Again, thank you for the reviews left.

Rageing, I'm sorry about that, I didn't notice that I hadn't put that the story is slash in the summary. Thank you for the warning and I've already rectified it.

Here's a new chapter and I hope you enjoy it. Back to the Oods...

Chapter 4

Harry gazed sadly at the beings in front of him.

"How many of them do you think there are in every one of these?" asked Harry.

"A thousand? More?"

The Doctor was looking at the rows of Ood before them with slightly wide eyes and answered without even looking at him.

"A great empire constructed by slavery."

"It's not so different from your time."

"The worse is that's true. Though we're trying to change that in the wizarding world." admitted the green-eyed teen.

"There are slaves in the wizarding world?"

"There were, yes. Wizards forgot history and the bond that house elves have with them was twisted."

"House elves? You mean like elves with pointy ears, incommensurable beauty and nearly more pride than brain?" teased the man.

"More like pointy ears, small stature and subservient nature. I think you confused them with the elves of the Lord of the Rings." A weak chuckle escaped them at that.

Harry looked at the Oods and couldn't help seeing all the similarities the with house elves.

"Don't you want to be free?" asked the wizard.

"I don't understand the concept, Mister" replied en Ood tilting his head to the side almost curiously.

"What's with those white balls? Are they born with them? It doesn't seem likely. And why do they have all to be connected?" wondered aloud the younger one.

"Ood, tell me. The Circle means something to you?" inquired the Time Lord.

"The Circle must be broken."

All of the Oods talked at the same time.

"That's a little creepy."

"But what is it? What's The Circle?"

"The Circle must be broken."

"Why?"

"So that we can sing."

A loud alarm blared to life and the Doctor jumped out of the container.

"Ups, that's for us."

The younger just shook his head and run beside him between the containers. He was slightly behind the Doctor when he spotted something at the wall that made him stop.

"Doctor, there's a… door."

But the man hadn't heard him, thinking he was still running just behind him. Soldiers stepped through the door and the wizard held his hands up.

"Do not move!"

Meanwhile, the Time Lord had stopped, noticing his young companion wasn't with him, and looked around with big worried eyes.

"Where has he gone?"

Unfortunately, more soldiers were behind him and he had to continue running. If they caught him he wouldn't be able to get to Harry.

The first soldiers pushed Harry into a container where he fell to the floor and the human frowned. He would wait till they left to use his magic to get out.

When he looked up, though, he saw a group of Oods standing in a corner.

"Harry, where are you!?" shouted the Doctor.

The man was beginning to really worry about his young companion. For a moment he even forgot Harry was a wizard and could probably even be hidden at plain sight.

A mechanic sound made him look behind and he was grateful he had done it when he saw the enormous metal claw he had pointed before to his little emerald heading his way. He broke into a run and doubled the corner.

He tried to open one of the cages but it didn't work and he had to run through the containers again. The claw nearly caught him when he tripped.

Meanwhile, Harry saw one of the Oods on the box he was in raise his head. Their eyes were red as they gazed at her. He knew then he was in big trouble.

"I'm a friend." tried to reason backing into a corner when they took a step towards him. "I'm not here to hurt any of you. I want to help."

He really didn't want to hurt any of them. In his nearly panicked state at having found himself in danger so soon after the war, Harry called for the Doctor. Unfortunately, the man was still trying to escape the giant claw and didn't even hear him.

Outside of the containers, the claw suddenly stopped when it was about to catch him. Doctor took air to regain his breath and stood, not caring to investigate the sudden halt in the persecution. He was too worried about Harry for that.

Two soldiers dragged him between the containers till he was in front of the one Harry was trapped inside.

"Doctor!"

"You better let him out!" growled the Time Lord enraged at the fear in his little one's voice.

The Oods approaching more and more snapped Harry out of his panic and the young man berated himself for his loss of control.

With a simple alohomora spell, the door opened and the boy stumbled out just in time to see a group of soldiers and, in the middle of them, the Doctor.

He didn't hesitate a second in running to him and the man caught him in a warm embrace.

"There you are. You're not hurt, are you?" muttered the man on his hair.

"I'm okay. Though I don't think they are."

At that moment, one of the red eyed Oods exited the containers and electrocuted a soldier with the translator ball they all wore.

The other soldiers took positions and raised their guns to point at the beings. The Doctor dragged him out of the mess while the soldiers fired and the rest of the containers opened, freeing all of the Oods.

A group of the red eyed aliens went after them and they exited by the same door they had first entered. A little later they noticed they had being followed by Solana.

"Solana, the Oods aren't born like this. It's not possible. A race born to serve never evolves in the first place. What does the company do to make them obey?" asked the Doctor urgently.

"It's nothing to do with me."

"Of course, because you don't ask?"

"That's Doctor Rider's matter entirely."

The Time Lord took out the map everyone had been offered at the entrance.

"Where's he? Where in the complex?" urged the traveller.

"We can help with the red eyes! Show it to us!" pleaded Harry.

"There." revealed pointing to a place on the map. "They're on the red section."

"Come with us." asked the Doctor when she diverted her eyes from his. "You've seen the way the Oods are treated. You can't agree with it. You know this place better than me. You could help!"

Solana kept quiet for a few seconds, staring straight at the Time Lord's eyes. For a moment, Harry thought she might do it. But then she looked away.

"They're over here! Guards! They're over here."

The Doctor took Harry's hand and run passed the Head of Marketing. She didn't even attempt to follow them and they didn't look back.

When they rounded a corner, two guards saw them and run after the two men.

"This way!" said the Doctor tugging on his arm.

They crossed and open metal fence and saw a door. The Doctor took out his screwdriver.

"Oh, do you hear it? I didn't need the map. Only to listen."

Harry nodded. He could feel the pressure against his mental shields.

The Doctor opened the door and sealed it once they were inside.

"I'm afraid, Doctor." whispered Harry. "Of what we will find."

The Doctor looked at him with a serious expression.

"Do you want to wait at the TARDIS?" asked the man with a sad face at the thought of his companion giving up at their first adventure together.

He couldn't blame Harry, though. He himself was scared of discovering what the human race had done this time. Therefore, he was surprised when Harry firmly shook his head.

"Hell, no! I want to help, Doctor. It just… it scares me sometimes." The teen admitted softly. "To think about what humans are capable of doing. But if I were to hide every time something bad happened… that's no way of living. I want to help the Oods, Doctor."

After his words, the Doctor beamed at him. The man had to remain himself that, even if Harry was incredibly innocent in some aspects, he was very strong and had endured hardships.

"If it makes you feel better, I'm afraid of it too. I've seen many things in all of my years, but the human race always manages to surprise me. Often not in a good way. Listen." said the Time Lord suddenly changing the topic as he usually did. "Listen, listen, listen, listen."

The wizard followed the man in silence and they descended a staircase. The place was dark and dirty and had the appearance of a basement. The youngest traveller noticed that the pressure on his mental shields seemed to increase the further they went in the building.

"Ah, my head." muttered the Time Lord sounding pained.

"What is it?"

"Don't you hear them?"

"I have my mental shields up, but I can feel we're nearing the source."

The blush covering the pale cheeks of the youngest distracted the Time Lord for a moment before he managed to regain composure.

"They're singing."

The Doctor continued walking and they came upon a sight that Harry knew he would never forget. There was a group of about six Oods trapped into a cage.

They were hunched together and Harry could tell immediately that they were the source of the mental song. The Doctor approached a metal switch and turned on the lights.

"They look different to the others." pointed the emerald eyed teen when he regained his voice and noticing that the beings seemed to cradle something to their chests. Also, they didn't have a translator.

"That's because they're naturally born Oods, unprocessed, before being adapted to slavery, unspoilt."

The two approached the bars and crouched.

"That's their song. It's the song of captivity." explained the man without looking away from the Oods.

With curiosity and no small amount of trepidation, Harry closed his eyes and lowered his occlumency barriers.

He was instantly overwhelmed at the sheer feelings the song conveyed. The sadness, the hope, the feeling of being trapped, isolated. The song oozed loneliness.

He opened his eyes and stared at the beings in front of him. A sob wracked his body, but the wizard didn't take notice of it, nor of the tears running down his cheeks as rivers on a mountain.

Though he didn't notice, the Doctor did and turned towards his green eyes to find him crying while staring at the caged Oods and clutching the bars so hard his knuckles where white.

"Harry?"

"How can you bear it?" asked in a pained voice. "Hearing their song, and the feeling behind it?"

"It isn't easy, but there's nothing I can do to stop it."

"I could put a temporary shield around your mind." offered the teen already knowing the answer.

"No. someone has to hear it. Someone should be there to remember their suffering."

"I'm sorry it has to be you." whispered his emerald with sorrow in his eyes.

The Doctor simply gave him an unusually gentle smile and Harry took a decision, cleaning his tears.

"Well, then, if you can endure it, so can I. This time you won't be the only one to hear them."

"Little one, that isn't necessary…"

But Harry would have none of that and stubbornly refused to raise his shields back up. If his Doctor had to go through that, he wouldn't do it alone.

A noise from upstairs drew their attention and both looked up.

"They're coming."

The Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver, but Harry stopped him.

"Wait, it'll be faster if I do it."

The Time Lord observed with barely hidden curiosity as the wizard's wand slipped into his hand.

"Alohomora."

The cage's door opened.

"That's handy." commented the Time Lord.

Harry grinned. The Oods continued with their heads down and therefore didn't note the magic.

"They're breaking in." said Harry when another metallic sound from above reached them.

"Leave them."

The man entered the cage and the teen followed.

"What are you holding? Show me." softly requested the traveller to one of the beings.

The Oods didn't move.

"Friend." That word got the Odds' attention. "Doctor. Harry. Friends. Let me see. Look at me. Let me see it."

Bit by bit, one of them inched his way towards the man.

"That's it. That's it. Go ahead."

The Ood brought his hands closer to the Time Lord's head before opening them and showing what they had cradled to their chests. Harry's and the Doctor's eyes opened wide.

"Is that…?"

"It's a brain." confirmed the man.

For a moment, Harry had a flashback about the Battle of the Department of Mysteries. A water container filled with floating brains and Ron summoning one in his craziness. Then the brain had tried to kill him.

"A hindbrain. The Ood are born with a secondary brain." explained the man with amazement clear in his voice. "Like the amygdales on the humans, it processes the memories and emotions. If they remove it, you stop being Harry. You would become… an Ood. A processed Ood."

"So the Company, cuts out their brains?" asked Harry horrified.

"And then they stitch them on the translator." clarified through clenched teeth.

The wizard hadn't even known that muggles knew how to do something like that. He could only hope they still didn't know how to do that in his time or he could already see the muggles trying to cut out the brains of witches and wizards if they were to discover them.

"Do you think they would try that on us?" asked Harry in barely a whisper.

"The Company? No."

"I mean to the magical community. Do you think that muggles, if they discovered us, would try that? Try to enslave us cutting out our brains? Or try to use it in order to find a way to steal our magic?"

The Doctor looked at him seriously.

"I don't know, Harry, but I wouldn't allow it."

Before any of them could say anything more, there was a shout.

"They're with the Ood, sir."

The Doctor quickly closed the door with both of them inside the cage.

"What are you going to do? Arrest me? Lock me up? Throw me into a cage? Well, you're too late."

The Doctor showed them a parody of a smile, full of teeth. The boss of the Company, however, seemed unconcerned.

HPDWHPDWHPDWHPDW

Not much later, they found themselves in an office and a soldier cuffed them to a wall. The Time Lord glared at him when his little one hissed in pain as the man closed the cuff around his thin wrists so tight it nearly pierced his delicate skin.

"Why don't you just come out and say it? You're activists." stated the boss.

"If that's what the friends of the Oods attempt to prove, then yes."

"The Ood were nothing without us. Just animals, roaming around on the ice."

"That's because you can't hear them." said the Doctor angrily.

"They welcomed it!" insisted the businessman with a smile. "That's why they didn't put up a fight."

Harry looked at him with pity. He could see the man really believed what he was saying and it made him pity him. How could he be so blind to what was before him? The smile disappeared when Harry talked.

"They're born with their brains in their hands. Don't you see that makes them peaceful? They have to be, because a creature like that has to trust anyone it meets."

"Good reasoning."

"Thank you."

"The system has worked for two hundred years. All we've got is a rogue batch. And the infection is about to be sterilized." the balding man neared his wrist clock to his mouth and spoke. "Mister Cash, where do we stand?"

"The chambers are closed, sir. As soon as the core is hot enough, the gas will be released. 200 Indian brands and counting." answered a voice.

"You're going to gas them." hissed the Doctor.

"Kill the livestock. The classic formal solution for the formal FMD of the old times. Still works."

The man had the nerve to laugh at his own words, as if he wasn't speaking of killing thousands of innocent beings. Suddenly, Harry gasped.

"Harry?"

"Death! So much death. It's everywhere. People's dying."

After Harry's statement, an alarm flared.

"What the hell?"

When the boss of the Company and a scientific went out to see what was happening, they left the door open and, even if they couldn't see, the sound of fighting made it to their ears.

"Change of plans." said the balding man upon his return.

"There are no reports of problems out of here. They're still contained inside the Oodsphere." reported the scientific.

"We have the duty to stop it before it expands." smiled the man.

"What's happening?" asked the Doctor.

"Everything you wanted, Doctor. There will be a full investigation once all this has been sterilized. I can't risk a bullet to the head. I'll leave you at the mercies of the Ood."

"Mister Alpen, there's something else, isn't there? Something we haven't seen before." The Doctor's voice stopped the man.

"What do you mean?" asked the green eyed teen.

"A creature wouldn't survive with a forebrain and a hindbrain separated. It would be in war with itself. There's a third element, isn't there?" pointed the Time Lord intelligently.

"Once again. How clever."

"It has to be connected with the red eyes. What is it?"

"It won't exist for much longer. Enjoy your Ood."

The man left with the scientific, the two soldiers and his personal Ood. It was then that, whilst the Doctor tried to free them, Harry noticed something.

"He hasn't red eyes." whispered.

"What?" the Doctor asked distractedly.

"The Ood. Mister Alpen's personal Ood doesn't have red eyes. Why is that?" The Doctor paused and his attention went completely to Harry. "If it were a disease, that Ood would probably be contaminated, wouldn't it?"

"Yes… yes, it should be contaminated. What are the chances of him being the only one not contaminated? No, not enough. It can't be a disease. It has to be something more complex, more like… like…"

"A newly evolved instinct? A defence mechanism?"

"Harry, you're a genius!" exclaimed the man making him blush.

They were so distracted by the discovery that they forgot trying to escape. The door opening and showing a group of red eyed Oods reminded them that they were still cuffed.

Slowly, the Oods began to approach and the Doctor tried to free his hands, but the cuffs were too tight. Harry too tried to find a way out. Unfortunately, just when he thought he had his wand, it slipped to the door and Harry had to close his eyes for a second. If he could calm himself, he could use wandless magic.

"Oh, god. Doctor, Harry, friends."

"Doctor, that's not helping me concentrate."

Harry controlled his respiration and directed a flow of magic towards the cuffs.

"Relashio."

The bindings opened and Harry and the Doctor run for the same door the others had left by. Immediately after opening the door, the wizard closed it. More Oods waiting for them.

They were trapped.

"Doctor, Harry, friends."

"The Circle must be broken." added the teen trying to think of something else.

"Doctor, Harry, friends."

The Oods approached.

"The Circle must be broken."

They approached.

"Doctor, Harry, friends!"

The Doctor looked at his companion and his voice broke. He had to protect Harry!

"The Circle must be broken."

Nearer.

"Doctor, Harry, friends."

The white balls the Oods used as translators and weapons near their heads.

Desperation.

Listening to the Oods sing, Harry had an idea.

He connected his mind to theirs temporary and sent the same message the Doctor tried to convey. Doctor, Harry, friends.

The Oods stopped when the white spheres were just a few centimetres away from their faces.

The light of the balls went out and the Oods clutched their heads a moment before straightening and looking at them. The red eyes had disappeared.

"Doctor. Harry. Friends."

"Yes, it's us. We're friends. Oh, yeah."

Harry simply sighed in relief.

HPDWHPDWHPDWHPDW

Once out, they saw the compound was in chaos.

There were soldiers everywhere, some shooting to anything that moved and some lying dead on the snow covered ground. The same happened with the Oods, except that they didn't shoot.

The Doctor and Harry climbed down the stairs and run for cover.

"I don't know where it is. I don't know where they've gone."

"What are we looking for, Doctor?"

"It could be underground. In some kind of cavern or cave."

The Doctor made a full circle on the place, looking at the nearest buildings for something.

"If you give something more accurate I can find it."

"Hum, wherever it is mister Alpen is going there next."

"Okay, I can work with that." answered Harry taking out his wand. "Point me Alpen."

The wand trembled for a moment and then pointed in a direction.

"This way, Doctor." directed Harry running towards where the wood piece pointed.

They both fell to the ground when there was an explosion at their back.

"Are you okay?" asked the Doctor concerned.

"Yes." muttered the wizard after shaking his head.

They looked to the place of the explosion and, after the smoke cleared, they found themselves looking at an Ood. And both had a strong suspicion of who the Ood was.

HPDWHPDWHPDWHPDW

With the Ood's help they made it to the place where mister Alpen was faster than expected. The 'point me' spell didn't point the shorter path, but the Ood knew the compound very well.

The Doctor used his screwdriver to fry the circuits of the door to the warehouse fifteen and open it.

They descended a new staircase to a shadowy room with a dim red light.

The Doctor was the first approaching the railing and looking down. There was giant brain surrounded by a blue circle of energy. The song in his head was so strong that Harry felt tempted to close the link. He didn't, and he didn't notice a few tears leaving his eyes.

"The Ood brain. Now all makes sense. That is the missing link. The third element that connects all of them. The forebrain, the hindbrain and this. The telepathic centre is a shared mind, connecting all the Ood in a song."

"And the Circle," whispered Harry suddenly understanding. "The Circle stopped it. It doesn't let them connect, does it? It leaves them alone. The Circle must be broken."

"Exactly."

The Doctor looked up and froze. Mister Alpen was pointing a gun directly at them.

"Cargo. I can always go in the cargo. I've got the rockets, I've got the cellars, and the little businesses are much more manageable without the livestock." the man descended the stairs while speaking.

"He's mined the area." informed the scientific pointing at the giant brain.

"He's going to kill it."

"They found that thing centuries ago beneath the northern glacial." continued the balding man ignoring the raven haired teen.

"Transmission towers. Damping the telepathic field. Stopping the Oods from connecting for two hundred years."

"And you, Ood Sigma, you brought them here. I expected better." said the man.

"My place is at your side, sir." Replied the Ood putting himself besides mister Alpen.

"Still subservient." said the man with a satisfied grin before mocking the being: "Good Ood."

"If that barrier is still in place, how can the Ood start breaking out?" asked Harry making the man stop smirking.

"Maybe it's taken centuries to adapt. The subconscious reaching out." guessed the Doctor.

"But the process was too slow. It had to be accelerated." explained the scientific. "You'd never have given me access to the controls, mister Alpen. I lowered the barrier to its minimum. Friends of the Oods, sir. It's taken me ten years to infiltrate the Company. And I succeeded."

"Yes, yes you did."

Harry saw what was going to happen before it did. When mister Alpen threw the scientific over the railing, the wizard had his wand in hand. With a levicorpus, the first spell that came to his mind, the man found himself hanging over the brain by his left leg.

The green eyed teen sighed in relief, though the feeling didn't last long. After that display, mister Alpen's gun was firmly pointed at him. It seemed the balding man considered him the greatest threat.

"What did you do!?" shouted.

Harry looked at the weapon with big eyes. How did he always end up in those situations?

The Doctor raised his hands in a peace sign and tried to calm the man, though what he wanted was to strangle him if he didn't lower the gun with which he was pointing to his little one.

Slowly, the Doctor moved until he was shielding the teen with his own body.

"Now, I can't say that I have never shot anyone before. I can't say I'm going to like it, but this is not exactly a normal day, is it? Still…" the man aimed.

"Would you like a drink, sir?" interrupted the Ood.

Harry looked at the creature suspiciously when Sigma put himself in the middle of the gun's shooting range with a glass on his hand whilst mister Alpen laughed.

"I think hair loss is the least of my problems right now."

"Please, have a drink, sir." insisted the creature.

"If-if you're going to stand in the way, I'll shoot you too." replied mister Alpen with his voice shaking and pained face.

The Doctor reached out with a hand to the Ood's shoulder. He knew something was happening right then, but he couldn't pinpoint what.

"Please, have a drink, sir." repeated stubbornly.

"H-h-have you p-poisoned me?" asked mister Alpen with not only his voice but his hands shaking.

The Doctor looked sharply at Ood Sigma.

"A natural Ood must never kill, sir."

"What is that stuff?" wondered the Time Lord looking directly at the Ood.

Mister Alpen rubbed his forehead with a hand.

"Ood graft suspended in a biological compound, sir." answered the Ood.

"What the hell does that mean?" demanded to know the balding man unknowingly mirroring Harry's thoughts.

"Oh, yeah." muttered the Time Lord in understanding.

"Tell me!" shouted mister Alpen grabbing the gun with two hands and attempting to aim again.

"Funny thing the subconscious. Takes all sorts of shapes. Came out in the red eyes as revenge, came out in the rage as fury, and then there was patient." explained the Doctor looking at Sigma at the end. "Ha, all those intelligence and mercy focussed on Ood Sigma. How's the hair loss, mister Alpen?" taunted the traveller.

Mister Alpen took his hands to his blading head and petted his hair. A handful of it came off and the man looked at it in horror.

"What have you done?" asked trembling more and more.

"Oh, they've been preparing you for a very long time. And now you're standing next to the Ood brain. Mister Alpen, don't you hear it? Listen…"

The businessman's gaze strayed to the brain with an almost dazed look and it took all of his willpower to close his eyes and look at them again.

"What have… you… I'm… not…"

The gun clattered to the ground and the man, still appearing dazed, grabbed his head as if in pain.

Harry saw in a sort of fascinated horror as the man peeled off the skin of his own head until the skull was visible. Tentacles came out of his mouth and, in just a few seconds, mister Alpen was no more: in front of them stood a new Ood.

"He's… he's turned into an Ood?"

"Yes."

"Completely."

"Yes."

Suddenly the new Ood made a strange sound and opened his mouth to throw up something. A hindbrain came out of his mouth.

"Impressive."

"Impressive? That's all you have to say?" asked the Doctor amused.

"What should I say?

"I don't know, maybe start screaming that's impossible or be afraid that something like that's happened? I don't know, you never react as I expect! Not that that's something bad." added the older one seeing the expression of the youngest. "I like surprises. I love surprises. I don't want you to be like the rest. I love that you aren't like the rest. And now I'm rambling, am I not?"

Harry smiled with amusement and fondness.

"Yes, you're rambling. But I don't mind a bit."

They shared a smile until someone clearing his throat interrupted them.

"Would you mind bringing me down from here, please?" asked the scientific still hanging over the brain.

They had forgotten about him.

"Oh, yes, sorry. Okay, don't move one bit." blushing, Harry directed his wand at him. "Liberacorpus. Wingardium leviosa."

The science man floated gently till he was on his feet in front of them again and looked at the emerald eyed wizard with awe. However, Harry spoke before he could say anything.

"No, I can't explain to you what I've done and no, I won't let you study it." cut Harry as gently as he could while discretely throwing a binding spell at him that would prevent him from speaking of it to anyone that didn't already know about magic.

Both travellers looked at the two Oods and Sigma spoke.

"He has become Ood kind and we will take care of him." informed them the Ood about the former mister Alpen.

"It's situations like this one that make me rethink what is wrong and what is right." muttered Harry.

"It's better this way. People that has it clear tend to become like mister Alpen."

"Or like Dumbledore." whispered Harry so low nobody heard it.

It was then that a kind of alarm went on and the Doctor reacted quickly, going to the railing and deactivating the mines.

"That's better. And now… Sigma, would you allow me the honour?"

The Ood nodded solemnly.

"It's yours, Doctor."

"Oh, yeah. Submitted for two hundred years, but not anymore." said the Time Lord pressing buttons in a console. "The Circle is broken. The Oods can sing!"

The energy circle around the Ood brain disappeared and the Doctor grinned widely.

Harry looked at the giant brain in wonder. The song was changing. It was so beautiful. It didn't speak of captivity, sadness and loneliness anymore. It now spoke of joy, of peace, of freedom.

"I can hear it." whispered the scientific.

Harry and the Doctor grinned at each other and, with the feelings of the song resounding on their heads, none of them could resist leaning into each other for a chaste kiss.

HPDWHPDWHPDWHPDW

They were in front on the TARDIS, ready to leave.

"The message has gone out. That song resonated across the galaxies. Everyone heard it. Everyone knows. The rockets are bringing them back. The Ood are coming home."

"We thank you, Doctor, Harry. Friend of Ood kind" said Sigma. "And what of you now? Will you stay? There is room in the song for you."

"Oh, I-I've should be returning to my own song, thanks."

"Your song has changed. I thought it was going to have an end soon. Now I can feel that it's going to be completed, but it will not end."

The Doctor looked at him stunned. What did that mean?

"Completed?"

"Nobody should sing alone."

"Ah." The Doctor tried to forget the cryptic message and directed his attention to Harry. "What about you? Do you still want to travel with me?"

Harry smiled at him with gentleness.

"Of course, Doctor. I'm definitely staying with you. You don't need even ask."

"Then, we'll continue travelling together, for as long as you'll have me." whispered the Time Lord.

The teen blushed and looked down to the snow covered ground.

"Well, then, we'll be off."

"Take this song with you." advised Ood Sigma whilst the other Oods standing in a semicircle at his back started to sing for them.

"We'll do."

"Always."

"And now this, Doctor, Harry, you will never be forgotten. Our children will sing of the Doctor and Harry. And our children's children. And the wind, and the ice and the snow will carry our names forever."

With a nod and a last look at the peaceful Oods and the beautiful sights of their snowy world, the Doctor and Harry entered the TARDIS.

HPDWHPDWHPDWHPDW

"Where do you want to go now?"

"I owe you an explanation." stated Harry.

The Doctor stopped where he was playing idly with the controls of the TARDIS.

"I can wait till you're ready to speak about it."

"No. I owe you that. At least I'll give you the basics."

The Doctor looked him seriously on the eyes and, after a few minutes in which Harry didn't look away, he slowly nodded.

"I told you that my parents had been killed by a wizard. His name was Tom Riddle and he was a genius. He was an orphan during the Second World War in London and, at age eleven, he received an invitation to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

"You're school."

"Yes. He was the most brilliant student, he had an incredible amount of power and great talent to back it up. He was intelligent and charismatic and he wanted to change the world. He gathered a following. He could have done so much good… But Tom was jaded. No one had ever loved him, no one had ever showed him what love was, and Tom never learnt it. He cared for no one." explained Harry with deep pain.

The Doctor took his hand and directed him to take a seat before crouching in front of him.

"Tom began a war." the Time Lord's jaw clenched. "When my parents refused, he targeted them. Then a seer made a prophecy stating that, and I quote, 'the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born when the seventh months dies'. I was born at midnight the last day of the seventh month and another boy was born the day before. Our families were targeted."

"Because of a prophecy." clarified the Doctor trying to maintain an open mind.

"Yes, which is a stupidity because: one, predicting the future is nearly impossible because it's not set on stone, especially around magical beings; and two, the majority of prophecies are self-fulfilling, which means that if you ignore them, they don't have to happen. Their just possibilities."

The Doctor nodded to show he understood. Truthfully, he too didn't believe in prophecies.

"One night, a friend of my parents betrayed us and gave our direction to the Dark Lord. That night, Tom came and killed them. He tried to killed me too, but somehow I survived with just a scar.

"A lightning bolt shaped scar." muttered the man gripping his hands.

"When he couldn't kill me, his body was destroyed and he became little more than a ghost. Nobody really knows how I survived, but since that night I was considered a hero. The Boy Who Lived." snorted the teen. "Albus Dumbledore, former headmaster of my school, left me at the doorstep of my relatives that same night." The Doctor frowned at that. "He claimed it was for my security, that the sacrifice of my mother dying for me created powerful blood wards around my home if I lived with a relative and that he just wanted for me to have a normal childhood away from the fame."

"But you weren't safe. Not with the Dursleys."

The green eyed teen just smiled with a little sadness.

"Later I discovered he had done it so that I would see him as a saviour when he rescued me from my relatives. He wanted me to be malleable. He wanted me to be seeing as a copy of my parents that took his words as the words of a god. He didn't want me to think by myself. I was nothing but a weapon that would be discarded once it wasn't needed anymore."

The Time Lord tenderly wiped a tear that had fallen from the corner of his eye.

"Every year, except my third in which I met my godfather, I met Tom in dangerous situations. I nearly died every time and it had all been orchestrated by Dumbledore. Tom returned in my fourth year, but he remained hidden for another year and the wizarding world called me a liar for saying he was back. Until the night my godfather died. That night, the war began officially. The next year, Dumbledore died. It was then that I was forced to take charge. I led the war until the final battle, in which Teddy's parents died."

"I'm sorry." Said the Doctor not knowing what else he could say. "You should never have had to fight. I'm so sorry."

"Don't be. It won't change anything. Besides, I survived, didn't I?"

"Yes, you did. You're a very strong person, Harry. Many would have given up."

"I couldn't. Not if I wanted to see you again."

The Doctor's breath stuck on his throat and the oldest pulled the teen into a warm embrace.

"You can ask questions, you know?" said Harry after a few minutes in silence. "I can tell you have many."

The Doctor sighed.

"You sure?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, what was the war about?"

"Blood. Wizards and witches are classified in three categories: pureblood, halfblood and muggleborn. Purebloods are wizards that don't have any muggle blood in their families. Halfbloods are those with a pureblood parent and a muggleborn or muggle parent. And last but not least, muggleborns are born from two muggle parents. Then, there are squibs, purebloods born without magic or with so little that they can't practically use it."

"In which category are you?"

"I'm a halfblood. My mother was a muggleborn, but my father was a pureblood. Tom Riddle was thought to be a pureblood, but he was like me: a halfblood. Tom hated the muggles because of his horrible childhood and because his father, a muggle, abandoned his mother and him before he was born. She died and he ended up in an orphanage. The Dark Lord wanted to wipe out completely the muggles and muggleborns in the belief that they were inferior. We, however, fought for equality."

"Sounds like a petty excuse to take revenge for his childhood."

"It was."

The Time Lord maneuvered until his little beauty was sitting on his lap and started to stroke with his fingers the long tresses of soft black hair.

"What happened to Riddle?" Harry tensed.

"He's dead. I... I had to k-kill him. In the final battle. He wouldn't stop. I offered him a last chance to repent. I really did! But he… he wouldn't…"

"Shhh, it's okay, little one. I understand. He wouldn't have stopped. You did what you had to protect your people."

"I know, but it doesn't make me feel better."

"I know it doesn't."

They remained in silence a few minutes more.

"Who was Crouch?"

"What?"

"Crouch. Andromeda confused me with him."

"Remember the day that you came to the park and I… I fell asleep on you?"

"You were crying." Said softly the man. "You told me that someone that looked a lot like had tried to kill you and that you had seen him die. It was him, wasn't he?"

"Yes. That was Barty Couch Jr. He was impersonating a professor in my school."

The Doctor nodded.

"The two-way books."

"They are called that way in honour of the two-way mirror my godfather once gifted me. The two-way mirror allowed the persons in possession of the objects to communicate safely. They just need to say the name of the other person and it would work like a video call. The two-way books allow you to do the same. However, you can just write in them the message instead of seeing the person if you don't won't to bother with a large conversation. These books aren't just two books, but a whole net of interconnected books."

"Impressive."

Harry grinned, the previously dark mood completely forgotten.

"And werewolves? You promised to let me read your school book."

"Oh, yeah. I nearly forgot. But first… tell me about how you met Jack. And that thing about saving the universe." begged Harry.

And how could he deny anything to his little emerald?