Yet another chapter of this. Wow. I have a lot of inspiration for this, it seems. At least for now. It's the shortest chapter yet.

Moping Around While Time Traveling

"Doctor?"

He looked up from the console to see Harriet sitting on the jump seat, a small pile of books next to her. They were all about time in one form or the other. Somehow he could guess where this conversation would be going.

"I think I've been in a self-fulfilling paradox"

Aaaand nope. He had no idea where this conversation was going. He somehow found it as fascinating and fun as he found it annoying. Harry just refused to let things go in their normal curve.

Someone who wanted to know more about time travel? Almost a ritual. Someone who had already experienced time travel before meeting him? Happened rarely. But it happened. A time travel including paradox in another universe he had been pretty sure didn't have such a thing? And his friend being a part of it? Unheard of.

Well, first time for everything.

"Oh?", he said, interest peaked.

"Yeah. It was in my third year at Hogwarts. Remember my Godfather?"

Yes, of course he remembered her telling him about the notorious criminal that was named after a star. Who wasn't actually a criminal at all but was just framed as such. The one who didn't even get a trial and escaped an inescapable prison, then proceeding to scare the living daylights out of everyone because they thought he was going after Harry. But he only gave her the fastest broom in the markets as a present. She hadn't said anything more about him, except that he died in her fifth year.

Harry's life was strange.

"What about him?"

"Well, my friend Hermione had this Time Turner hourglass thing", she said and the Doctor marveled at the Wizarding World's naming sense, "She'd been using it to take classes that happened at the same time. Was told not to be seen by anyone, especially herself", he decided Wizarding World was also completely insane. The mess of temporal things that could've gone wrong every week if not every day…

Harriet continued her story.

"So when we found out my Godfather was going to get executed even though he was innocent we went three hours back in time to free a hippogriff that had mysteriously escaped earlier that day. Then there were the dementors that were attacking us. I realized I could cast a corporeal Patronus Charm because then I knew I had seen myself cast it. After that we rode Buckbeak, the hippogriff, to save my Godfather and then they rode away to freedom. Then the loop was over and we went back to the hospital wing we'd disappeared from earlier"

Okay, remember when he said Harry's life was strange? Switch that to utterly nuts. Time travel without a capsule at thirteen-years-old without knowing almost anything about rules of time travel, except don't be seen by yourself which is a pretty good rule. A rule that she actually broke… That all was on another scale of insanity by time travel standards. He could bend some rules 'cause he had experience and could tell those things as a Time Lord. But a thirteen-year-old Harry…

But yes. It sounded like a self-fulfilling paradox, wherever she'd gotten the term from.

"Yeah… It was a paradox", he said slowly, still somewhat in shock, "Do you have any idea how many things could've gone wrong?"

Her smile was amused.

"I do now. These theories are fascinating. And I know for sure that there are fixed points, according to your ramblings", she said, flipping a page, "As for this, it tells me that time isn't linear and can be rewritten. We could have accidentally done just that, changed circumstances just a bit and suddenly someone died that didn't. Or something. In some cases time can get unwritten too… Paradoxes are the places that are most dangerous to the continuity of the universe. So. Whoops"

Now the Doctor was amused too. She had done her reading. Probably discarding multiple ideas due to her experiences and his own ramblings.

"Well", he said as he straightened a few things up at the TARDIS console, "Any other strange experiences with time?"

She made a thoughtful noise, cocking her head.

"There was this thing where someone in a parallel future made it so Lambo's Ten-Year Bazooka shot Reborn, me, and the Vongola Tenth Generation… We had to stop Byakuran ten years in the future. A future that never happened now… Good thing too. My family's other selves had died sometime earlier in that timeline because of extreme radiation around the globe concentrated on their pacifiers"

The Doctor stared. Forget utterly nuts. Languages didn't have enough words to describe how insanely ridiculous her life was.

xXXx

It was one of Those Days.

Harry had woken up from another nightmare about the battle. The second gigantic sacrifice she had made, letting her Elements and herself go to their doom. She knew she would come out unscatched. No, not unscatched but with a deep wound going straight to her soul. One she wasn't sure would ever heal. She still wasn't, especially now, even though it had started closing since she'd been thrown here.

Her bonds were radiating comfort and assurances that they had wanted to be there. It didn't help as much as usual. She was drowning in guilt and toxic thoughts. She knew she shouldn't wallow in them like several months ago in her own universe… Harriet couldn't help it though. She had always been the leader in situations, though not by choice. Everyone looked to her for answers and she had to have them.

Decisions laid on her.

If things went badly it was her fault.

That's what she'd been taught from age one. It had only been in her thirties when she'd recognized that. Those beliefs had only been enforced by Hogwarts and the Wizarding World. All of its shifting views of her… Even Ron's loyalty had swayed once or twice. Maybe that's why Hermione had been her bestest friend, her favorite family member. The bright girl who had believed in her since she and Ron had saved her from a mountain troll.

Her feet trudged on the TARDIS' corridors, eyes unseeing and mind unfocused. She just walked. It was surprisingly like running away. This only moving forward because you'd forgotten how to stop. She wondered if the Doctor did it too…

She turned a corner and found herself face to face with the 'living room'. A space with comfortable couches, a TV, a futuristic hologram video player, and other interesting and comfy stuff. On the other side of the room she saw the Doctor, usually bright eyes steely and shadowed. It was eerily like looking in a mirror.

They stared at each other for a second before the Doctor turned sharply and walked away. Harry did the same a second later, wanting to be alone and not face anyone. Especially someone who had eyes like hers. Dark and shadowed by guilt, doubt, and never ending grief.

So she walked again in the corridors, barely noticing TARDIS' concerned and comforting song at the back of her mind. Her feet took her to the library. The library where the Doctor was staring at a bookshelf with those same eyes. She frowned and he turned to her, scowling when he saw her standing in the doorway. He closed his eyes and stalked away from the room.

It hurt a little to be rejected just like that. Even though she felt like she was living in a continuous state of self-blame. She scowled at his retreating back before turning and going in the opposite direction. Fine then. If he wanted to avoid her, so would she.

They found themselves staring at each other across a different corridor. Both scowled.

"Stop following me!", the Doctor ground out before continuing.

Harriet bristled at the implication, turning around to where she had come from and running through with a spark of anger in her mind. It wasn't her fault he kept going where she went! She stomped to the kitchen, maybe to find something to eat, but her heart wasn't in it as she looked through the cabinets and fridge. She picked out a packet of cookies before putting them back. She wasn't hungry.

A frustrated noise came from behind her and she whipped her head around to glare at the Doctor.

"Leave me be!", she snapped before hurrying past him and outright sprinting away from him.

"You're the one turning up where I go!", she heard him retort but she ignored it.

Twice more they ran into each other in another room or place before finding themselves slightly out of breath at a pool. Harriet hadn't known there was a pool inside the TARDIS. They were both scowling heavily. It was like children, the witch thought. They were both acting like children but didn't know how to stop.

"Stop it, Harriet! Just- go away!", he shouted in frustration, swiping a hand in front of him to empathize it.

Her temper flared and the Elder wand was suddenly in her left hand, "Aguamenti!"

The jet of water shot out of her wand and hit the Doctor's shoulder. He had managed to dodge a precise shot to the chest. Unfortunately for him the spell splashed all over his leather jacket anyway. Some of it was dripping off his face. His eyes flashed as he took out his sonic screwdriver, pointing it at some buttons.

Harry could have dodged. Really. But she trusted him too much and was too angry and guilt-ridden to do so.

That was her excuse and she was sticking to it.

The floor flipped her into the pool. And she let out a surprised squeak, wand snapping back into its holster as she hit the water.

A dripping wet Harriet emerged from the pool and shot her offender a glare. The Doctor answered in kind, though it had an underlying hint of amusement. She thought of what they'd been up to before and what had led to this situation. She couldn't help but see it too. They stared at each other, glares melting into painfully kept straight faces, before they burst out in laughter.

It was freeing. Funny. Laughter chased the monsters of the mind away like nothing else.

Then they looked at each other, seeing the darker glint gone, and turned to look at their wet clothes.

"That's a new one", the Doctor said, "Shot by a jet of water in my own TARDIS"

Harry hummed in agreement, "I've never been flipped to a pool by the floor of all things"

They stayed quiet for a moment before Harry gave a suspicious glance at the ceiling. The TARDIS hummed innocently. She didn't believe it for a minute.

"It was her, wasn't it? She didn't want us to be alone…"

The Doctor too looked up and frowned, "I just thought you two were ganging up on me. You tend to do that"

Harriet chuckled, "Nah. That's just for mealtimes and you tinkering too much with things that don't need fixing"

"They do!"

"Says who?"

"Says me!"

Both stopped at the familiar banter, staring at each other for a long while before Harry just cast a Drying Charm and stepped up to hug her last and newest family member. Again, he stiffened for a second before relaxing and hugging back. They stayed like that for a while.

"…How 'bout we get some tea and talk?", Harry suggested.

The Doctor clearly wasn't a fan of the plan. But he supposed he owed her that much. TARDIS, of course, approved. And so they moved to the kitchen and brewed two cups. Harry did most of the work. Then they sat down and nursed their drinks. Harry was the one to start once again.

"I… s'ppose it started with the Dursleys telling me that everything that went wrong was my fault", she began.

It started with her talking about more simple failures and then up to her telling the Doctor about everyone she had failed to save. Failed to protect even though they'd looked to her for protection. Her gaining family and losing them time and time again. The self-blame. The guilt that always followed when her decision met a bad end. How she still struggled to accept that some of it actually wasn't her fault at all. That many parties were to blame or there simply wasn't anything anyone could've done.

When she stopped she had cried a tear or two. But it had been freeing. There had only been two people she had talked about this. One was Hermione. Another was Lal. The ex-soldier had understood well what she felt she lost men.

And now the Doctor.

She trusted him with more than her life, it seemed. This was actually much more precious to her than her life. She could just come back if she died after all.

The Doctor listened. He understood. He understood intimately what Harry felt time and time again. He himself felt it every time something went wrong, when his plans didn't quite work out. When old companions and friends, his makeshift family, left him in the end or died because he wasn't good enough. Wasn't fast enough.

How he blamed himself for letting Harriet die once.

She deserved to know. So he told her. Of all the amazing people he had met and then lost. His granddaughter who he hadn't even checked upon, who was most likely dead. Of Gallifrey. He had never thought he'd ever tell anyone about Gallifrey. But here he was, telling her that he was the last of his people. That there was a Time War that lasted four hundred years. That everyone had lost.

He couldn't bring himself to tell her it was because of him. That he had pressed the button that destroyed everyone and everything. His own home planet. His own people. The Daleks.

Harry seemed to understand anyway. He knew she wouldn't, she couldn't. If she knew what kind of monster she had invited into her little family she'd leave. He knew that. So he kept it to himself, not willing to let her go yet. To let her go ever.

Selfish. He was selfish. But he wanted to keep this last spark of life with him as long as he could.

After that it was silent. Their half drunk teas had gone cold and only sat at the table. Both contemplated what they'd heard and what they'd revealed. It still felt bad, but it was lighter. The guilt lifted just a little. The feeling that they weren't alone was right there. A warm light in the darkness.

Harriet was ready to move. She smiled. A warm and gentle smile that sent a fuzzy feeling in the Doctor's very bones.

"Enough moping", she said to herself and to him equally, "We should watch a movie. Do you know any good ones?"

He grinned, a slightly freer grin than before he had shed light to his past, and stood up in one fluid movement.

"Do I know any good movies? Try every movie in human history! Have you ever seen Inception? Or Wall-E?", he knew he was exaggerating but it got the point across.

To his astonishment, Harry's face remained blank. No recognition whatsoever. She raised an amused eyebrow, lips twitching.

"From a parallel universe, remember?"

And thus the Doctor started introducing Harriet to the wonders of Pixar, Disney, and other film companies. Some in the future and some from other galaxies. She enjoyed hearing him pick science fiction apart and added her own two cents whenever magic stuff came along. Or superpowers in general.

All in all, it was a nice if slightly more boring and normal time in the TARDIS.

The doctor of practically everything, the witch from another reality, and the sentient time machine all together. Like it should be. Whoever came up with this insanity was clearly a little loopy themselves.

xXXx

Well. Hopefully you liked it. Thoughts? Ideas? Prompts?