclined to (did he mention the questions-about-personal-life issue?) just ignored the question, and changed the conversation to something he was more comfortable with.
"What have you done with my glasses?"
"Oh, those things? I threw them out. They were the entirely wrong prescription." The Doctor answered flippantly.
"I did, however, take the liberty of getting you..." he rummaged in his pocket, before finding something, and producing it with a flourish, "these!"
He gave them to Harry, who discovered that they were indeed glasses, but once he put them on, he discovered that his eyesight was better than it had ever been before.
"Wow... Thanks! Can I get out of bed now?"
The Doctor considered it, then agreed, before asking, "Are you running away?"
Harry answered simply, "Yes."
The Doctor seemed to be slightly embarrassed, before asking, "Do you want to stay with me?"
"What?" Harry couldn't believe it. A man, that he'd known for only a week, was offering to take care of him. He was a complete stranger that he'd met in a park, he didn't owe him anything, and he was offering to take him in.
However, the Doctor seem to take his exclamation of surprise as outrage, and started talking, "It's just you have nowhere to go, and I thought, but if you don't want to-"
But he was cut off as Harry flung himself at him, whispering 'thank-you, thank-you thank-you' over and over again.
And that was how it came to be that Harry lived in the TARDIS.
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That morning, Albus Dumbledore discovered that the instruments he was using to monitor Harry had been broken beyond repair, and when he asked Mrs Figgs where Harry had gone, she replied cryptically, "I heard the noise of the universe late last night, and then Harry vanished off the Face of the Earth. Don't worry Albus, he'll be back at September first."
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Part Five – This is the Doctor- He's a time-travelling alien, and my boyfriend.
Sept. 1st:
To put it frankly, Mrs Figgs was right. At the welcoming feast of what would have been Harry's sixth year of Hogwarts, the sound of the universe filled the Great Hall, and a blue box came into existence. From this box, came the one-and-only-boy-who-lived-to-be-hyphenated, Harry Potter. However, he was not the same as he was before. This Harry Potter was around 12 years older, and had his arm around another man who looked to be the same age. The Great Hall went silent.
"Oh. Well, Hiya!" Harry said, grinning wildly. "Didja miss me?"
More silence greeted this statement, and Harry turned to his companion.
"Theta," he hissed. "Did you even get the date right?"
'Theta' spluttered. "Of course! Maybe." Harry glared at him. "I'm assuming so? The TARDIS said she did." he pouted. Harry chuckled quietly.
"You're so cute." He said, then gave him a chaste kiss. Half the chins in the Hall were on the floor.
"Oh!" Harry turned back to to the onlookers. "Alright- this is the Doctor- He's a time-travelling alien, and my boyfriend." If their chins could have gone any lower, then they would have. "So, I'm here to tell you that we've killed Voldemort, and, well, that's pretty much it."
His companion grinned, bemused. "Well, gotta go, places to meet, people to see- no literally, we're going to a talking planet. Ta-ta!" He gave a little wave.
And with that, the men walked back into the blue box, and dematerialised out of the Great Hall, accompanied by the noise of the universe. The Great Hall remained silent, until a voice broke it.
"He's GAY?!" Ginny Weasley shrieked.
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So, That's the end. Short but sweet, hopefully. Oh, wait a moment, one last bit for all those that are reading this.
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And you know that swing under the glass floor of the TARDIS? The one by the cables? There are now two of them. And they are never lonely.
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Alright, That's this done! Y'all who even bother to read my fics are very lucky (well, depends on what you consider lucky) at the moment- I've had too much time on my hands recently. So, Fast updates/Frequents one-shots/Fun.
Anyway, love it, hate it, burn it? I hate to be demanding, but I would really, really appreciate it if you left me a review. Even if it's just an 'loved it', a 'could be better' or a colon-capital-d.
Ta-ta (for now),
LoS :D