Chapter 93
Harry resisted the urge to hiss again. The biosynthetic coat was wrapped around him tight against the background temporal pollution. It was far less than where they're tried before here, but that wasn't saying much.
The air was thick with particulates that his mask was only just coping with. A burnt orange sky; he doubted it was deliberately evoking the occupier's home planet, but was merely a result of the pollution from the munitions factories here.
Harry tightened his grip on his wand again, not that he could use it, or want to use it, not out here in the open at least, he wanted to stay under the radar for as long as possible.
Regardless there was an inordinate amount of magic in the air, and the ground and everywhere. Though not magic, not exactly, it...it felt like that planet of cobwebs, but less so, a result, he suspected of what was happening here, the work weapons work that was being carried out here.
"I'm beginning to wish we'd tried our luck with the Timeonic radiation." Oswin muttered beside him, her mouth like his also covered by a mask. Like almost everyone, not that there were many walking the street, most wore masks protecting their lungs, probably all their organs from the pollution, some didn't, maybe they'd stopped caring.
Here, on this planet Harry mused to himself as he looked up at the sky, they were the enemy that these people were working so hard to build munitions against.
-/
Earlier...
"Three is a better number," Harry said, both he and Oswin were stood at the controls of the Timeship. The Dalek Time Controller's data had been less than accurate when they'd arrived at the coordinates that it had reluctantly provided. Harry was sorely tempted to pop back and exterminate it.
At the location of the coordinates all they'd found was remains, levelled by some sort of temporal explosion. It was starting the frustrate him, this lack of progress, stifled at every turn by weird questions, irritating gittish Daleks and now remains of a temporal battle.
Oswin suggested that they might be in the thick of the Time War; that was why the battlelines kept shifting.
They did manage to stumble upon a bit of good luck; a Dalek monitoring post, which had yet to acquire an operator, but its systems were on automatic monitoring.
According to the post's monitoring systems the local area was in temporal flux, while it was isolated against it. The shifting battlelines that Oswin had suggested and he sort of understood.
Harry hated not understanding everything, but he wasn't sure he'd actually ever properly understand the Time War, despite being a non-active participant in it.
As a result of its isolation the monitoring post had more data from its chronoscan from either side of the temporal flux, which it had traced as Time Lord locations in this vague region of space-time, based on where the planet had been and its temporal effect on the timelines. Which as a result other planets had dropped into place in its stead.
-/
"This is much better, this is where we should have started with," Oswin said pointing at the Dalek monitoring post that was still on one of the Timeship's screens.
"Because it's not a smug git of a Dalek Time Controller, just a computer and monitoring equipment," Harry leant against the central column in thought.
"So which should we start with, pointing to one of the other screens that was displaying the information they'd extracted.
"Heard of any of them?" Harry asked.
"Diqdarl ends up on the Galactic Heritage list," Oswin looked to him. "They made a TV show about it, I helped secure some of the celebrity judges."
"Was it any good?" Harry asked curiously.
Oswin looked at him with a coy smile. "I know you have eyes for Gholos and Nicky Newman," she sighed. "It could have been a better success if they'd gone with the Mercurian boomerang spoon and Mimosian Anti-Matter Chopsticks during the cooking and construction round. They did at least accept we needed more nudity and less philosophical discussion."
"I'm sure the ratings were amazing," Harry said wondering if Oswin had a copy of the Galactic Heritage cooking show. "What about Refiloe?"
Oswin shook her head. "Never heard of it, how about Minyos?"
Harry nodded. "I've heard of that one. I'm sure the Doctor told me about it," Harry frowned in thought. "I don't remember when."
Oswin nodded and manipulated the controls. "Then we'll start where you and the Doctor know, what could be more dangerous?"
-/
Harry was finishing eating a 'food bar' when the Timeship roughly materialised into normal space. It was so rough he had been thrown against the corridor of the Timeship as he tried to rush to the control room through the turbulence.
"Rough doesn't describe it Harry," Oswin was at the controls of the Timeship.
"Short hop, backwards in space." Harry said taking up his position.
"That's what I'm trying to do, I just need to-"
There was a pop and a thundering feeling went through the Timeship and they momentarily dematerialised.
-/
Harry looked at the data they'd gathered. They were basically parked almost on the next planet out from their target of Minyos.
It was, from what they could tell a temporal wasteland. One that maybe a Time Lord could survive. But as neither he nor Oswin was a time sensitive and even their Timeship hadn't liked materialising near by that planet Harry decided that Ginny was unlikely to be there.
It might be inhabited, it might not, but it wasn't something they were going to be gaining access to, not for a very long time.
All they could do is sit here and look and wonder what had happened on Minyos, something Gallifreyan, they knew that. They had enough datasets gathered from being on Dalek craft to be able to identify that.
It also wasn't the Daleks' style to temporally irradiate a planet, why do something like that, it would just mean that you couldn't set foot or jab a plunger on the planet? Even the Soldier Daleks, toughened against the temporal weapons of the Time Lords might struggle from the way he was reading the data.
"Maybe we can visit again, if we survive this?" Oswin wondered.
Harry gave Oswin a look. "When," Harry mused, that of past curiosities at Hogwarts and the like; places he nearly died or wherever he'd not been tempted to try and revisit them.
Oswin patted him on the shoulder, "Of course Harry. Refiloe or Diqdarl?"
Harry pondered as he dematerisalised the Timeship into the vortex, there seemed to be no reason to hang around in normal space, especially given how uncomfortably deadly the temporal radiation was there. "If you had your naked reality show on Diqdarl I think Refiloe."
Oswin smiled slyly at him. "I know you're curious Harry Potter."
-/ - \\-
Harry wondered if Refiloe had once been a nice planet before the Time Lords set up factories here. He guessed it had to be, it had, or once had more breathable atmosphere than it currently had.
Giant and small smoke stacks billowed smoke into the sky; adding to the deep orange hue of the sky. He wondered softly and aloud to Oswin whether this made the people here think of home. Of Gallifrey, its skies were orange, so Susan said, so the Doctor said. He'd witnessed those skies himself when Gallifrey had materialised above Earth, when the nightmares came for most people.
Munitions factories, that's what was supposedly lurking out here on the edge of the Time War; what the Time Lords were constructing out here, away from the bulk of the temporal battles. Why they were doing so was a question he'd yet to get around to asking anyone who might have an answer. The Daleks were less inclined to answer questions like that. Or were too much of a gittish bastards to answer questions.
Oswin had said there was a higher than normal amount of trace amounts of Taranium in the air, supposedly an ultra rare mineral. If it was floating around in the air as trace elements the Time Lords were using it on an industrial scale here.
Spying a secluded alleyway, which was somewhat sheltered Harry motioned to Oswin and they peeled away from the few people that were out in the streets.
They were all Time Lords here, though none of them wore the fancy collars, though all seemed to wear the Seal of Rassilon somewhere on their cloaks. He'd transfigured one to sit on the outside of his cloak.
"Keep an eye out" Harry muttered as he withdrew his wand and waved if carefully around him.
A muted spiral of very dark purples suggested there was still too much magical backwash to apparate anywhere, and that they shouldn't eat or drink anything around them. That was what the spell had originally been created for, but then in the 1940s some aspiring witch and wizards had altered and adapted it, changing your intonation and intention made it more adaptable to indicate more information.
Specifically the lethality of the possibility of apparation and the magical concentration in the air, which meant they were going in the right direction.
But it also meant that they had even less chance of escape.
They had at least brought the Timeship with them.
Harry had been a little unsure about putting a larger inside than outside object inside one of his (albeit the strongest of them) expandable bags, but Oswin, who'd had some sort of discussion with the Timeship about it had reassured him it was fine.
Harry had had his own word with the Timeship, telling it, he'd rather have it with them, than left out in this...smog. Unlike the Time Lords' TARDISes, their Timeship was somewhat more conspicuous. A piece of fantastic technology, almost artistic in the way it sat in the landscape, all odd angles, yet a cuboid, sort of. But a white cuboid with darker highlights the Timeship would have stood out here in a dark orange smog-filled nightmare.
"Psst." Oswin was making noises and Harry mentally groaned as he saw a Time Lord soldier approach them. They'd so far managed to avoid anyone who looked like they were holding a staser in a dangerous manner, but sneaking off to do a quick search had obviously cost them.
"You there, halt," Harry praised his 'babel fish in a stick' that the Doctor had given him on his last visit. He'd applied it after he'd popped out of the Timeship for a quick look around and realised everyone was speaking another language; Gallifreyan he'd guessed.
"Stay where you are, do not move," Harry muttered and guessed Oswin gave him a look that said he shouldn't be mocking someone holding a gun.
Harry turned to face the Time Lord slowly pulling the hood of his cloak back far enough so he could potentially make eye contact.
He seemed taken aback by the mask Harry was wearing, or maybe that Harry had made eye contact with him.
As it turned out it was neither of those.
"You've only one heart," he said shocked to Harry. Harry was glad he was holding the Time Lord's interest, though he hoped if he'd scanned or whatever Oswin she would be similarly attired, body wise.
"I have not been required to regenerate yet," Harry said in slow tones looking to the man's eyes. Not a simple process as he had a helmet on protecting his head and face and Harry wore a mask muffling his attempt to intone as he spoke. "The war has thus far not made rejuvenation necessary."
The Time Lord grinned. "Needed to, gotta have the second heart to fight, you're technical aren't you?" He looked to Oswin.
"Indeed," Harry said. "And security, as you are, hand in hand for Gallifrey."
"Yes, Gallifrey!" His face lit up and Harry smiled thinly as he continued to hold the man's gaze.
"We're checking the outer buildings..." Harry paused, wanting to ask where Ginny might be but lacking what word, even though the translation stick which did some odd things with his perception, to ask where he might go. "The enemy might pick up on the slightest thing."
"The enemy..." The Time Lord trailed off, Harry wasn't sure if he was actually succeeding mesmerising the Time Lord or if he was genuinely distracted.
"Yes, the enemy." Harry intoned, "Our enemy, you should go and patrol." Harry paused, a beat in a sentence. "Our enemy might be out there, you should go and do your duty."
"Duty...enemy..." The Time Lord repeated and looked away. "Right you are, sir."
Harry met the man's gaze, what he hoped was a final time and smiled as he walked off.
Oswin watched the Time Lord soldier stumble off. "You're rather good, where'd you learn how to do that?"
"From a Time Lord master criminal," Harry said rubbing the back of his neck through the cloak as he felt the beginnings of a headache starting.
"Come on before he remembers us."
-/ - \\-
Harry looked to Oswin for some reassurance. "They look like cardboard cut outs of Daleks Harry."
Harry sighed. They'd narrowed down where Ginny might be based on the amount of magical 'stuff', weapons and the like enhanced with magic, or that seemed to be entirely magical weapons. Nothing he'd ever seen on Earth, but they...they felt magical. Harry couldn't even begin to put it into words how he felt about the canisters, boxes and other things that almost smelt like Hogwarts, or Diagon Alley, or even that magical waste pit. It was all those and none of those things. But the munitions, the temporal war weapons that this planet, these factories were churning out. He knew they were dangerous without even understanding them.
They needed to pull the 'big distraction and sneak in' routine. Using cardboard Daleks and by blowing up some stuff, it was a little flimsy, much like the cardboard Daleks, but then there wasn't a lot of stuff around that leant itself to transfiguration, ironically the surplus of magical material was not suitable for magical manipulation.
Harry sprinkled a few spells around the cardboard Daleks, nothing really dangerous, just some spells that worked in the reverse opposite way of a 'notice-me-not' charm. It was a 'hey, look at me' charm, just, he hoped not too closely.
"Let's blow some stuff up," Harry gave Oswin a feral grin.
-/ - \\-
Exhaling a breath of air she gestured with her hand another bale of the cobwebs. They had been her own creation, learnt while she was in the Department. It felt like a lifetime ago, several lifetimes if she really thought about it. The Time Lords had helped her alter it, based on fungus they had encountered, she had seen a 'Matrix projection' of what looked like the Muggles' underground and the Yog-Sothoth's control there. She had improved upon its control and beyond the Time Lord's experiments in this field.
She had heard that they had been successful in wresting control of worlds away from those that might support the enemy. It helped on others to prepare the locations for their associates.
Stepping down from the area a Time Lord passed her a nutrient bar; specially formulated for her physiology to give her the optimum amount of energy to build and create for the war effort.
They had been generous and willing for her to muster her creativity against the alien filth that was the Daleks.
Their generosity included several spaces, including this complex on Refiloe where she conducted her final adjustments and experiments, created in part from her memories and in part from Time Lord materials it was a mixture in architecture of Gallifreyan which she felt quite at home within, added to it specific wizarding spaces like a dedicated potions space and crafting area, which would again need to be reconstructed and repaired. The war crafting and spell weaving was an ongoing task, for the war effort.
But it was task she remained eager for. Earth had become too...accepting of things outside of wizarding control. Too willing to accept the deviant ideas. Leaving there and coming here, away from the bounds, the chastity she had been kept under was liberating.
She began walking to the planetary potions research lab space. The Time Lords had wanted a solution for planets that foolishly worked with the enemy; the Daleks, or refused to allow the Time Lords to operate from their planet or local group. They wanted something more subtle than the methods they had been using.
She was still experimenting, it was messy and somewhat dangerous business and not something she had a lot of experience with, even wizards of the past had never attempted something on such a scale.
Then there was a rumble, she felt it, she felt both the physical explosion and her web of wards she had set up over the whole area, they rumbled and flexed as something magical detonated.
"Go, deal with it," she ordered the Time Lords around her, those assigned to assist her. Accidents happened here, she had trained those around her how to deal with the magical ones, the other temporal ones they still knew more than she did.
There were few soldiers or even TARDISes on this planet, they weren't needed, they were here on Refiloe because it was on the edge of the Time War. That was what the Time Lords had said, she'd learnt a lot about their war against the Daleks since she had been here.
She knew her assistance would help shift the war's path. It already had, she'd seen the effects for herself. It had made her feel good, to be a participant in something with such consequences. Such power wrought at a galactic and beyond level. She smiled to herself, soon she'd be able to-
"Hello Ginny."
She jumped at the voice, breaking in mid-thought. She was, she thought, the only one left in the building, all of the Time Lords having gone to deal with the danger.
Turning she jumped back in shock, her heart quickening.
"Harry Potter?!" She could barely control her rage and surprise and wondered if he might be a psychic projection, an attack on the psyche by the Daleks or one of their allies. It wasn't unknown.
Or possibly a malfunctioning TARDIS telepathic circuit, the Time Lords had trouble with those she knew, especially with so many being lost of damaged.
"You look terrible," Harry said casually and then flung a killing curse at her.
She reacted, fast, though not fast enough, the years working here on Refiloe had dulled her reactions, she was so used to thinking, researching, experimenting, that reacting had been something she had not needed to do. Not like this, in a wizarding battle.
"How did you..." she trailed off as she realised who had set the explosions, which meant only one thing. "You" she spat. "You're working for the Daleks?"
Harry smiled or maybe it was a smirk she knew he had become chummy with Malfoy, even if it felt like a lifetime ago. "I like to think of myself as an independent agent, my motivations and the Daleks' currently align with you."
"Me?!" She hissed as she spun around firing several spells at him and crafting a defensive line between herself and where he stood. "You're obsessed with me," she sneered as she reinforced the barrier that she'd constructed, the magical equations dancing in her mind as she worked, a benefit of the block transfer education she had received in working with the Time Lords. "I'm flattered Harry."
"Killing you. I should clarify Ginny. You shouldn't be in the Time War," Harry countered, as he aimed his wand, not at the barrier she had constructed but at the floor; a spell she didn't recognise turned the floor hot; she could feel it burning through her shoes, yet the swirling wooden parquetry remained unaffected.
She ignored the burning sensation in the floor; it could psychic projection, the pain, she could deal with, later. Instead she watched him, analysed him carefully. He knew where he was, when he was and who he was fighting. Harry Potter was many things, but he wasn't an idiot. But he was fighting for the enemy.
"I chose to be here," she countered, watching his body language for reaction. "What did they do to you Harry? Puppet? Robotisation? Conditioning?" She asked and then raised her wand at him. "Or are you just a traitor?"
Harry Potter reached up with some speed with an energy weapon with his wandless hand at the roof; shattering her specialist lighting, she'd only had installed recently. At least she recalled it was recently. He laughed as she ducked, falling onto the still hot, almost molten floor, cursing as she did.
"You've got to be on the Time Lords' side first to betray them, in order to be a traitor Ginny." His tone was amused, but there was something else pity in his tone, underlying.
She sneered at him as she worked to nullify the spell on the floor, it was beginning, she realised to have an effect on the protective barrier she had erected that separated her from him. "You willingly work with them?" She paused and then spoke, as though he were subnormal. "They're the enemy Harry."
This seemed to make Harry pause in thought and she considered stunning him while he was paused for thought. She wouldn't kill him. He would be useful for the war effort, the Time Lords would find a use, he could be useful in her experiments. There were several magical experiments that she'd been prevented from attempting without more live material, there was only so much of herself she could give.
"You're the enemy Ginny," he laughed to himself. "The Time Lords and the Daleks are just...complications.
She felt the Dalek energy beam hit her from behind, and cursed herself, she hadn't thought to scan the area, thinking, certain in her assumption that Harry was alone, psychic projection or not, that he alone should be her focus. As she collapsed onto the ground her knees burning on the white hot floor she felt her nervous system and senses begin to process information faster; events began to slow; Harry rushed at her barrier; shattering it in quick succession with barely a few waves of his wand as he bashed into its remains with his shoulder. The solidity of the remains seemed to stun him, but not enough as he continued at her firing spells at her as she readied her wand to retaliate.
But it was not spells aimed as a wizard would usually aim; at the chest, no, she realised far too late that the spells; slicing and cutting spells were aimed elsewhere and then...
-/
Harry grabbed her wand off her body as he gestured with his wand, seeking out any other wands or other things the decapitated body.
Pocketing the wand he gathered a biodata sample as he waved his energy scanner over the body as well; the information gathered he incinerated the body.
"Wondered how long you'd banter for," Oswin wondered over from the far corner of the room where she'd obviously taken the opportunity to sneak in when he'd knocked out some of the lights.
"She was better at the banter than the last one. Very passionate about the Time Lords," Harry mused as he banished away the ashes and looked over to the door.
"Fused, I thought you might want to clean up in here." Oswin looked around.
Harry nodded, "I don't want to leave any of this for the Time Lords to restart. Can you download their database?" Harry looked over at the computer console.
Oswin nodded. "I know reading is harder with your translation in a stick."
Harry nodded. He'd had to break in to the building himself while Oswin was keeping the chaos going outside. The audible translation worked quite well, but text, it was like he had to trick his mind into accepting it, or something, like looking at one of those red and blue 3D images that came with free glasses with magazines. Dudley never had time for them, Harry recalled finding a bunch in the cupboard of Dudley's second bedroom what felt like a lifetime ago.
It irritated him a bit then, making it work. Now it gave him a bit of a headache; forcing himself to understand the circles and half circles that made up the Gallifreyan language.
It made the Daleks' language look amazingly simple to read, or perhaps the Daleks were less obsessed with temporal and mathematical matters than the Time Lords seemed to be. A much more direct language, albeit lacking in some flair and colour.
Sparing a look over to where Oswin was working Harry wandered over to the more witchy area where Ginny, or rather one of the versions of Ginny, well, to be honest they were all Ginny, not copies or clones, they were something more and something other than just Ginny. Maybe a bit of a copy and a clone, sort of, but they'd all pulled something slightly different out of Ginny's personality. A slightly different facet he was now coming to realise as he looked over Ginny's work space checking with his wand as he went.
He knew from Shacklebolt that Ginny had during her time with the Ministry been educated in the more mysterious arts of the Ministry of Magic. But this seemed more detailed, more adventurous. More...creative, more than she had displayed in the 1970s, far more reasoned.
Tapping his wand on a book with a quill resting on it he found what he guessed, a long detailed journal.
Longer than he realised and longer than the journal had any right to be based on its dimensions, "Weird." Harry murmured to himself as he put it aside.
The potion ingredients might be useful to take with them, but he played it safe, destroying them. He knew these had to be just samples that Ginny was using, the amount of magical material outside meant the Time Lords were providing her with material on an industrial scale.
But...Harry thought to himself flipping through the journal, Ginny seemed to have been here years, maybe even a decade plus given how slowly she'd reacted to him. Which meant the samples he was destroying were also not the ones she'd brought with her from Earth.
Not that this one was likely to be the original Ginny. He'd already suspected where she might be lurking, but that was one bridge he and Oswin would have to cross at a later date.
Focusing now on his present situation instead he flicked through one of the textbooks that he had seen before. It was a treatise on the creation of potion items for battle. He was sure he'd seen it somewhere and tapped his finger on it trying to remember some of the spells that Hermione used and that he'd made a passing study of for identifying written wizarding works.
Patting down his inner pockets he extracted a small expanding bag and slipped the handful of books into it, the journal he left outside for now.
Having destroyed the remaining potion ingredients and most of Ginny's work area he went over to where Oswin was working, she had a slight look of concentration and satisfaction as she worked.
"Anything interesting Oswin?" Harry asked and realised with some relief that Oswin had unpacked the Timeship, he wandered over putting the journal and expanding bag of books inside before coming back over to Oswin who was still working in thought.
"She was here longer than you thought, at least 20 years, probably longer," Oswin looked to him curiously.
"She aged well," Harry looked around. "Unless this is some sort of time free area?"
Oswin shook her head. "The Timeship didn't register anything when I poked my head in after I unpacked it."
"Anything useful then?" Harry tried as he gave a fleeting glance to the doors which remained locked and closed.
Oswin gave him a playful smile. "Rather than interesting?" She gestured at the controls. "They trusted her completely, she held the highest rank here."
Harry forced himself to concentrate as the rotating symbols reformed themselves into words he could understand.
"Like ourselves it seems," Harry mused to himself.
"I've created a cascading deletion that should wipe out anything that's in here of her research."
Harry wrinkled his nose and nodded. "I got rid of her workspace. Unless they find another Ginny."
Oswin paused. "Hopefully not as clever as she was."
"Or as mindful." Harry pondered and nodded. "Set the deletion thing, we should leave."
"Before the horde of Time Lords return," Oswin said as she activated some of the outside cameras, which probably weren't cameras.
It seemed like their distraction was dying off and they'd be getting attention soon.
-/ - \\-
Later, after they had successfully left the planet Harry sat with a cup of tea thumbing his way through the journal he'd taken.
"Oswin," Harry pulled himself out of his chair and wandered into the central area where Oswin was sat in Dalek guise just...Harry wasn't sure.
"Harry?" Her lights flashed in surprise. "Thought you were relaxing?"
"About Ginny, not likely, here." He handed her the journal and in a blink of his eyes she was standing there in her dress again.
He was trying to think of it just being a thing that happened, her shifting, almost in the blink of an eye between forms, but it was still a bit disconcerting, and still something he wasn't sure how to ask about. It always seemed like something got in the way when he did. Accepting it was simpler.
"It's got infinite pages?" Oswin asked, or actually stated.
Harry nodded. "It's weird."
Oswin sniffed the pages.
"It's not paper either is it?" Harry asked watching her.
"Clever boy." Oswin smiled. "Not entirely. It is safe though."
Harry breathed a mock sigh of relief. "I made sure it wasn't a wizarding trap."
"But you were worried about a Time Lord trap?" Oswin asked.
"I'm worried about a Time Lord, wizarding and Dalek trap," Harry shook his head in thought.
"They're all out to get you if you look hard enough." Oswin mused, Harry wasn't sure whether it was a statement or a question, it seemed like Oswin had framed it in a way in which it could be interpreted in many ways, Harry looked to her trying to read her expression, but it was quite unreadable.
"Have you managed to get another lock on another of the biodata traces?" Harry asked, deciding to change the subject back to their mission at hand away from trying to read the body language of one Oswin Oswald, a losing battle he considered.
Oswin shook her head. "We're still travelling back towards the primary phases of the Time War, out on this edge there's not much."
Harry leant forward and adjusted one of the Timeship's controls, it altered the temporal angle at which they were moving through the vortex; slightly lowering their how easily they could be detected in the vortex, it did however effect their travel rate, it wasn't speed, but that's how he chose to read the description in the manual of what the control did.
"I didn't think you'd want to go and ask our mate the Time Controller for anything," Oswin paused, "That's why I thought we should get away from there as fast as possible."
Harry nodded. "Speed's not everything."
"Says the boy racer who likes to speed through the countryside." Oswin countered.
"When this is all over I want to take you for a proper ride through the countryside," Harry paused and looked properly at Oswin. "Not just one through my memories."
Oswin gave him a look. "Oh Harry, I've ridden the time winds and sat for a galactic pilot's licence, I've held media empires in my hands."
Harry laughed. "Don't go all megalomaniac Oswin."
Oswin narrowed her eyes at him and then sighed. "Fine boy racer, let's go."
-/
A/N:
The planets named in this chapter, and the setting of a munitions planet all come from the Doctor Who universe, it's broad enough that I don't need to invent too many places.
I did consider having Ginny and Harry banter for longer but I didn't want to tread over too many things too many times.
The look of Refiloe is based on a news report I saw more than a year ago about smog in China and I just recall seeing this really orange smog with factories in the background.
I'm more happy with the flow of this chapter than last, but wanted to experiment a little with a 'pre-titles' sort of layout of a two parter sort of chapter structure, to change the pace a little bit. With last chapter I was still working out how I'd set the pace. Now that I've written a few (future) chapters I've worked that out, and will hopefully avoid such 'nothing' chapters like last one. Which in part I had there as to not go too gritty too fast into the Time War.
Next chapter features something quite special, and hopefully unexpected.
