Chapter 62
"It doesn't even look that bad here," Sarah had said to him as they'd arrived back in the Resistance's village. He'd left his car at the drop point they'd set up for vehicles. It was safer to apparate or portkey into the village than to drive by road in.
Even though the roads in were hidden by the same perception filter that surrounded the village, the Toclafane did occasionally wonder too near.
It was deceptive, the look of the village here. The hard choices that needed to be made behind the scenes.
They couldn't rescue everyone, not effectively.
The Master's Archangel Network was from what they could tell at minimum strength, but even that was enough to stop those who didn't have the will to fight. Most of the slave population.
Theoretically they could liberate them, but to put there where, to do what? The Resistance, Harry, Ros, Jane, Robert they had to make hard decisions about the fighting force of the Resistance. Part of those decisions was why Sarah went out on her own in the first place.
Maybe, Harry had thought she didn't want to have to make those hard decisions, sometimes Harry wished he didn't have to make them.
They were trying to bring a little relief and hope, as the days and nights got colder as the edged toward the end of the year they were trying to send out packages of food, fuel and clothing to the various encampments around the factories and worker camps. It was more than difficult. The Toclafane spacial disruptions meant apparating in was extremely difficult.
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Debriefing was the first order of the day, sit Sarah down in a room with Ros and himself and explain what she'd been up to in between when she'd last made contact. Robert was coordinating the movements of the groups that were moving the winter support supplies out. He liked that sort of things, the logistics of the Resistance.
She had managed to make a lot of contacts here and there, around about.
"What about Martha Jones, what impact do you think she'd had Sarah?" Ros asked curiously.
Measuring Martha's impact was something Harry didn't really care about. She had been somewhat annoyed about what they had done during their 'big plan'. No one in the Resistance was going to apologise about it, certainly not to Martha Jones, her loved ones were in the relative safety on the Valiant. High above the pollution and safe, because they were the playthings of the Master. Not like them, down on Earth. Vulnerable. He decided he wasn't going to tell Martha about the Valiant's brief dip into the sea. Everyone survived without injury. Probably.
Sarah sipped her glass of water, seemingly enjoying it. She had mentioned to him and again during the debrief, what water there was accessible was becoming increasingly contaminated. Boiling was a necessity, but she suspected there were still trace elements remaining even after the slave camps had boiled their water.
Harry had confirmed that, especially out across what had been the developing world, but was now some of the Master's largest factory and shipyards. That the Nile was mostly frozen and Lake Victoria and those nearest it were sludge a testament to the environmental destruction by the Master and the Toclafane's hands.
"I heard tales of her travels as I made my way around," Sarah began.
"Do you think it helps?" Harry asked.
"Hope is all a lot of these people have Harry," she replied.
"Indeed." Harry wasn't going to disagree with that. Whether it was misplaced or not he wasn't going to argue about it for the people trapped in the slave worker camps.
It was a gigantic gamble, if Martha and the Doctor got it wrong, and they had thus far got it very wrong.
At conservative estimates, as close as they could estimate from the data from the Resistance globally the Master's initial figure of 'remove one tenth of the population' had grossly increased. With the mass killings the Toclafane and the Master had instigated early on in the invasion; the destruction of the world's armed forces, the celebrity killings and the other random killings the Toclafane and the Master's agents carried out, they were looking at a figure closer to 30 per cent of the population.
It was a figure he'd had trouble with initially.
It was also a figure he wondered if the Doctor knew. If Martha Jones understood.
That they were gambling the remaining 70 per cent of the population. Or however many were left when Martha got done wandering the Earth, and all she worried about was her precious countdown.
And what the Resistance would provide her, her little gun and the other things.
They'd still do that, Harry had decided when she next surfaced he'd go and see her. Reassure her, or whatever. Make her understand the costs of her jaunt around the world. Sheer single mindedness.
"Potter!" Ros shouted breaking him out of his musings. "He gets that glassy eyed look." She explained to Sarah with a condescending look to Harry.
Harry shook his head to try and clear away the thoughts that were collecting there. "Sorry Ros."
She smirked slightly at him. "Sarah was saying about this time ship."
"TARDIS," both Harry and Sarah said together, both with a little smile.
"It's more than just a time ship," Sarah added.
"It's not much of anything at the moment, potential death trap mostly," Harry continued as he looked around the room for something and then dismissed it.
"But you think it could be operational." Ros looked between them.
"I...don't know...Harry?" Sarah looked to him.
"We'd need a plan first," Harry mused tentatively.
"Messing around with time travel is dangerous." Sarah interjected darkly.
"Professor Cox has indicated his team has discovered several 'divergent points'," Ros recited.
"You said the navigation system was destroyed in the TARDIS Harry." Sarah looked across the table at him.
"It looked that way. We could patch it up. But there's the issue of control," Harry said, still lost in his musings.
"I suppose you have an answer for that Potter?" Ros asked.
"Not quite," Harry turned around in his chair. "But you do," he said to the woman leaning against the fireplace.
Ros jolted slightly in surprise and then relaxed as she realised who it was. "Judith. What are you doing here?" She demanded.
"How long have you known?" Judith asked Harry as he stood up.
"Long enough." Harry put his hands behind his back and walked over to the fireplace, suddenly wishing that there was a fire in it, it would be fitting to have this conversation around a fire.
"Really?" Judith seemed amused.
"Since just after we met. I wanted to know about your history," he admitted.
"And you still trusted me?" She seemed curious.
"Of course. You're in control, after all of that." Harry paused and smiled slightly. "You were good at what you did back a ways. You're still good at it." Harry paused and smiled. "How long have you known?"
Judith beamed a smile of satisfaction at him. "Since you came back from Hyspero."
"Was it that obvious?" Harry asked curiously.
"Leaving data cores around," she chastised in an amused tone.
"And you still trust me?" Harry asked curiously.
"You would have made a tactical decision." She looked at him carefully. "Or one made in line with your personality."
"How interesting. Do you know where it is?" Harry asked.
"Of course," she answered.
"Where what is?" Sarah asked in a raised voice.
Harry looked over at the two women who were watching their discussion, the pair of whom he'd forgotten briefly were in the room with them.
"A Dalek time controller left on Earth after the Shoreditch Incident in '63." Harry summarised dismissively.
"Of course," Ros commented in a sarcastic tone. "That."
"ICMG grabbed everything they could. It was moved to a secret UNIT facility in the 70s after the Tobias Vaughn incident. One that isn't on any books," Judith continued before anyone could speak.
"You know where it is of course." Harry looked to Judith with a slight smile.
"Of course." Judith looked at him. "Precise space-time coordinates will still be something we will need."
"We'll need to know a lot more than that," Harry conceded.
Judith nodded. "I'll be off. Surprising you can only take up so much of my time Harry." She smiled mischievously and left the room.
Harry walked back over to the chair and sagged into the chair.
"What. Was that Harry?" Sarah looked at him.
"Nothing that you need to worry about," he answered in a short manner.
"Really Potter?" Ros looked at him carefully as he leaned back into the chair.
Harry nodded matching Ros' gaze. "If it ever comes a time you need to know I'll tell you," he answered as obliquely as he could in an honest tone. He wasn't ashamed of what he'd done in the recent past. But it was possibly questionable. And these weren't questions he wanted to get into.
"Very well," Ros said turning back to the table as Harry retook his seat with them.
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21 weeks since the Toclafane invaded...
They; they of the Resistance leaders; Ros, Robert, Harry and Jane along with the working group's leaders of Richard and Brian were stood in one of the storage barns that had been cleared up somewhat. A little bit more than a corner had been cleared up and set up with what looked like a combination of alien tech, white board, black boards, post-it notes and string.
It was quite something, though what Harry wasn't quite sure on.
Brian was holding what looked like a chunky laser pointer.
"We have, I think discovered certain divergent points where we might," he paused and grinned. "Intercept and change history."
The statement hung in the air of the cool space of the barn for several seconds, everyone unsure of what to say.
"Good?" Jane tried.
"Very. We have something to work with. Where and when," Harry mused.
Brian smiled again and pushed something on the remote and suddenly they were surrounded by a hologram of...what seemed like a white board, sort of.
"Whoa," Robert said standing up.
"Indeed, that was my reaction." Richard smiled. "It is according to Torchwood's description some sort of advertising device for presentations. With K9's help we have adapted it for our purposes."
"I bet he loved that," Harry mused aloud. Everything ignored his comment. That amused Harry briefly. Very briefly, as things did, now.
"We believe there are several divergent points." Brian nodded to Harry using his own description of temporal points that might have diverged from 'established history'. It was a term he'd heard the Doctor use to describe alternate timelines like the one generated by the temporal terrorists who'd attacked Reginald Styles in the 1970s. Brian reached up to a floating ball of something and pulled it out making it larger.
"We've been back through all the sources of information we can muster," Richard paused.
"All the divergent points involve the Doctor," Professor Cox said.
Everyone looked at Harry.
Harry sighed. "That's hardly unexpected. The Master got here in the Doctor's TARDIS."
Harry had wanted to say there aren't that many time travellers, but the amount of temporal distortion around London and the greater London area would suggest otherwise.
Of course that could all be the Doctor, or it could also be time agents. It could also be time turners.
Harry mentally scowled, it had not escaped his thoughts, in the frenzied darkness that followed seeing the memory of Daphne's...of Ron's murder to procure a time turner and stop him. But the window for that had closed by the time of his witness of her murder.
There were more important things to consider time travel for. More important things to consider all major actions for.
Revenge, nay, justice was intimate, personal and final.
"It is something we have been made aware of," Richard was saying.
"That there is a temporal vessel below London is amazing, and of concern," Brian continued.
Ros Myers snorted. "There was a bloody nuclear reactor under London in the 70s." She looked to Harry.
"Which was also used for temporal experiments. Don't worry Brian. Being near a temporal field is almost always not fatal," Harry said trying to lighten the mood, his tone didn't though.
"Show us the first divergent point Professor," Jane interjected into the silence.
"That is more complicated than it would first appear Jane," Brian started. "The complexities of theoretical time streams are something that has taken us sometime to plot. Even with the advantages of this and several other technologies Torchwood and UNIT had access to."
"Spaghetti." Harry muttered drawing the gaze of everyone.
"Potter?" Myers looked to him. "Something you'd like to share with the rest of the class?"
"The Doctor's affect. It's like spaghetti. 'Timey wimey'." Harry quirked a smile.
Brian and Richard both exchanged a look. "We are aware of that quote." Brian started.
Harry cleared his throat dramatically. "'People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff.' " Harry quoted, he'd watched through all the easter eggs dozens of times.
"Quite. His disruption makes our goals difficult," Brian paused. "However." He pushed a button. "This is what we believe is the best point of divergence."
The hologram around them zoomed in to fall on a large blobby ball with a lot of text on it.
Jane squinted. "Xmas?"
"2006 the spacecraft over London," Ros Myers answered.
Harry nodded. "Harriet Jones ordered Torchwood to destroy it. Coped better than UNIT were at the time." Harry saw Richard pick up a remote tablet and pull on his glasses.
"According to our group's research 6 objects were transmatted," he paused, still somewhat unfamiliar with the term. "To Earth prior to the spacecraft's destruction." Richard paused as Brian pushed button on the remote. Around them the hologram was replaced with several images of what looked like CCTV footage.
"Interesting," was Ros' only response.
Harry raised an eyebrow, he had read of this but not seen any footage of it. It appeared that the footage had been put together from several angles to form a complete image.
"All the footage is unfortunately silent." Richard continued as they watched the materialisation of 6 objects. 5 people and a police box. "However we have found a most excellent translation program."
Everyone was hugging.
"Can we skip the joyous hugging?" Myers asked in a cynical tone.
"I agree," Harry added. "Is this relevant?"
Then a voice, machine created and flat cut in. "HARRIET JONES"
It said in a loud flat tone and then softened slightly. "Are there many more out there?" It paused, changing pitch slightly. "DOCTOR" It continued again in a milder tone. "Oh, not just Sycorax. Hundreds of species. Thousands of them. And the human race is drawing attention to itself. Every day you're sending out probes and messages and signals. This planet's so noisy. You're getting noticed more and more. You'd better get used to it."
"This" Richard began. "Is where we think the intersection point begins."
"ALEX KLEIN" said the voice again adopting another slightly different pitch. It was still somewhat droning. "It's a message from Torchwood. They say they're ready." He was on the phone to someone, obviously Torchwood.
"HARRIET JONES" "Tell them to fire."
Harry exhaled. "I know this part."
"Context is important Harry, that is an integral part of what we understand to be the temporal points. As far as we can understand temporal mechanics." Brian explained with a slight frown.
Harry nodded as the video shifted.
"DOCTOR"
"Self righteous anger," Jane observed.
"That was murder."
"Defence," Said Harry, Ros, Jane and Robert together.
"That was defence. It's adapted from alien technology. A ship that fell to Earth ten years ago," said the machine voice.
The group chuckled.
"DOCTOR" The machine paused. "Unreadable, quality too low for accurate reading."
"Pissed off." Jane surmised.
"HARRIET JONES" The machine continued. "You said yourself, Doctor, they'd go back to the stars and tell others about the Earth. I'm sorry, Doctor, but you're not here all the time. You come and go. It happened today. Mister Llewellyn and the Major, they were murdered. They died right in front of me while you were sleeping. In which case we have to defend ourselves."
Harry watched the banter that followed between Harriet Jones and the Doctor with some interest.
The man, the Time Lord here was different from the others he had known.
The Doctor he had known in the 1970s, he had argued with the Brigadier, sometimes made threats to leave, but, he had for the most part respected humanity's choices. Been annoyed yes, dismayed at some of their choices which bordered on attempted genocide at times. But he hadn't attempted to bring down their government.
"I could bring down your Government with a single word."
"Six Words."
"Don't you think she looks tired?"
The video ended and everyone was left looking at Richard and Brian. "We believe what followed from the Doctor's statement to Harriet Jones' assistant was relatively standard piece of political-social engineering. The Doctor was the catalyst for it however. From our analysis of the political state at the time there were no prior indications of unrest in Jones' party," Richard explained.
"Amazing," Myers said leaning against one of the large military cargo containers that was stacked up around them.
"Was it her assistant's fault or the Doctor's?" Jane asked curiously.
"And now that we know this what do we do with the information. What does this give us?" Robert asked.
"All good questions," Myers commented looking to Harry. "What do you think Potter?"
Harry looked around the group lazily. "We find out if we can change history."
"Change. History?" Brian repeated.
"How Harry?" Richard asked.
"We contact a cult of course," Harry said casually.
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Draco stood outside the recently set up tent and looked at the large country house. According to his diary it was something bequeathed to himself and Harry by royalty. He only vaguely remembered the house. But according to his diary it was a location where they had been of great assistance to the Empire and the universe.
That he even had a diary and wrote in it was something of a surprise. It had been from his and Harry's brief engagement in travel with the Doctor. Its temporal travellings part of the reason of his foggy memory.
His temporal travel was in part why he was present here. Along with Professors Dawkins and Cox and Jane Blythe a woman with whom he had limited contact in the Resistance and Ros Myers. He had apparated Myers and Blythe to the location where they six were waiting within a magical tent whilst Harry worked and 'prepared'.
He had been very reticent to share what he was preparing only saying 'it's more effective if you don't know'.
Returning inside the tent Draco wrapped his hands around the mug of tea to stave off the chill from outside as he watched with some amusement the Professors still marvelling at the wizarding tent.
"This is completely impossible," Brian said, not for the first time. It still somewhat amused Draco.
"We are, according to Potter about to contact some sort of temporally-active cult. And this you find impossible Brian?" Myers shook her head taking a sip of her tea.
"You pair have been to the moon in a magical cabinet. Yet you find a canvas tent a surprising impossibility?" Blythe shook her head and pushed her mug towards Draco who waved his wand at it, warming the contents, she smiled in thanks.
Draco was still musing over in his mind what he had read in his diary. It was in his hand, and had all the marks he left when he was writing missives for himself. But it was something he could not recall writing.
The photos, of which there were a few within his diary he equally only vaguely recalled. Potter had used one of these as his 'credentials' when dealing with the undersea ships the sub-marines.
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Harry felt like this was a location that should be windy, not just cold. Hidden deep in the moors with only a dirt track leading to it. Though it wasn't something often travelled and something they didn't travel at all.
The building was a grand country house, it looked to have begun its life as a moderate Gothic country house but had obviously been added to with bits of Elizabethan and Victorian extensions adding their architecture throughout. Like the photos, his diary and being here he had a vague remembrance of it. But nothing firm, nothing...nothing precise in his memory.
At least he knew what to look for, knew where to come to do what they needed to do.
Advice. That was what they needed. They couldn't start messing around with time travel and paradoxes without informed knowledge.
Who better then to request information from than the Faction who proclaimed to the universe that paradoxes were their shtick.
Harry picked up the steel rod and used his wand to force it into the ground. There were two of them, he'd liberated them from under Westminster, according to his energy detector they were dripping in temporal radiation. The theory, which he had been forced to run past K9 because temporal theorists were few and far between and Brian had wanted to 'engage him in a discussion' when he'd mentioned off hand about ley lines whilst Richard looked like he was ready for another of his rants. The theory, was that, and this was according to his and Draco's diary there were sort of temporal ley lines around here. It according to his diary, unless you were co-temporous with this temporal and spacial area you'd have little memory of it even your experiences in your biodata would be suspect.
Which sort of made sense to him. Sort of. A little bit.
It would explain some things like how he and Draco owned this estate, how those photos happened and many other questions.
But here and now the temporal ley lines served as a useful beacon to a certain cult.
Harry looked down at his feet. The source of their problems. Dead.
The one that had allowed Richard to make his discoveries.
The symbolism of it was important. Richard had said there was still much more to learn. There were other Toclafane they had that he could extract stuff from.
The cultists would love it.
How to do this he still wasn't amazingly sure on. Whenever he'd met them in the past a representative had run into him.
UNIT had few documents on them.
The Doctor, the one he'd met in San Francisco had given him a brief outline, mostly 'Harry, Harry, Harry, they're extremely dangerous stay away from them'.
There was also his...snooping in the TARDIS when Draco and he had been stuck within it while the TARDIS had been stuck in a vortex fold. He'd found a great many things in his wanderings through the books and archives.
They liked rituals, most cults did.
Harry wasn't sure how Richard or Brian would react to this.
But it was important they were here. In part because this temporal stuff was complicated.
But the Faction liked their rituals, liked the fetishes of cults. He'd learnt some what more about what they were up to from Sarah, who'd known someone who'd gotten into their heads. Or something like that. The late 90s were a vague time for some people, like the 70s and 80s for others.
It was Sarah who'd provided him with something that sat on a small dais in front of him, the dais itself was mostly compacted soil that had been recovered after his Chronovore encounter. It felt so long ago.
"Maybe it was," Harry said to himself and sighed, then steeled himself. He was pretty sure the Faction would offer him a bargain to bring her back. To bring Daphne back.
The Earth was already riddled with paradoxes. He could go back and bring her back.
He could use the broken TARDIS to...no.
That had only one purpose, to be used to save them all.
Harry removed from his bag a small folding table, setting it up he also removed some vials and two knives. One was for the remains of the Toclfane, the other was for him. If he had to go that far. He didn't really know what or how to do for this.
Make it up as he went along he thought with a half smile. Things always turned out well.
Most of the time.
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Richard held the jar looking at the ball of flame within it.
It was a magical flame.
He looked across at Brian who was looking at the flame also and back to Harry.
They were all within ear shot of Harry who stood muttering to himself, it sounded like mostly names, places, dates.
All of this was ridiculous.
Cultists.
They were stood in hexagon, Draco and Harry stood at the North and South points.
Harry had admitted he wasn't exactly sure how to do this. How to contact these cultists.
Faction Paradox.
He looked to Jane Blythe, the Baroness wore a neutral expression on her face and in her body language. Similarly did Ros Myers, who seemed mostly bored with the whole situation. Although she often seemed like that. Cold.
Brian was eager, eager for a gaze into time travel.
Just a year ago the concept would have been ludicrous, but a year ago the world had not been invaded. A year ago Richard had not witnessed a country burnt from above. Not seen the Nile frozen.
Not discovered that the invaders of Earth were the final evolution of humanity.
That was why he was here. He'd discovered it–that meant something.
"Course it does Dicky."
Richard almost jumped.
"Ignore him," Harry shouted, and it was only then that Richard realised it was windy.
"Don't touch him Richard." Brian was looking at him. "Either of them."
"Bri-Bri don't be like that. Dicky Dawkins and I were just gettin' acquainted." Richard looked at the young man. He was wearing a hooded windcheater. But it was dark, splattered with some sort of substance that he suspected was blood.
He also had a feral grin on his face. They had feral grins as Richard noticed there was a boy, exactly the same talking to Brian. Menacing him.
"Why not?" Richard all but shouted.
"Because we're the big bad wolf. He's so scared of," the boy said with a grin. "Come to give you a hand," he said and turned around and high-fived his cohort.
An energy pulsed between them hurting his eyes.
"What...?" Richard heard Brian start to say.
"Dicky, doesn't want to know?" The boy turned around to look at him.
"Listen you little shit," Jane started to move.
"Don't move!" Harry barked turning around. "Don't break the pattern," Harry sounded pained but he had his back to them. "Leave the professor alone Little Brother."
It was a title, a salutation that Harry had used.
There were some files on this Faction Paradox. But Harry had not allowed any of them to read them, to know about them.
Harry had said it was important to come to this 'fresh'.
Rituals. They functioned better on the disorientated.
"Blinovitch loved this sort of thing. Gives you a buzz. You feeling it Dicky?" The boy, the Little Brother asked with another grin.
"Blinovitch?" Richard asked.
"Aaron Blinovitch?" Brian asked then continued. "He did a series of lectures for the British Museum in the '20s and '30s," Brian looked across at him to say.
"He was one of ours," the Little Brother, the one menacing Brian said, but Brian had taken his gaze away from the Little Brother and to Harry who was shouting something.
He was needing to shout because there was a...a screen, a something forming, wobbling in the air between the poles. Something dark something...
"Full of nightmares Dicky Dawkins. Are you scared yet?"
"No," he said with full confidence.
The Little Brother seemed crestfallen. "Good." Then he walked off.
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Harry grit his teeth as the temporal window started to form, the Little Brother turning up and slapping palms with himself had been a help and a hindrance. He'd felt the energy pulse through the landscape, and pulse through him. It was like the whole area had convulsed a little bit. Doubtless Draco had also felt it, they both were connected to this place, and they both had travelled in time.
Picking up the clean knife, not the one he'd used to extract biological material from the Toclafane, this clean one he'd prepared so he didn't get any end of the universe diseases on himself, then he slit open his hand; dripping blood onto the dais as he muttered the names of forgotten things, the things he shouldn't know, the things lost and locked away from time and space.
Then, shimmering, warping and wibbling between the metal poles humming and thrumming a portal formed and two figures stepped out.
One was tall, female and had a mask on her face, the other was smaller, subservient.
"Harry James Potter," she said removing the mask to sit it below he chin, it was a practiced well versed move.
"Cousin?" She nodded. "And another Little Brother?"
"Indeed," she said again. "You know our rituals Mr Potter."
"I met a Little Brother."
She laughed. "He didn't tell you anything."
"No," Harry admitted.
She looked past him. "I see we are in good company." Then she refocused her gaze on him. Harry felt a chill run down his back, like she was gazing into and through him. "You have gone to great lengths to contact us," she paused. "Little Brother." She nodded imperceptibly to the dais.
"Remote tech innit?"
"Yes. It is." She looked at Harry.
Harry smiled innocently, though not truthfully. Smiling was not something he honestly did much of late.
"Very resourceful. But you are well travelled. And you Mr Malfoy." She looked around Harry to Draco. "So, Mr Potter what is it Faction Paradox can do for you?" She paused and looked past him again to Dawkins this time. "And the spirits of the Paradox for you all."
"And what I can do for the Faction," Harry countered.
"That is usually how this would go," She kicked out with her foot. Stopping the Little Brother approaching the Toclafane shell. "No. Little Brother."
"Was just lookin'. It's ours isn't it?" He asked.
"Not yet," She said with what Harry thought was a smile.
"We have some questions," Harry paused. "Of the paradoxical in nature."
Another smile just that gave him goosebumps. "Good," she continued to smile broadly. It looked like she had too many teeth in her mouth. And the shadows that fell on those teeth formed shapes in his imagination. Harry felt a chill pass down his back and he swore he could hear himself sweating. "That is our speciality."
-/
"My, my. What adventurous people you are."
"Confident too, Dicky and you lot. Kill a bunch of Time Lords. Only a couple of us would try that," continued the Little Brother.
"As a last resort," Draco began.
"And only one," Harry paused. "Killing the Doctor is not something I would do."
"Ever?" The Little Brother looked at him a curiously feral smile.
Harry raised an eyebrow at him. "What is your informed opinion of our plan?"
"And what will be the result?" Brian asked. Harry had let him do a lot of the explaining to cultists with Richard adding in about the Toclafane and their discoveries. The latter of which the cultists seemed quite fascinated with. Divergent timelines and the like.
The Cousin seemed to be musing and looked back to the portal. "You could come with us. Ask a Mother and Father of the Paradox."
"That would be helpful we could-" Brian started.
Harry cut him off with a short laugh. "There are enough paradoxes here. We are not stepping foot in the Eleven Day Empire," the latter half of the sentence he said as firmly as he could.
"Scared, aren't ya, Jamie. Scared of the Empire? Scared of what you'll see in there?" Challenged the Little Brother.
Harry snorted.
"What is your Eleven Day Empire?" Richard asked curiously.
"Is this really something we need to be discussing?" Ros asked looking between the Professor and the cultists.
"We've offered you payment. An answer, now," Jane said addressing the Cousin and ignoring the Little Brother.
"Alright lady. Just because you're all-"
"Enough Little Brother," the Cousin said. "Check the Blinovitch Generator."
He sighed dramatically. "Yes Cousin."
"Well?" Harry prompted once the Little Brother had wandered off.
"Given the Spirits work thus far your temporal actions will probably create a divergent timeline," she explained calmly.
Harry heard a sigh from behind him. He fancied it was Brian. "We will not successfully diverge our own."
"Once the Spirits have divined your path you will follow it." She looked around them. "There's a chance you could change events. The Spirits and the old ones; Time, Death, Pain, the Eternals of old, the-"
Harry cut her off in a tired and angry tone. "We don't need to go through all the supposed deities that you and the Time Lords worship."
"Patience Harry Potter. There is a chance that the Spirits will smile upon your offering. You are meddling with powerful forces," she laughed. "And we thank you for your gift."
Harry realised he had missed that the Little Brother had picked up the Toclafane shell.
Then they stepped back into the portal and then...and then they were stood out in the open again and everything felt much less like a closed in cultists' room and more like the outdoors.
"Well. That was enlightening," Brian commented brightly breaking silence.
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Harry was surprised at how fast they had decided on a course of action. Though Ros had been something of a dissenting voice. Mostly of the 'why bother if it won't help us' sort of voice. Only those who had met Faction Paradox and Robert were involved in the decision to go ahead and only those who had actually experience a temporal field would actually be going.
The danger was in going and in coming back.
-/
"Whose TARDIS was this Potter?"
"Who knows?" Harry mused as they carried one of the cargo boxes out of the expanding container-sized bags and into the open doors of the TARDIS. "It doesn't feel like the Doctor's does it."
Draco exhaled inside and wrinkled his nose again. "No. It most certainly does not." He looked from Harry to the cables and what was left of the controls. "Are you sure you know what you're doing Harry."
Harry shrugged. "I can assure you I don't have a death wish Draco."
"There's too many people he wants dead," said Judith as she walked past them.
"Did you find it?" Harry asked her.
"Of course. Did you doubt me?" She asked innocently.
"I don't think we can doubt anyone in this venture." Sarah walked into the main control room. "K9's been looking. He doesn't think there's a secondary control room in this TARDIS."
"Does he have any idea whose it was?" Harry tried. He'd tried asking the mutt that question himself and not got an answer. "Or is it more 'insufficient data'?" He snorted.
"Harry," Sarah warned.
"I've stopped trying to kick him," Harry offered.
"Boys set up the table." Judith ordered lightly as she walked out of the room again.
"Do this, do that," Harry muttered.
Draco walked past him. "Talking to yourself Potter?" His tone was distinctly amused. "You know where that leads."
"Playing chess with oneself and having an entirely better life experience whilst chatting to those lower in standing?" Harry wondered as he walked away from him to one of the cargo containers that was already in the room and opened it up.
Inside was a simple table that was flat packed and could be assembled easily. It was actually more of a plinth that they could stick to the floor.
Less than a moment later Judith walked in again this time with something Harry had only heard of and read descriptions of.
A time controller.
It was somewhat underwhelming. The 1960s Intrusion Counter Measures Group's files described it much more futuristic than this.
"That's it?" Sarah asked in a tone that mimicked his internal musings.
"It looks like-" Harry began and was cut off by Judith.
"I know what it looks like," Judith snapped. "But it isn't. It's something much more complicated," she paused and continued in a softer tone. "Much more personal. And much more dangerous."
"We'll probably need K9 now Sarah." Harry said in a quiet voice.
Sarah nodded. "I'll find him."
-/
"It's been a while since I did this." Judith admitted her voice faltering slightly as she held her hands on either side of the glass sphere that looked like a 1980s office toy but was actually an advanced control device for a time machine. One that with much assistance from the smug robot that was K9 he'd wired into what remained of the TARDIS's control systems and hooked all of that up to the portable temporal field absorption and power generators which would hopefully let them pull in the ambient temporal power of the clock tower and other sources to hopefully give them enough power to do something with.
Hopefully.
"Time controller activating," she said, though she had confided in him that this was as much a mental thing as anything. It had been almost 50 years since she'd done it.
They, the group that would be going along with this plan almost collectively had their breath caught, none of them were prone to jumping as the globe came to life. Beams of energy peeled off from the central tower as Judith put her hands to it.
Around them the pitch of the TARDIS changed and various computer banks lit up with a new energy in the room. "Calculating energy requirements," she continued in an almost prim tone as she moved her hands around the sphere.
Harry could see no displays for any of this, so he assumed this was something only Judith could see or operate. Sarah looked between him and Judith but didn't say anything.
Judith, a moment later stepped away from the time controller. "There."
"That is it is it?" Draco asked curiously.
"No, dear Draco," she paused wriggling her fingers around as thought they were electrified.
Harry had wondered briefly if that was still in her repertoire of abilities, though she'd not shown any evidence of it.
"The power will build for the next 30 hours or so."
"Why 30?" Sarah asked.
Judith looked at him and raised an eyebrow. Everyone looked at Harry.
Harry shook his head, he didn't know.
"We should remain on board. The temporal difference once the power's at full might kill us. Even with our experience," Judith continued with a shrug.
"Safe to go out for now?" Harry asked her. She shrugged. "I guess I should report to Ros," he sighed.
-/-/-/-/-/-/ -/-/-/-/-/-/ -/-/-/-/-/-/ -/-/-/-/-/-/
Ros was set up across the road from Westminster. There'd not been any Toclafane through the city for the past couple of days. The city was dead of most things. The Resistance had no reason to be here. Aside from why they were here.
Harry wrapped his hands around the mug of hot tea that Ros had given him.
"And what of your girlfriend Potter? She'll be alive there. Will you hold it together?" Ros asked in her completely blunt way that he quite appreciated of her. It was one of her many qualities he enjoyed in their conversations.
Harry barked out what might have been a laugh. "I've been back in time, twice when I could have altered time and save my parents," he paused and looked at Ros. "I have a tiny understanding of the web of time. It's shattered with the Toclafane. You were there, heard what Faction Paradox had to say Ros. This won't help us."
"Maybe," she added.
"We still have to come back," he sipped the tea again, savouring the warmth it brought to his body. A tiny amount of warmth against the bitter pervasive cold.
"You understand time travel better than I do Potter. You and your little gang of time travellers. Have you considered what might happen if you succeed?"
"And this timeline gets erased? Wound back?" Harry asked as he leant against the wall, the frost and flaking paint rubbing against his insulated coat.
Ros nodded.
"I don't know. From what I know. What UNIT has encountered only those who were in the middle of it know anything. We'll probably not know anything. Maybe that's good," Harry admitted.
"Good Potter?"
"I'm not sure I would want to remember this thus far. What we will have to do going forward into the future," he said with some hope.
"It's moving forward Potter. Our Professors have added vigour for the project." She clapped a hand down on his shoulder. Only Ros could make such a move sarcastic.
Harry drained his tea.
"Good luck Potter. Come back alive," She said as he gave her the cold mug. Without liquid within it had quickly cooled.
"I always try to Ros."
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They'd each bedded down in rooms of the TARDIS. There was nothing much more to do but wait as the power built and they were ready to input the coordinates.
Sarah had taken K9 out to Ros and Hermione had come down to see him off and who had again asked to go with them. Harry had again said no.
There had to be some people left behind who had experience with time travel, who had experienced the temporal forces.
They'd left K9 behind despite him insisting he had to protect his 'Mistress' because Harry wasn't sure if he'd allow them to take extreme measures to stop the Doctor.
Not that they intended to let it get that far.
Harry laid back on his bed roll and looked at the ceiling of the TARDIS. Whoever's TARDIS this had been he didn't know.
It didn't feel like the Doctor's TARDIS, it wasn't a comforting hum.
But maybe that was because it was a damaged TARDIS that they'd repaired and shoved foreign technology into.
-/-/-/-/-/-/ -/-/-/-/-/-/ -/-/-/-/-/-/ -/-/-/-/-/-/
At some point Harry found himself in a bar. With a Time Lord in full dress up gear. An electric yellow Dalek and Albus Dumbledore.
"Oh," Harry said. "I'm obviously dreaming."
"Of course. But that doesn't make it any less real," said the Dalek. Dumbledore raised a pint of something to the Dalek who clinked its glass against his.
Harry didn't even realise that the Dalek had a glass of liquid or even how it was holding it.
The Time Lord didn't say anything and wasn't holding a drink, Harry was certain of that.
"Are you sure about this course of action Harry?" Asked Dumbledore. Or whatever this thing that was the shape of Dumbledore was.
"Meddling with time is not something one should engage in," said the nameless Time Lord.
Harry wanted to ask who he was, but something stopped him. It probably wasn't his better judgment because he'd just accepted a drink from a topless Sontaran waitress.
"Our choices are limited," Harry finally said. He wasn't certain why he was doing it.
A part of him did agree with Ros' reasoning. Why bother explore this option at all? Why bother if it didn't help them.
It would diverge the timelines.
Create an alternate parallel universe where they did succeed. Where they stopped the Master, stopped the Toclafane before they managed to even get a foothold. Before they even happened. Even though they actually happened at the end of the universe.
"You still do not trust Martha Jones' quest?" Upwardly inflected the Dalek.
Harry was about to launch into a discussion of faith with the Dalek and decided to instead drink his drink. He still wasn't sure what it was, or even if this was a dream of perhaps temporal psychosis or something.
"You are quite safe within my TARDIS Harry Potter," said the Time Lord in a calm voice.
Harry looked over, studying his features, but he couldn't quite make them out. The head dress of his outfit obscured his face somewhat. "Your TARDIS, and who are you?"
"Someone the Time Lords revered. One of the important figures for them," Dumbledore spoke up.
"But all the Time Lords are dead," picked up the Dalek.
"And we are all together, goo goo ga joob." Harry downed his whatever it was.
"Indeed," Intoned the Time Lord.
"Remember Harry." The Dalek put a sucker arm on his shoulder.
"Remember what?" Harry asked it.
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Harry realised someone was shaking him awake.
"Harry." It was Judith. "Remember, time travel, saving the world?" She asked looking at him curiously.
Harry shook his head. "Weird dreams." He said by way of explanation.
"Telepathic circuits in this TARDIS?" She mused.
Harry shrugged. "Are we ready to break history?" He asked.
Judith smiled. "We can but try."
-/
"Time controller activated. Inputting coordinates," Judith said as she stood at the time controller.
They'd already shut the doors and secured the room. Almost instantly the TARDIS took on a new feeling. Cautious ambivalence was the best they'd been able to sum it up. It was Sarah who'd made the observation.
Harry and Draco were stood either side of Judith with Sarah opposite.
"I think..." Judith started. "I think you should all hang on."
"To what?" Draco asked bluntly as a vibration throughout the TARDIS took hold.
"Anything," Harry answered.
They felt it throughout their bodies, possibly throughout their minds as a great old noise; of trumpeting elephants, wheezing, groaning, of matter dematerialising, of old time ships and dreams spraying across the vortex, journeying on the winds of time.
-/-/-/-/-/-/ -/-/-/-/-/-/ -/-/-/-/-/-/ -/-/-/-/-/-/
...And then...and then it stopped and it there was a thud and a beep.
Harry blinked back the stars in his eyes and looked around, everyone like him had fallen, or been pushed onto the ground.
Pulling himself and Judith up he breathed in. There was no smell of anything burning and according the computer bank they'd fixed up they still had power and nothing had exploded.
Aiming his sonic screwdriver at the doors he opened them. Unlike previously they swung open very little resistance.
Harry looked back and saw Draco helping Sarah up. "Let's see if it worked."
Outside he looked up and grinned. Up above them was the Sycorax ship.
"Merlin. We did it."
They had landed slightly off from where they needed to be. By design. Materialising their TARDIS near where the Sycorax would transmat down the Doctor's TARDIS wasn't something they wanted to do. Especially as they still didn't know whose it was.
The Time Lord in his dream hadn't been forthcoming with his name, at least he couldn't remember if he'd mentioned his name. In fact no one had mentioned their names, except his own.
It was close enough that they didn't even need to apparate, they just needed to walk around to Bloxom Road and wait, guns ready.
They had already agreed, planned that they would stun everyone except Prime Minister Harriet Jones. After she ordered Torchwood to fire but before her assistant or the Doctor could do anything.
It was here they, and the professors had decided was the optimum point to make a change. From what they had gathered with the Faction they also wanted to do it in as isolated place as possible. No other outlying factors, aside from themselves.
But that is what they would have to do next. Contact himself, there couldn't be two of them running around here. That would just be laying paradoxes on top of paradoxes.
There were four of them. Himself, Judith, Draco and Sarah.
Five targets. The Doctor, Jones' assistant, Rose Tyler, Jackie Tyler and Mickey Smith.
They'd all just been transmatted back down. Jones' assistant was on the phone.
They knew how this would go, what would happen. They'd pieced together all the footage and knew more or less what would happen and when.
"Here we go," Harry muttered as beams of energy came off from various points around the city.
"What is that? What's happening?" Asked Rose Tyler of the Doctor.
"That was murder." Answered the Doctor.
The would fire after Jones' response.
"That was defence. It's adapted from alien technology. A ship that fell to Earth ten years ago," she said looking at him calmly.
"But they were leav-" That was as far as he could get when he was hit with an energy weapon set to stun.
The others fell around Harriet Jones, hit with spells or similar weapons fire.
Harry stepped out first from their secluded potion from where they'd fired from.
"Who...who are you?"
"Harry Potter. Prime Minister. League of Paranormal Investigations," Harry said showing his security pass he'd managed to find.
"Mr Potter. Why did you stun these people?" She said after a moment.
"We're here from the future," he said shortly.
"Why? Young man?" Jones asked perplexed though not panicked.
"To save yours," he said quickly.
In a very short space of time he explained to the PM that she would need Harry Pearce and probably Torchwood, and they would need to move to contain the Doctor.
Jones looked at him. "I see Mr Potter. You are asking me to do some, I must say questionable things. You've not told me entirely, why."
"Because Prime Minister, if you fail your future will be ours. A greater than decimation of the population," Sarah spoke up.
"We can't say more, even knowing that might let it happen," Harry continued as he extracted an satellite phone from his pocket. "I need to make a call to myself now. He'll help you, at least he should," Harry muttered grimly and nodded to Draco. "You'd better tie him up just in case."
Draco nodded.
-/
Harry made the call and surprisingly he was able to convince himself very quickly. His earlier self arrived very quickly.
Watching him arrive he realised how bedraggled he'd become, not that he looked in a mirror very often. His younger self looked positively effervescent.
"You look like shit," his younger self jeered.
"I feel it," Harry commented and extracted a test tube from his pocket. It was a copy of some memories, some that he'd done in the mirror, to himself for himself. "Judith," he offered it to her. "Give that to me. It explains things in more detail." As she did so he passed her another thing. A flash drive. "And this. For the future."
She silently took both and passed it to his younger self. "You're different." Was all she said as she watched him.
Harry exhaled a short sniff through his nose. "We should do introductions," he didn't wait for them to question as he explained. "Before any of them wake and try to escape."
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"Do you think we did enough?" Sarah asked as they walked away.
"Enough to change the future?" Draco mused.
"We can only hope," Harry said.
"Time to throw the fast return switch," Judith said lazily, Harry stared at her.
-/
The journey back, or rather forward was as fraught as their trip back to the past.
Now they had literally gone back to the future. Harry didn't feel much like making the joke. Judith still looked at him amused, even though she was concentrating. He didn't think this TARDIS even had a fast return switch. Or if it did it wasn't labelled. Maybe they'd need to label it.
Harry stood at the doors and wondered what lay beyond them. A warm corridor filled with dundridges or the freezing cold of a climate forever altered by the Master's machinations?
-/
A/N:
This is a chapter that was in my early plans for this arc. It's mostly about the Doctor. Sort of. All about the Doctor's proclamation of a Great Golden Age in World War Three which is then ripped away in The Christmas Invasion.
Faction Paradox weren't in my earliest plan for this chapter. But I'm glad I did, I've been wanting to show the variety of the Doctor Who universe. To show that when the Doctor's not available the alternatives for help are sometimes not the best.
I hope to write what happens in the alternate universe created by Harry and co's interference as a small arc spin-off story. Although as of editing this chapter (again) in February 2019 I haven't.
Finally the question of 'just who is Judith?' revealed. The references that Harry and Judith reference here are to Remembrance of the Daleks.
Now for some more on where this arc will end, no spoilers follow, unless you want to know when the arc will end.
I've found, from some reviewers there's been some lethargy for this arc. I didn't mean for that to happen nor for it to be as long as it's turned out being. I just found the world that was briefly touched on in those two episodes interesting and unexplored. This alternate universe also presents a better 'what if' for Harry's development for 'what if the Doctor failed' than the Turn Left universe which is more closely tied to Donna.
However, if you want to skip the next chapter and come back at Chapter64 which is the last in the arc and where it returns to the 'main timeline'.
