Chapter 43
"I think you should come and sort this out, seems your source has contacted someone else. Shit's about to get complicated Harry."
That was the message left on his phone while he and Ioan had been checking out some odd temporal readings in central London. Which wasn't odd in themselves, but he'd also got some messages from the Ministry to do with 'time turner warping events'. Which was, he'd been told occasions when time turners functioned irregularly, indicating a potentially time or reality distorting event occurring. He'd added the last bit himself to build on the vague explanations he'd been given by middle management people within the Ministry who seemed determined not to give him a straight answer.
What had happened to cause these events he could barely fathom, even after many hours of searching. He'd found some ideas from what records there were that suggested it could have been the result of a major temporal event like Whittaker's experiments or possible more than one TARDIS arriving, or maybe a malfunctioning TARDIS. At the moment his and Ioan's best answer was 'we don't know'.
There were literally thousands of possibilities. The amount of people, species and whatever else that had, would have, did have time technology the list if he could make one would be too long to check. Plus the Ministry seemed to have been deliberately vague about where these 'events' had happened, some had said it was within London, others had given him reports about it happening in England and others just said 'oh you know…'.
No. No he did not know. Once more dealing with the Ministry he was flirting with killing off a few of them just to make a point. Down that path though, lay lots of wearing of black, minions and generally setting up a government that worked the way he wanted it to.
That seemed like too much work. He also wasn't a megalomaniac.
The investigation of Deffry Vale High School he'd given to Judith, she could handle any officious headmaster. Though Lucas Finch seemed to be a model headmaster. Since he'd taken over the curriculum he'd overhauled all the subjects impressing the school district coordinator. By all accounts it had been a fairly unremarkable school.
That was what the information Section D had provided him had said at least. It had been them that had contacted him. The information to even investigate had come via Mickey Smith. Although they'd been monitoring the school for some time until they'd been contacted by him.
He wasn't sure exactly how long ago Smith had contacted Section D about Deffry Vale, but long enough for them to compile a significant amount of information.
There was something curious; Finch had sacked several teachers and dinner staff when he'd taken over, replacing them with his own sourced staff. Somewhere from Europe had been the suggestion by those dismissed.
But it was his use of a 'special oil' that had got Section D on alert. That seemed to scream terrorist bio-agent threat to them. There was also the more than occasional student disappearances that increased when Finch arrived to consider.
-/
"So what sort of shit is going down Judith?" Harry asked as he sat down on a road-side bench with her. They were around a quarter of a mile down the road from the school.
"Just wait," she said pointing up the road.
Then he saw them, hard to mistake them. The Doctor in his long brown coat, Rose Tyler…dressed as a dinner lady and Mickey Smith.
"Smith doesn't stick around, he sees them off and then goes and hangs out in an internet café," Judith explained.
"This doesn't look like shit or fan situation," Harry pondered. "Though Mickey is being a bit reticent in his information sharing. The Doctor turning up and probably having been summoned by Smith is something he should have been sharing with Section D."
"Should have locked him up somewhere you think?" Judith mused.
"He did push the button that destroyed Downing Street, even if the former Prime Minister told him to," Harry commented.
"She wasn't even Prime Minister at the time," Judith commented. "Just convenient she survived a massacre and the rest were out of the city. He's still hanging out for her and him. Wonder which one he gets his jollies thinking about?" Judith asked with a smirk, Harry didn't justify her comment with a response.
Smith had hunched off away from the school, lest he look like some sort of sex pest or something.
"She's the sex pest, more of a prick tease really, keeping him on a leash pinning for her and making the puppy eyes at your friend," Judith commented, intruding into his internal monologue.
"So..." Harry turned to look at Judith. "Where's the shit storm?"
Judith smiled with a glad you asked expression. "There's a journalist arriving later today to do a story on the headmaster."
Harry's expression was one of 'so what'. Lucas Finch's improvements at the school had been moderately notable but it wasn't drawing a large amount of attention. Though if it were aliens they wouldn't want attention.
"She has a name" Judith continued, though she seemed to pause deliberately for dramatic effect. "Sarah Jane Smith."
Harry exhaled. "I see."
Judith looked at him ever so slightly at his lack of surprise. "You knew she'd be here." She watched him. "No."
"I knew they'd meet again," Harry paused. "I think Sarah and the Doctor, along with Rose Tyler and Mickey Smith."
"Potential sex pests that they are," Judith added.
"Can handle any aliens or whatever they are without us." Harry said standing up and offering his hand to Judith who ignored it with a sniff.
-/ - \\-
"Did you know Harry?" They were sitting in Sarah's lounge room.
"Records indicate Harry Potter's vehicle was present in the vicinity of Deffry Vale High School when you and the Doctor-master were present Mistress."
Harry wanted to kick the metal mutt.
He wondered if he could, now that the Doctor had repaired and given K9 a new coat of paint or metal or whatever it was he'd done to it. A good kicking might do that irritating thing some good.
The repairs hadn't improved its personality. It still made Harry want to take a blow torch to the irritating thing.
Sarah looked at him with an accusing look possibly seeing the look he was giving the annoying robot. "There were more things at play than your investigation Sarah," Harry said carefully.
"Your work with the government Harry?" Sarah asked in an accusatory tone. "I never was comfortable with all that rubbish."
"That's what the Brigadier says of UNIT now you know," Harry sipped his tea as he tried to shift the conversation. "Gone too far into the military not enough intelligence."
"He said that?" Sarah asked surprised.
"I may be paraphrasing," he admitted and he and the Alistair may have been sharing a whiskey or three.
"From my other sources. I've seen you going into Porton Down Harry," she said in a slight accusing tone.
Harry raised his tea cup. "Spying on them, bold Sarah." He took a small sip. "We all work to keep people safe."
"Not spying just watching. You don't know what goes on there Harry they-" Sarah started and Harry cut her off.
"I, as you've said have been in there Sarah," Harry paused and looked at Sarah in the eyes. "UNIT also does plenty of unsavoury things, it also did plenty of unpublicised things."
Sarah nodded and then shook her head. "I'm sorry Harry it's just, seeing the Doctor again, and his assistant. Rose Tyler." The name quirked a smile from her.
"And Mickey Smith," Harry began "I take it from the lack of coms. traffic from him that he's gone off with the Doctor and Tyler?"
Sarah nodded. "Finally decided to go off with the Doctor."
"Not just go with Rose you think?" Harry asked.
"Maybe, but the temptation to go off with the Doctor is a strong one Harry," she said.
"Were you tempted?" Harry asked after a moment.
"Have you been Harry?" she countered his question. "How many times has the Doctor visited you and you've never…" She trailed off.
Harry thought. "The Doctor's visited, a lot, you know that. I've been in the TARDIS a few times," he paused and then added. "in emergencies. Others have offered," he said carefully and then looked at Sarah. "I've time travelled Sarah, without the Doctor, I've done it. Faced the past. I needed his help getting back. But I did it on my own. The Doctor's my friend, I've known him most of my life. I don't think I could travel, not like you and the…" he trailed off.
Sarah interjected. "Like the others?" She almost smiled.
"No. I think we'd get in each other's way," Harry chuckled lightly.
"As long as he doesn't travel alone. I think," she paused. "I think he needs to travel with someone."
"Maybe you're right. I knew someone else, another Time Lord, he travelled alone."
"Who?" Sarah leaned forward slightly, waiting for a reply.
"I don't think travelling alone was his downfall, but…" Harry shook his head. "The last time I met him he was changed, completely, more than regeneration something…worse. Still traces of the person I knew but it wasn't him," Harry said as he finished his tea and found it had gone cold.
-/ - \\-
"Let's see if Mr Potter's additions to the room will allow us to survive the next 'shift'." Pearce said.
They had in fact managed to reduce the amount of 'ghosts' that appeared by changing locations, the further up they'd gone there were less appearances of the 'ghosts' which had started appearing a month ago around the world.
"Power on," Harry said from a position at the wall where Ioan was standing. Judith was at street level monitoring their energy scanners there.
In the room with them were representatives from various sections of MI5 and MI6.
Ioan and himself had in fact already sat out a 'ghost shift' as the media had begun to call it and the Post Office Tower seemed to have very few 'ghosts' present during the 'shifts'.
It was a pity hardly any of the tech that he'd left here in the 70s had remained, cleared out by UNIT he assumed when he'd departed as their Esoteric Advisor during his almost year long stint in the 1970s.
It had made sense as a meeting location not just from his past association but it had by far fewer ghosts than any of the suggestions made by people from 5 or 6, and it had the requisite plugs, ports and power to try and combat the ghosts, apparitions or whatever they were.
The hum slowly built and a smell of ozone permeated the room as the energy dampers engaged to full and began the process of slowly burning out, a problem Harry hadn't managed to fix.
"Shift in 4, 3, 2, 1," Ioan counted down.
The man from 6 pulled out a small set of binoculars to look down at the street outside as the 'ghosts' flared into existence and then looked around the room.
"Well, well, well, Mr Potter, it seems you have achieved something. Any chance of this working for any of our other buildings?"
"None whatsoever," Harry said nodding to Ioan who would continue to monitor the power levels while they had their meeting it was one of several he'd started having since this thing had started. He'd also had to have a similar meeting with the Ministry along with the head of the Aurors and Ron and Hermione present, there were more scheduled of which he was dreading.
"It's the Post Office Tower's unique design that allows us to shrug off most of the energy signals, the dampers and broad spectrum coherence on the energy waves," Harry said aware he needed to keep the technobabble to a minimum. He paused for a breath. "Along with the heavy duty power cables into this place and that it didn't have many of these 'ghosts' to start with."
"And we're no closer to finding where they're coming from?" Pearce asked.
"The government's of no help at the moment, why they got rid of Jones." Someone from another section of 5 shook their head.
"UNIT's being tight lipped, anything they've discovered they're 'unwilling to share at this time', Geneva's still pissed that we destroyed that spacecraft," said someone 6.
Aside from Pearce Harry didn't know any of these people's names aside from which agency or branch they were from.
It was a little annoying but then considering they were all from intelligence agencies or other sorts of things it was to be expected.
"What of Torchwood? They were the ones who destroyed that little problem for us. Could they assist with this one?" Pearce mused.
Harry wondered that himself. He'd put in a call to Jack Harkness but hadn't had it returned except for a brief email stating the ghosts were playing havoc with the rift. He didn't feel he needed to share this titbit of information with the rest of the group.
"They've been as tight lipped as UNIT. Worse that they consider themselves 'outside the government'," said a woman with a Scottish accent in an annoyed tone.
"I think we need to continue to take measures to move assets into place should this take a turn and everything goes pear shaped," Harry said after a brief silence.
"How pear shaped do you think these 'ghost shifts' will go Mr Potter?"
Asked someone from MI6.
"Very. How many events like this have resulted in good things happening for us?" Harry asked looking around the table. "The media's treating this as another quirky new thing," Harry's tone turned cynical. "'Look at these ghosts, all the new agers were right'."
There was a few minutes as the various security agencies discussed what Harry had proposed, or what he hadn't proposed. What he'd brought into a discussion involving various security services people. Just the people to have around if you were planning a coup.
"Potter is right. I will authorise extraordinary measures under the 1975 emergency powers acts," said someone who was from 5 and seemed to have a finger on the pulse of the government or was somewhere between the intelligence agencies and the government. Close to the Home Secretary, closer than others here. "I will make the Home Secretary understand we can't have an indecisive government at times like this."
Harry nodded. "If this does go global and go pear shaped it would be good to know other governments are prepared," he said looking to those from MI6. They didn't really nod, but they seemed to indicate that they might do something or might know something. It was impossibly hard to read the body language of most of the people in the room.
As far as he was aware there wasn't a similar organisation to LPI elsewhere in the world. The United Kingdom was fairly unique for the amount of alien attention it had attracted over the past 50+ years. Additionally how its magical community reacted to it. Although elsewhere in the world, from what Daphne and Hermione had said some magical governments were less of the 'you're a deviant if you think aliens exist' mindset, though some other smaller nations tended to follow the 'Avada Kedavra' first and do nothing later. Shrug their shoulders and hope the idea of aliens went away.
-/
"You know, your suggestion comes close to preparations to overthrow the government," Pearce said an amused tone in his voice. They were the last to leave. Mostly because Harry had the keys to the floor of the Post Office Tower and he had to help Ioan out with the equipment. Though there had been a discussion of leaving it set up, but it was already on the cusp of burning out.
He'd been promised some funds and extra help to kit out the tower for future meetings.
Now he just had to pull it all together and stop it nearly catching on fire all of the time.
"Is the government being at all effectual Mr Pearce? Would they notice if we attempted a revolution?" Ioan asked as they rode the lift down.
"A point," Pearce mused.
"I think if it all goes badly they won't care we prepared and if it doesn't, then they won't know," Harry surmised.
"A very simple way of looking at things Mr Potter."
"With things like this Mr Pearce it's already complicated with too many question marks. We were hoping for magic even if it was a global thing like this would it have been…" Harry trailed off and looked to Ioan.
"Problematic," he said. "It would have been an answer. If Harry's not got any ideas."
"Then it is problematic," Pearce mused as the lift reached the ground floor.
-/ - \\-
"I'm not asking you to work with the muggle military," Harry exclaimed.
"Good. Because we won't." Ron stood behind the faceless man, who had a face but Harry hadn't bothered to learn his name. If anything he was being more annoying than K9.
Except with this man he wouldn't have felt much guilt if he killed him. Sliced off his head and then Avada Kedavraed the body just to be sure right here and now.
Harry breathed in deeply and tried to curb the murderous thoughts that went through his mind.
"Ms Granger you and your team are certain that this phenomena is not of magical origin? We have been expanding our research over the past few years," Kingsley asked implying it may be of their doing. The question had already been asked by other senior members of the Ministry, but it seemed that she had to answer it again.
"Very certain Minister. I have been back through the research with the other teams and we've checked and triple checked everything. All teams were down for report writing and preliminary research when the 'ghost shifts' began. There is nothing from my area that could have caused this that I'm aware of," she said looking around the table pausing on Harry and looking to Ron.
Ron didn't have a chair, only people that were important enough to say something had chairs at this emergency meeting. Though Ron was supporting the head of the Aurors, from what he'd heard Ron had somehow managed to get to be third or fourth in command. How was a good question.
Maybe he'd murdered his way to the top position Harry mused to himself.
"I am merely telling you, you all that this appears to be larger than the muggles," Harry had been warned by Kingsley to under no circumstances say the word alien or to allude to anything like that word or even the concept of the word. While he and Kingsley had a sometimes frosty relationship, Harry could see that there were many different powers of the Ministry represented here.
Many of them didn't hide how much they loathed him being here. Even more than their dislike for Hermione.
Though unlike him, she was part of the Ministry, or a related branch and was doing wizardry things, with wizards and wands.
Harry'd walked in with a gun strapped to his thigh, and a not so magic bag filled with things that weren't magical at all. There were some in this room that hated him for that. Or maybe they just hated him in general.
"And," Harry continued as one of the old duffers seemed ready to speak again. "If this goes pear shaped-" That expression had become his go to term for whatever the ghosts were. Unfriendly was the general vibe he got off them. "Then this will affect everyone. I've been informed that the ghost shifts penetrate all wizarding structures."
"The further removed from muggle cities the less prevalent the shifts are Mr Potter," said a middle aged woman from the Department of Magical Transportation.
"That's what the muggles have found also," Harry said, it was also what he'd found, but he wanted to keep his discoveries and information as vague as possible. "But there are still significant ghost shifts in major population centres," Harry paused and mentally cursed himself. That last phrase was one that came from his military discussions. "Large cities and even large towns. Plenty of wizarding families live near muggle towns. If this does turn bad-" Harry was cut off, by Ron.
"Why do you think it is going to go badly Mr Potter?" Ron saying 'Mr Potter' sounded quite odd. Hermione was able to make the term of address her sound quite professional. Ron didn't quite manage it. "There are several cases of ghost rampages in the past where, once they have covered their former territory from coast to coast they disappear and return to their origins."
Ron's boss turned around in his chair and gave Ron and appreciative nod.
Harry didn't actually have a proper answer for that and was most grateful when Hermione came to his rescue.
"The last ghost rampage as it was known occurred following the transition from the Julian to Gregorian calendar when the 2nd of September through to the 14th of September were lost. Research suggests it was this loss that prompted the ghosts to rebel," she paused. "As Mr Weasley will know from the research and history of the rampage it was a violent movement through the country. These recent shifts are the opposite," Hermione paused. "Finally we have been in contact with other governments and wizarding institutions and can find no connection with these ghosts and those rampages of the past."
"Thank you Ms Granger. Most enlightening," Kingsley said and looked back to Harry. "What assistance are you requesting Mr Potter, should things go 'pear shaped' as you suggest?"
Harry breathed in, tasting the musty atmosphere of the room, it wasn't unpleasant, it reminded him of great old bookshops and ancient wood. "If things turn, I suspect it will turn badly. Things on such a global scale are rarely good." Harry looked around the table fixing everyone with a look, making sure they understand. "This doesn't seem to be the work of one person, or rather these ghosts aren't the projection of one person. If it happens, then we will have to confront each ghost," Harry paused. "I recommend lethal force."
This caused some noise around the table.
"You are suggesting the use of an unforgiveable?" Asked someone down the table.
"There are many spells that can be lethal without being unforgivable," Harry replied coolly and mused of half a dozen he could use at this very moment and then saw Hermione give him a look as if to say 'Stop it Harry' or that could have been just what he wanted to see.
-/
Harry dragged his hands through his hair. The meeting had ended with provisional support, if and only if there was a present and confirmable threat to wizarding lives, and then only if there were three or more wizards present would the wizarding authorities intervene.
"So much for the wizarding human spirit," Harry muttered to himself. Hermione had left with a brief look to him, but it seemed she had further information to discuss elsewhere.
Ron didn't have other information to give or didn't need to stand menacing over the proceedings wherever his boss had gone off to.
"You really think this is bad, like Voldemort bad Harry?" Ron asked as Harry packed away the papers that no one had looked at. Not that there was much to show. Maps of casualty projections done by the security services based on previous alien encounters.
There was some evidence of large amounts of power being used, not that would mean much to the assembled wizards.
He couldn't get any more detailed information than that from his portable scanners as the ghost shifts had an overwhelming affect on most of his scanners so he could only scan in the lead up and then the aftermath of the ghost shifts.
Whatever was using power to generate the shifts was probably, maybe coming from the UK, he'd ascertained that much, actually he hadn't. There was so much ghost shifting going on all he could say for certain was that major population centres had more ghosts than remote locations.
"That was what this meeting was about Ron," Harry answered, exasperated. "Something this global is very likely not good."
"You don't think it'll just go away Harry? Like a bad cold?" Ron asked with a smile.
Harry wished he could be that optimistic. There was no sarcastic optimism in Ron's voice or expression, or body language, Ron unlike the members of Britain's security services was easy to read.
"We can hope" Harry paused as he pushed open the doors and walked the few steps over to hit the button for the lift. "But we should also put on the body armour and expect danger, lest someone stab us in the chest when we're preoccupied."
"That's a very dark way to look at the world Harry, do you think it's that bad?" Ron paused. "And what's body armour, mate?" Ron asked, still trying a little too hard to be jovial. Or maybe it was just Harry's mood at the moment.
Harry was about to answer when the life doors opened. "I hardly think calling a ministry official 'mate' Weasley is professional," said a voice from within the lift.
Harry couldn't help but smirk slightly as the doors opened revealing him. "Hello Draco," Harry said with a slight smile.
"Potter," Draco nodded to him and stepped to the side to allow him into the lift.
Ron hadn't followed him in. "You coming Ron?" Harry asked as the doors started to close.
"Draco could you?" Harry nodded to the door controls. Malfoy just raised an eyebrow, although he did push the button to keep the doors open.
Ron was staring at him, now he'd become slightly unreadable, or maybe just constipated. "I have work to do," Ron's voice was tightly controlled. "Mr Potter I'll wait for our next meeting," he paused for more than a second. "Mr Malfoy."
"Good day Mr Weasley," Draco said all too friendly as he pushed the other button to close the doors.
"How odd," Harry mused as the lift shot upwards.
"Not for Weasley," Draco snorted.
"He seemed to be trying to be extra civil to you Draco," Harry said closing his eyes and leaning against the wall. "I'd trade civility for intelligence any day, not that there's much in this Ministry," he exhaled. "What're you doing here Draco?" Harry asked looking over at the other man.
Draco looked at him and seemed to briefly debate about whether or not to lie to him. "Finding out any information about these damn ghosts."
Harry nodded that had come up too in the meeting. Though like the muggles most wizards were happy to fob off the ghost shifts as a weird occurrence. "How about we go to lunch? I could do with a drink. I'll fill you in on what I know, maybe you've got some information that I don't know."
Draco seemed taken aback by his sudden offer, but then chuckled to himself. "My, my, Potter, you must have had a trying time with the Ministry if you are willing to luncheon with me."
"Draco, we have shared many things." Harry paused as the lift doors opened and they walked out. "There's only so many people I can have a moderately honest conversation with."
"Weasley isn't one of them," Draco observed, though there wasn't much malice in the observation.
"Not even remotely," Harry sighed. "Not for a while," Harry mused as he took in the entrance to the Ministry.
"You coming Potter?" Draco asked a short distance away.
"You know you could call me Harry Draco," Harry commented lightly.
"Then people might think we're on passable terms Potter," Draco said as walked to the floos.
Harry took a small handful of floo powder along with Draco. "We wouldn't want that would we Draco, hmm?"
-/ - \\-
Harry had been tempted to hire a helicopter to make his way between his house, London and Porton Down. Ultimately though he'd just decided to "upgrade" his Lotus and go the whole hog of the blues and twos in it. Like an undercover police car, though he tended to drive around with more armaments than a van of armed police.
It only helped when he had to wade through the traffic of the nation's capital.
For the security of Porton Down, there he was beginning to wish that he had an automatic gate opener for the place.
It was at least on his way to London, sort of.
"We should get you sorted with a more permanent pass Mr Potter."
"Professor, odd to see you out of the office," Harry said seeing Hawksburn outside of the facility she lorded over was a rare sight.
She raised an eyebrow. "We estimate another ghost shift is about to begin shortly."
Harry looked at his watch. "They're getting more frequent."
"Dangerous is what they are Mr Potter, it is why we're pushing ahead with your idea."
His idea had been more of Judith's idea, after his meeting at the Ministry and after his long lunch with Draco he'd met up with Ioan and Judith to debrief and come up with some disaster plans. These including loading up their 'secure parking facility' with all manner of weapons.
Said facility was the underground parking of the Post Office Tower merely due to the fact that he'd wrangled a set of permits to park there due to his continuing work with the security services there.
Their meeting had been in the now closed revolving restaurant, Judith had mentioned something about the history of the tower and its microwave dishes.
The tower had gone through plenty of uses not just its time as WOTAN central and what he'd used it for in the 70s, somewhere in between those two it had been used as part of Britain's TV relay network. There was also the use of the dishes and microwave horns in case of nuclear war, that was supposedly why it was round and why it wasn't on most maps until the 80s.
Why Judith had mentioned it he wasn't sure, maybe she'd been involved in British TV or maybe she'd been involved in the Cold War.
Musing on it Harry suspected it was very probably not that she had some interest in British TV and more likely she knew something about Britain's preparations for World War III.
"I see." Harry exhaled. The idea was yet again to use what was left of WOTAN and the TV microwave network and various other sub-systems that still existed that wouldn't blow out, overload or potentially explode when they hooked up 21st century equipment to the ageing 20th century architecture to try and find something that their own government refused to assist them in finding.
He'd theorised and provided the MOD and Porton Down with the scanning information he'd gathered from isolating the Post Office Tower from the ghosts. They'd also concluded that it was a combination of its unique shape and the technology inside that helped keep them out.
But by inverting the scanning ratios and backwards engineering some of the tech he'd used they could create a network implementable solution to track and locate the source of the ghost shifts.
"And the risks involved?" Harry mused. With the amount of power and the energies they were pushing through the network was vast and there were dangers.
"Acceptable risk Mr Potter," Professor Hawksburn replied.
"Yes, I thought they might be," Harry continued in a musing tone.
"You wouldn't have brought it to us," Hawksburn said watching him.
Harry tilted his head musing. "Maybe." He turned and looked at her. "Whoever or whatever is generating these ghost shifts will be using in excess of what we'll be using," he paused. "As we and neither the armed forces nor the security services have found any breaches in the power network it means someone must be operating a significant power source somewhere in Britain."
Hawksburn nodded. "That is a valid concern Mr Potter. You believe it's alien?"
"Either that or another nuclear generator in London," Harry paused. "Did UNIT grab that one?"
Hawksburn seemed to pause in thought. "Whittaker's time machine." She nodded. "UNIT I believe took charge. I'm not sure of the generator."
"Probably good to check before we start to blast exotic energy around Britain."
"We will begin with Greater London," Hawksburn stated.
"It's always where the aliens like to turn up isn't it?" Harry quirked a half smile. "Never a folly hidden on the moors. Always right in the centre of London," Harry shook his head.
"As I'm sure you're well aware Mr Potter, there are plenty of exotic Silverberg events in the highlands every day," she smiled.
Harry chuckled. "Indeed." Harry looked around. "I assume I am to set up a relay control post in the Post Office Tower?" He asked as a siren went off around the facility.
"Ghost shift," Hawksburn said; her voice filled with dread as figures around them materialised. "I assume you have attempted all manner of" she paused seemingly trying to think of an alternative word before saying "spells?"
Harry nodded withdrawing his wand aiming at one of the ghosts that was standing next to a wall and fired a body binding spell at it.
It passed straight through impacting harmlessly with the wall.
"Bugger all effect. Ioan, my colleague" he added. "and I tried a lot of different spells when they first turned up."
Someone wheeled up a trolley behind him. "Professor." He held out a clipboard.
"I hope Mr Potter you've got something larger than this," she said eyeing his sports car with its small-ish boot. "We have a lot of equipment for you."
Harry looked over at his car. "I've been working on that." Harry said mysteriously. Hawksburn paused expecting him to explain further but Harry remained silent.
While he was working with the MOD, Porton Down included and the security services he didn't have to share all of his secrets.
Nor did he have to work with them on any magical things, not that they were interested, not hugely. Their detection of Silverberg energy was enough for them it seemed.
-/ - \\-
A few days later found him in the Post Office Tower with Judith preparing to detect the location of the ghost shifts, along with dozens of other people around the greater London area at similar sites. Though none as big as the Post Office Tower.
Ioan he'd instructed to go into central London with a few of his associates that they'd worked with before on the rubbish pile and a few other minor incursions when LPI had needed a bit of extra magical muscle.
Just in case something bad happened.
"I've been feeling it too," Judith said in a worryingly calm tone lacking any mocking.
"The dread like something really bad is about to happen?" Harry asked looking up from the laptop sitting on the desk, it was connected to a spaghetti of cables that linked into the various systems inside the tower.
Despite his first assumption when he and Ioan had got here that UNIT or whomever else had removed all the tech he'd brought up here in the 70s he'd actually managed to find some of it on another floor of the Tower. None of it was really helpful to the current crisis, but he made a note of where it was. Though it didn't seem to be being used at the moment. The Tower was one of those government buildings that was more useful as a communications relay rather than putting people in it. Or maybe it was because it was so valuable that they couldn't trust anyone that didn't have amazingly high security clearance inside it.
Which meant only people who were spooks, or dealt with aliens could get inside it.
Though that suited him at the moment, he'd been considering a central London base of operations for LPI. Though the Post Office Tower was a little bit obvious for his tastes.
"You like grand Harry Potter, wouldn't you like to set up in the revolving restaurant? This tower goes so well with your wand." Judith smirked at him. "One huge phallic structure to go with your penis waving, spell shooting…wand." She whispered the last word and laughed at Harry's expression.
"Was I mumbling to myself again Judith?" He asked.
She shook her head. "No, but I know you Harry and this is when it all changes says your buddy in Cardiff, even if he isn't your bed buddy he's been right," Judith commented.
"Hmmm," Harry mused. "This is a little too obvious as a base of operations. I think I'd prefer to find somewhere under a rail bridge or something," he mused. "Low key."
"Low key for Harry Potter?!" She shook her head.
"Can we return to the foreboding feeling?" Harry sighed, he didn't like this deconstructing of his personality by Judith.
"Of course not dear." She patted him on the arm. "This is much more interesting, your obsession with phallic structures. Or maybe it's all wizards. There's the wands, the brooms. Your castles, lots of towers in those." Her eyes went wide and she grinned. "Maybe it's a thing you're drawn to."
"Then shouldn't I be in Cardiff, taking Jack's offer, he lives under a huge phallic structure," Harry paused dramatically. "And he loves to put his own phallus everywhere."
Judith wrinkled her nose. "Now you're just being gauche Harry Potter."
A buzzer went off indicating a ghost shift would soon begin and just after it a phone rang.
It was an old school phone that he'd found in amongst the tech that had been left in the Post Office Tower.
Harry went over to power controls for the various bits of equipment and started powering everything up while Judith answered the phone.
"This is the Post Office Tower, you've called ghost shift central, League of Paranormal Investigations," she said with possibly the most posh accent he had ever heard Judith use. She paused and looked over at Harry. "Yes he's standing ready and waiting for your go ahead," she said.
They were the main point, being the largest of the towers that they'd commandeered but several of the smaller ones would be powering up first as they had less tech that could blow up, burn out or generally fail.
Harry walked back to the laptop where a clock was counting down.
"Ghost shift in 10 seconds," Harry said looking to Judith who was listening on the phone as someone had probably said exactly the same thing.
10 seconds later and…there had been no ghost shift.
Judith raised an eyebrow and passed the phone to Harry.
"Professor," Harry said as the call was passed on to her. "No, I don't think we should call it off. They've had off days before, I think we need to sit and wait, until we engage we're not burning into our equipment," Harry paused. "Agreed," he said putting the phone down. "We're going to stay in standby mode." He went over to where they had their communications table which was basically some radios for their Armed Forces contacts and Ioan.
Keeping the British Army in London had been tricky and the Home Secretary had been reticent to allow a large amount of them into the city without Prime Ministerial authority. Which was difficult because they couldn't get it and they were all flying very close to the quite illegal line.
On paper there were various small groups from the British Army stationed in London for a 'anti-terrorist training' in preparation for the London Olympics. It wasn't too impossible, aside from the fact they wouldn't start training for that for a year or three.
At the moment Harry was still really hoping for a happy, pleasant outcome where it would turn out the ghosts were just visiting because they were bored and not because they wanted to suck out their brains with a fine straw.
-/
It had been an hour or so and then the phone started ringing.
"Harry," Judith said, he voice a tone of worry. "I think the fan is about to encounter shit."
"Tell them we're powering up," Harry said rushing over to the power controls and began to type in the activation sequence into his laptop.
Judith put the phone down and switched on the archaic speaker system that was connected to it and one of the old phone banks and grabbed a set of binoculars they had to keep an eye on the streets below.
"There's a lot more ghosts Harry," she said as she looked out.
"Get ready to defend us," Harry said as he broke away from the laptop and went back to the other power controls.
Judith like himself had weapons strapped to her thighs but she went and grabbed one of the assault rifles they'd brought up, just in case.
"Reports coming in from ghosts worldwide,"said Hawksburn on the phone.
"Better have someone dream up a cover story," Harry mused. "Data's coming in."
"We're getting it on our end. The energy levels are off the scale, higher than anything from your records Mr Potter."
Harry felt chills go down his back. The amount of power wasn't pulling down, it was increasing, he could smell an overload beginning in the systems here and felt around the fire extinguisher and didn't find it near him. "Continue, whatever this is," Harry paused. "I think it's big and dangerous," he said running over and grabbing the emergency box of power packs he'd prepared and plugged the non-standard plug into the Post Office Tower's systems, something behind him exploded and the humming and the smell of burning went up several notches.
"What did you do Potter we've registered a massive increase in power?"
"Emergency power," Harry called. "Narrow it down before whatever happens, happens."
"London, East London."
There was a noise of metal footsteps.
"Harry," Judith said he voice oddly calm. That was worrying. "The ghosts they're becoming figures."
Harry practically ran the short distance between the table and the windows and grabbed the binoculars from Judith.
"Oh. Fuck," Harry said as the figures materialised. In the background the phone was still speaking.
"Location triangulated. Canary Wharf, repeat, Canary…" Then the phone went dead.
"Harry," Judith took back the binoculars. "Are they…"
"They're different from Mondas' appearance and ones UNIT faced but yes," Harry paused as the dread and panic set in. "Cybermen."
And then one stepped our of the lift.
Harry fired the a killing curse at it.
It didn't work.
"Of course it doesn't work," Harry muttered to himself as he dived out of the way as a laser popped up from its arm.
Judith started firing.
Harry leapt back up firing a crushing curse at the Cyberman, which did do something. He fired another and another and then it collapsed gurgling as it did.
"We need to get to Canary Wharf," Harry said to Judith as he stepped around the Cyberman's body. To get to the radios.
"This is Raven to all units, target is Canary Wharf. Repeat. This is Raven, target is Canary Wharf. Hostile aliens. Ghosts are hostile. Use extreme force. Hostiles have lasers on arms. Raven out."
It was at that point that the scanning equipment overloaded.
Judith was already over by the equipment banks aiming a fire extinguisher at the banks and then met him at the lift.
"Going down," Harry said as they stepped in.
"You flirt," Judith said as she handed him the other assault rifle they'd brought up as he pushed the button for the basement.
-/ - \\-
"…But you need not fear. Cybermen will remove fear. Cybermen will remove sex and class and colour and creed. You will become identical. You will become like us."
"Well," Harry said calmly as the gate to the underground car park opened slowly. "This is going to be fun." He looked in the rear view mirror. Judith was in the Land Rover Defender. It held the bulk of their heavy weapons. But also had a bunch of tech that he didn't use in the Post Office Tower and some potions just in case Ioan and he had brewed up.
In the expanded boot of his Lotus Exige there were more weapons, just in case they needed to split up or took different routes.
"You know I should worry that you're probably excited by this Harry." Judith's voice came over the radio he had in the car.
"Official communication only Judith thanks," Harry said, though he couldn't help his sense of ambivalence. Of worry and excitement, plus a bit of panic, a small part of his head also mused on Daphne. But she should hopefully be on a ship somewhere between here and America, the ghosts, the Cybermen didn't seem to pop up on ships or on aircraft.
So hopefully any aircraft that was in the air at the moment could circle and sit out this…this invasion.
As long as it didn't last too long, though at the moment he didn't know how he was going to end this.
Switching on the blues and twos; the concealed lights and sirens he pulled out of the car park and found himself in a burgeoning war zone.
"Fantastic," Harry mused as he put his foot down, glancing in the rear view mirror he looked and could see Judith managing to keep up with him. He wasn't all that worried, but he did want to check.
Getting from the Post Office Tower to Canary Wharf at the best of times took half an hour.
This wasn't the best, people or rather people who'd had all their emotions stripped out and converted were shooting at him.
The Lotus people were going to have some fun repairing the body panels on the Exige when he was done with this.
Least it wasn't the Jag.
Changing gear he swerved around a group of Cybermen and turned a corner at a speed that was at least twice what was sign posted. The tyres squealed on the road that was littered with remnants of an explosion. Harry cringed as he swerved again to go around a group of Cybermen that seemed to be taking up firing positions on him, mounting the curb he was sure he heard bits of the front body panels break off.
"That really is the most impractical car for invasions Harry." How Judith could mock while doing evasive driving he wasn't sure.
Grabbing the radio Harry hit the button. "Top Gear has yet to do a 'what car is best for when aliens invade'."
"I'm driving it." Came her reply.
Harry grinned and then found himself driving towards a dead end created by a destroyed car with only a little laneway.
Cringing he pulled the handbrake and executed a tight handbrake turn and cringed again as he managed to take out both of the wing mirrors.
"Marvellous."
-/
Elsewhere in London Ioan was discovering that these Cybermen were harder to kill than the couple they'd encountered in the past.
They also didn't have any Cybermats around them, so small mercies.
"Shattering spells, we need to destroy them, killing them's a bonus," he grunted to the wizards he'd collected. They'd heard Harry's radio call but with all the alien technology around them he didn't want to risk apparating. If any of them splinched now there's be no saving them, much like some of the Ministry idiots who'd apparated in when this began to stop them from doing magic in the presence of muggles.
They'd obviously not attended Harry's meetings.
He'd mercy killed the pools of gloop that had somehow survived the apparition, there was no unsplinching them.
They did have some brooms each of them were carrying one inside an bottomless bag, however by flying to Canary Wharf that would most certainly add another dimension of danger for them.
He'd made the decision to make a push towards the Tower of London, it was defendable and they could re-group there. He knew for a fact some wizards worked in the Royal Armouries. Maybe they had a relic or two that would be useful in the current crisis.
Then he heard the roar of an engine and for a moment he thought it was Harry, but it wasn't. It was just as good; the Army had arrived.
-/
Going down the Limehouse Link tunnel was a bad idea, especially as it had Cybermen guarding the entrance. Shooting at anything that approached. Harry included. Several individual bits of laser fire sailing through the windscreen with some grazing Harry's extremities.
There was fortunately the appropriately named Narrow Street that ran parallel with the river. Harry only knew about it because he and Daphne had walked along various bits of the river after lunches or nights out, her business after all was logistics of moving stuff by sea, and other means as her family's business developed.
"And here I thought you were going to drive through the fence." Judith commented as he shattered the fence with a quick spell as they drove through.
Not that it would have mattered much, he suspected he'd need to replace a majority of the body panels on his Lotus. There was also a worrying engine temperature light that kept on flashing on as he turned a corner and the oil temperature was also quite high.
As he swerved around and Judith drove through another patrol of Cybermen he took a brief few seconds to wonder if he should have Q-branched his car up, put some rocket launchers in.
It would have been useful, and very clichéd.
Coming onto Westferry Road he slammed on the brakes as he came face to face with a Cybermen and Army battle.
"Seems we stop here," Harry said as he ran around to the boot retrieving his weapons and other things as Judith pulled up beside him.
"Start firing mortars," Harry ordered.
After they'd fired off a good five one of the army men ran over.
"Radio contact's sparse sir, Potter?" He addressed Harry.
Harry nodded. "Status Sergeant?"
"We're holding them back, low on ammo." He shook his head. "Briefings didn't say invasion."
Harry just nodded, they hadn't known exactly what the Cybermen were when they were ghosts, invasion was just one of the possibilities. "Judith get the Defender up to their lines."
"No sir, keep your vehicle here, we need a defensive perimeter." He looked between Harry's car and the Defender. "You can't have enough to re-supply our squad sir."
Harry smiled. "You'd be surprised Sergeant. Let's push forward before it gets worse."
"How much worse can it get?" he asked.
Judith groaned. "Never ask that question when there's aliens around squaddie," she said as she fired another mortar.
-/
And then it got worse.
"Things have become problematic," Harry mused. "Try the RAF again," he barked.
They were close enough to Canary Wharf that they were inside whatever radio jamming that meant radio signals could get out and beyond a line of sight. It seemed to be a sort of 'eye of the storm' sort of effect.
-/
Daleks.
Millions of them. They'd halved the amount of army men they'd started with, but they could see the tower they were aiming for.
"Fighters five minutes in-bound," reported a comms man.
"Take cover, we're getting nowhere and dead with both of them around," Harry shouted.
They were within visual range of the tower. There was just the square in front of the tower to make it across. Unfortunately the Cybermen had also worked out that this was the main approach.
With the Daleks added to the mix raining death down from above it was becoming a quick way to die.
According to Judith they were down to 3 and a half platoons, from when she and Harry had first encountered them there'd been near 5.
They'd thrown themselves behind what was left of the shrubbery and the holes in that had been blown out by mortar fire and grenades. All the while being shot at.
Harry and Judith were in one such hole along with 4 of the British Army's finest.
It was at this moment as Daleks roared overhead wreaking destruction that Judith, extremely calmly asked Harry a question he'd not really considered.
"Is this the Dalek invasion of Earth then?" She asked. The soldiers looked between them.
Harry had his bag open for the soldiers to go through they seemed to have little problem with an expanding bag but paused at Judith's calm question.
"Ian and Barbra said that happened in the 22nd century" Harry answered and then added. "Probably. No saucers, so maybe not," he said in an uncertain tone.
"Where's that air support Corporal?" Harry barked across to the other hole where the radio operator was.
"Three minutes in-bound sir, they're encountering heavy resistance," he shouted back.
Then the Cybermen started to shoot at them again.
"They don't like us talkin' sir," said one of the soldiers crouched in the hole with them.
"Like is debatable Private," Judith said peering over the edge. "These aren't like the ones we've fought before Harry."
"No," Harry grimaced. The adrenalin was slowly wearing off and he could feel the laser burns on his shoulder and forearm he'd picked up whilst driving and lasers had shot various holes in his windscreen. At the time he was glad they hadn't gone through to the engine. Instead they'd hit his meaty flesh.
Which had been fine while things were exciting.
"Dangerous," Judith countered, intruding into his thoughts.
"Yes. Dangerous," Harry said softly. Not exciting, or exciting and dangerous.
"Have you found the armour piercing rounds?" Harry said looking back to the soldiers who'd been going through his bag, they'd also found his potions.
They were mostly offensive a few restoratives and other things for when the shit hit the fan and took the iceberg with it.
They hadn't got there yet.
"We need to get into that tower," Judith repeated the obvious. "Time for something dangerous." She said looking at the collection of potions that Harry was holding.
Especially the collection of red ones that held Ioan and Harry's hand writing, something he'd found of the books he'd used while in the 70s on potion making. This one which he and Ioan had bottled into supremely expensive bottles held a potion for making glass, supposedly to be used when a fire proved too volatile.
"What's the melting point of the metal those Cybermen are made out of I wonder?" Harry asked looking to the opposing forces of Cybermen ahead of them.
It was too far to chuck the bottles, he was guiding one of the bottles and passed two others to the squaddies, well he'd passed it to Judith and she'd done the analogies.
Harry assumed it was something along the lines of 'if you drop this you'll boil alive'.
"From a feather to this," Harry said and wondered for a moment where Hermione was and then pushed that thought out of his head, he couldn't have other thoughts on his mind at the moment. At the moment he had to concentrate on this battle and the men and women who were with him.
The Cybermen didn't see the little floating bottle until it dropped shattering onto the ground, they'd timed it perfectly as the soldiers chucked the other two.
What he hadn't been prepared for was the heat wave throughout the square.
There was also the sounds, the screams of the Cybermen as their bodies literally melted into puddles of hot metal on the ground.
Harry assumed Judith was asking how long but he could only see her mouth move as a firestorm lashed out around them.
"A few minutes," he shouted over the inferno that they'd let out. The actual focus of the potion was limited, or should have been the wind and firestorm around them he assumed was the interaction of the three being used. Or maybe it was the Cybermen's power source, he wasn't sure.
Squinting he could see the plants that the others had been using as cover wilting.
"Move out!" Harry shouted as the screams became gurgles and then nothing. "If we encounter any Daleks aim for the eye on the top of the dome." Harry said as he found the platoons of soldiers forming around himself and Judith.
As they got to the entrance of the building all the lights seemed to dim and something began to happen in the sky.
Gazing up it looked to Harry that someone had turned on a vacuum cleaner; sucking all the Daleks and the Cybermen towards the top floor of the tower.
"Any humans, tie them up, detain them," Harry ordered; he had found himself in the position of being in command. "We need to get up to the top floors." He spared a final look up as it was becoming a stream of Daleks pouring into the building.
He just hoped it wouldn't explode, that would bring the problematic situation to new levels of danger and annoyingness.
"Anything non-human kill it," He said finally as they stormed into the building.
-/
They had barely made it in and they were surrounded with bodies, most of them human, a handful were Cybermen. Tellingly there were no shells of Daleks.
"Harry…" Judith gestured towards the wall.
Harry took the briefest of moments to glance at the wall. "Oh," He said. "That should have been obvious." He said looking at the logo and name of the organisation that had wrought destruction and death across the nation's capital. The organisation that would do its all for "queen and country", including it seemed letting two genocidal races out across the country's heart.
"One genocidal. The other wants to rip out our soul." Judith said, though Harry assumed it was to herself rather than her penetrating his internal musing.
"Secure this floor and the lower vehicle entry floors," Harry barked. "You three with us," Harry said to three of the men who had been with him and Judith in the mortar crater minutes earlier.
-/
They made their way carefully to the lifts.
"Is it safe sir to take the lifts?" A private asked as something exploded in the upper floors and the building rumbled.
"Security and speed for the moment trumps safety," Harry said as he walked in and punched the number.
Half way up one of the soldiers radioed and reported a man in a brown suit who rushed into an "old police box" who disregarded warnings from them.
"Let him go. He's" Harry was about to say a non-combatant but stopped. "He's unstoppable," he finally said less than a moment later as the life continued its rush to the top floors.
-/
"That's something of a disappointment." Harry said as they found the centre of the damage and destruction.
It was a tall white wall, the walls either side were braced and there were two leavers on either side.
It was quite weird.
"Sir, should we–" One of the soldiers started Judith cut him off.
"No. There's–" She was then cut off by Harry.
"Something around here, probably dangerous. The Cybermen don't die easily. The Daleks should be gone. They don't do quiet very well." Harry said as they looked out the window across London. Rooftops were burning, the roads were blackened and scorched. He could hear now the sirens of ambulances rushing out. Looking out the skies were clear except…He stepped back his wand out. The soldiers beside him reacted as well; reading their weapons.
Then the figure became bigger, and came to a hover in front of them.
"Ioan," Harry was relieved to see him and stepped aside to let him fly in.
"Thought you might need a hand." He said.
"Where-" Harry started.
"Royal Armouries. Seemed like they, they were Cybermen right?" Ioan asked but continued. "Different but Cybermen. They wanted something in the Tower." Ioan explained, Harry raised an eyebrow and looked to Judith who also seemed surprised.
"I wonder what," Harry mused.
"I left the others there to clear up and secure." Ioan said and then added looking at the white wall that had so commanded Harry's attention. "What's that?"
"Just what I was trying to figure out." Harry said as he turned to walk towards it. The wall; the end of this odd corridor that wasn't, with computers leading towards it, it felt like it should be something. But wasn't. It was like the corridors at Hogwarts, some of them lead to a dead end, but you knew by some sort of architectural cue that it was a dead end.
This didn't, wasn't, hadn't been. There was the intention in the room for this to be 'something'.
Leaning forward, his cheek almost against the cold hard wall he smelt it.
The smell of rage, of ancient ice and the storm raging like the sun. It reminded him of something beyond old, someone full of passion and distress. Just the briefest smells, but one that seemed larger than the universe.
It was like being caught and catapulted back in time, back to being rescued from Voldemort's clutches and being in the TARDIS and a man timeless yet always changing watching over him as he slipped away from death's clutches.
Then the noise of his and the other's radios ripped him back to the present.
-/
Apparently there were military units inbound, not British armed forces.
They'd left the three soldiers to guard but not explore at the top floor. Exploring was likely to get people rendered dead or something very quickly.
According to Judith there remained a lot of danger in the building. Though she wouldn't elaborate any more than that.
Arriving back down on the lower ground floor, where the vehicles were supposedly coming there was a difference, while the bodies hadn't been moved sheets had been placed over the bodies. The most senior of the platoon's soldiers was waiting for him.
"Report," Harry demanded, Judith and Ioan fell in behind him.
"4 troop carriers sir, and a command vehicle approaching," he reported as they walked to the mostly destroyed entrance.
Harry drew inspiration from the Brigadier as he shouted / ordered. "Defensive positions."
"They have UNIT plates sir." The solider. The Sergeant Harry corrected himself as he took a few moments to look at the man's stripes.
"And UNIT will want to crash in here. Sergeant," Harry said walking out beyond the line of troops and looked back to Ioan and Judith. "I may need backup," he said in a quieter tone.
-/
And then several UNIT troops pulled up and tried to storm in.
"STOP!" Harry roared. "This building is under the control of the British Security Services." Which was not the most inspiring of things to say and certainly didn't seem to give the UNIT troops any pause for thought. "You will stand down!" Harry said drawing his wand waving it in a long arc at the UNIT troops. "Or I and my troops will defend this building." Harry continued in a loud firm voice and for the briefest moments questioned if he was doing the right thing. There was far too much technology in here for UNIT to get its hands on. UNIT had grown into an organisation he didn't recognise sometimes. Plus this was Torchwood's mess, and by extension the British Government's mess and he did not want UNIT storming in taking it over. His thinking on this matter also reflected that of the feelings of the security services and what the Home Secretary had said to him. LPI was part of that, it was funded in part by the British Government and Ministry of Magic and he needed to stand by those organisations that he worked with.
-/
Then there was a slam of a door and a Colonel walked up to face him.
"Colonel Alan Mace. UNIT. Who are you?" Colonel Mace asked looking down at Harry's wand.
"Harry Potter. LPI," Harry replied calmly.
"What?" He looked at him.
"League of Paranormal Investigations," Harry clarified and paused to reach into his jacket pocket and pull out his security identification as he continued and didn't let Colonel Mace speak. "This site is under my command, you will withdraw your troops Colonel Mace. The army is in control here."
"Mr Potter," Mace started barely looking at his security identification. "I don't think you understand the gravity of the situation," he said stepping back and nodding to whoever was leading the UNIT troops.
"I will give the order to fire if your troops approach," Harry said stepping back from Mace.
"You don't have the authority Mr Potter." Mace gave some motion to his second in command who ordered his troops forward.
"Stupefy!" Harry said, though didn't shout. The spell his the lead soldier, making him crumple to the ground.
And then several, more than 30 UNIT troops' guns were trained on him, he heard the not so reassuring clicks of multiple safeties clicking off. Followed by the Army's soldiers pointing their guns at the UNIT troops.
"Potter!" Mace shouted and pointed his own weapon at him.
Harry fought the desire to say something about all the guns being pointed at him. "He's stunned Colonel," Harry said and paused, aiming a spell at the soldier to revive him.
"We are here to maintain structural order under the UN agreements –" Mace started. Harry cut him off before he could quote agreements at him.
"And where was UNIT during the fire fight?" Harry asked in a lower tone. "When my troops and I were fighting our way through the streets? You arrived remarkably quickly, especially with the roads in such disarray. How did you manage that Colonel Mace?" Harry asked watching the Colonel.
"Operational procedures state-" Mace started.
"In my UNIT days we went in and fought the enemy, protecting humanity, no matter how far it takes," Harry said quoting something in the UNIT manual.
This seemed to annoy Mace. "Who was your commanding officer Potter?" He hadn't holstered his weapon.
"Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart," Harry said calmly. He didn't mean to name drop but he did want to diffuse the situation. Of course if further questions were asked about when he'd served with UNIT things would get complicated.
Not that things weren't complicated at the moment. He suspected he was close to, if not already had caused an 'international incident'. Shooting a UNIT soldier, even stunning him wasn't likely to go unnoticed.
Mace opened his mouth to reply but seemed to reconsider. "We will withdraw to central London to assist the emergency services with the cleanup of any hostiles," he finally said as he holstered his weapon. Then he gave his orders to his troops and got back in his vehicle.
As he did so he gave Harry a hard look.
Harry returned the look. Mace wasn't at all imposing.
Then as fast as they'd arrived the UNIT troops has left.
It wasn't until they were out of sight than Harry gave the order to stand down to the army troops around him.
"You really know how to make friends don't you Harry?" Ioan shook his head.
"You can never have enough enemies," Harry replied cheerily.
"I'll put that into my book of great Harry Potter quotes." Judith commented.
-/
It was still only hours after the attack, Harry was found by Judith and Ioan on the top floor looking at some of the shattered glass.
"Playing while everyone else is cataloguing and killing things? Tut, tut Harry." Judith said sitting on one of the tables while Ioan leaned against the wall watching Harry.
"What've you worked out Harry?" He asked a slightly worried tone to his voice.
Harry looked up raising his eyebrow slightly in amusement. "Torchwood, they've written their name everywhere." Harry paused to move the shards around with his foot. "Magister, he liked to use different names to taunt UNIT," Harry said, thinking back to his own UNIT time. "I should have realised that wizards would be the same with their names and groups," Harry said as he gestured the shards of glass that he'd been pushing around with his foot.
Out of the shards of glass, out of TORCHWOOD another name had been created, that the three of them had been working to discover its origins.
COHORT DOW.
-/
A/N:
Like the last chapter the hardest thing about this was working out how to tell Harry's story without it getting in the way of the Doctor's story and other events.
With School Reunion there are just too many characters there already and it would have spoilt things to try and insert Harry in during that. I like writing Harry and Sarah just sitting having a cup of tea together.
In Army of Ghosts fortunately Jackie tells the Doctor and Rose the ghosts have been around for a few months. So that gives some time for Harry to investigate.
Unfortunately Harry can't just solve the ghost problem and be done with it as it needs the Doctor's participation.
So I've had to keep some things a bit mysterious and put road blocks in the way of Harry (and the security services) from discovering it's Torchwood that's doing it.
So I am imagining that the government must know something of Torchwood, even if they don't know what they do (or pretend to not know what they do) they must be keeping it from everything.
As Hartman says the ghost shifts are about finding energy so that the UK can be independent energy wise. Which is one of those themes that kept coming up in the 70s and 80s Doctor Who and is a theme that kept coming up in Spooks. So it's not a huge stretch that the government would make secret anything about Torchwood, based on the promise of limitless energy.
Harry's interaction with UNIT may seem somewhat antagonistic, but Harry's organisation is linked in with the security services and the armed forces. So Harry has to be in with one group of people and it's where he is. Not with UNIT.
Daleks. The Daleks don't need to be in this story; Doomsday could have been fine with just the Cybermen. Outside of Torchwood Tower the Daleks don't do a lot (just exterminate a few people), nothing much that can impact Harry. They also don't become a part of the story for everyone outside until almost three quarters of the way through the episode. Which is why Harry gets to see them but can't really do anything about them.
One thing I keep forgetting what writing stuff in London and getting characters around London is that it's not laid out like a grid. Fortunately Google furnished me with a map and the time it would take Harry to get from the Post Office Tower to Canary Wharf ties in well with the running time of the episode.
Finally. Cohort Dow. It is a fairly 'wizardy' sort of name, so hopefully I managed to insert it in without anyone noticing what it was in the past chapters. More to come on Cohort Dow in the future.
