Chapter 104

An alert was going off throughout the massive saucer. Soldiers were despatched to coordinates of the the predicated temporal incursion.

"Ready defences," ordered a Black Dalek. "Time craft detected."

"We obey," stated the 10 soldier Daleks arranged around the materialisation site.

Slowly a craft materialised; it had bypassed all defences and overridden all offensive measures.

It solidified into existence and finished materialising.

Then the door opened, and a humanoid male stepped out, with his hands up. The Black Dalek registered an ancient Dalek rank on the keratinous portion of the individual's appendage.

"Sorcerer," the Black Dalek greeted, backing away as the Sorcerer was joined outside the temporal craft by another.

It immediately identified itself as a Mage.

Both were equally ancient of rank.

All the soldiers backed away from the Sorcerer and Mage.

"Take us to the Eternity Circle," the Sorcerer ordered.

"I obey," the Black Dalek answered swivelling around – away from the temporal craft.

-/

"I really wondered for a moment there," Harry muttered to Oswin.

"That you were going to be exterminated?" Oswin asked, with a hint of curious amusement.

"Shot at least, I hope they'd at least stun first, ask questions later, especially as I'm not a Time Lord," Harry pondered smoothing down his coat. He'd made sure to fasten it up before stepping out, just in case they shot him.

"These ones are a bit more cautious, so you might be right," Oswin rotated her dome to look behind them.

Harry chanced a look and saw about half of the Daleks that were waiting as they arrived were following them.

"Should I be worried?" Harry asked in a mock whisper.

"You are in a secret Dalek stronghold, surrounded by Daleks and you have a habit of putting your foot in your mouth at inopportune moments," she paused, her lights lighting up for a brief moment. "I should be worried by this point."

Harry leaned out and bumped her with his hip. "Tease," the Black Dalek ahead of them was slowing down. "Looks like we've arrived."

The Black Dalek operated a door control and a set of double wide doors opened.

Walking in it looked like mix of random Dalek technologies in a huge room, the outside of which didn't really suggest.

"Sorcerer Harry Potter, Dalek Mage, you have come," said a blue and silver Dalek as it glided over to them.

"Hello," Harry said with a wave. "So why're you so obsessed with vampires? I have my doubts the Time Lords would use them, they fear them."

The blue and silver Dalek looked from him to Oswin.

Oswin looked to Harry and back to the silver and blue Dalek. "The Sorcerer is concerned that we have yet to encounter any evidence."

"That too," Harry nodded in agreement.

-/

Somehow being around five silver and blue Daleks was odder than being around the soldier Daleks.

Maybe because these Daleks projected…not an air of superiority…perhaps greater awareness.

They'd get at least a couple of paragraphs in his Dalek psychology book. Or maybe a chapter in an accompanying volume of 'Different Daleks / sub-groups of Dalek'.

Harry was yet to decide if they'd be under the 'too intelligent for their own good' like the Time Strategist or the kind of useful and unlikely to be tricky Saucer Commanders.

"This is the moon of Villengard," one of the silver and blue Eternity Circle Daleks said as a gigantic screen appeared over them.

Harry had to take a few steps back, "Can we shrink it, not everyone has amazingly wide vision."

"Trust me, they don't," Oswin commented, she'd glided backward with him.

The screen shrunk slightly, Harry beamed a grin at Oswin. "I've heard of Villengard, they do weapons don't they?"

"Yes Sorcerer. The Emperor sought to have an outpost established utilising Dalek agents on Villengard's moon," one of the Eternity Circle confirmed as the view changed to show the moon's surface with a landing pad and a few cheap-looking buildings with some people milling about.

"Why agents, not Daleks?" Harry wondered curiously.

Another of the Eternity Circle spun around to face him. "Diplomacy Sorcerer, Villengard lies close to several lightspeed transit intercept points, committing significant forces to occupy and maintain that region was not an economical use of resources."

Harry raised his eyebrows although said nothing, but he was determined to ask more questions, especially if he was going to get lengthy answers, it was quite something to encounter Daleks that would give long answers to his questions.

"25 Earth years following the outpost establishment, the Time Lords attacked, testing a new weapon," another of the Eternity Circle explained as the image they were looking at changed. It looked like the basics that had been there of a landing pad and the few basic buildings had become a town, or maybe a small city. The image was a top down one like a satellite photo.

The screen changed to show images captured from something – not a Dalek.

"There were others working at this outpost, but still no Daleks I guess? Not even once it was established?" Harry asked.

"No Sorcerer," another of the Eternity Circle rotated its dome to look at him "the Dalek Empire's agreement with Villengard was acknowledged and accepted by all parties. The resources Villengard provided were significant."

"Enough to make it worth it to have agents instead. Were they puppets?" Oswin challenged.

"Other species Dalek Mage, willing to work against the Time Lords. They benefitted from our association with Villengard," the Eternity Circle Dalek explained.

The video began to play and showed a couple of battle TARDISes materialise; firing torpedoes as they did. There wasn't any sound, Harry was thankful of that, he could see different beings running and firing against the attack.

"Attacking a weapons facility especially Villengard is a bold move of the Time Lords…" Harry pondered as Time Lord soldiers started filing out of the TARDISes. "Ah, the Time Lord soldiers," Harry commented with some distaste.

Then someone else stepped out of one of the TARDISes, and the image of her made Harry's blood turn worried and cold. She looked like Ginny, she cast spells without speaking. They arced out on the footage disrupting the image.

The video switched to a different perspective as she reached a group of people and then…she did something, bearing teeth and long nails, the latter seemed to arc with magical spell fire and then this group of fearful technicians was…converted. They each took on an expression like Ginny had.

"The conversion rate is impressive," Harry found himself saying. Everything he'd read about vampires in History of Magic and Defence Against the Dark Arts said that it was a long process to create a vampire, definitely not the seconds this seemed to take.

The video paused, one of the Eternity Circle spun around to address him "You are aware of these creatures, these;" it paused, for a long time in Dalek terms "Vampires."

Harry nodded. "I didn't think the Time Lords would lower themselves to this, to use one of their most feared superstitions in the war. From what I know Time Lords are bound to destroy them if they ever come across them," Harry exhaled a sigh. "Although by this point I should expect anything from the Time Lords."

"Yes, the Time Lords are devious," agreed one of the other Daleks.

"Come on, hit play," Oswin prompted.

Ginny continued to stride around with her followers, some of those she was battling she seemed to cast the killing curse, others she reached out and slit their throats; blood spraying out in almost slow motion.

"I presume the moon has a low gravity?" Harry asked as he watched.

"Yes Sorcerer," one of the Eternity Circle answered.

The video fizzed as it must have taken a direct hit from a weapon; the view switching to a higher camera showing an angled downward view of the Time Lords and Ginny hovering something out of one of the TARDISes.

"That looks like a bomb," Oswin observed.

"A very big bomb," Harry commented.

The camera they were viewing this footage from was taken out, and the footage switched to a much lower to the ground, and much lower resolution camera.

Harry frowned, it was green and black and all he could really make out was the bomb and the figures moving it.

"The Time Lord placed the bomb on the moon of Villengard as a warning, and detonated it after dematerialising," one of the Eternity Circle explained as the video footage switched to the much higher resolution from a saucer's sensors.

It showed what Harry assumed was the planet Villengard, and in the background a moon, a hot white interior seemingly caught in a permanent explosion.

"That's a very weird explosion," Oswin commented.

"Indeed, temporal I guess in nature, a warning by the Time Lords?" Harry wondered.

"You are correct Sorcerer," one of the Eternity Circle said.

"Is that it, you saw the Time Lords use their pet vampire once and you're worried?" Harry asked.

"No," the Dalek said in a short tone.

"Had to ask didn't you?" Oswin chastised playfully.

"Of course I had to ask Oswin," Harry responded with a grin.

-/

"This is the planet Xeros, the Morok Empire holds the planet as a galactic information resource," one of the Eternity Circle explained as another image flashed up on the screen.

"A space museum," Harry said, he recalled Ian and Barbara talking about it.

Oswin swivelled and bounced her eye piece in query.

"Why did the Time Lords go here? From what I understood the locals were subjugated by the Morok Empire," Harry asked, that was about his extent of knowledge about Xeros, except that the Doctor along with Ian, Barbara and someone called Vicki, whom Ian and Barbara didn't explain much about, turned up and overthrew everything.

"Yes Sorcerer, your information is correct, a single TARDIS materialised on Xeros, with your target Ginny Weasley; exiting the TARDIS," the screen above split up into 16 different black and white images, obviously from different security cameras. "She seeks out a defector of the Deathsmiths of Goth held in stasis within the museum."

The 16 images contracted to four, showing Ginny approaching a cabinet and removing a hooded being who began to struggle upon seeing her.

"What is she doing?" Oswin started to ask as Ginny pushed back the hood and then seemed to bite the neck of the individual as they struggled.

"That," Harry wrinkled his nose. "You'd think that whoever they are would be pleased to escape stasis."

Ginny then pulled out her wand and levitated the now unconscious being back to the TARDIS.

-/

"Is she working alone at this point?" Oswin enquired.

"Good point," Harry said with a nod to Oswin. "No Time Lords."

The Eternity Circle didn't have anything to say to this, they seemed to be queuing up the next video.

"And what is the point of the video clips?" Oswin pressed. "To establish she's dangerous?"

Harry nodded. "We know that already, if the Time Lords are utilising her, in vampire form," Harry paused. "You do know how to kill vampires don't you?" The Eternity Circle didn't immediately respond. "Answer," Harry prompted in a stern tone in Dalek.

All five Daleks spun around to focus on him.

"We are aware," one of them said, but it was a trailing upwardly inflected statement, implying a query.

"If they're like the ones I'm familiar with; wood through the heart or sunlight exposure, if they're of Time Lord legend then a bolt of steel through the heart." Harry made a crossing motion on his chest.

"Your information is understood Sorcerer," another of the Eternity Circle responded in an almost deliberately neutral tone.

"Yet you're being very cagey," Harry queried, he didn't say that they'd been going on about vampires for a while and he and Oswin had been ignoring them. This definitely suggested the Time Lords were pursuing much more dangerous paths, or maybe they were always pursuing dangerous paths and they'd not been paying much attention. "What happened and why should the Daleks care?" Harry pressed as Eternity Circle looked on.

"The use of these vampires presents a logistical and practical concern for the Dalek Empire in the Time War Sorcerer. The Time Lords' regenerative capabilities coupled with increased strength has presented a challenge for the Daleks," one of the Daleks began, Harry elected to think of it as being the quiet one, but they all seemed to move around to almost be deliberately obtuse and confusing. "The Time Lords' initial deployment of vampires have been dealt with, Daleks are immune to conversion."

"And what about robomen and puppets?" Oswin pressed.

"Conditioning helped but didn't stop them ultimately being turned?" Harry wondered.

"Yes Sorcerer, you are correct," one of the other Eternity Circle said.

Harry patted himself on the back for knowing how it would go and wondered if he needed to stick numbers on the domes of the Eternity Circle so he knew which of them was talking at once.

"Your target Ginny Weasley; the prime convertor and instigator appears to have progressed into a rogue element within the Time War," the image switched to an icy planet. "This is Time Lord colony Simia KK98, located on the edge of the Time Lords' achievable temporal range," the main talky Eternity Circle Dalek explained.

There were Time Lord symbols on the edge of the image, indicating something, maybe a time and date Harry thought as he tried to work them out.

"Whoa," Harry exclaimed, becoming distracted as the image tilted slightly and he saw the sky, it was like the tie-dyed acid trip 'adult' fantasy magazine cover, Dudley and his mates used to look at the pictures and think they were cool. "How'd you get this, if this is in the far future and on a Time Lord colony?"

"Daleks have agents, even within the Time Lord hierarchy," said one of the other Daleks.

"Of course, traitors everywhere, even within the Time Lords' ranks," Harry muttered to himself. "No wonder they're so paranoid."

Harry watched, quietly as a TARDIS materialised, with Ginny and a few other people, vampire people stepping out, and casting spells around, mostly killing the Time Lords before going into one of the rocky buildings, removing some pieces of equipment and then departing.

"Interesting, and why is a rogue element so bad?" Harry asked, and as if on cue a Time Strategist glided out of…well there wasn't any gloom in the space they were in so he assumed it had been hiding in a nearby room.

"Random elements, are of especial concern for the planning of strategy, as the Time Lords become more creative all elements require attention. Ginny Weasley is a liability, for both sides," it explained.

Harry raised an eyebrow and looked to Oswin who was now in her red dress form, she smiled at him.

"Hiding in a nearby room, wanting to make an entrance, how very dramatic," Oswin teased.

"There should have been music and a sound effect," Harry commented and looked back to the Time Strategist. "Are you pulling their strings?"

"The Eternity Circle was created by the Dalek Emperor," the Time Strategist replied.

Well, that's sort of a non-answer, Harry thought to himself. "So what are you doing, aside from showing us the video collection of the Daleks?"

"The Eternity Circle seeks to establish the dangers concerning Ginny Weasley, as you have thus far deflected our communications concerning her," the main talky Eternity Circle said.

Ah, Harry thought. You haven't forgotten we've been ignoring your calls.

Oswin jabbed him in the side; when he looked she raised her eyebrows at him and mouthed 'naughty us'.

"You have established that she's of concern, if the Time Lords are leaking information to you, I see your point," Harry paused. "Where is she and why are you so worried?"

-/

Harry bit his lip. "I knew she was going to be trouble when you first started the compilation."

13 Battle TARDISes was a lot, they weren't in any sort of formation, and they had all been apparently commandeered by Ginny. Vampire Ginny.

"The Battle TARDISes captured by Ginny Weasley represented a sizeable fleet for the Time Lords' battle front at this point in the Time War," the Time Strategist explained.

"But…?" Harry pressed.

The image on the screen fizzed to show what must have been recorded from a TARDIS, there were Time Lord symbols like the Simia KK98 image. Harry tilted his head as he tried to work out the circular symbols. He'd been trying to learn Gallifreyan as a bit of a distraction.

"About 110 years on from the Simia KK98 recording?" Harry asked.

"100 years Sorcerer," one of the Eternity Circle corrected.

Harry smiled to himself regardless, that was closer than he usually got.

Several of the TARDISes seemed to be ballooning out.

"Mapping their internal dimensions onto the external ones," Oswin commented. "We've seen that a few times before."

"To provide a platform for the vampires to attempt to defend themselves," the talky Eternity Circle Dalek explained.

Harry imagined there would have been a 'whoosh' noise, except the recording was silent, and it was in space.

Several bolts flew through space striking those beings who were stood casting energy through space at presumedly what were other TARDISes.

Then purple started to flash around the image and then…it cut out.

Harry started to get a sinking feeling.

"I assume they got away, if you have this recording?" Harry addressed his question to the Time Strategist.

"Yes, Sorcerer, however Ginny Weasley's TARDIS remained;" it turned to look at the screen again.

"The Time Lords utilised several weapons to attempt to immobilise and destroy her commandeered TARDISes and converted associates, it appeared to be a success," it finished, showing a debris field.

"So?" Harry prompted.

"Vampire beings continue to proliferate throughout the Time War. Supposition by Eternity Circle suggests Ginny Weasley has some unknown effects, possibly induced utilising web-like structure to amplify psychic abilities," the Time Strategist finished.

"Of course she is," Harry muttered.

"We require you Sorcerer and Mage to combat Ginny Weasley," the Time Strategist explained.

"Of course you do," Harry continued with a sigh. "We'll need something to crack a few TARDISes and destroy them, without our Timeship, preferably something small," Harry paused and then added. "And something that won't kill me or Oswin while we're carrying it around, I don't want to age to death or collapse into a jelly or something else."

"Understood Sorcerer," one of the Eternity Circle glided off.

"Let me guess, we won't have backup?" Oswin asked.

"Daleks have limited operation within the temporal psychic field holding Ginny Weasley's TARDIS," the Time Strategist answered.

"Of course they can't," Harry muttered and then fixed the Time Strategist with a look. "When we come back, and we will, I want a way to get to Gallifrey."

"You wish to invade Gallifrey?" the Time Strategist asked in an almost arched tone.

Harry gave it a look. "Don't be dramatic. I have unfinished business there, just me and Oswin and our Timeship, you can have a think on it while we're almost dying," he paused. "Can you perceive if we succeed or does time not work like that, you're not precognitive, you're just reading the timelines?"

"Yes," the Time Strategist's lights lit up for several seconds as it droned its 'yes'.

Harry stared at the Time Strategist for a long while and sighed. "We'll need some specialised weapons, just in case."

"Weapons to your specifications can be supplied Sorcerer," another of the Eternity Circle answered immediately, almost eagerly.

Harry felt like it was trying to diffuse the room.

—/

It had gotten surprisingly cold surprisingly quickly.

Harry did up his coat and tugged on some gloves as he walked away from his room, the door sliding and sealing shut, lights going off all around him as he made his way to the control room. Only two of the screens were operating and everything else was in very low gloom.

Their velocity was practically nil, but there on the screen were a collection of damaged TARDISes and one larger one that seemed to have integrated a few of the damaged ones into its outer shell.

"Ready when you are Harry," Oswin said via their comms.

Harry wasn't sure about this, but he trusted Oswin, and she would be holding onto him for his life, literally.

They'd got the coordinates, and apparently they would be able to materialise close to the TARDISes, the Daleks had travelled up and over whatever barrier the Time Lords had in place to prevent around Ginny's TARDIS getting in or out.

But as they'd dematterialised from the saucer they'd been on towards their final destination, and as they'd materialised in normal space they'd almost immediately lost power.

The Daleks were increasingly being useless at this whole strategic sort of thing.

Oswin had worked out they wouldn't carry enough velocity to get the Timeship all the way to the TARDIS. But there was the benefit that losing power meant their approach would be undetectable.

Small benefits.

But it would mean a somewhat dangerous method of getting there.

Harry looked around the control room. "I hope once we're inside the TARDIS, or have destroyed it we can escape," he said to the control room.

Walking towards the doors to space Harry cast a bubblehead charm over his head in the strongest possible way.

He really wished he'd though to buy, nick or construct a spacesuit and just have it in a cupboard or something. There had been spacesuits in the past on saucers, he'd not taken any of them! He silently cursed past him for creating miniature pocketable crossbows for killing Time Lords instead of grabbing spacesuits.

The door opened, with no hiss; there was probably a forcefield between him and the dead of space.

As he stood there he could see fabric hanging down, Oswin having pulled one of his expanding bags over the Timeship. They'd drop it in and she could keep it safe, there was no way they'd be leaving it out here.

"Ready?" Oswin's lights flashed but he couldn't hear anything except via their communications.

That was because she was in space, and he was standing on the edge of the Timeship, she was reversed as close as she could get.

This was a mental idea.

Harry stepped out and felt a ripple as he passed from the Timeship's forcefield to Oswin's and climbed onto her in a sort of piggyback manner and wrapped his arms around her. "This is insane," he hissed.

"It was the best worst idea, you contributed," Oswin pointed out softly as she moved, turning around and then with easy grace grabbed the ends of the bag the Timeship was in with her manipulator arm and then the whole bag seemed to just suck its way into the plunger arm itself and disappear.

"I really wish I had a spacecraft at this point," Harry muttered as he held onto Oswin's shell tightly. "Something the Timeship could work with," he continued to mutter and try not to think about the raw vacuum that was literally millimetres from his body and that the only thing that was keeping him from death was a spell and a forcefield. He was sure he could feel the vacuum pulling against his coat.

Harry tilted his head a bit and resisted the urge to lean up, Oswin had warned him that the forcefield did not extend very much and while he was confident of his spell work, hard vacuum was not kind to any organic matter.

And then, while he was panicking about space Oswin was approaching the TARDIS. It didn't seem to have much of a door where they were, but as Oswin leaned left he realised he could see something, a sort of open part like a loading bay, like Ginny's castle TARDIS. It looked like it had come from one of the other TARDISes that was grafted onto this larger TARDIS.

"Inviting us in?" Oswin wondered.

Harry just wanted in, this lack of control and being this close to a total vacuum was not doing his peace of mind much good.

Oswin slowly moved forward towards the open space on the side, there looked to be two long thin craft within.

"Bow ships," Harry whispered.

"Or bow fighter craft, they'd too small for the ships," Oswin commented.

"Any atmosphere?" Harry asked as he continued to hold Oswin tightly, he could feel his hands digging into her shell as he gripped hard.

"Not yet, there's controls ahead, hopefully an airlock," she answered.

-/

Harry resisted the urge to drop to his knees with a groan of relief. The two doors were now closed with roundel-shaped windows in them showing the view into the docking bay.

He leaned against the wall and breathed in a deep breath of air. Only as he was doing it did he realise that there was a smell in the air.

That there was any smell was notable. The last time he'd been in the Doctor's TARDIS, the one he'd rescued, not the one who'd rescued him, there'd been a hint of wood and old books.

In here it was more…ash? Maybe something burning, which he supposed supported the Daleks' reports that the Time Lords had tried to attack and destroy Ginny and the TARDISes she'd taken control of.

However, that there was life support in here was also worrying, it meant there could be living things inside.

At least the Daleks had provided them with a lot of Dalekanium-Cobalt-Chronon bombs, the Eternity Circle had enthusiastically explained that as long as they were placed near the control column of the target TARDIS they would immediately trigger the TARDIS's self destruct, and if the self destruct didn't work the bomb it self would rip a large hole in the control interfaces of the target TARDIS. In theory at least, they hadn't actually been able to test them. Oswin had made them give them as many as they had on hand, or on plunger.

"You alright?" Oswin asked, having shed her Dalek form, she was holding a large gun loaded with steel bolts.

He had a smaller version, along with his multi-bolt crossbow he'd designed for killing Time Lords.

"I have a sense of dread building and the air in here smells concerning," Harry answered as he pulled himself up to standing height.

"There's nothing terribly death-inducing about the air," Oswin sniffed the air experimentally.

Harry nodded as he extracted his wand. "Point me," he closed his eyes focusing on the magic, trying to work with the architecture of the TARDIS they were currently in. "Control room."

The wand flittered and shifted on his palm until it pointed right.

"That's it?" Oswin wondered.

Harry shrugged. "A start, I doubt it'll be this easy."

"Why leave the docking bay open unless it's a trap?" Oswin asked.

"I had thought of that, maybe it's as an easy escape?" Harry wondered brightly. "Or to lure more people in."

"More of the latter Harry," Oswin commented.

"I thought so," Harry said dramatically.

"They really like the 6 sided motif don't they?" Oswin commented as they walked through the corridors.

"They're a really awkward shape, Tegan and Sarah only said that the corridors were white long and big, nothing about them being this sort of small and awkward," Harry tilted his head at the wall, looking at a piece of damaged wall. "Maybe this is a battle TARDIS variant, or something to do with the architectural configuration."

"And the TARDIS you travelled in with the Doctor?" Oswin asked.

"Big and…well grand, there was this big spiral staircase and a sense of space, this is almost claustrophobic," Harry said raising his shoulders in irritation at the architecture.

"The result of those TARDISes crashed into one another?" Oswin wondered.

"Perhaps," Harry paused and stopped at a doorway. It was more human shaped than the corridor, but still maintained the six sided styling.

"Control room?" Oswin asked from behind him.

"No," Harry said cautiously looking around as he stepped into the room, it was replete with flashing lights. "The fault locator I think," Harry commented, it had looked different in the TARDIS he'd travelled in, which was more brass dials and paper readouts.

This was much more clear touch interfaces, flashing lights and the smell of burning somethings. "It's in English," he commented.

"So?" Oswin asked.

"So this TARDIS is translating for me," he looked behind him, Oswin was covering the door. "And you I guess?" He asked.

"Got my own in built translation Harry," Oswin tapped her head. "Why do you think the Daleks don't need to brush up on languages?"

Harry sighed dramatically. "While others have to learn them or-"

"Or rely on a suspended translation matrix?" Oswin finished.

"I prefer Babel Fish on a stick," Harry looked over to her.

"Cultural references again Harry, you know I used to like having those ancient history countdown shows in in the background while I studied," she commented wistfully.

Harry didn't know what to say, he supposed he was ancient compared to everything.

Standing at the screen he tapped the symbol that looked most like a control console.

"This TARDIS is heavily damaged," he said to Oswin and himself. "It looks like over 65 percent of its architecture has been merged with a larger TARDIS, that change in corridor, might have been going from one to another TARDIS," he jabbed a thumb back the way they'd come. "I think the main console room's been absorbed, but," he tapped a glowing area that looked like a bunch of globes it came up as 'architectural configuration', which on the Doctor's TARDIS which he and Draco had travelled in it was a separate computer that looked like it was from the 1980s set inside an arcade machine with tape reels on the side, not a whole room. He pushed that distraction aside and looked to the secondary control room which was still glowing blue. "The secondary control room and architectural configuration is still intact, we put bombs there," Harry said as he looked around the display for a map, and something to indicate a way to the TARDIS that was absorbing this one.

"Have you wondered why this TARDIS is helping us?" Oswin wondered and then whispered. "Aren't we the enemy?"

"Maybe Ginny's now the enemy and we're the ones to take control?" Harry wondered as he looked around small lights lit up along the wall. "Looks like it wants us to help take control."

Most of the bulbs were burnt out in the weird garden of hoses and lights.

"Do you know what any of this does?" Oswin asked.

Harry shook his head as he placed one of the Dalekanium-Cobalt-Chronon bombs in the centre of the room and remove the detonator, slipping the activator into his pocket. It would only initiate by his or Oswin's biodata. "Don't know, don't care, hopefully if it controls the architecture of the TARDIS this will be enough to blow it up."

-/

The doors looked more like regular TARDIS doors, except they were firmly shut, the lights guiding them had led them here.

Aiming his wand at the door and charming it open hadn't helped.

"There's hinges here, how about melting them off?" Oswin suggested.

Harry nodded. "Good idea," he pocketed his wand and twisted his sonic screwdriver over to the higher setting.

Minutes later one one of the double doors fell off its hinges, hitting part of the corridor and sitting at an awkward angle.

"The doors are rectangular and the corridor isn't, this is a terrible design," Oswin said as she clamoured over it following Harry.

Harry looked around at the space he found himself in. It was unlike other TARDISes he'd been in, yet familiar, weirdly.

There were very subtle large grey roundels on the grey walls going about 4 high, many of them blackened and burnt out, indispersed with lightly coloured columns, their lights also mostly burnt out.

The console was round, but still had 6 distinct sides to it, it wasn't like the Doctor's TARDIS when they'd moved the Earth back after Davros and the Daleks. This was practically black with lots of purposeful controls, not the mish-mash of antique junk-shop the Doctor's had been.

Where the central column was usually, it seemed like there were rings balanced on an angle with one another.

"Arty and functional," he grinned and slid himself onto the floor below the console and pulled off all the panels under the console and then pulled himself up to look at Oswin.

"Somewhere on this control should be something for the scanner," Harry looked around the room for one, he gestured at a series of switches and leavers on one of the panels.

"So should I just try them all? How do you know these ones work the scanner?" Oswin asked downwards at the floor.

"Hopefully they build all TARDISes vaguely the same," Harry's voice was muffled by the TARDIS console where he was still pulling panels off. "Hopefully it's logically placed, that's the panel for 'outside world' stuff," he gestured vaguely.

"Local environment you mean?" Oswin asked looking at the panel Harry had directed pushed a button.

One of the panels on the console popped up away from the console turning from a grey concave to a display fizzing before displaying a void, a large white void and what appeared to be a doorway on the other side of it.

Oswin looked over to the double doors, not the two they'd come in, but two others on the other side of the room.

"Find anything?" Harry asked as he soniced off a panel on the console and shoved the bomb hard up inside the console. Then pushed himself into a standing position at the console.

"Just looking, that might be the other TARDIS," Oswin said pointing at the circular screen.

"Across a void filled with stuff," Harry muttered as he walked around the console and found a switch, flicking it.

The two doors opened with a whirr.

Harry walked gingerly over to them; outside was filled with wobbling corridors, bits of what he presumed to be the interior of the TARDIS and bodies…lots and lots of bodies. All of them dead, some of them seemed to be husks.

Harry backed away from the doors and operated the door controls again.

"Maybe we could just go back to the hanger, steal one of the ships and tell the Strategist we sorted it," Harry said glumly.

"There's a weird telepathic field, just outside the range of my senses, enough to know it's there, might make you feel a bit blue Harry," Oswin commented, her voice sounding distinctly Dalek.

Harry looked over to her, she'd changed dresses, now wearing her Dalek form. He gave her a look.

"Well I'm not going to ride your broom, and you don't need to ride on my back this time," Oswin pointed out.

Harry smiled softly sighing as he went through his internal pockets for a bag into which he'd stuffed a broom. "I'd bee lying if I said I've never thought about flying a broom in a TARDIS," he paused as he found the right one. "But I imagined it slightly differently."

-/

It was both wondrous and horrific all at the same time.

Pieces of this TARDIS's internal structure had been merged and rammed up against this larger TARDIS.

The void wasn't a void at all, it was combined with several different elements, and bodies and other stuff.

He was following Oswin, she said she could see the wood for the trees and find a way through to the doorway she'd seen on the scanner.

He couldn't see much, it was all a bit of a sensory overload, even though there was just a loud hum of a TARDIS's interior, but it was everywhere, at a few points he felt he could see the hum. Then when he thought he was relaxing a dead body would drift past.

He didn't know why it was shocking, it was something about here in this context.

He'd not really been within TARDISes much in the Time War, they'd been more of a threatening concept, or something to be got around, not within. The Doctor's TARDIS had been much less intimidating, even the Master's, its exterior was hardly threatening.

This felt like an assault on his senses, yet also seemed to be the lack of anything.

"You okay?" Oswin turned her eye around to look at him as they continued forward.

"Yes," Harry felt himself say.

Oswin gave him a look. "You're lying, but it's okay, we're nearly there."

-/

The door was on a patch of orange dirt. Oswin forced the door open by suctioning her manipulator arm onto one side of it.

Harry groaned and leaned against the awkward shaped corridor as the doors slid shut on their own.

"You okay?" Oswin asked, now in holding her gun and looking less like a Dalek.

"Yes," he lied again. It felt like he'd never be alright. "Which means I will be," he said answering his own pondering.

"What?" Oswin looked at him.

"It's more than a telepathic field," he realised as he closed his eyes, pushing at whatever was within his mind, strengthening the barriers he built and created in his mind against intrusion. He'd allowed himself to relax a little bit too much.

The sense of foreboding eased a little bit.

"I want to blow this place up and deal with Ginny, I hate this," he growled.

Oswin beamed at him. "Good."

-/

Elsewhere, near the heart of the TARDIS something stirred; a being awoke from its stasis and sleep and slipped out of the zero room, into the larger zero chamber.

A being, a Time Lord, they were hung on the wall like an object.

The Time Lord looked at the being, an anti-life, their weapon to use against the Daleks.

The Time Lord tried to scream, but the being, the anti-being that they were taught from Time Tots to destroy fixed the Time Lord with a look, and held out its hand; siphoning away the Time Lord's energy, replenishing itself.

Tears of fear and defeat fell down the Time Lord's face as they slumped into blissful unconsciousness filled with terror, knowing that they had only regenerated three times and the terror would continue for much longer yet.

-/

Harry didn't want to say it, but almost felt like he had to say it, even so, it made him giggle slightly.

"All these corridors look the same," he said through his giggles as he felt around for some chalk in one of his outside pockets; left over from previous outings and made a cross on the wall.

"What does your wand tell you?" Oswin asked, seemingly ignoring his giggle fit.

Harry laid his wand on his palm. "Point me Ginny Weasley." It shifted back and forth on his palm but settled pointing the way they were going.

"Do you think the architecture could be sending us in circles?" Oswin wondered.

That, Harry thought was a very good question. "Point me fault locator," Harry said and was rewarded in his wand pointing him in a different direction.

The room they found themselves quite easily in did not have such a nice vibe as the last TARDIS they had been in, this was distinctly unfriendly. Everything was still translating, but he had the sense that this TARDIS wasn't the one doing the translating for him.

It wasn't a delay in reading, it was…a reluctance in the back of his mental feeling of the place.

There was a map that took up much of the room that showed the absorption of three TARDISes into this one, it also seemed to indicate these three were the final in the process of absorption.

Apparently the Eye of Harmony link had been severed so they were all on internal power cells.

"Running on batteries," Harry pondered. "I wonder if that helps us?"

"Probably means they can't escape, that would have been the Time Lords' doing wouldn't it?" Oswin answered.

"Well we're the Daleks' response to this, so we're not doing it are we?" Harry mused. "Weapons systems are damaged," he said to himself as he tapped a portion of the screen. "Medical bay and zero rooms and chambers prioritised."

"You think she might be in there?" Oswin wondered.

"Someone might be," Harry said as he looked at the screens.

"I'll remember the location," Oswin said coming up beside him. "If it doesn't change."

Harry looked around the room wondering out loud. "I wonder if there's some way to prioritise damage repair?"

A side screen flared with life and Harry beamed at Oswin. "The Doctor's TARDIS never had anything as fancy, Draco and I just had to read the readout for the Doctor, supposedly there was a book to look up the error codes. He never told us where it was."

The screen was pulsing in various tones of white and blue.

"Guess you choose what to repair," Oswin said watching him.

"And what do we choose? Something that won't help Ginny," he sighed. "No recreation. No pool to fix."

"Don't worry, we can visit Florana if you want a nice swim," she patted his shoulder.

"We need to drive repairs of useless systems, not useful to her," Harry explained his thinking.

"So the power goes elsewhere instead of the corridors," Oswin realised. "You are smart after all."

"Weapons? They don't need those," Harry held his hand over the control.

"Unless she survives and tries to shoot us when we make out escape," Oswin added.

Harry looked back to the fault locator main interface. "Yes, but it's severely damaged," he tapped the weapons systems. "Life support and temporal analysis," Harry said finishing tapping. The screen flashed a warning something about the repairs exceeding energy supplies on hand and a warning.

A timer came up, it was in the Time Lord language, Harry wondered if it was just to spite him now that he'd helped.

"What was that?" Harry wondered. "There was a warning."

"You've caused a cascade power systems failure, if it doesn't get the power it needs it'll cascade and jettison the dimensions to protect the operator, we've got about 12 hours before that happens," Oswin explained brightly patting him on the back.

"And if it goes into safe mode then we won't be able to escape or blow it up and won't be able to destroy such a big TARDIS, not with our Timeship trick we did a few weeks ago," Harry sighed and tapped the screen.

"No undo button? That's a poor interface Harry," Oswin commented.

Harry shook his head. "A little bit of knowledge and too much curiosity Oswin, that's what gets me into problems."

"Us, I didn't have a boring life before you," Oswin added.

"Except as a media manager?" Harry wondered.

"I had a quiet life when you found me, Dark Space 8 still had some interesting things."

"Like Gholos," Harry smiled wistfully.

Oswin just shook her head at him. "Maybe we can watch an Intergalactic Song Contest when we're done."

"Maybe," Harry agreed nodding.

-/

Harry and Oswin crashed through the doors of the zero chamber, the creature, the anti-being rushed forward sinking her fingers into his chest, sucking the magical life force from his body as she turned, summoning Oswin into her other hand, and draining the peculiar life force from her.

They both dropped to the floor; husks.

-/

Harry Potter crawled through the ventilation crawl space and dropped down into the zero chamber. He instantly recognised what the space was and crept around. Oswin would be providing a big bang entrance.

He could see the long flowing hair of his target.

There was a pop of air as she apparated behind him; he was in the unfortunate position to hear his neck snap as she twisted it.

-/

The being stood arms out waiting, she had sensed the impending matter transmission, the fizzing power of a nearby transmat, standing arms out stretched to summoned damaged panels and transfigured them, laughing as she did so.

In the seconds it took for the being to materialise their matter met the matter the being had transfigured. The two states of matter attempted to occupy the same coordinates. The transmatting beings were obliterated; the being continued to laugh.

-/

The side of the zero chamber exploded outwards from the poorly placed explosive and two beings came in firing.

She easily dodged the spells and extermination beams, she was a weapon of the Time Lords designed to fight them. She brought her hands up, willing the two intruders up into the air, and then fired death back at the intruders.

-/

Harry Potter grabbed at Oswin and collapsed into the corridor.

"What the smeg was that?" He hissed as he looked around for a convenient room to have a panic attack in. Nothing was forthcoming so he backtracked up the corridor pulling Oswin by her manipulator arm as he went. He lights were lit up but she wasn't saying anything.

Crushing some of the solid chalk he'd been using to mark their path he created a rough circle around them and sank to his knees leaning against Oswin's bumps and tried not to cry.

"What the smeg was that?" He asked again as he fought back tears.

He didn't know how many times they'd tried and failed to attack, how many times they'd died, or how they were back here.

"Time loop," Oswin said slowly.

"In a TARDIS," Harry cursed. "Why didn't the Doctor, Master or Iris never warn me not to try and battle inside a TARDIS?" Harry wondered and knew the answer, they'd all tell him that it was a stupid idea.

He sagged more against Oswin's lower body, the bumps of her Dalek exterior oddly comforting. It made him think of falling asleep on the Skaro degradations planet, everything was much simpler then.

Now he was just scared and…

"An assault on her stronghold is not going to succeed Harry," Oswin drawled out.

Harry nodded. "I know, I know, I've seen it, felt it, what was that a dozen times?"

"Do you think she experienced them as well?" Oswin wondered softly.

Harry looked up and saw she was looking down at him. He shrugged as he wiped his cheeks. "Dunno, she'd be attacking us if she knew wouldn't she?"

"Unknown," she replied in a glum tone.

Harry pulled himself up. "This TARDIS, it's messing with us," Harry smiled as he had an idea. "We need to simplify the situation, we don't just have one TARDIS, there's at least three plus the one we're in."

"So? Aren't they all damaged?" Oswin asked.

Harry nodded. "But the Doctor always said there's wiggle room."

-/

It was Iris he recalled saying when they'd met that the Master made things too complicated for himself, that's what always messed him up.

The Doctor said you should confuse the enemy, and yourself if you could, kept people on their toes.

The TARDIS architecture confused him, and he didn't really know how the absorption of the TARDISes was working, but he could accelerate it, and that would do something. He just needed to do it in the right way.

-/

Oswin was stood at the controls of the TARDIS they had been in, while Harry, it seemed had magicked up a doorway to one of the other TARDISes, by it seemed asking the TARDIS nicely.

"They don't want to go, or they want to go on their own terms," Harry explained as he put his palms on a part of the console. "I think they know we're here to help, it's an inter-dimensional corridor, I think."

She thought he was just making it up, but a small door had appeared and Harry hadn't hesitated to dash through it.

"We need to use these damaged TARDISes to our advantage, do something really unexpected with tech that Ginny already has access to," Harry explained. He was stood in a similarly dark grey room with even more damaged panels. He had also taken two of the panels off of the console.

"Time Ram is meant to be annihilation, at least you've said that Harry," Oswin cautioned.

"That's why I've soniced out the safety interlocks, they prevent a TARDIS from materialising inside something solid, I think they're part of the absorbing meshing process – the controls were quite hot," he explained with a wince. "I think what Ginny's doing is a really safe Time Ram; merging everything together slowly, we're going to do it rougher," Harry continue to explain, it seemed in part to himself; talking it through in excited bursts as though it was translated for him.

-/

Harry didn't know if he was doing the right thing, he understood about 60 percent of TARDIS stuff which he'd learnt along the way. He knew the basics, understood at least some of it.

But what he did know is that he didn't want to die at Ginny's hand, and he'd experienced that too many times in the death repeat trip in that other TARDIS.

If Time Ram was taking up the same time and space. And merging was a gentle mixing of TARDISes. And you could just materialise one inside the other, as they'd done in the past.

The safety interlocks prevented a TARDIS materialising inside something like a living being or the middle of a mountain, so disabling those would give them more a battering ram ability he reasoned to himself, even though he'd just explained it to Oswin. He felt he needed to understand it.

Both the TARDISes he and Oswin were in seemed to understand their target.

Now it was just a case of pushing the power control up to full and hanging on.

-/

Oswin looked at the scanner screen where Harry was stood counting down.

"Thirteen, Twelve, Eleven, Ten, Nine," he paused looking away at something or reaching for a switch. "Eight, Seven, Six, Five, Four, Three, Two, One."

Oswin pulled the power slider that Harry had indicated down and the room began to shake and the noise of a TARDIS dematerialising began to envelope the whole room.

"I hope you know what you're doing magic boy," she said to herself as she clung onto the console as it threatened to throw her to the sides of the room as rings around the central part of the console began to rotate and a column jerkily rose and fell with shaky motions and all the lights began to flicker on and off.

-/

Ten seconds ago.

Harry flicked the scanner control and checked the readout and was pleased that this TARDIS seemed to understand what he wanted to do. He was not going to feel the deathly grip of Ginny Weasley on him again, it might've been a time loop or a product of being inside a TARDIS trying to keep them alive so they could sort out this situation, but he wasn't going to go through that again.

He had been tortured by Time Lord machinations enough.

He needed just a little bit of extra time, enough to get through another convenient corridor; part of the TARDIS's functioning architectural configuration and obviously very functional telepathic circuits, enough to do something very unexpected.

And dangerous.

He didn't know if Ginny knew it was him that was breaching her inner sanctum, or if he and Oswin just registered as intruders, but he knew if he was going to defeat the Time Lords' weapon, it would be with Time Lord weapons.

He started counting, then at the crucial moment added in a delay and continued. Just enough time, because it seemed being in a TARDIS that was in cascade failure meant you needed to watch your timing.

Plus he didn't want Oswin to know what he was up to.

He trusted her with his life, but just in case something was reading their actions, or if they were reading his, he needed someone to rescue him.

The TARDIS was already starting to dematerialise as he rushed out of the control room and through a very narrow corridor space.

-/

The Time Lord hung on the wall screamed and continued to scream as the being fed on their energies. The being the creature that their fellow Time Lords had created for the war, the…the thing before them, it was disgusting, it should be killed. Yet they employed it against the Daleks, against the Horde of Travesties, against the Skaro Degradations, Time Lord soldiers had gone into battle with it, fought side by side with it.

And then it had rebelled against them.

She drew herself up as straight as she could while being held against the wall, as the creature towered over her.

"Do stop screaming," the creature commented idly.

"Why," his voice was male? Had she regenerated again? She had hoped she would suffer regenerative trauma, she had tried to will herself to suicide, to die, to stop her hearts. She was sure she'd heard the bells tolling for her death. She'd seen her mother and sisters, and then…and then she'd been strung up; the powers of the zero chamber healing her, holding her back from the final end.

The being the thing the…vampire. Even to think the name filled him with disgust, that the War Council or even the High Council had approved this thing to be employed. Even against the Daleks.

It soiled the existence of the Time Lords, it was opposite of everything they were fighting against.

He shuddered as finger lashed out, cutting his wrist, the thing didn't need to feed on his blood, on his biodata, it fed directly on his regenerative energies.

She did this for amusement; for torture.

He remembered, in his last life, the thing had teased her.

Then a fist lashed out, hitting him in the chest, he felt his hearts palpitate.

"That's better little Time Lord, proper fear," she smiled, enjoying the power. "I wanted to think your people were all powerful gods, that my sisters and I were created and we served you, wholly, for the war."

He had heard her talk like this before, was it years ago? Hundreds of years? They were within a powerful battle TARDIS, outside of real space and time. He had lost her perspective, when he…when she had regenerated, the outflowing of Artron energy had made her lose her internal counting of time.

A tear formed down her cheek, down his cheek as he realised he didn't know how long he had been its prisoner. A Time Lord that didn't know time.

"The integration of your other TARDISes progresses well Time Lord, soon even without the Eye of Harmony I will have power of time travel again," she gestured lazily with the wooden weapon.

A green harsh field enveloped him and a scream was caught in his throat, she screamed, he screamed, a raw shout coming out where their voice met the reality of his body.

"Just making sure you're still awake little Time Lord, I thought after you regenerated you would be more fun," the beast laughed. "I always thought fighting righteously would be good, fighting for gods against the sickening filth of the Daleks," the creature paused and looked over at him with a smile. "They still are, the Daleks are still the enemy."

He collapsed against the magno-clamps that were holding him against the wall. At least that was something, something of the council's programming of this thing.

"But I want something more for myself, something more to do with this," she ran her hands down over her cloak, it was blood red, like her hair, thick with the blood of her victims he wondered?

"Why?" He croaked.

The thing the vampire the enemy fixed her gaze on him.

"Why?" It looked to him curiously. "I was an asset and they wanted more, your people, a more powerful weapon, to make more weapons, I relished it," the thing smiled a grin of sharp teeth. "Not just the secondary player, not the second choice after the Master or the Doctor, not one of their pathetic Omega Arsenal, something to be held, directed and used," the creature paused. "I'm not going to be used, my choices are mine."

He was going to say something, but then the room began to vibrate subtly. He could just hear the dimensional stabilisers of a TARDIS slowly vworping into reality. He laughed, he wasn't sure she'd noticed this

"You all were abandoned, the others had the sense to kill themselves little Time Lord," the vampire said harshly with a smile. "I had the sense to stop you," it laughed again. "Nothing can stop us, this is still a functional battle TARDIS, no matter those of Gallifrey tried to destroy me," the creature spat at him.

That was right, he remembered now, she was going to defect, she didn't know where, if the council employed this thing she could not continue to be a soldier of Gallifrey. She had known where her hearts lay; to protect the causal nexus, to protect the web of time, not to follow and fight alongside this…this thing.

Then she'd failed a headcam installation, they'd found something; a genetic abnormality, her family's use of looms after the Time of Empire, in the dark past of her family's history, at least that's what they'd said. Her commander had said she should go on this mission to ensure the proper delivery of the packages.

Temporal Extinction Devices, reverse engineered Dalek weapons from early in their empire's temporal expansion before the initiation of hostilities.

To ensure that the thing would be destroyed.

The creature, it had fired back.

They'd been caught in a recursive detonation and drawn into the battle TARDIS's expanded dimensions.

Then she'd seen the horror and depravity of the thing, the vampire.

The thing was looking around.

He could hear the change in tone, two TARDISes were materialising.

A wall exploded at the front of the chamber.

He smiled, someone had disabled the safety interlocks. Someone knew they couldn't just walk in and kill this thing, not with so much unstable energy within this TARDIS as the vampire tried to integrate the TARDISes into the superstructure of the main battle TARDIS.

"You know something little Time Lord," the thing, the vampire stalked over to him. He drew a breath in, tasting the air, feeling the chronon displacement.

The two TARDISes had very damaged engines, they were leaking energy into the environment as they materialised.

"Something is coming," he said as through a swirl of vortex energy two TARDISes crashed their materialising into the main chamber.

He could just make out through the distortion, one TARDIS lacked its outer plasmic shell, only the control room appeared intact with the operator holding the console; struggling to stay upright as the materialisation completed. She was wearing a bright red dress, the deep colours reminded him of how the Chancellory Guard used to dress, he remembered seeing Public Register Video of the old ceremonies before the war.

Then she ducked behind the console.

"Ginny Weasley!" A Dalek called. "Give yourself up, you're surrounded."

-/

Oswin admitted it wasn't the best call to surrender, her senses still dazzled slightly from the materialisation. She knew the console wasn't going to offer much protection if and when Ginny started shooting or trying to rip her throat out.

The latter would prove quite tricky, Oswin thought in an amused manner.

She couldn't see Harry, he was meant to materialise in with the other TARDIS, but all she should see was the outside corridor of the other TARDIS, blackened and warped from the integration she assumed. It has materialised on the other side of the room.

A deep, weirdly intimidating voice laughed; her voice projecting out from the raised dais where she and a Time Lord was strung up. The Time Lord was covered in blood; his. She could tell that from here, he was injured, but still alive enough to register on her systems. Still alive enough to register as a target.

"A single Dalek threatens me, I am Ginny Weasley, witch, vampire," she seemed to relish calling herself that. "The Time Lords fear me, the Daleks fall beneath my wrath, I am the most powerful being-"

"And so up herself she's inside out," said a voice from somewhere else.

Oswin smiled to herself, but refrained from laughing at Ginny's shocked expression.

-/

About 45 seconds ago…

Harry threw himself into the fighter craft, he had no idea how to fly it, no idea how to get it to where the TARDIS was materialising to, and only the vaguest idea of what to do.

He just knew he had to work out all of those things in about 15 seconds.

There were a lot of controls.

"Okay, pedals," Harry said to himself, there was a leaver by his left arm, and a stick, he hoped this was helicopter like, or plane like or something.

Maybe everyone built air / spacecraft with controls in only a certain number of ways.

He looked around the craft, everything was familiar in a really weird way, like it was familiar enough that he thought he could fly it, even though he'd never been in one of these craft before, it was like…telepathic. "Of course," he said to himself as he pushed a large friendly button and found the craft rumble around him.

It was then he realised that was a rumble of dematerialisation, not the craft, but the button depressed and more screens and settings opened.

Harry didn't get how he'd managed to fly the craft down the corridors of this TARDIS, the corridors that had felt cramped and too small for him and Oswin were now containing this craft, he had managed to bash the back end of it into some of the corners as he worked out what the rudder did in a spacecraft.

He'd also managed to blow a hole in one of the corridors and caught a glimpse of the vortex, which had caused a little bit of swearing.

There was a countdown that the TARDIS had helpfully added for how long it would take to re-materialse.

Despite being next door there was still a 30 second travel time for them to travel the distance.

He had 30 seconds to work out how to place this craft in the right position, he guessed he'd only get one chance.

And after involving two TARDISes to ram a third he doubted he'd be getting another Groundhog Day to attempt this again.

-/

He'd found the radio, or something like it, and the scanners showed they'd materialised.

"And so very up herself she's inside out," Harry commented idly on the radio as Ginny cast around seeking him out.

"Please be kind," Harry said to himself and pushed the weapons button and threw the power control forward.

He felt the straps in the seat tighten and some sort of field within the craft stopped him being crushed as the craft exploded out of the room he was waiting in.

He looked around and laughed. He hadn't blacked out.

Ginny was however buried halfway up the craft's nose still snarling.

He grabbed the purple controls lifting the canopy off.

"Surprised?" He asked.

"You'll die for this Harry Potter I'll make sure you-"

-/

He heard the whine of a bowship's weapons and braced himself for the explosion.

The Dalek on the other side of the chamber hadn't started firing yet.

The thing was still trying to discern where the voice was being broadcast from.

Then the noise of the bowship's weapons within the confined space impacted with the internal dimensions of the damaged TARDIS and the craft followed at higher than its rated internal-use speed out of the explosion.

He thought the operator would utilise its weapons to kill the creature.

He couldn't move out of its way as the bowship was rammed into the creature.

She was still snarling and threatening as a being, he didn't even seem to be a Time Lord opened the canopy.

"Surprised?" He asked. He sounded like one of the renegades, confident and casual in the face of adversary.

The creature began to threaten again.

The man brandished a weapon like the creature held, blasting with a white heat energy at the creature's head, then he forced the creature's body off the bow ship ripping it in half as he did so. He vaporised it before his eyes, the vaporisation process produced no heat. Just like when Time Lords were executed, mostly only traitors faced that fate now.

"Harry, that was unusual," a Dalek hovered over to greet the man.

The man, Harry nodded, "I knew I'd need to do something unusually unexpected," he gave the Dalek and apologetic look. "Sorry, I was worried there might be some even more telepathic stuff, the TARDIS already read my mind to work out how to fly this." The man patted the side of the bowship.

"You mean projected into your mind." The Dalek's eye swivelled to the bowship and then back to him. "The Time Lord is still alive Harry," the Dalek said in a neutral tone. Not the tone most Daleks had. After facing the creature for these hundreds of years, he did not fear them.

-/

Harry looked from Oswin to the Time Lord, and then back to Oswin.

"We've still got all the bombs to deal with, and who knows if there's more vampires here," Harry paused biting his lip. "Even without Ginny, we still need to complete the mission."

"Understood," Oswin agreed, but paused looking at the Time Lord.

"Hello, Time Lord," Harry said softly looking at the man. "Got a name?"

"Just kill me," he croaked.

Harry fingered his wand and shot the Time Lord, with a stunner and looked to Oswin. "Let's set the remaining explosives, deal with whatever remains and get out of here."

-/

Tannis felt an energy field flow over him and he awoke.

"I wasn't game enough to heal your wounds, you Time Lords are tough I assume, you survived facing Ginny, you must be pretty tough, not sure I could survive her," the man commented grimly, he was covered in biodata charcoal and chronon dust.

"Her torture was painful, I'd thought I would die by her hand, but she wasn't that willing to let me pass," he said as he reached up to his arms to feel them; free now of the restraints.

The man looked at him coolly. "Your people are also quite adept at torture," Tannis felt the words bite deep into him as he looked up at the man, feeling the rhythms within the room and how his biofield responded to the, albeit intermittent TARDIS's dimensional energy flow.

"You're human," he observed carefully.

"Got a name?" the man asked. "Harry Potter," he said seemingly introducing himself.

"Tannis, are you going to kill me human?" He asked.

The man smiled and bent down to pick up a box, it appeared to be constructed from pieces of a Daleks' outer shell and placed it by his feet. Tannis looked at the box.

"Do you want to die?" The human asked.

Tannis laughed. He had for a long time wished for death. For hundreds of years of torture.

While the human waited for him to finish he brandished a device like the thing had; cleansing his clothes of the worst of the dust. "If you don't," the human began, fixing him with a careful glance "if you still want revenge on her."

"She is dead," he said countering the human.

"Don't be so naïve Time Lord," the human paused. "Your people kept the original, and myself and my companion will be popping over to Gallifrey some time soon, we could use your help."

Tannis stared up at the human who had just casually said he was going to visit Gallifrey, in the middle of a Time War. "What do you mean?"

"Ginny is one of my people, and my responsibility, your people copied her, with regenerations from a Time Lord," the human calmly explained.

"And the original biodata source would have been maintained on Gallifrey for security of her timeline," he reached for the box.

"One of her selves had that, it's a Time Ring," he finished as he backed away.

"Decide however you want Tannis, we've rigged all these TARDISes to blow in" he paused to look to a box at the back of the chamber. It wasn't a TARDIS, Tannis was sure he would recognise a functional TARDIS, but it was suggestive of something that would allow an effective escape from all of this.

"About 4 minutes," called a voice of a Dalek from within the craft.

"There, Tannis, you've got about 4 minutes to determine if you want to die," the human said as he walked backwards away from him.

"And if I return to Gallifrey and warn them of your imminent arrival?" He asked the man.

"Then I will have to deal with that when I get there," he said in a sad tone and fixed him with a look. "She kept you tortured, your people were responsible for that. I don't want this to happen to anyone or anything, she ends. She can't be allowed to have any more effect on the web of time."

The human spoke with such intensity and passion, he'd not heard anyone speak of the web of time with passion since before the war, only the Time War mattered, the sanctity of reality was another issue for another time and place.

The human reached the craft. "If we meet again Tannis, I hope it friendly," the human paused. "If you wish die here, know I will end her," he finished and stepped backwards into the craft, watching him for movement as he did.

Then with a electric whistling of tension and stillness the temporal craft disappeared leaving Tannis alone within a TARDIS which according to the human was set to be destroyed.

-/

"Do you think he'll help?" Oswin asked as they stood watching the screens.

They were a safe enough distance away from the TARDISes, the whatever field that had nobbled them had been dropped allowing their escape.

"Hopefully," Harry replied. "Or he'll die in the explosion," he looked to her. "I didn't want to kill him, he's only a Time Lord, an unarmed one at that."

"I know," Oswin nodded. "10 seconds."

Harry let out a breath. "I'll add that to the list of things I didn't think I'd ever see and don't have the lexicon to describe."

"Back to the Eternity Circle?" Oswin asked going back to the controls.

"And the Time Strategist, we still need a way to Gallifrey," he paused. "It was a pity we couldn't get anything out of the TARDISes there about the transduction barriers, I'd hoped there'd have been something in those TARDISes."

"The Time Lords would have to be pretty thick to leave that sort of information lying around though," Oswin said as she dematerialised the Timeship from their observation point.

Harry acknowledged that. "I guess we'll have to work something else out," he paused in thought. "What about that Time Lord we interrogated on the saucer? He put in something into his TARDIS," Harry mused in remembrance as he went over to the side space of the control room.

Oswin followed him over, operating some controls. "I doubt the resolution will be enough to see anything Harry," she warned as they both looked at a large screen inset on the controls.

Harry squinted as Oswin brought up the relevant video and sighed. "I guess I can't just say 'zoom in and enhance'?"

Oswin laughed. "That's a trope in my time as much as yours, it's ancient."

"Less of the ancient thanks," Harry crossed his arms leaning back. "Didn't think we'd be that lucky," he pondered tilting his head.

They could see the memory recording of the Time Lord moving around the console and obviously setting coordinates for Gallifrey, but the actual getting there and in fact most of the memory was very blurred.

"He was dead, this is something of an achievement," Oswin praised.

Harry nodded. "Just not enough, that means we'll have to deal again with the Daleks, and the far too smart Time Strategist."

"Because the regular Strategist isn't too smart?" Oswin challenged playfully.

"I had some good chats with him," Harry said rising from his chair, pausing in the control room to study the controls and readouts. "I'm going to freshen up, all of that was…" he shook his head. "A bit of a run around."

"I can add fighting vampires to my list of exciting things to talk about," Oswin called to him.

"Me too," Harry said loudly smiling and mused to himself. "One more to go."

-/

A/N:

In my notes this chapter had the title 'Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS, with vampires'.

I wanted to mess around with time a little bit, so there's a little bit of back and forth in the final TARDIS materialisation sequence, with some stuff overlapping.

The consoles of the TARDISes that Harry and Oswin are in look like the Rani's TARDIS from The Mark of the Rani. While the general interior look of the corridors etc is based on The Doctor's Wife and Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS.

Tannis' pronouns are deliberately all over the place. He was a woman before she regenerated.

Also Tannis is a Time Lord who exists, as far as he's got a Tardis Index File (Doctor Who Wiki) page - my go to source for double checking stuff.

In my original notes for this chapter the Time Lord (I'd not given them a name when planning this) was going to be killed, either by Ginny or Harry's hand, in fact up until I actually finished writing it Harry was to have shot him through both hearts or blasted his head off, because Ginny had done something or infected him (maybe) to spite Harry. But having someone, someone who thought of themselves as maybe a traitor on Gallifrey works much better. And having Harry kill someone in cold blood would've been a bit much.

All the Ginnys are dead, save for the original, which means Harry and Oswin have to venture to the Time Lords' homeworld; Gallifrey.

Below is one of the time loop deaths I removed from this chapter, I didn't want to have too many, and this is one I wrote and added in after I'd finished the first draft of this chapter and thought it needed an extra one, but it doesn't quite flow as well as the others.

Oswin glided into the room protected under an invisibility cloak as Harry followed behind here duel wielded two wands, firing as he did at the un-being.

All the spells flared across the room impacting against the rear wall, the un-being, the Time Lords' vampire casually walked at inhuman speed across the room; slipping a sharp talon across Harry's neck embracing the pulsing pumping blood from his neck while kicking out at his companion, making her fly into a wall, the artron power cells cascading and destroying her.

Thanks for reading.