The Doctor was in a good enough mood that he didn't say a word when he saw the street urchin slink into the TARDIS right behind Rose, blatantly stowing away aboard his TARDIS right in front of him, which was something that his usual stowaways generally had the decency not to do. He'd had a few stowaways over the years, even an accidental stowaway who'd become one of the handful of women he'd truly loved over his lifetimes, but he kid who'd snuck aboard this time was no Sarah-Jane, nor even a Zoe or an Adric for that matter. Of the teenagers he'd dealt with over the centuries, he'd had the boy pegged as being most like Turlough, though with few of the ginger boy's redeeming qualities. An uninvited Turlough who hadn't had the common decency to sneak aboard while he wasn't looking.

Comparing the boy to Turlough probably wasn't entirely fair. Turlough hadn't actually been a teenager. He'd just looked enough like one that he had been able to attend a school full of them with little comment. The kid who'd slunk in behind Rose who hadn't closed the door fast enough to prevent him from doing so however was - developmentally speaking - about the same age as Adric, maybe a bit younger. One look had told him that the kid was far harder and far more streetwise than Adric could've ever hoped to be however.

Deciding to shelve the problem for later because he didn't want his good mood to go down the toilet so soon, as he was sure it would do if he confronted the issue, he turned his attention to Rose who was asking about the Harkness fellow who'd decided to sacrifice his life in order to save a group of people. Sighing, he set the TARDIS to following the conman who had taken the bomb that was supposed to destroy the Chula hospital ship out into space after he'd given him a case of conscience. Harkness had pretty much deserved what he'd gotten however, since it was his con that had caused the problem in the first place.

Who said a degree in alien psychology was completely useless? Oh, right, Borusa, his parents, his friends...

Eventually, despite it was against his better judgement, and he thought it far better for all parties involved that Harkness die the hero's death that he'd started, Harkness was picked up. And, after he'd regained a piece of himself that he'd thought had died when he realized that he could dance again, the party ended and real life asserted itself. Part of the reality he was stuck dealing with was a pan-sexual former Time Agent who had the hots for both Rose and himself, and another part of that reality was a troubled teen who more than likely had the "troubled" part dialed up to eleven. Rose he had brought upon himself for whatever reason. The moment he saw her, something in his hearts had stirred with fear and excitement and something he didn't dare put a name to that felt suspiciously like hope and he found himself inviting her to come along with him more than once, despite the fact that he almost never extended two invitations.

The dancing had finally stopped when the events of the evening prior had caught up to Rose and exhaustion overtook her. After being awake for more than twenty-four hours and being active for most of that period, she decided to head into the back and to bed.

"Doctor, why is the door locked?" Rose asked when she found the way into the interior of the TARDIS barred.

"I didn't want the boy wandering around the TARDIS unsupervised." he replied. This had been more for the boy's safety than the TARDIS's, since he'd noticed that the boy who had been poking around the dark corners of the Console room had been too inquisitive for his own good. He didn't need someone else getting lost in the TARDIS corridors and becoming unreachable without hours or even days of effort.

"What boy?" Rose, who hadn't noticed the human adolescent who was crouched in a corner all but invisible, asked.

"There's a reason I keep telling you to close the door behind you Rose." he said, pointing to the highly psychic street urchin who'd given up all pretense of hiding since he'd realized he'd been noticed.

"What's he doing here?" Rose asked.

"That's what I'd like to know, considering the fact that the Yuletide break for the school that teaches that lot ended more than two weeks ago, and I know for a fact that they teach street kids since I convinced Slytherin to put that clause in the Hogwarts charter. Caused any number of problems with Gryffindor who seemed to think that uneducated peasants couldn't be trusted though." he replied, remembering his brief visit to Hogwarts a long time back when he'd been young and curious and mildly fascinated by the "magical" world which had blended Carrionite and Logopolitan science in interesting new ways.

It was such a pity that they had to go and stagnate for such long stretches of time, such as now.

"What lot?" Rose asked. Usually, she was quicker than this, but every human had their stupid moments. Especially when they encountered something outside their normal range of experience. That, and Rose was about dead on her feet.

"They currently call themselves witches and wizards." he replied. "They live in a separate society that is rather carefully hidden from the regular one."

"You mean he's one of the Programmers?" Harkness said, staring at the dark haired boy who'd stowed away on the TARDIS in astonishment.

"Wizards? Programmers?" Rose asked, looking confused. Admittedly, the situation would be confusing as heck for an ordinary person.

"Every human is psychic to a degree, some are far more psychic than others and, rather than having the occasional true dream, this lot are capable of psychokinesis, pyrokinesis and several other abilities along those lines. In what you consider to be modern times, most of these children are taken to one of several 'magical' schools around the world and educated in the use of their abilities as well as other things which vary school by school." he explained.

"But, why are they called Programmers?" Rose asked.

"Back before Atlantis simultaneously sank, blew up, and got eaten by a Chronovore - long story -, someone who'd been to Rexel 4 and Logopolis had introduced an art that had combined Carrionite word based science with Block Transfer equations which was spread around the world by a number of survivors. Those who were the most psychic were the most proficient at this art which can change the world. They're called, or rather going to be called, Programmers because they can essentially program reality to a degree." he replied, remembering his trip to Logopolis where he'd gone to get the entropy that was overtaking and aging his TARDIS reversed and the results of that trip. In the future, the Wizards were going to replace the Logopolitans whose world had long since been destroyed due to a miscalculation on the Master's part, and it would be they who preserved the universe through their science.

"Science?" the boy asked, having followed the discussion and apparently found it fascinating.

"Yes, science." he replied. "Why do you think Spell Crafters use Arithmancy? Not that most of you lot do think about that. You just basically point and click, running the same programs over and over again thinking you're the be all and end all of everything because you've managed to save yourself a few minutes of effort doing something you could've done with your own two hands or got a bunch of pineapples to do ballet, nevermind the people who did all the hard work spending hundreds upon hundreds of hours determining the proper shortcuts to get the desired results without expending hundreds of hours of effort a second time."

"So, what I can do is just some sort of science?!" the boy said, sounding particularly upset by this.

"Yes." he replied. "Science and Psychic abilities."

"So, none of it is magic?" the boy asked, apparently stuck on that point.

"There's no such thing." he replied reasonably truthfully.

"But, but, all of this..." the boy sputtered.

"Dimensionally transcendental." he replied. "The inside's somewhere other than the outside."

The boy's expression grew thoughtful as he considered the information he'd received and then grew dark.

"Figures," the boy muttered darkly. "I willingly listen to a "Professor" and find myself in a fantasy adventure. It just figures that the day I willingly go off with a Doctor I find myself in the middle of some sort of Science Fiction serial. The so-called professionals that Mrs. Cole wanted to take me to are more insane than I am. Or would be if I didn't follow along with them."

7-25-15.