Disclaimer: No matter how many times I wish on a star, (are you listening, Disney?) I still don't own Doctor Who or Harry Potter.
CHAPTER THREE
Gone.
Gone gone gone.
The vacant space where the TARDIS should have been felt like a massive black hole in his head, sucking in all the happiness he had left.
What had he said, just minutes ago? At least the TARDIS was always going to stick around. Another lie. Everyone he met, anything his life touched… everything was ripped away. Even the one thing he thought was his only constant.
His mind felt so…empty. So abandoned. So… alone.
The Doctor let his numb fingers drop the sonic screwdriver to the floor. He dimly noticed that the black-haired boy…Harry, that was his name…waved his hand in front of his unresponsive eyes. The roaring darkness that enveloped his mind would not let him register any kind of activity.
His time sense felt skewed. He could barely make out the rotation of the Earth beneath his feet. He felt…blind. He had never felt so still before.
Harry had left with a strange look on his face. The four people were conversing at the table, occasionally giving him worried glances. Still he could not will himself to snap back to the present. The Song in his head was gone. He couldn't hear her singing anymore. Just darkness.
He prodded the corners of his mind, trying to feel the connection with his ship. No matter where he looked, he was met with silence.
Where are you? He whispered in his head. No comforting hum came to reassure him. Just a great big hole where the TARDIS should have been.
Still wandering through his own mind, searching for something he knew was not there, the Doctor managed to find something that picked his interest ever so slightly- there was a small gap in his memory, only a few seconds long, where there was absolutely nothing. Something had wiped a tiny portion of his life completely clean.
Desperate to fill the emptiness plaguing his head, the Doctor dove into the blank space. Instantly, a shrieking laughter erupted in his mind, driving through his brain with as much grace as a rusty saw. The Doctor instinctively pressed his hands against his head as the cackling changed into a painfully harsh voice that screamed in his head.
Doctor! So good to meet you again!
The Doctor screwed his eyes shut as the…thing from the Horse-head Nebula attacked his mind again. Get out!
Ah, Doctor, still haven't remembered your manners, have you?
Yeah, funny thing is, I usually don't feel very friendly towards someone trying to rip my mind apart!
Rip your mind apart? You could call it that. Really, I was hoping for a much more technical explanation from you.
Mmm-hmm. How about I get back to you about that?
The Doctor ground his teeth together as the being slashed at him again. Are you quite through?
Not until I get what I want from you, Doctor. The Doctor could feel his memories being forcibly opened. Faces and names from centuries past flashed in front of his eyes.
What you WANT from me? Why couldn't you get it when we were at the nebula? Why did you have to kill my TARDIS before coming back? The Doctor's voice rose in volume until he was shouting.
You knew that was me? My, aren't you a clever boy! The being's patronizing voice felt like ice in the Doctor's mind.
Alien being breaks through my TARDIS's defenses? Possesses me and tells me I'll never escape? TARDIS dies five minutes later? It really wasn't that hard to make the connection.
I needed you here, Doctor. In my own universe. I required so much… energy to contact you in your universe. The connection is so much stronger here!
What do you want? The Doctor said in disgust.
You know what I want. And eventually…you WILL give it to me. I know you, Doctor- never forget that!
With a gasp, the Doctor's eyes flew open again. The TARDIS was still gone. The being in his mind had taken her and hidden her far, far away. Somewhere where it would be impossible to find her again. But the mist surrounding the Doctor's mind seemed to have cleared, and he suddenly remembered where he was and who he was with.
Blinking, the Doctor rose to his feet and tried to register what was going on. The boy with glasses- Harry, right- had his hands pressed against his head. The girl was sitting next to him, looking astonished and a little afraid. The gigantic man was glancing back and forth between Harry and the Doctor suspiciously. The boy with red hair had stood and was pointing his telepathic molecular modifier at the Doctor.
"Who are you?" he said dangerously.
"I- what?"
"Tell us! Who are you?" he yelled.
"What do you mean? I told you- I'm the Doctor!"
The boy held the 'wand' threateningly close to the Doctor's face. "You broke into Hogwarts. Got past all the defenses like they were nothing. I'm going to ask again- who are you?"
"Ron-" the girl started to say, but the boy (Ron, he assumed) cut her off with a quick "I'm a little busy, Hermione."
"All right, I already told you my name- it's the Doctor." The Doctor looked at Harry, who was still clutching his head. "And…what's wrong with Harry?"
Ron seemed a little startled by the change in subject. "Don't you remember? You just sat down and stared off into space over there for a while, and then you both grabbed your heads like you were possessed!"
"Harry did too?" the Doctor said, surprised. He looked over at the black-haired boy. Clearly, the being had left its mark on Harry's mind. His eyes were still squeezed shut and he was wearing a grimace of pain on his face.
The Doctor walked closer to Harry. "Harry?" he said quietly. "Harry, can you hear me?" Harry didn't respond. "Harry, it's okay now, just open your eyes."
Harry still didn't move. The Doctor frowned. "Harry, can you hear someone? Someone else not in here?"
The girl (Hermione, he remembered) spoke up. "Sometimes…sometimes Harry does this. Usually its when…well, it's when…Voldemort is angry. Very angry."
"Who's Voldemort?"
All three people got unnaturally quiet, like they were holding their breath. The tall man spoke up.
"What do yeh mean, who's…You-Know-Who?" he said. "Yer old enough to have been around for the last war."
"War?" the Doctor said with a little confusion. All three people stared at him incredulously.
"So…you really aren't a wizard?" Hermione said in a small voice.
"That's what I've been trying to tell you! Magic is impossible! I don't use magic!"
"I don't know," Ron said. "You look an awful lot like Barty Crouch Jr. Maybe he just got his memory erased."
"Ron, Barty Crouch got his soul erased!" Hermione said with exasperation. "That's not something you can ever recover from!"
"Who got his soul erased?" The Doctor said worriedly.
"You did," Ron said, but Hermione shushed him.
"Are there any…blank spots in your memory, Mr...Doctor?" she said.
"Um…not really, no. I can remember pretty much everything since I was one hun- since I was one." The Doctor felt that maybe now was not the right time to let everyone know he was an alien. Somehow he didn't think that would go over very well.
"Since you were one?" Ron said. "Photographic memory," the Doctor explained.
"So...there's nothing you don't remember? No time when you were…I don't know, maybe…a Death Eater?" Hermione said tentatively.
"Nope," the Doctor said, popping the 'p' at the end.
"And you think magic is impossible? No way in the world it could exist?"
"No way in all of time or space. I know that for a fact."
Hermione seemed a little confused at this, but she held her ground. "Can I see your left arm?"
"My arm?"
"Yes, I want to see if you have a…you know. A…dark mark."
The Doctor looked confused, but he pulled off his coat and rolled up his left sleeve. Except for a few scratches, it was bare.
"Okay, I guess that proves it- you can't get a dark mark taken off," Hermione said. "You really aren't Barty Crouch Jr."
"You know, I did tell you several times that I wasn't. My name is the Doctor."
"So what do you think happened?" Ron asked Hermione. "He's a Muggle- he couldn't have gotten in without a wizard's help."
"Excuse me, what did you call me?"
"A muggle. Means non-magic folk," the tall man said.
"Oh. Also, remind me, your name is…?" he said. "Hagrid," the tall man replied. Hagrid. Interesting Earth name. He hadn't met many of those in 2001.
Suddenly, Harry yelled and his eyes flew open. He was panting hard. The Doctor was at his side again faster than he could blink.
"Harry, can you hear me?" he asked again. This time Harry nodded.
"Harry, I want you to look in my eyes. Come on…that's it…good boy. Okay, let's take a look here, shall we?" The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver. It was already at 63D, so he could scan Harry's brain for another presence.
"Oi! Look! There's his wand!" Ron said. The Doctor shook his head. "It's not a wand, it's a screwdriver. A sonic screwdriver." He was taking a gamble with that. Something about this universe felt…wrong. And until he figured out what it was, he wanted to keep them all believing he was a human.
Harry looked at the metal device in the Doctor's hand. "I'm fine, Doctor, I just need to-"
"Don't you pull that stunt with me, I've used it myself quite a lot," the Doctor said firmly. "This is only going to take a second." He pressed the screwdriver against Harry's head and pressed the button down for half a minute.
The Doctor frowned. The screwdriver was picking up…three presences in Harry's mind. He could account for two of them- the being that had possessed him, and Harry's own mind. But…what was the third?
Suddenly, the door flew open and two people strode in Hagrid's hut. One was very old, with a white beard rippling all the way to his waist. He was wearing silvery robes and half-moon shaped glasses. The other man was tall, with greasy black hair that hung at his shoulders. He had a hooked nose and dark eyes that seemed completely black.
When he saw the Doctor, the second man started abruptly. "Barty Crouch Jr.?" he whispered sharply. "That's…impossible!"
"Who is this Barty Crouch you lot keep going on about?" the Doctor asked, mystified.
"We received your message just a moment ago, Hagrid," the first man said. "I must say, Harry, Hedwig is an extraordinarily prompt owl."
Next to the Doctor, Harry nodded, his jaw still set tightly.
The second mane had come unnervingly close to the Doctor. The Doctor leaned back as the man stuck his large nose right into the Doctor's face.
"Um…do you mind?" the Doctor said with a little annoyance as the man drew in even closer.
"Incredible," the man said. "The resemblance is uncanny."
"To this Barty fellow, I assume," the Doctor said. "Now could you please back up just a smidge?"
"Albus," the man said. "This is, without a doubt, the work of Dark Magic."
"Now, Severus, we cannot even be sure that he really is Barty. After all, Barty did get his soul removed."
"Will someone please tell me who Barty is?" the Doctor said. After a moment of silence, he continued. "No? No explanation at all? Okay, then…"
"Excuse me, Professor Snape," Hermione said. "I checked the Doctor's arm, and it, um, didn't have a Dark Mark."
"Checked whose arm, Miss Granger?" Snape replied in a nasty voice.
"The Doctor's arm," the Doctor said. "I'm the Doctor. Hello!" he said cheerfully.
Snape sneered at him. "You call yourself…the Doctor."
"Yup! That's my name!"
Snape scoffed. "Then how do you explain your incredibly resemblance with a certain Death Eater?"
"A Death Eater?" the Doctor asked, puzzled. "What's that?"
"Sir, the Doctor doesn't think magic exists. He's a muggle," Hermione said.
"Explain your presence here, then, 'Doctor'! How did you break into Hogwarts?"
"I really have no idea whatsoever. Well…maybe a few. Well…maybe a little more than a few…well, maybe a lot…"
"Answer the question!" Snape growled, pulling out his wand and pointing it threateningly at the Doctor's chest.
"You have one too? That's impossible! Where did you get this?" the Doctor stammered. He wished the TARDIS was still around, so that some other person would understand his confusion. How the heck did the humans have so much Time Lord technology?
"Answer me," Snape said.
"I told you- I don't know! Now will you answer my question?"
Snape pressed his lips together, never letting his wand waver from its position over the Doctor's left heart. "Albus, I do not believe he is going to answer us without some…different methods."
The old man turned from the whispered conversation he had been having with Harry. "Are you proposing that we use Legilimency on him?" he asked.
"It appears we have to."
The man gave Harry, Ron, and Hermione a significant glance. "Very well," he said after a moment's consideration. "Now if you four could follow me outside…" The five left the hut, leaving Snape and the Doctor alone together.
The moment the others were gone, Snape shoved the Doctor into a chair. The Doctor opened his mouth to protest, but Snape muttered something under his breath and thin ropes appeared out of thin air, tying the Doctor to the seat tightly.
"Oi!" the Doctor said indignantly. He pushed against the ropes to test their strength. They restrained him easily.
Snape leered at him. "This is your last chance, Barty. Tell me how you are alive and how you got into Hogwarts or I'll find out myself."
"I'm not Barty Crouch!" the Doctor said. "I've really told you everything I know!"
Snape scowled. "Then prepare to have your mind opened, Barty." The Doctor's eyes widened as understanding set in. Snape wanted to break into his memories! He instantly threw up his basic mental shields. Snape was only a human…he wouldn't be able to cause much damage…wouldn't he?
Snape twitched his want, and suddenly the Doctor's mind was attacked by a huge force- so much stronger than what he had expected!
The mind probe smashed the Doctor's shields easily. The Doctor put up more powerful ones as fast as he could. The mental force tore these apart just as fast.
Desperately, the Doctor tried one more time to fend the probe off, but he had been caught off his guard for once and was now suffering the consequences as his last shields were toppled and Snape gained access to his mind.
Instantly, images of Donna appeared, followed by Martha, then Rose. There they were, all three of them in the TARDIS as they pulled the Earth back into time…further back, him and Martha and the Master aboard the Valiant…Canary Warf flashed in front of him now, as Rose fell towards the Void…the night he had regenerated into his tenth incarnation…meeting Rose for the first time…and then his life before that.
The Doctor gasped as he was pulled back further. He could sense something as his memories reawakened- something was coursing through him, getting stronger the wider Snape opened his mind…
Traveling to Earth as Nine, all on his own…before that, regenerating aboard the TARDIS…hurtling through the Vortex as time and space was locked behind him…and then…
The memories stopped briefly as Snape hovered over the last locked part of the Doctor's past. It was surrounded by the Doctor's strongest shields, the only things keeping him sane.
Behind the shields, the Time War prowled, locked out of the Doctor's memory.
Snape hesitated, then flung open the Time War.
NO! the Doctor screamed mentally. NO! I CAN'T DO IT AGAIN!
As the fiery memories flooded his head, the Doctor could feel raw energy pouring through his body. Snape was ripping open his soul, and he was about to see a Time Lord unleashed.
The unstoppable memories coursed between the Doctor and Snape. The Doctor could feel his eyes burn. The Time Vortex that swirled within him was now blazing golden in his eyes, and judging by the look on Snape's face, he was horrified at the powerful creature the Doctor had become.
As the hidden energy inside his mind was opened, the Doctor found that Snape's mind had faltered. Pressing his advantage, he grabbed Snape with a psychic hand.
I think you've seen enough, he mentally hissed.
The Time War was exploding inside him. The Fall of Arcadia. Watching his friends, his children, die in front of him. And then…triggering the final weapon to end the war. Watching alone from above as his entire species burned on Gallifrey below.
Anger, despair, and a crushing guilt filled him. Even though he kept his eyes wide open, tears were pouring down his face. Snape was trembling, his black eyes terrified.
Get out of my head, the Doctor said with as much force as he could muster. Finally, Snape nodded and withdrew into his own head.
The memories went away as the Doctor firmly locked them away again the moment Snape was gone. Closing his eyes, the Doctor replaced his mental shields, guarding his mind much closer after Snape's psychic attack.
"I should kill you now," Snape murmured, pointing a shaky wand at the Doctor.
"You wouldn't do that. You've seen what happens when I die, and aren't you scared enough right now?" the Doctor said heavily.
For a moment, Snape wavered, then lowered his wand.
"You are not to tell a word of this to anyone," the Doctor said darkly. "Now if you'd kindly untie me?" The ropes fell away just as quickly as they had appeared. He stood up and glared at Snape.
"Come along, Snape. They're waiting for us outside."
A/N I'm not sure if I wrote this scene very well, so review and tell me what you thought! :D
