Chapter 1: The Representative

"Mr Potter? The Representative for Cosmic Responsibility will see you now."

Harry got up from the bench, glad to leave the waiting room which had a massive throne made of swords of all things in the middle for some reason, and made towards the doors the bowing Unspeakable was gesturing towards. A vaguely familiar voice beckoned him inside and, eager to have the latest spot of unusualness in his life over and done with, he pushed open the doors and walked in.

He whistled appreciatively.

A dark, wooden floor stretched out in front of him (Hermione would know the type of wood, and probably also how old it is…) with pale stone walls rising on all sides of the roughly square-ish room. They were lined—

Click-click.

—with what seemed to be storage cabinets, the one in the far corner painted a rather horrible shade of blue. The lighting appeared to be based on the Great—

Click-click.

—Hall's floating lights, and what was that sound? He finally looked towards the centre of the room, eyes passing over the impressive mahogany desk to the red-haired witch sitting behind it, head lazily resting on a hand, holding a muggle click pen.

Click-click-click—

"Ah. I see you have finally decided to grace me with your gaze and hopefully, your attention," the witch muttered, placing the pen down, as Harry realised just who she was and why her voice had sounded familiar.

"Daphne? You're the…Representative for Cosmic Responsibility?"

"Correct, Mr Potter," said Daphne, the slightest hint of a smirk twitching at the corner of her mouth. "Are you quite done admiring the room? I have been trying to get your attention for the last minute."

The room was rather tastefully decorated, even to his somewhat undiscerning eye. But well, for old times sake...

"Miss Greengrass, the sight of this room evokes a visceral feeling of disgust within me. I hope you weren't the one behind these...decorations."

The smirk disappeared off her face as if it had never been there.

"Anyway," Harry continued, ignoring the frost forming on the doors that had closed behind him. "Where's the Representative?" He frowned at her when she made no move to call anyone. "It...isn't you, right? You were having me on, yeah? I thought you were going to go to St—"

"...you sound incredulous."

"No, I mean—"

"What do you mean, Harry Potter?", Daphne said, steepling her fingers in a manner reminiscent of Dumbledore, which looked rather amusing juxtaposed against the black biker jacket she was wearing. "Is it because I'm a girl? Is it because I was a slimy Slytherin? Well, ha! because snakes aren't slimy in—"

"No! Honestly, Daphne, you of all people should know better than to expect I would think all that. I — I just expected someone with more...gravitas, considering how the letter to me was worded."

"Oh, so I lack—"

"You're my age, Daph. And more importantly, you have a family pack bucket of Ice Cream on your desk. And Baskin-Robbins? How do you even know what that is?"

She gasped and then narrowed her eyes, face colouring. "Don't you dare question my authority on Ice Cream!"

Harry held up his hands. "Oh, I know better than to do that. Well, it's just...I'm surprised to see you again after so long, you know? You just popped off the grid after the Battle and I haven't heard—"

A sudden loud ringing from the corner interrupted Daphne just as she pulled out a brick from somewhere behind her desk ("Does she just randomly keep a brick there? Was she planning on throwing it?" Harry thought bemusedly). The two looked over at the corner, and Harry started.

What he had assumed to be a tastelessly painted blue cupboard was, in fact, a blue phone box. Indoors. In a magical area. In the centre of the Department of Myst — actually no, that last one probably explained it, and more.

"Huh," reacted Harry, pushing up his glasses for a better look. The lettering on the box said 'POLICE BOX'.

"I...better get that," and with that, Daphne shot off and went into the blue box, grabbing the Ice Cream bucket — tub, more like — on her way.

"Luna would love all this," Harry mused as he looked around idly. Wait, did that beanbag in front of her desk have tentacles—?

"Right!"

Harry jumped where he was standing as Daphne burst out of the phone box. "It would seem we got started on the wrong foot. Shall we take this again from the beginning?" she asked, seating herself behind her desk once again.

"Who was that? Was that Cosmic Responsibility? Who even is Cosmic Responsibility? Because it's a really dumb name. And what is that...box?" Harry demanded. Daphne glanced at him in exasperation. "And...did you just leave your Ice Cream in...whatever that is?"

"...yes."

"..."

"...out of an abundance of caution."

"..."

"...you were eying it! I can't just let anyone raid my Ice Cream!"

Harry stared at her.

She stared back, expectantly.

And, after a measly one minute, Harry gave up. "Dang it. I swear I can stare for longer than that...damn sweat. Gets into the eyes. I hate sweat."

Daphne tried to hide her smile behind one of the loose sheets on her desk.

"Fine. Keep your precious Ice Cream. And I'm hardly just anyone..." he muttered, looking anywhere but the redhead who was now giggling at his expense. It was a fine giggle, as far as giggles went. Not that Harry cared about any of that. "Well, if you're quite done…"

Daphne rolled her eyes but stopped laughing. "Fine. I assume you've read through the letter I sent?"

"Yup," he said, popping the 'p'.

"And you did not discuss the contents of said letter with Granger or anyone else with more than two brain cells to rub together, just as instructed? It's common knowledge you go to her with anything involving words longer than five letters…"

"I kept everything to myself, and I do take offence at that, Greengrass."

"Yeah well, cry me a river, Potter."

Harry lifted an eyebrow disbelievingly, "Justin Timberlake?"

"...I swear if this gets to my sister and her boyfriend—"

"Relax," Harry laughed. "Why don't we get on with the important stuff?"

"Right," Daphne exhaled slowly, as she pressed her hands, palm down, against the desktop. "Right. I just have some...paperwork to do so just hold on for a few moments, yeah?"

And with that, she began rifling through the pile of binders on the table. Harry took the opportunity to take a closer look at the rather messy desktop and—

There was a ziplock with highly suspicious crushed green leafy material beside the lava lamp ("Why would a witch even have that?").

"Ah, Daphne…?"

Daphne looked up and tracked his gaze. "Oh. That. Tracey sent those in yesterday… you remember her, right? Short brunette with a mushroom cut, band T-shirts? Yup. Anyway. Some sort of joke relating to my name, I reckon." She shrugged.

"Do you know what…"

Daphne gave him an odd look. "Leaves, Potter. They're crushed leaves, maybe mint. Because. You know. They're green, and from the same Kingdom as grasses, and my name happens to—"

"Alright, alright," Harry cut her off, raising his hands and plopping down onto the tentacled beanbag as Daphne shrugged and went back to moving paper up and down the stack in what was some ritualised, predetermined manner.

"Who on earth thought having an octopus-shaped bean bag was a good idea?" he groused, resolving to talk to Tracey Davis about sending certain substances to unsuspecting purebloods.

After an agonising ten minutes which he spent looking at nothing in particular and listening to paper making paper sounds, Daphne exhaled loudly. She extracted a single sheet from the pile of paper and whisked the rest of the stacks of paper and files off her desk and into a drawer with a flick of a hand. Harry raised his eyebrows at the display of wandless non-verbal magic, but she continued as if nothing had happened, and took out a pair of gold-semi-rimmed glasses from inside her robes.

"Had to meet my paper-shuffling quota for the day, Potter," she said by way of explanation, putting on the glasses — Harry blanked out for a very short second — and reading from the sheet in front of her. "Anyhow, let's brief you. You are Harry James Potter, correct? ("That's what everyone says, so I gather there is some truth in that statement.") You destroyed the British Dark Lord Voldemort on the second of May, 1998, correct? ("Well, he hasn't popped up again yet so I'm optimistically inclined to say yes.") You are fond of the dessert dish called treacle tart, correct?"

"Ye — what?"

Daphne waved him off. "That one was for my purposes, don't worry about it."

"Right."

Daphne regarded him for a moment, pursing her lips ("Her eyes, Potter, look at her with the one eye of swirling cobalt and the other of gold-flecked green — argh."). "Which flavour of Ice Cream do you think will go with Treacle Tart?"

"I...can't say I've had the particular combination before, but I imagine something safe like vanilla, or butterscotch might work well."

Daphne lit up at that, though Harry couldn't possibly fathom why.

She cleared her throat lightly before starting up again. "Anyhow. You are familiar with the Chosen One Phenomenon, then? The cosmic trick of sorts due to which everything unusual that can happen to you, does happen to you? A large group of people, usually a city, country, or species, look to you to single-handedly solve the Big Bad Problem that is plaguing them? Fate constantly colludes against you, your luck works on an informal basis, and you. Just. Can't. Catch. A. Break?"

Harry took a moment to adjust one of the beanbag-tentacles that had somehow ended up over his leg as he processed Daphne's little speech.

"...Daphne, you do know me, right? Your occasional night time companion on the Astronomy Tower? Fellow Honeydukes raider? Not to mention the Saviour—

"Yes, yes," said Daphne, looking over the top of her glasses. "This is all just SOP. I need to regurgitate the whole definition spiel on every occasion. I've put you down as a "Yes" on the Chosen One criterion already. Now. Moving on. You want the quick version of what's going on, yes?"

"Hmm," hmmed Harry, leaning back into the beanbag, and stroking his chin. "Well, how—"

"You need a beard for that, Potter," she interrupted, blue-and-green eyes shining with mirth.

"—what."

"The chin stroke. Trying to channel your inner Dumbledore. You need a beard for that, savvy?"

"I—what, how—"

"You're transparent, Potter. So, the short version of what's what? With details once we get going? I'll take your stupefied silence to be assent, thank you very much, no time to waste."

She opened one of the many drawers set in her desk, and began to pull out what looked like...an easel? Lavender had had one set up in her studio during her house-warming party the month before which was the only reason Harry knew what it was.

Daphne appeared to be struggling to get the contraption out of the drawer opening which was about half the easel's width (magic makes some things ridiculously easy to explain away, thought Harry), so he reached over, trying to help her. Daphne batted his hand away as soon as it got close, glared at him momentarily before looking away, blushing.

"Er," Harry tried, drawing his hand back, "there should be a release trigger on the top so that it can auto-disassemble and you can take the thing out…"

"Right," said Daphne in a small voice, looking down at the easel and doing what he instructed. "Thanks. Needed that for the uh, presentation."

When it was set up and she had extracted a stack of presentation sheets from somewhere inside her desk, she turned to face Harry, whispering the newly-crafted laser-pointer charm.

"Let's begin with—"

"Do I need to take notes?" interrupted Harry, raising his hand.

"No need. Moving on—"

"Are you sure? I don't want to miss something…"

"Merlin, Potter," she snapped, placing her hands on her hips (Bad, Potter. Think good thoughts, Potter). "Fine, take notes if you must."

Harry looked at her expectantly. She bit her lip and looked away, and started rifling through the drawers. "Of course you wouldn't carry a notepad around…"

That had been an exhausting half-hour.

"So...this Mr Cosmic Responsibility, they're a bit like Thanos, yeah? Except, supposedly, a tad more benevolent and less prone to peddling mass extinction?"

Daphne paused. "For one, mass extinction hasn't made the top ten on their to-do list since the 60s, so we probably have nothing to fear on that front. Second…'thay-noss'?"

Deciding to bring up the worrying bit about extinction sometime later, Harry said, "Ah, one of the big-bads in Marvel…"

Daphne still looked blank.

"...purple grape?"

Daphne opened her mouth and then closed it, rubbing the bridge of her nose.

"...right, you're a pureblood," said Harry, feeling the tiniest bit smug. "It does feel good to not be the confused one this time, I have to say."

Daphne growled, and if looks could kill…

Deciding it was in his best interests to move on, Harry said quickly, "And they send out...agents, such as yourself, to track down individuals through, as you put it, Time and Space; individuals who have the Eyes of Fate on them? And this...is a literal Eye...seeing me, and not just some sort of metaphor?"

Daphne nodded, poking around in the pen-stand on her desk. "The Eye is pretty cool, really, once you get to know it. Likes to be called Big Brother for some unfathomable reason though…"

"I — alright. Okay. Uncle Vernon did keep ranting about surveillance or something...anyway. Coming back to the topic. I am...an individual of interest to uh Mr Eye—"

"The Eye. Or Mx Eye, if you'd prefer. The Eye of Fate doesn't bother himself with human constructs such as gender," interrupted Daphne, who had now overturned the pen-stand in her hunt for whatever she was looking for.

"Right. Well, this is all rather fantastical...though I'm not sure why anything surprises me anymore," Harry laughed, leaning back to try and look into the interior of the blue box. "Anyhow, I gather that I'm supposed to help you fix tears — or in other words, people messing with history or the future, in this dimension or the next — caused in spacetime because only a Fate's Chosen One can do that or something? And we'll be travelling using that...police box in the corner, yes? Looking forward to that—"

A sudden crinkle distracted him. He looked back towards the redheaded girl with the angular face to see her… tearing the wrapper off a Mars bar?

"Mars bar," she said by way of explanation, eyes wide and looking straight at him as she unwrapped the chocolate.

"I can see that. I — I didn't know magicals had muggle candy. Well, magicals apart from Dumbledore — may the phoenix guard his soul — of course."

Daphne shrugged, taking a bit out of the bar, wiping away a string of caramel. "I was running low on sugar."

She continued chewing on the chocolate, eyes flitting all across the room — anywhere but him. It was awkward to be eating when someone else was just sitting there…

"You have any more of that?" Harry tried.

Daphne's eyes shot over to him and she paused. "No, I have to restock someday, but..."

She slid out the rest of the Mars Bar out of its black wrapper, and broke off about half of the bar from the bottom, and, after a moment's hesitation, held it out to him over her desk. Harry accepted it and popped the entire thing into his mouth at once, causing Daphne to crack a smile.

The two spent the next few moments staring at each other while letting the martian goodness claim their taste buds before abruptly looking away — the fact they were staring into the other's eyes implied that the other was doing the same, vice-versa…

"Right," said Harry, drumming upon his knee. "So the standard operating procedure (SOP) is that we go in, investigate whether the rip or tear in spacetime was caused by accident or due to malicious intent, ensure that whatever happened does not happen again — which I will aid in by doing 'my thing' — and then we get the hell out of there. We're basically time police."

Daphne nodded, though she seemed a little—

"Daphne? Is...there something on my face?"

Daphne shot up in her seat as if she'd been zapped. "I — ah yes um no. Right. The standard procedure. You got that. Yes."

Harry stared at her. She laughed nervously. Harry shrugged, he'd been with weirder people before.

"Well, what exactly is this 'thing' that I'm supposed to do to fix stuff?"

"Ah, that," Daphne replied, seemingly having regained her composure. "You'll know when you see it, really. that component of the SOP is always in flux, though stabbing stabbable things with stabby things is one of the more common methods…"

Well, that matched up with his experiences at least, he thought, thinking of giant snakes and evil diaries.

"We're winging it, then? That's fine by me; I've extensive experience at winging stuff," said Harry.

"And what does the DoM have to do with all this? I presume they know about this operation of yours considering your office is in their department..."

"They turn a blind eye to our comings and goings," said Daphne, taking off her glasses and wiping them with the edge of her robes. "They provide us with a cover, if needed, and in return we drop them research leads and materials from time to time."

"So the wider ministry does not know of any of this?"

Daphne shook her head, putting the glasses back on. "The Minister gets a highly redacted annual report of our larger operations originating from this outpost. Also, we're obligated to bring the Wizengamot's Eldritch Committee into talks if anything too serious threatens this particular dimension and time as per the Pandora Pact, but apart from that, no. We're largely clandestine."

"I see. I'm guessing I'll have to sign some sort of non-disclosure-agreement…?"

"Post-mission, yes."

"Fair enough. Though — if you don't mind me asking — how did you get involved in all this? Did you also have ah, Big Brother watching you, or…"

"Ah, no. They… they found me because I wanted them to, I suppose. They had something I needed..." said Daphne, a hint of sadness tainting her voice.

"You don't need to talk about it if you don't want to."

"It's not...yeah," Daphne said, shaking her head slightly. "It's not all bad, of course."

Harry exhaled slowly. "Yeah well. The work environment is nice, at least."

Daphne laughed and spun around in the obscenely sparkling chair. "Yeah, it really, right? You should see the look on Draco's face whenever Astoria drags him along to this office when she visits me during work hours — they just think I work for the surface Department of Mysteries, of course, not for an ancient eldritch being."

Harry laughed. "I'd love to see that. Talking of — how's your family doing these days?"

"Well, Tori has that apparel line she partnered with Cho Chang with for down in Falmouth — they got the Falcons' jersey contract last month, she was pretty ecstatic about that," said Daphne, smiling. "And Draco...well they're getting married in a matter of months, so he's practically family at this point, as horrible as that prospect sounds. Anyway, he's been pretty busy wrapping the Temporary Habilitation Programme since most of the locations involved in it are former Malfoy or Crabbe properties, so it's not like I have to see him every day."

Harry nodded — he was the one who had helped formulate the programme for sheltering those who had nowhere to go in the immediate aftermath of the war, using war reparations paid by Death Eater families.

"And dad's currently hanging out in a Russian portkey waiting room, appealing for asylum, though I imagine you'd know about that, and mum ran off to Greece soon after to be with the family or something," said Daphne, shrugging as Harry arched an eyebrow. "I don't care as much as you might think, really. They left Tori and me to our own devices for the most part and it's not like I can't visit them still."

She glanced at him as he sat up from the beanbag to stretch his legs. "I would ask about you, but considering every single tabloid has been on your arse for the past two years…"

Harry groaned. "Don't even get me started on those vultures."

"Yeah…but well, are you still with Gi — nah, it's nothing. Just lost my train of thought."

And she was staring at his face again.

"Daphne, why are you—"

The next thing he knew was that she was on her feet, and her right hand, with the index finger extended, reached out to his face and brushed along the edge of his lips.

Harry stood there numbly, with her not a foot away, bringing up his own index finger as he touched the spot she had just a second ago. Her face was red as she held her hand in between them.

"Chocolate," she whispered, before clearing her throat. "There was...a chocolate stain on your lip. From the Mars Bar."

Her beautiful, mismatched eyes were shining right in front of him as she wet her lips and—

There had been something between Daphne and me back then in Hogwarts, hadn't there? If not for our houses...

"Daphne I...about all the—"

The box in the corner 'whooshed' suddenly and Daphne dropped her hand, looking towards the blue police box.

"I kind of forgot to perform a standard sweep and check of the area for any suspect residue signatures, magical or otherwise, so...I need to go do that."

"Right, of course," said Harry, running his hand through his hair and looking down at the floor. "And uh...yeah, no, you do that."

He felt Daphne's fingers on his chin, lifting his head upwards. "Later?"

"Yeah. Later." At that, Daphne smiled slightly, before morphing that into a mischievous smirk as she moved her hand to his shoulder and pushed him backwards onto the beanbag.

"Hey!" cried Harry in mock-indignation and Daphne laughed at his failed attempt to cover up the smile on his face.

"Now, don't squirm or shift around too much," she said as she strode across the room to the blue police box, unlocking a panel on its outside. "Handsy can sense nervousness."

"...Handsy?" he questioned, moving about on the bean bag trying to get comfortable.

"The beanbag, Potter. Do try to keep up."

"You named a beanbag."

Daphne paused, holding some sort of...weird pen that she had taken out from the compartment under the panel. "Well, yes. It's sentient, isn't it?"

Harry's left eye twitched.

"Or at least," she continued, now holding the pen-like metal detector lookalike and waving it around, "It likes to hug people and it… eat-sorbs — yes, I made that word up, you'll know what I'm talking about if you see it — Ice Cream whenever I leave some near it, so it fits the basic requirements for sentience as far as I'm concerned."

Harry's eye gave up on twitching as his morning caffeine kick ran out prematurely, and his brain belatedly realised just why Handsy the Octopus Bean Bag was named so. He had never before realised just how little he liked bean bag tentacles tickling his ear. He flicked it away with a grimace.

Apparently satisfied with whatever the pen-thing told her, she pocketed it, and then paused, looking between Harry and the Blue Box (it felt like it needed capitalisation).

Harry huffed in annoyance as he removed one of Handsy the Creepy Beanbag's creeping tentacles from around his midsection, and turned around while sitting, fixing it with one of his effective Blazing Avada Kedavra And Not Merely Emerald Green™ glares. The bean bag whimpered and beat a tactical retreat.

Daphne nodded, reached into the Box, and came out with two Baskin Robbins tub — how many did she have stashed in there? — and three ceramic cups. He of course knew she liked Ice Cream from all their time together in school, but...wow.

"Er, Daphne?" he questioned, and Daphne looked up from where she was scooping out some chocolatey-looking flavour using an Ice-Cream scooper she had procured from within her jacket.

"I thought you wanted the Ice Cream since you were staring at it earlier when it was on my desk," said Daphne, biting her lip. "Thought I might as well give you some as a sign of goodwill; never a good idea to go on an excursion with discord between the crew members and all that."

Harry looked at her. "No, alright, I'd love some Ice Cream if you can spare me some. I know you have good taste."

She prepared two cups of the Ice Cream, offering one to Harry after sticking a pink plastic spoon in it. Harry had a spoonful.

It. Was. Delicious.

"Mmmm," said Harry, voicing his approval.

"Mmmm?" said Daphne, smiling as she attacked her own bowl.

"Mmhmm," agreed Harry, shovelling the chocolatey goodness into his mouth.

"This was one of the flavours we made together, you know," said Daphne after a few moments when the two had finished their bowls and she was scooping out fresh servings. "Well, I made a few changes, such as the slight hint of caramel, but yes."

"I had a hand in this, of course it tastes absolutely heavenly," said Harry, leaning back into the bean bag, swatting away a stray tentacle.

Daphne mock-glared at him. "Anyway I'd made this for Tori's birthday yesterday, and there was some leftover so I thought I might as well bring some to work in one of the Baskin tubs I like to collect…"

"Good thing you did," said Harry, accepting his second serving. "And — hey, who's that third cup for? And which Ice Cream is that other tub?"

"Handsy, Harry. It likes Ice Cream, remember? Seemed a little rude to leave him out of the festivities. And it's Bubblegum flavoured, he usually likes a different flavour most days."

She looked up at him. "You might want to get up from Hadsy before I feed him, Harry."

He got up, groaning, Ice Cream in hand, as Daphne placed the third cup on the floor a little away from the beanbag, and then whistled.

Nothing happened for a few moments. Then one tentacle shot out, speared the cup through the middle, Ice-Cream and all, and pulled it straight through the air. The cup plopped against the purple fabric of the bean bag one moment, and the next — it got… sucked, no, deconstructed at the atomic level into the bean bag.

Daphne hummed in contentment. "Boy, that was fast. He must really like that flavour."

Harry put his cup of Ice Cream down on the desk and hopped three feet away from it.

"Daphne?"

She 'mm-ed' questioningly, still smiling at… it, which now seemed to be rumbling.

"I'm not entirely sure that's normal behaviour for either bean bags or octopi," Harry forced out, weakly.

"Oh, I agree. Imagine liking Bubblegum Ice Cream…"

Handsy belched and suddenly became inanimate. Daphne sighed.

"I keep trying to train him to discard the non-organic waste like that cup instead of digesting it...oh well," Daphne said, shaking her head. "Well, we better — oh! Did you not like your Superfudge Caramello Belgian Ice Cream?"

"Oh, uh, no haha. It was the, erm." Harry waved his hands in the vague direction of the beanbag.

Daphne laughed as she whirled about, red hair whipping into his chest — she had always been particularly short. "He wouldn't hurt you, silly. Because—" she stopped abruptly as her face turned pink.

"Um," Harry said intelligently as she grabbed the pen — no, it was definitely some sort of screwdriver, now that he could see it from a lesser distance — resolutely facing away from him, though he could still see the coloured tips of her ears.

"Hmm? Oh yes. The paradox. Should really get on that case, can't have your CS factor sliding down, haha, can we? I mean, last time that happened in my sector, the big guy put me on probation, and oh boy, I have to say that wreaked havoc on my filings—"

"Greengrass. Daphne. Relax. Take a chill pill. Anything else I should know about this thing I need to do?" Harry prompted.

"I...don't think so? We travel back in time—this time it's in the current dimension, which spares us a whole other headache of figuring out new laws of physics in a new dimension, and Merlin that stuff is an absolute bit—ahem. So we travel, we fix whatever screams 'Wrong!', and we clear out. Well, I'm sure I'll remember if there's anything else too important I've forgotten to tell you about," she said. Harry hid a smirk—it was good to see she could still be as spirited as he remembered her being.

"Oh and by the way, what is that thing you've been waving around? I thought it was a pen but it obviously isn't, and it's not wood so wands are out of the question…"

"Oh, this? Right. It's a thingy. Like, you know." Daphne said in a rush, giggling, oddly enough.

"A thingy."

"No! Not that kind of thingy!"

"... I should like to reiterate my general state of confusion at this juncture."

"Ugh. Boys. It's a… wand. No! Not a wand. Um. Screwdriver. Works like a wand though. The normal kind of wand, that is. Not any other euphemism. Not that you would be thinking of any such euphemism. Haha."

Daphne was now gripping the screwdriver/wand with whitening knuckles and looking at the blue box like how a dying man might look at salvation.

"A wand-driver, then." Harry supplied helpfully, reasoning that stopping her rambling would be everyone's interest.

"Yes!" Daphne shouted, and ran into the blue box before he could get another syllable out.

Harry felt like he was missing an important part of the puzzle. Is that some sort of James futuristic Bond-esque gadget? Gods, is she MI6 or something?

Harry scanned the room one last time, expecting Pierce Brosnan to jump out of the shadows shouting "Smile! You're on Candid Camera!"

Daphne poked the top of her head out of the box's doorway, blue eyes peering at him. "How's your Victorian knowledge, by the way? That's the era we're headed to soooo…."

Scratch that — he didn't know what the puzzle was.

AN1: This is essentially an HP fanfic with elements from Doctor Who so I'll be playing fast and loose with Doctor Who canon, laws, history and pretty much everything. You don't need to have knowledge of the Whoverse to read further. :)

AN2: Avid fanfiction readers will have noticed inspiration from an absolutely brilliant haphne oneshot by Andrius — Ice Cream. I recommend it as a must read if you haven't had the chance to read it already.

AN3: In this AU, the Hogwarts Years themselves played out differently to canon (and, as a result, so did the character arcs) — I'll be posting vignettes from Harry and Daphne's Hogwarts days at some point, so keep an eye out for that (it'll be a separate fic)!

AN4: I can't say for sure when I'll be uploading the next chapter — it's written and all, but I'd like to post years one and two of the above mentioned vignette collection before the second chapter of this fic...let's see how things work out. In any case, expect chapter two sometime next month!

AN5: Future chapters will not have so many ANs :)

AN6: Yes, Daphne's a redhead here.

Many thanks to Webstriker for his invaluable help while editing this story! I invite you to join the Harry/Daphne discord server (link in my profile) — lots of great people and writers, and plenty of good discussion!