Chapter 78
After the 456, the destruction and rapid reconstruction of Torchwood and...well everything that came after it Harry had decided that he wasn't going to go away for Christmas.
'Holiday at home' had been one of those catch phrases that had been often thrown around at least he was sure he'd heard it somewhere Harry reflected to himself.
He'd decided, with some encouragement from Daphne to hold a...whatever party. He'd not actually come up with a name for it. It wasn't a garden party because he didn't have a garden, well he had paddocks which he rented out to his neighbour who grazed it. He only used the fenced off area for his satellite array. His neighbour didn't mind, he got the paddocks for a very reasonable rent which had allowed him to increase his business.
"Perry?" Daphne asked him curiously.
"Perry. Cider. Beer. Wizarding drinks?" He inclined his head to her and sighed. "I'm not sure this is a good idea Daphne. I'm not really a big partier." He'd never really been. He sort of felt like he owed it to people he knew, for being mysterious about the Dalek invasion, about calling in the occasional favour and for not being in England when the 456 arrived.
Even though he knew and Judith had told him that there was absolutely nothing he could have done.
The First Minister and Gwen, once she'd settled in had been full of praise of the reconstruction of Torchwood in Cardiff.
Martha and Mickey had taken some convincing, in the end he'd told them to call or video chat or whatever it was people of their ilk did and to have a chat over a pint of something non-alocoholic, lest they made Gwen grumpy, being a part of something, especially something that provided an income would be better than roving the countryside fighting aliens.
Jack was nowhere to be found. That however was understandable. Harry shuddered to think of the choices he'd made, what he'd done.
Britain had just been through its fastest so far election with Aubrey Fairchild being re-elected as PM, again. Hopefully he'd actually be half decent. Brian Green, his party and most of his government was under UN arrest along with a US General who'd taken control of things. The security services, according to Harry Pearce had not quite washed their hands of it, but as they'd been forced out of almost all talks and discussions during the 456 incident there was little they could say.
Harry tapped a pen on his notepad. Parties. He almost shuddered.
"We don't have to worry about people being vegetarians do we?" Harry wondered aloud.
Daphne gave him a curious look as she looked out the window while she made a pot of tea for herself and Harry.
"Vegetarian?" She paused almost curiously.
"Someone who doesn't eat meat," Harry clarified.
"How quaint." Daphne commented after a moment's pause. "Do muggles still participate in programmed eating?" She asked him honestly.
Harry wasn't sure he'd never really considered it. It had been something his aunt and uncle had tried to put Dudley onto. "I think so," he finally said.
Daphne gave him a look. "We witches and wizards do not need to participate in something so archaic Harry." She picked up the milk jug and went over to the fridge pouring a small amount of milk out. He hardly used any in his tea. "Your purchases from your locale are supportive of your agricultural surrounds," she said positively as she poured the tea and floated it over to the lounge area with Harry following her collapsing down into one of the armchairs.
"The Doctor's warning also hangs..." He trailed off exhaling and taking the mug of tea offered to him by Daphne who had relaxed into the opposite chair to watch him with an amused expression.
Harry looked over at her querying her expression.
"Harry, I am a witch. You are a wizard. You have stepped on alien sand," she spoke calmly. "You have gazed into another world," she focused on him more intensely. "With the nightmares that has brought you," she relaxed slightly. "Has the Doctor said anything that would disturb you so? As much as your insight into that world?"
Harry shook his head. He had confided in her, more than once about the nightmare of that world, and how, it had shaken his...not faith, trust in the Doctor, the one he'd so recently met. The one who would have stood by and watched the universe end, be destroyed by the Daleks and Davros were it not for Donna and that 'Meta-Crisis Doctor', those two beings the Doctor seemed certain had died, destroyed in the Dalek's furnace.
It had been such a relief to see the Doctor again, the man, the Time Lord with a bow tie, and Harry felt a presence in that man, that Time Lord that he could trust him, far more so than that other Doctor. Harry wasn't sure why, it was the same trust he'd had in the Doctor he'd first encountered with Ian and Barbara along with Susan, and really every other Doctor he'd met, all of them mostly briefly.
Maybe, maybe it was the extended contact with the Doctor? But he had spent almost a year around the Doctor when he'd been in the 1970s.
Harry smiled a sorrowful smile of regrets that hadn't been his and memories of an alternate him and pushed them back and away.
"Heading into the final months of the year party then, bring together a few people. Friends." Harry took a sip of his tea. "Etcetera."
-/ - \\-
Ron wasn't coming, Daphne had encouraged him to send letters out, rather than just dropping round to the various people. He'd have preferred that, instead he'd got a short letter from Ron asking if Draco was coming.
Of course he was.
Hermione too was coming and had asked nothing of whether Draco would be here. Harry assumed that she presumed that Draco would be here.
Harry mentally counted off the names in his head as he poked the one of the fire pits over which one of the spits turned.
Ioan and Akilina, Draco, George and Angelina, Hermione, Neville and Hannah, Owen Cauldwell. That was the wizarding contingent, added to that were some of Ioan's Quidditch mates who'd helped out with Cardiff and Torchwood recently he and Ioan had put in place a few vague wards over the paddocks and his neighbour had been informed so the animals wouldn't be around to be spooked.
Plus Ross Jenkins, Harry'd found him to have a wry open willingness and wasn't part of the Cybermen or corrupt element of UNIT.
He'd called Ros Myers to ask if she'd like to come, though as he suspected Ros was caustic to the concept of socialising.
He wasn't sure this was exactly the realms of a huge party...party. Though the last big wizarding party he went to he'd been thrown in the cellar and chucked back to the 1970s, for a second time.
Ross was the first to arrive. Even Daphne wasn't here, she was sorting out some things in London before coming down, she had called to tell him she was dealing with some 'issues', some sort of insect issue or something.
He'd set up a little parking area, even though Ross was the only one who would be driving, that he was pretty sure of.
"Ross," Harry shook the man's hand as Ross looked around.
"Nice property, remote Harry," he said looking around.
"I spend enough time in London to not need to live there," Harry answered.
"I guess you can just pop up there." Ross asked curiously.
Harry nodded. "Relax Ross. Everyone else invited will be magical of some description."
"Everyone?" Ross asked tensing.
Harry chuckled. "Have a drink. Relax. None of them will hurt you."
There was a pop of apparition making Ross jump, Harry waved to George and Angelina who were up on the road near the driveway.
"Never heard it like that before," Ross observed in a nervous tone.
"You came with me Ross," Harry explained lightly as George and Angelina walked down the driveway to greet him as they did so he introduced Ross. "It's all about perspective," Harry muttered. "How you see things."
George embraced him in a hug. "Too long Harry, and now we're at your house! Like, there's extremes mate, first you're all mysterious." He raised his eyebrows. "Then you're meeting my brother on a hidden away island, Merlin knows what you got up to there." He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
"With tickets provided by Draco Malfoy, who'd have thought. Hello Harry," Angelina greeted him with a brief hug.
"Who'd have thought, I did invite Ron but..." Harry trailed off.
"Malfoy's coming then?" George asked.
Harry nodded and began to open his mouth.
"You don't need to explain, we're all adults. School's long since passed," George said his voice tinged with sorrow and longing.
"This is Ross Jenkins, we worked together briefly." Harry said stepping aside. "He's not magical," he added.
George and Angelina seemed surprised.
"The Statute of Secrecy...?" Angelina trailed off looking between Harry and Ross.
"Is a load of piffle." Harry shrugged. "How many times has Earth been invaded?" He asked out loud in an almost rhetorical tone.
"What sort of time frame, and do you mean actual invasions, or just alien incursions?" Ross asked. "UNIT also knows something of magic, Voldemort's actions were known about," Ross continued much to the surprise of George and Angelina.
Harry hoped that they wouldn't get into exactly what UNIT knew in the 1970s and who knew, otherwise that conversation would get complicated very quickly for him. Plus he didn't want to really talk about who he knew, magical or otherwise during his time during that encounter. Especially not the wizarding variety. That he knew George's uncles, before they'd been born was something he didn't know how to explain. Only that they remained some of his good friends, even if time separated them.
Harry didn't care that he knew that they were dead now...some times were as much a place as places were locations.
Or something.
Thankfully there was another arrival, though no audible noise of apparition. Harry gestured over to the fire pits and casks of alcohol.
"Help yourself, I've probably over catered," Harry said another of his guests walked down the drive towards him with a slightly amused expression on his face.
"You look positively concerned Harry," Draco said who was of course punctual though not an early arrival.
"I'm just worried about this. Socialising," Harry exhaled. "Instigating it. Daphne and you have been saying that. I should socialise around things that don't involve aliens or the end of the world."
"Was it the recent crisis that persuaded you to instigate this social gathering of your associates?" Draco asked as he and Harry walked slowly down the drive towards where the group of three were already sitting around a smaller fire chatting.
"Daphne and I have been off to various parties, gatherings," Harry replied. "I thought I'd hold a whatever party." He looked to Draco. "My list of people, friends, whatever is rather short."
Draco seemed amused by this. "Harry, I would worry if you had an unfeasibly long list of associates to call on for a social soiree," he paused. "Would it surprise you to know that the list of people I would willingly invite to the manor is also very short. Perhaps even shorter than yours?" He asked in a softer tone.
Harry looked to the blond haired man. "No. Draco it wouldn't," Harry paused. "We have a lot of casual meals together," he pointed out in a slight jovial tone.
Draco made a face. "Few people are as fascinating to talk with as you Potter," he said reverting to Harry's last name as a form of light mockery. "None have saved my life in the ways you have."
Harry smiled broadly. "No. I would think not. Well, eat, drink and be merry," Harry patted him on the back and turned around fancying that there must be someone else arriving to save him from having to socialise with a large group of people, even if they were the people whom he had invited.
-/
"Malfoy's here then," Hermione observed. She'd arrived but a minute after Daphne who was already making the rounds with the people who were already at his little gathering.
Harry gave her a look. "I invited Ron as well. He's still not quite ready for my friendship with Draco."
This elicited a rough laugh from Hermione. "I don't think anyone was ready for your friendship with Draco Malfoy Harry. Least of all Ron."
Harry nodded. "Still I thought he might like a get together. Not quite a garden party, but I have food, booze and vegetables."
"The last one was an after thought wasn't it Harry?" Hermione asked in a knowing tone.
Harry shook his head. Although he had been reminded of it by his neighbour that all meat and booze should have some sort of vegetable accompanying it.
He had Perry and cider. They were once fruits.
"You've invited someone new Harry?" Hermione asked a mixture of mock excitement and surprise.
"Someone who works for UNIT, we worked together during an invasion. Had to apparate with him," Harry shrugged nonchalantly.
"The statute being just a guide for you Harry Potter?" She arched an eyebrow at him.
"It's a load a guff. The world's changing," he grumbled.
Hermione barely suppressed a snort. "The wizarding world will move at its own pace."
-/
"You're enjoying yourself Ross?" Hermione asked sitting down next to the man, the soldier whom Harry had invited and was currently watching Harry and Ioan and some of Ioan's Quidditch friends play a somewhat ill advised drunken game of Quidditch.
"It's...somewhat overwhelming, even after...everything with UNIT," he admitted taking a sip of his drink.
Hermione had not been surprised to find out that Harry had sourced all of his alcohol from farmers if not in the local area then from people around who knew others. It packed a surprising punch more so than even any wizarding bars she had consumed alcohol in.
"That's how I felt...I think." Hermione tried to cast her mind back to finding out about the wizarding world. But in truth it had been a joy to finally make sense of some things that had bothered her. "It was a discovery."
"That's what UNIT feels like. After the regulars," he said watching the brooms and the people atop them fly about. "Meeting Harry and everything, popping around and everything," he paused. "He saved my life."
Hermione nodded. "Harry does that, when he's not being cynical and mysterious about the end of the world," she finished.
-/
Daphne looked over at Hermione who was talking to the muggle soldier Harry had invited, he was the only individual other than Judith who wasn't a witch or wizard, and she knew that Judith was something other than muggle. Although she knew she would never get a direct answer, if she were to be so gauche as to directly ask the older woman of her past.
The woman in question was chatting animatedly to Neville Longbottom and his girlfriend Hannah.
"You didn't wish to play with Harry?" Daphne asked sitting down near by to Draco.
Draco sniffed. "I have some sense Daphne," he raised his mug. "While I may not have consumed as much of this..." He paused to sip rather than describe what it was. "I have sense not to attempt to fly after it. Let Potter have his Quidditch fun. Those days are past."
Daphne wondered if Draco only found it amusing when he had been in opposition to Harry, when they had all been much younger and far less wise at Hogwarts. Now they were all much more...travelled and knew far more about one another. Now, contented and associated they were...friends. It was still something of a subject of not so much amusement but... Had events transpired differently her sister was to have been married off to Draco.
Instead Draco had become something of a rarity amongst people of his class and stature. A 'bachelor', although given his past, and especially his family's past that was in part understandable.
Daphne considered raising this as a subject of conversation and then cursed herself for considering raising such an undesirable topic of conversation between wizards.
Sex was one thing, relationships another.
One was simple release of energies and the like. The other could be political.
"Have you been finding your work fulfilling Draco? You've not mentioned it during our last luncheon," she asked curious. Draco Malfoy's skill with vanishing cabinets had been a revelation and it was still something she found curious. It also had the potential to 'make a dent' as Harry once suggested in her own family's business.
"Do not be concerned Daphne, your family's business is secure," Draco said as he stood to go and retrieve a further drink he paused as she passed him her own mug.
He was gone barely 30 seconds and resumed his conversation. "I have neither the desire nor the knowledge to 'churn them out' as Harry says of the cabinets. They are...delicately precise items." He swallowed a mouthful of the liquid in his mug. "My journey through to that alien world should have dissuaded me from them," he paused, looking over to where Harry and the others were playing.
"But?" Daphne prompted curiously.
Draco just looked at her. "I think I will have more food, lest all this alcohol inebriates me."
-/ - \\-
Harry woke up and pushed himself grudgingly out of bed, he probably would have liked to stay in bed, especially as Daphne was in there beside him.
But the doorbell was the doorbell and he hoped it wasn't the Sontarans or something trying to invade.
He was immediately regretting however much he'd drunken last night.
Most of the previous night was something of an, albeit fun and enjoyable, blur. More like a smear he thought as he wrapped a dressing gown around himself and made his way to the door where one of his mail delivers was waiting with a small envelope sized packaged.
"Thank you," he said summoning whatever strength he had to be civil to the bloke before him. "I won't need to send a return," he continued, even if it had come express, special delivery and all that, whatever it was could wait.
"Mr Potter," he nodded and then departed.
As he left Harry looked past him and could see Ross Jenkin's car still where he'd parked it.
Which was odd.
Because there was no one else in the house and he was sure...vaguely, maybe, perhaps that everyone had apparated away.
Unless someone had stayed outside under a blanket and watched the stars. Which would have been a romantic idea, had it not turned into a freezing night. He was thankful he had decided to make it a lunch-ish not-garden party.
Placing the letter on the kitchen bench he looked out the window and couldn't see anyone asleep or otherwise out in the fields.
Harry looked at the letter, which was unopened and wondered if he should open it now, niggling as it was at him or if he should have a shower first.
He looked at the letter which could be something innocuous, a letter from Ron or someone else, being sent to him via his mail forwarder or something else fairly mundane.
Harry pondered it and decided that he deserved not to be in a dressing gown if he was going to tackle something like a letter from Ron or some other evil from the postal system.
-/
"You received a letter?" Daphne inquired curiously. How she'd managed to rise, use the other shower and then beat him to the kitchen to be sat dressed and dressed in all civility before him he wasn't sure.
"You didn't indulge at much as I did?" Harry asked pouring himself a mug of strong tea.
Daphne smiled wickedly at him. "I know how to drink appropriately Harry, I work in a profession of sailors and seamen. They are accustomed to a mug of rum on occasion. One must know how to consume it appropriate to the situation."
Harry shook his head as he pushed him toast into the toaster. "My mail forwarded," he said.
"I have seen them. Not intact, you are usually very prompt with your replies," Daphne observed.
"Usually I don't spend the previous day drinking and socialising," he said in a mock tone of dread.
Daphne looked to him. "You enjoyed yourself Harry," she chastised.
"Because I didn't have to hold all the conversations." He sat down and nodded. "After everything it was nice though."
"I observed Ross Jenkins' conveyance is still here." She nodded towards the driveway.
Harry nodded as the toast popped up. "Perhaps he got a lift home."
"Perhaps indeed," Daphne commented playfully.
Later, Daphne having departed early, seemingly the previous day's drinking Perry that packed a punch and beer that delivered a wallop had put a spring in her step Harry was left alone. Or rather he was left with a letter.
Opening it looked like a standard letter from some government department.
The letter however started all too friendly, and its contents made him puzzled and then made him groan at complexities of life.
But it was the final thing, the name at the bottom, something about that name, it was filled with danger and power and it made him wonder if he should even speak the name aloud.
It was a name that made him suspicious of the letter's contents and even the letter itself.
It made him take a direct line to his advanced scanning equipment in the barns to work out exactly why this letter was suspicious, he was sure it was, somehow.
-/
A/N:
Minor edit done June 2021.
This chapter is somewhat short, mostly because I wanted to end on the letter (and lead into the next chapter with it). It's also very much a 'pause' sort of chapter.
As a bonus I want to present original chapter for 'The Stolen Earth' events. I wrote the below in 2009 (and never finished it). I wrote it around the same time as I wrote chapter 10.
This is a little vision into what might have been, had Harry actually hooked up with Ginny, rather than the way things turned out thus far. It's unedited from when I wrote it.
I didn't include this with the chapter it relates to mostly because all my author notes up to this point have been really long.
-/
Visited by a Doctor 2009 – The Stolen Earth chapter
"Harry!" Ginny almost screamed as the shaking stopped, as she looked out the window of their house.
When his voice came it was from the front door.
"I know Ginny, I know." Harry James Potter was staring up at the sky, the sky that had changed in a moment.
Matter transmission, Harry thought to himself. He was glad of the visits, the friends, of the Doctor, at least he knew what had happened. And that he shouldn't be panicking. Much.
Harry breathed in and out, calmly as he stared at the planets hovering overhead.
"Atmospheric bubble intact." He murmured to himself as he stepped back inside, hugging Ginny with one arm as he did so. She looked up into his eyes.
"What is it Harry?"
"I'm not sure. If you can, fire call the League. Tell them…" He trailed off, thinking.
"Tell them…?"
"Don't use portkeys and wait."
"No portkeys and wait." He nodded.
"I'm going to check my equipment." Ginny nodded as she went to the smouldering fire.
Her partner's 'equipment' was in one of the rooms of the moderately sized house. So far Harry hadn't wanted to get married, and she hadn't really wanted to, Bill and Fleur were happily so, but she'd always wanted a bit of freedom in her life, as did Harry.
Typical of her family she'd thought when Harry had shown her his accumulated 'technology' and had explained to her about aliens. Her father was obsessed about muggles. Harry had a 'good interest' in aliens, he even had a friend who was one, not that she'd met him yet.
His equipment was tied into several large dishes mounted throughout their property, and other odd things.
The League was Harry's 'pet project', the League of Paranormal Investigations and Understanding, a group of wizards and witches that believed and had an interest in the same things as her partner. Sorting things out when aliens came into the wizarding world.
