A/N: I'm sorry I'm so late! I've been out of town the whole weekend and my plane got delayed a few hours! And then I had to unpack and eat dinner and... etc. Sorry!

Chapter 25

That evening during dinner, the Doctor excused himself early, telling Jack he would see him in the morning. Jack watched him leave the Great Hall with concern. As far as he could tell, there was no reason for the Doctor to retreat to Gryffindor Tower, especially since they had already agreed to meet up after dinner to work on re-aging and why the Doctor kept having dizzy spells (and, Jack had hoped, to work on that blasted history paper). Had Jack seen the Doctor after he left the Great Hall, he would have been even further alarmed.

Once out of the sight of prying eyes, the Doctor sagged heavily against the wall. His breath became rapid and shallow, and his hands started trembling uncontrollably. For the past two and a half hours, he had been keeping himself together, but his experience with the boggart had taken quite a lot out of him. Beyond being a brutal reminder of perhaps his greatest failure, the psychological trauma had shattered the mental barriers he had hastily reconstructed on the train (he had known they were sub-par, but blast it all, he thought they would last until the weekend! What were the chances of two encounters with creatures that fed on the mind?) Disjointed and frequently disturbing imagery kept assaulting his mind. It had only been through an immense effort of will that he had managed to appear normal.

The Doctor, using the wall for support, finally reached the Portrait of the Fat Lady. He staggered his way into the dormitory and crawled onto his bed. Positioning himself so that his back was right up against the headboard, he took a deep breath and plunged himself into the hell that was currently his mind.

Doctor! Doctor! Exterminate! Adric's still on the ship! Travel faster than light by opening a quantum tunnel with an FTL factor of 36.7 recurring. Doctor! I am the Master! Theta Sigma! Doctor! Rose Tyler, I… no, no, NO! Run! I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Grandfather! We are not amused. Doctor! Delete, delete, delete! Doctor! And the traitor survived? 3.1415926535897932384 Now die, Doctor! I don't want to forget! It stopped being fun, Doctor. I'm the Doctor, and I fix things! BANG! He will knock four times. Doctor! Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. You can spend the rest of your life with me, but I can't spend the rest of mine with you. Oh, she was blond. Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow. Doctor! First things first, but not necessarily in that order. Doctor! Run! Doctor! Doctor! DOCTOR!

For a brief moment, memories, intermingled with the whole knowledge of time and space, overwhelmed him.

Where was he?

When was he?

Nothing was making sense. Simultaneously, he was bidding Susan a final farewell, fencing the Master, searching for the key to time, and fighting a witch with Shakespeare. He was at Arcadia, he was playing cricket, he was running from a child wearing a gas mask…

Jack's face, cocky, trusting, and comforting all at once, swam into view. Right. He was at Hogwarts with Jack. Holding tight to this, he plunged once more into the breach. He started shoving knowledge and memories around, only roughly sorting them. There would be time to hammer out the details later. One memory in particular, though, refused to be moved…

Time Lord Victorious! Ha!

Time Lord Victorious is wrong!

BANG!

Nope! The Doctor slammed a heavy mental door on the memory. Then he locked the door and, for good measure, started piling other memories around the door to create a barricade. That done, he continued organizing his mind.

Finally, all the memories were properly stored, and he started fixing the mental blocks around the knowledge of time and space that he could not handle at this 'age'. He was just 'putting away' his understanding of how to cross one's own timeline, when he came upon a memory he had missed while sorting them earlier.

Where? Where can you be now that you forget something like that? Spoilers…

Ah, yes. This one belonged… wait. What? Distracted by a memory he did not remember having, he let some of his willpower slip.

BANG! A brave, determined leader took her life to preserve history, to prevent the Doctor from destroying time.

"Gah!" The Doctor's eyes shot open. The room was dark. His classmates slept around him in their own beds, blissfully unaware of the Doctor's sins.

Trembling, the Doctor wiped his face with his hands and brushed his hair back. The barriers were still only mediocre; one solid mental hit and they would crumble away. He took a shaky breath and closed his eyes, intending to finish what he started.

BANG!

His eyes flashed open again and a small cry escaped his lips. One of the boys in the room groaned in his sleep. The Doctor took a few deep breaths. He could do this; he had to. He closed his eyes and turned his focus inward again.

Time Lord Victorious is wrong!

BANG!

This time, the Doctor actually yelped as he pulled away from his memory. "John?" asked a sleepy voice.

"Bad dream. Sorry. Go back to sleep." This was clearly not working. He could not finish defending his mind in this state. With a quiet sigh, he got off his bed. He grabbed a book that he had left on his nightstand and went into the common room.

It was around 4 am, which is why he was very surprised to see Hermione Granger sitting at a table, doing math homework. Quietly, he slipped into the chair next to her. Her attention was so consumed with her homework, it took her a few moments to notice him.

"You!"

"Me," confirmed the Doctor.

"What are you doing up?"

"Bad dreams," he half-lied. "And what of you? Have you been up all night?"

"Oh, no. I got a few hours of sleep, and then woke up to finish this." She gestured at her homework.

The Doctor peered over at it. "Trigonometry? Need any help?"

Hermione shot the Doctor a confused look before her expression cleared. "That's right, I heard you got a perfect score on the maths placement exam. You must be brilliant."

He shrugged. "I have my moments." And then sometimes, he was too clever. Time Lord Victorious! He shuddered slightly. "So how about that help?" he asked, diverting the conversation.

"I'm fine," insisted Hermione, "just a bit slow. Most of the other students in the class have had two or three years of arithromancy, so this work is mostly review for them. It's all new for me. I do understand it though!" she added defensively.

The Doctor raised a conciliatory hand. "I understand. I just thought I'd offer in thanks for your advice with Snape."

Hermione smiled. "You're welcome. It's amazing there's a Gryffindor on his good side." The Doctor hummed in agreement. "Anyway," she said, turning back to her homework, "I should finish this." The Doctor nodded and opened his book. The room fell into a comfortable silence, broken only by the scritch of a quill or the turning of a page.

A/N: Yay Hermione! Thanks for favoriting/reviewing/following!