Chapter 83

"Aren't we just talking about Diagon Alley?" Harry asked of Hermione. He was actually in London, on his way in a sort of awkward diagonal way to Cardiff, but the Ministry had suggested necromancy might be involved so he'd detoured to have a look around London. At least the Ministry had done their due diligence in researching before he'd been contacted. He had a lengthy letter from Senior Auror Æthelflæd Fenwick, who according to her letter had set Ron researching and limited in-the-field investigating of business called the 3W Institute, necromancy had been suggested as one of the watch words.

He'd not been able to find out much even connected to the British security services' systems. However a lot of them were currently down for server maintenance so he'd needed to come in to use their local network in person rather than remotely.

Hermione was shaking her head. "This is different Harry, none of these streets are remotely near Diagon Alley."

They were looking at a small wizarding map that Hermione had unfolded carefully to show him. They were in the corner of a cafe bar that catered for both muggles and wizards. Harry had been here before with Draco and also Daphne, separately and together, he'd also met Ross Jenkins here once or twice. Now he fancied it'd probably be easier to see Hermione and Ross together.

"Surely someone would have noticed," Harry paused and looked at Hermione as she poured a cup of tea out of the pot. "Why hasn't anyone noticed until now?"

"That survey I was doing of Stonehenge a few weeks ago," Hermione asked looking at him, Harry nodded. "I found out that London hadn't been done since at least World War II."

Harry looked at her surprised. "World War II, surely-" Harry stopped himself. "Wizards don't keep up to date with their paperwork do they?"

Hermione let out a short laugh. "No. There was probably a survey done of outer London sometime between 1900 and 1930. There was another scheduled around 1963," she gave him a look. "I'm sure you know that something happened in London late in the year."

"It's called the Shoreditch Incident," Harry idly answered. "They rescheduled I suppose?"

Hermione smiled at him pulling a small notepad out of her pocket. "Pushed forward another 10 years or so. 'Spider web in London, Muggle shop dummies, muggle military – virus, dinosaurs in London.'." Hermione said reading off a list.

"Ah," Harry said leaning back into a chair. "Those."

Hermione nodded. "From that point forward London and the whole survey project was put in the 'too hard' basket, the Ministry moved on to more important things."

"So why are you worrying about it now?" Harry asked.

"Broadening my purview," Hermione simply said without revealing anything further.

Harry shrugged. "So these locations aren't hidden by conventional magic?" Harry looked down at the map again.

"Some look to be meeting points for criminal elements. Some are secure apparition sites that aren't on any Ministry maps but are bereft of the issues that London has throughout," Hermione continued..

"Those are from alien technologies, I've not worked out how it happens, only it's something to do with energy fields," Harry explained distractedly tapping his fingers on the map. "Yet still you're here, because there's other weirdness."

"Memory modification Harry," Hermione replied in a dark tone.

"Memory modification?" Harry repeated. "The Ministry loves a bit of that, protect the muggles from the aliens which are of course wizarding artefacts and absolutely nothing else," Harry countered in a deeply sarcastic tone earning him a glare from Hermione.

Harry sighed dramatically. "Very well. Memory modification." He repeated raising an eyebrow and leaning back to pour himself another cup of tea.

"Three groups were sent to these areas. Each came back not recalling a few hours, nothing in a penseive, nor revealed by legillmancy." Hermione looked to him judging his interest.

"Interesting," Harry murmured and looked at Hermione with intensity. "What do you think it is?"

"I don't know, that's why I've asked the man in charge of the League of Paranormal Investigations to look into it," she said looking to him.

Harry nodded sipping his tea. "I've got one or two things on the boil for the rest of today." He explained.

"But soon, Harry I want this sorted, whether I need to involve the Law Enforcement or not," Hermione pressed. "It's an official request."

Harry nodded. "Of course Hermione, you have my word. I have something I have to look into for Æthelflæd Fenwick, and something in Cardiff I need to investigate, but tomorrow I'll gather the team and get started, we'll start with a look around," he paused. "You'll want to be kept informed?"

"Not just informed Harry, I want to be involved." Hermione looked to him carefully.

Harry pursed his lips. "I'll keep you informed, if you're requesting LPI then you're saying it falls right into our jurisdiction," Harry held up his hand as Hermione was about to protest. "If witches and wizards have already had their memories modified we should approach with caution."

Hermione looked at him carefully. "You're not usually one to go in calmly Harry Potter."

"Sometimes the subtle approach is required. We could be dealing with a secret Ministry site," he paused in thought "they love their memory modifications," Harry finished, recalling some of the things Ioan had told him about.

Hermione shook her head and then paused. "I don't think it's that sort of situation."

Harry rose from the table. "Look into it for me, just in case we're looking at another secret project of the Ministry."

"Like Cohort Dow Harry?" Hermione covertly asked as Harry drained his cup of tea while standing.

"Perhaps. Perhaps. Perhaps," Harry mused. "As the song goes." He said by way of farewell with a wave.

-/

"3W Institute?" Tariq Masood asked. Harry was sat with him as Pearce was busy on the phone to someone about something and had only briefly paused to greet him and direct him out of his office.

"Just something that came across my desk," Harry explained.

"Something you couldn't investigate yourself Potter?" Ruth Evershed asked walking past.

"Server issues meant it was easier for me to come into London than attempt to access the databases offsite," Harry answered the senior security services agent.

"I see," she said. "I've not read any red flags for the 3W Institute, does LPI have any information?"

"Nothing concrete, just some suspicions from my sources." Harry answered, not willing to mention the necromancy to Section D this was all he wanted to say.

"Tariq?" Ruth enquired.

"Nothing much's here. It was establish a year or two ago as a cryonics company. Dr Skarosa, developed it from a telecommunications organisation, began during Harriet Jones' golden age," Tariq explained skipping through the information.

"Nothing dodgy?" Harry asked leaning into his provided chair.

Tariq shook his head. "Should I be looking out for something weird?"

"LPI specialises in that Tariq," Harry commented idly and shook his head. "No. Any location connected with their company? I couldn't even find a PO box or email address associated with them."

"Nope. Nothing, looks like one of those businesses operating out of Harriet Jones' defunct 'Think Tank' buildings," Tariq continued to explain.

"Send me the information," Harry passed him a card. "Secure server details on the back. I might go and have a look into it. Thanks for your help." Harry said making to leave.

Evershed joined him near the pods. "Find anything Mr Potter?"

"Nothing alien related." Harry answered as he approached the pods.

"I wanted to ask, Harry, Pearce, said that..." She pursed her lips. "Ros."

"Officially she died Ms Evershed," Harry said as the doors of the pods spun open. "But we know plenty goes on between what lies in between what's official and what is not," Harry said as he stepped into the pods.

-/ - \\-

Harry threw the Evora around another of Cardiff's tight streets, this was part of his testing, at least that's what he told himself when he'd decided to drive the Evora around. Spinning the wheel he turned along another tight laneway; speeding towards the parking area for Torchwood, then hitting the breaks, hard as he came up to near the new entrance to Torchwood. They'd needed to re-align it slightly after the bombing. The Victorian-era or whatever era it had been had suffered structural damage that hadn't been noticed in the rush to get everything fixed, and more to the point hidden. The realignment allowed for more reinforcement and bracing against collapse if the rift had another rumble.

Even Gwen had acknowledged that when Jubilee Pizza knew their entrance they had become too complacent with secrecy and security.

Hopefully with Mickey Smith and Martha Jones working there with Gwen things would be looking up. He'd heard only praise from Gwen about them. Gwen though was still on maternity leave, Martha having made sure of it. At some point he would have Ros join them, as a member of the League of Paranormal Investigations, but assisting Torchwood in Wales. Ros was keen on the idea, being her own boss and all that, though she'd technically be reporting to him. He still wasn't sure about all this seniority malarkey, even though that's sort of what happened with Ioan and Judith, although he took their experiences equally. Ioan often just wanted to deal with the wizarding and slightly techy side of things, the nastier side to what they dealt with Ioan happily left to him and Judith to deal with. Harry didn't mind, the nastier stuff still held revelation for him.

Now he had Owen Cauldwell and Ros Myers under the LPI banner, with growing integration with the security services and dangers and concerns taking on new positions it was to be expected.

Getting out of his car he walked over to a panel in the bricks and waved his hand over the interface point, it should theoretically read his bio-readings and biometrics. Judith said they used something like it when she worked in whatever building where she worked in the 1980s. The door slid open after the briefest pause where Harry mused the security systems were probably pondering whether to stun or atomise him.

-/

"Oi, can't you knock?" Asked a voice as he walked into the new Torchwood. "This is our workplace."

"I set up your workplace Mickey." Harry said looking around. "Where's the 2IC?"

"Harry," Martha jones walked out of Gwen's office to embrace him as a friend. "How are you after..."

"Gallifrey returning?" He looked at her. "How are you, he must have told you stories about it."

Martha gave him a look.

"Nightmares and dreams?" Harry wondered.

"Especially after the footage Potter," Mickey alluded walking around the keyboards.

Most of the tech in the Hub they'd salvaged either from the remains of the explosion or from other Torchwood storage facilities. It would never be what it was, but with Gwen, Martha and Mickey hopefully it could be something better.

"The rift doing alright?" Harry looked over at the lights around what he'd reconstructed of the rift manipulator.

"Not many problems since the Master and Gallifrey turning up, it's still a little bit odd," Martha said.

"I'll have a look at it, so what am I to look at that'll give me new nightmares?" Harry asked, it was what he'd been summoned to look at after all.

"It made sense, seeing this, we saw the Doctor earlier in the month," Mickey said. "Looked distant, worried."

Harry looked at them. "The one you travelled with?" Harry asked of Martha.

She nodded. "He looked, sad, now we know why," she said indicating the screen. "We recovered most of the technology from Naismith's mansion, some of it had been retrieved by UNIT but they agreed that we should manage some of the stuff."

"Warned us about keeping out house in order." Mickey crossed his arms.

"They can talk," Harry muttered.

"Mickey recovered CCTV and other data stores from the collected technology stolen by the Naismiths and their associates," Martha explained.

"I've assembled it into a chronological order of events, as much as I could understand, so we can see what happened and how," Mickey explained.

"And Harry what happened, should something like this happen again," she fixed him with a look. "We both know what the world looks like if the Doctor fails."

Harry met her look and they remained silent for several seconds. "I still have nightmares about it."

Martha gave him a short nod. "Same. Play it Mickey."

"Yes ma'am." He gave a short nod.

-/

More than an hour later Harry leaned back against one of the rails. "So that's Rassilon. What a nutter."

"You know him?" Martha asked surprised.

"The Doctor's mentioned him, Sarah and the Brigadier both saw him..." Harry trailed off.

"Don't keep us in suspense Potter." Mickey prompted.

Harry closed his eyes thinking back to the stories the Doctor told him years and years ago and the conversations he and the Brigadier had chatted over since his return to the 21st century along with questioning Sarah about a few salient details. "Rassilon was one of the founders of Gallifreyan society, supposedly a ruler and a tyrant, he did things, some sort of games, sort of like chess in the Death Zone." A memory sprung up in his mind, it was when he and Iris were driving into Aidensfield. "The Death Zone's sort of like the Welsh countryside, all moors and dangerous," Harry paused. "Rassilon was either dead, a ghost or in some sort of suspended state. He popped up if anyone tried to gain immortality and if you did you became a sort of living statue guarding over his body."

"Right, so who's this bloke?" Mickey asked of the man with the gauntlet and the robes.

Harry shrugged. "Could be Rassilon. I thought all the Time Lords were dead and the Time War finished off the Time Lords and the Daleks."

"We were wrong about the Daleks," Martha said. "The Doctor thought the Cult of Skaro was finished in New York and then that stuff with the Missing Planets." She shook her head.

"Where you tried to blow up the world," Harry pondered as he mused on 'Cult of Skaro in New York', but instead refocused on what the Doctor was saying "'Back into the Time War. Back into h...something.'" Harry quoted.

"Probably hell, that's what the Doctor always said about it. The Last Great Time War between the Time Lords and the Daleks," Martha explained only giving him the briefest of looks by way of Harry mentioning her attempt to destroy the world.

"And by the end no one could tell the difference between the Time Lords and the Daleks." Harry paused. "'Ultimate Sanction'" Harry looked between them. "An absolute nutter. The Daleks are in the nursery compared to that." Harry shook his head.

"Should we do anything Harry?" Martha asked him.

Harry wondered that himself. "The Time Lords are gone, back into their war. The Master too, there's only the Doctor surviving on this side of the war." He thought about sharing his notes, his words of protection and warning against the Time Lords with them, but decided against it. He had gone through a lot of pain personal danger within his mind inside the TARDIS library to gain that. If Draco hadn't found him he wasn't sure what might've happened. But he didn't feel ready to share that, even what he had spoken when Gallifrey towered above them.

"So you think we're safe?" Martha asked.

Harry shook his head. "Not remotely, but we've earnt a breather," he paused. "According to my sources the rest of the year and Christmas should be completely alien invasion free," he revealed.

"Your sources?" Mickey narrowed his eyes at him. "Who're you talking about?"

'Oh, just some Daleks I made an agreement with who've given me some information about the future because the Doctor's been cagey of late so I've looked elsewhere for my sources'. Harry thought to himself allowing a slight smirk to play onto his face at what they might say. "I've got a few sources here and there, the Doctor's not the only time active I have contact with," which Harry added silently to himself wasn't a lie.

Martha looked at him. "If you're sure."

Harry shrugged. "Nothing's ever certain, but we can hope it's not a repeat of last Christmas. I don't know what can top Gallifrey."

"Harry, is your source reliable? We should start to move resources around and tell Gwen if there's nothing dangerous for the Christmas period," Martha asked seriously.

Harry wondered what she'd classify as 'reliable', instead he nodded, he decided it wasn't a lie, and that was enough. The Strategist and Eternal had shown they were reliable enough to deal with the timeship problem.

Their information from the datacore they'd provided had been reliable so far.

Harry wondered briefly whether to he should ask about the 3W Institute while he was here, but then remembered he had secure access to Torchwood's database from home.

Instead he said he'd take a look and check over the rift manipulator. With Jack gone he had become Torchwood's expert on all things temporal.

Many minutes later, or maybe it was seconds. Or days. Harry pushed himself out from underneath the rift manipulator having burnt or soniced his fingers re-welding some weak connections.

"Add those connections to the rift check regime Mickey." Harry walked around the manipulator pointing to the things he'd adjusted.

"Right boss," Mickey said tapping into a computer tablet. "Anythin' else?"

Harry shook his head. "Not for now."

-/ - \\-

Harriet Jones might have only been Prime Minister for a year or so, but her government had started a lot of projects. 'Britain's Golden Age' so both internal Westminster documents and the press had called the various developments.

After the Master / Saxon and the chop and change of governments till now no one it seemed had paid much attention. Money for lots of different projects had drifted out of the government's coffers.

Hospitals had been big on Harriet Jones' list, he'd found a long list of redevelopments; from the new underpinning of Royal Hope Hospital and development of a blood research lab, Albion Hospital was being redeveloped as a new inner London Hospital, St Gart's Brookside Hospital had been chosen as one of the first to work as part of the Euro-Combine Treaty.

There were other projects, things on the fringes that had also got money.

On the real fringes, rather than the alien fringe and there was plenty of that. Something called the 'Mr Copper Foundation' it sounded like a tax dodge but it had recently been reapproved for further research and funding from the communications and technology ministry.

Mr Skarosa and his 3W Institute had received funding by way of research space at one of Harriet Jones' Think Tank spaces.

"Flydale North," Harry said to himself. He was standing on the edge of the constituency. Small though it was it now had a state of the art medical outreach centre courtesy of the former Prime Minister Harriet Jones.

It also supposedly had a 'business centre' somewhere in the town.

"Well?" He asked Judith.

"It's not much Harry," she said.

"I expect helicopters and people to start shooting at us now Judith," Harry looked to her as they both looked up at the sky, seemingly waiting and hoping for such a thing to begin.

When nothing did Judith laughed at him. "Would you have preferred Ioan with us instead?"

Ioan was in Cardiff with Ros who had decided, as he'd informed them, shortly after he'd been to Torchwood that both the rift manipulator and his own 'sources' suggested nothing untoward was going to befall them between now and the end of the year, she would move down there now. Ros wanted somewhere free of any magical or otherwise influences and somewhere that Harry or anyone else couldn't pop into.

That was easy enough, Cardiff was riddled with dead zones, dangerous eddies and other such problems it was why he usually drove in and Draco and Daphne chose their apparition spots very carefully.

Ioan also wanted to get to know their new member of LPI, Harry wanted them all to get to know Ros. Even if she was colder than a cold star or icecano some of the time.

That was part of what he liked about her, the dry wit and cool attitude, but also that she had the experience of an intelligence agent that would assist LPI's activities and Torchwood in Cardiff.

"Ros needs to know it's not just me in LPI," Harry finally said after a long pause.

"She doesn't trust easily, Pearce's a good judge of character," Judith replied.

"Experience does that, Pearce I suspect has needed to make nasty decisions in the past." Harry patted down his jacket and thigh making sure of the weapons that were strapped there were still there. "I guess that's what's made him such a good judge of character," Harry finished his pat down and checked for his wand.

"Done?" Judith asked.

"Still a little paranoid, we've not just wondered in like this for a while," Harry said of the building that looked like it had been designed by an architect and built by an accountant.

"Still got to have some excitement in our lives Harry," she waved a motion to him gesturing that he should take the lead.

"So I can be shot first," he muttered.

"And I can use your body as a shield, now you've got that leadership understanding," Judith smiled perkily.

The door hadn't opened to magical spells, in fact as he cast his wand around it seemed the whole building was apparition proof. In that it would be close to suicide if you tried. Which wasn't really the same thing as being impervious to apparition. In theory a well charmed portkey could shove its way through any of these limitations.

His sonic screwdriver, something he was ever thankful to the Doctor for giving him did allow them entry without too many hassles.

Inside was what was probably intended to be a light filled entrance and office space.

"Accountants have no sense of the aesthetics," Judith commented walking over to the front desk.

Harry meanwhile walked around looking for a sign that would hopefully say who or what businesses were in the 'Flydale North Development and Business Improvement Building Space'.

"Space at the end of the hall," Judith called from the front desk.

"Let me guess, there's no other tenants and it's all been abandoned for ages?" Harry called from where he was standing.

Harry heard footsteps of Judith's on the polished concrete coming around to join him. "Is it in disarray with everything strewn around?" She asked as she joined him.

Harry shook his head gesturing with a hand. "Surprisingly not. No recently raised corpses, no weird technology, nothing," he looked around.

"Just an empty business estate. Credit crunch as the papers said Jones' mismanagement and all that?" Judith wondered in a sarcastic tone as they began towards the office at the end of the room.

"I quite liked the PM-" Harry began.

"Better than the ones we ended up with, aside from the current one," Judith interjected.

Harry nodded. "Yeah," Harry looked to her. "Shall we get this over with?"

"You think there's a robot hiding in there waiting for you to do a running jump and slide at it Harry?" Judith asked.

Harry gave her a look. "This isn't Tomb Raider."

"Of course not. You're leading the charge Nathan Drake," Judith commented.

Harry gave her a puzzled look she just laughed.

"Not as cultured as I thought Harry," Judith said as she smirked.

Walking the length of the building it was quite disappointing, there wasn't anything here.

"Just failed government dreams and promises," Judith said as they walked.

"This is when I wish there was some action, I almost miss being shot at," he admitted.

"You don't almost Harry, you do miss being shot at," Judith commented sagely as they reached the single blue office door at the end of the room.

"It's very blue," Harry looked at it and patted his pockets. "Sonic or wand?"

"Camera first," Judith pointed to a wire that was running out of the office. "Put off being shot at for another day shall we?"

Harry sighed dramatically as Judith pulled a small multi-meter out of her pocket. It wasn't one of their energy scanners; they were all in the car, he'd not thought they'd needed them. "Anything?"

Judith shook her head. "It's not hooked up."

"Alohomora," Harry muttered at the lock. Pleasantly it unlocked and swung open with a creak that shouldn't have been present in a building this new.

Inside was...a nice view and nothing shooting at them, much to Harry's disappointment.

Looking around the office there was only a computer sitting on the desk, which Judith was already walking over to and extracting an expanding bag from her pocket to slip it in to.

"How disappointing," Harry said looking around and grabbed a chair from a side table to stand on so he could stand up at the same level as the security camera. Aiming his sonic screwdriver at the casing he pulled the casing off as the screws holding it on melted.

Inside was just what it looked like, a very cheap, probably the lowest bidder security camera.

"No sign of necromancy?" Judith asked from below him where she was under the desk looking around.

"No," Harry hopped back down and looked around. "It looks just what it is, a failed business."

"Which you don't like," Judith looked at him questioningly.

Harry shook his head. "I'd like to hope it's nothing Tariq's data didn't reveal anything exciting, it was all very boring. There's still some government databases from Jones' time that remain encrypted, so it could be from there. I asked him to look into it, but it wasn't a priority."

"Perhaps the Ministry's just jittery about cryonics, they've not exactly advanced beyond the steam train, maybe someone looked at Popular Science and freaked out," Judith offered.

Harry nodded. "Fine," he shoved his sonic screwdriver back into a pocket and gave the room a final look around. "We'll look through his computer and I'll write a report for Æthelflæd Fenwick," he said following Judith out of the room.

"LPI will continue to keep an eye out, with nothing but an economically designed building has revealed itself to us." Judith continued for him as they walked out.

"Maybe I should delegate my letter writing to you?" Harry asked as they walked through the building.

"No Harry Potter, you're the one in charge, you get to write all the boring letters," Judith said as they exited the building.

-/

Inside the now empty building, as the noise of a sonic screwdriver fixing the lock pulsed through the building a woman stepped out of a secure hiding spot.

She clapped her hands together, twirling through the building.

"Well, well, well, aren't you a smart chappy Harry Potter."

-/

A/N:

Edit done March 2019, minor edit done June 2021.

I really liked writing this chapter, even though not a lot happens in it.

Harry now knows most of what happens during The End of Time inside the Naismiths' residence.

I wanted to give the 3W Institute a bit of back story and thought tying it into Harriet Jones's Golden Age would be a nice touch. I like to think Flydale North got something out of her Prime Ministership.

And of course, at the end, the last paragraph, I'm sure you all know who that masterly lady is who was spying...

Thanks for reading.