Chapter 111

Harry wanted to be in Utah at the moment, even though it felt a bit like following up on old history, literally. But there'd be nothing to gained save from seeing the top of a bunker blown open and maybe a bit of explosion. Anything that followed had been, or would be dealt with by the relevant authorities be it UNIT US or the Doctor or whatever. A deliberate auto-destruct of a Dalek wasn't something he really needed to be watching.

And it wasn't as though Henry van Statten had much that was really dangerous or interesting, although he had read something from the Ministry that he'd been sniffing around some magical locations in the UK under the international arm of GeoComTex, although mostly pursuing things in the United States.

That was mostly, for all practicality outside his purview even with LPI. Aside from that brief sojourn into the US with the unicorns, 'Fitz Fortune' and the Doctor, he'd only kept up with one or two contacts in the US, while Judith had some contacts from when he'd been over to the US back then, but he'd not needed to call on her contacts and they'd not really discussed it recently. Anything really dangerous would make itself known, hopefully to people who weren't LPI.

There was of course the Dalek duplicates thing with the US Navy along with the Royal Navy and their squib use and all of that with NCIS, that hadn't exactly been in the US, but had involved them to quite a strong degree. That was his and LPI's business, by way of being dragged into it.

That he'd heard nothing about it, he wanted that to be nothing, especially as NCIS and the Navy had been squeamish about dealing with the duplicates at the time.

He kept half an ear our, hoping that nothing would come of it, maybe it would all just turn out fine.

Judith had implied she could assist if they ever needed to "deal" with the duplicates covertly. Hopefully nothing would turn up for a while, they could remains someone else's problem.

And likewise for now other people could worry about the outcomes from Van Statten's Vault and the incoming explosion of it. He and the League of Paranormal Investigations weren't International Rescue to alien artefacts and whatnot. That was UNIT's job. Just because he knew the Doctor didn't mean he needed to be on call to every Time Lord incursion that happened on Earth. Anyway, the Doctor had already told him about the Dalek and everything there, he didn't want to go sticking his oar in with the northern Doctor.

He and Daphne had spent a few days on Dark Space 8, enjoying the art, seeing his hung in a gallery had given it a different perspective, he'd even chatted about a Dalek psychology book to a few people. There'd been some interest, but he'd need to actually write it, and there wasn't enough interest for him to mark out however long it would take to do so. He'd joked with a few people he'd talked to it was more 'a fun idea to have while being shot at', the laughs from the people he'd been speaking to seemed genuine and understanding.

And there had been Iris! That had been a joyous night with Panda. She'd not disappeared like a fairy godmother. They'd met the following day for breakfast, and he and Iris had had a bit of chat, not about anything, not where he'd been "save that Harry, we're adventurers, can't spill all the beans at once, just know I'm out there", Iris had said to him warmly. Then they'd gone for a wonder, like old friends, shopping and seeing the sights 'such as they are' Iris had commented as they walked. There was an ease with Iris that he didn't have with the Doctor or the Master. Maybe it was the lack of history, he'd met Iris as an adult having time travelled, having experienced the Doctor and the Master, they had a commonality, without all that baggage. It was...nice seemed too plain a word for it, but it was fun in an easy way.

Oswin had returned with them to take the Timeship back.

He was, somewhat more accepting of more adventuring...with a purpose, he wasn't going to become some sort of vagabond wanderer, but a little fun in time...was there, available.

For now, however he still had things to focus here on Earth, things that needed doing and seeing to, he couldn't just be an aimless wanderer like some of his best and oldest friends. Nor go about with machinations like one or two of his other oldest friends.

Now he needed to focus on some of the things before all the Time War, Dalek banter and killing Ginny stuff that had so consumed his 'to do list' for so long.

Drugs. That was what had been a pressing issue and a question mark that had been hovering around. Alien drugs and wizards, things that should've had come into contact, but had.

It was of course as he was preparing to do some proper investigative stuff that the doorbell rang. Signalling he hoped not the arrival of a polite bounty hunter or very casual killer, but instead some post.

It was a little quaint, being reminded of his post forwarding service. He'd weirdly become used to the fact that he'd given the Ministry a magic-hardened satellite phone, that they could literally just pick it up and call him.

Instead it was an actual letter, from the department of Magical Games and Sports, and several accompanying letters of receipt from multiple departments within the Ministry. The cover letter was fairly generic requesting 'extra and outside support of the unknown within an incidental magical objects of unknown origin'.

-/

"That's very vague," Judith mused as she passed the letter back to Ioan as Harry drove through the streets of London.

"And nothing in your book of invasions?" Ioan wondered.

"Good point, your Daleks mates left you a big datacore of them," Judith commented.

Harry looked in the rear view mirror and gave her a pointed look. "They're not known for being easy with their information. There's so many incursions on Earth at the moment I almost feel like we have to encounter something then go back and go 'oh, that's what that was'," Harry paused as he slowed the Defender as the traffic lights changed red. "There's nothing that the Daleks indicate as being particularly noteworthy at the moment."

"So whatever this is, it's dangerous, but not planet ending?" Ioan wondered.

"Maybe it's just something harmless and magical," Judith mused in a light tone, pausing. "But unknown."

"When has that ever been dangerous?" Ioan shook his head with a smile.

-/

"Do you know who's running the Department of Games and Sport now?" Harry wondered to Ioan. It felt really good to be back into the swing of things, his brief adventure with Iris and everything raising his mood and sense of being.

Ioan shook his head. "Aside from coming here with you I still try to avoid the place," he paused looking to Harry and smiled. "But I genuinely feel better about myself being here, bastards," he shook his head. "Better places for me and them."

"Just like we used to do," Judith pondered "Harry's worried about which frenemy might be running things because he's not kept up with politicking, you're ready to push the doubting wizards and I'm-"

"Being glared at by them hiding around corners?" Harry cut in and gestured a door way. "Here we are."

"Roger Davies!" Harry beamed shaking his hand. He'd not encountered him since Hogwarts, hadn't really interacted since the Yule Ball, which felt like forever ago.

"Harry Potter, what are you-" he looked past Harry to Ioan and Judith.

Harry held up the letter he'd received. "This came to my organisation," he paused. "What's vexing your department?"

Harry pulled out his slightly more improved energy scanner, extracting the suction pads and cables that had become bunched and tangled in his bag.

"Good thinking keeping them sealed up," Judith commented looking from the large glass cylinder to Roger who was stood to one side that contained several of the odd...cubes.

"They've been appearing since before the Olympics, but it's only now we're able to take a bit of a breather, we didn't need to do much with them," Roger paused as Ioan moved around the room. "I mean my department, I mean," he repeated, brushing his hair off his shoulder in with a practiced movement.

Harry looked over at him and smiled as he prepared his energy scanner, his own hair had started to grow back. Not quite at his Time War length, but longer than when he'd come back and decided to crop it really short.

"And they've been turning up everywhere?" Judith prompted in a casual tone.

Roger nodded. "We were told to store them somewhere, especially with the Olympics and everything. One of the newly cleared overflow Greenstone facilities, just been stacking them up, but the Ministry wanted to know about them."

"How'd sports and games end up with them?" Ioan wondered. "Not usually your remit."

Roger shook his head. "Not really, but they passed by the other departments, they're weird and small, someone in the Ministry thought they must be some sort of charm game gone wrong, a self preserving charm or something. Maybe some sort of self propagating spell that transfigures something around it...or something."

Ioan laughed. "That almost sounds convincingly bullshit."

Roger chuckled nervously. "So it isn't that?" His attention drawn as Harry loudly slapped two suction pads to the cylinder.

Holding the energy scanner in one hand Harry frowned and tapped his wand against the cylinder, trying a very low power spell, just to stir up the interior of the cylinder a bit.

"You must've made some adjustments if you're using spells with that," Ioan commented curiously,

"Nothing too exciting," Harry murmured. "And nothing much inside either."

"They exist?" Judith wondered.

Harry wrinkled his nose. "Barely. Weirdly they barely even have any mass."

"But they do weigh something," Roger commented from behind them. "We checked that, just in case they were hiding something like that."

Harry looked over his shoulder and smiled. "That's excellent work Roger," Harry paused and then turned to look at him "were they a consistent weight?

Roger nodded. "We tested a good 4 dozen, took couple of days with everyone here, the Olympics meant we've not had a lot to do, even after with the muggle paralympics, and clean up, you know..." he shook his head with a smile. "Good time to clean up."

Harry turned back to the cylinder. "So, these exist, but there's nothing there, they've got mass, but not much..."

"If it is alien it's not very consequential," Judith mused.

Roger looked between them. "Alien? What?"

"And if it is wizarding it's a lot of work, to create something so...inconsequential," Ioan continued not answering Roger's query.

Harry pulled the suction pads off and looked at the cylinder, walking around it casting some choice, complicated detection spells he'd learnt from his time away, and going through Ginny's books, diaries and especially texts not written in English.

From behind him he heard Roger whistle. "You've definitely been somewhere to learn that stuff."

"Just a war, here and there," Harry didn't explain, in a dark tone as he finished and frowned. "Negligible anything coming from them, they exist. They're imparting almost nothing on the environment," he looked back to Ioan and Judith. "Thought they might be something like a horcrux."

"You said those had a really big effect on you when you're near them," Ioan asked.

Harry nodded and sighed. "But they're very...notice-me-not, disarming to the point of almost zero concern, which is..." he trailed off in thought as he looked back tot he cylinder.

"There's some couches back there, I'll get a pot of tea if you want to talk?" Roger offered.

-/

Harry leaned into the arm chair.

Judith bit a ginger nut biscuit that had been provided on a plate with the pot of tea and cups. "This is much nicer than the frisson we had early on, sneaking in through the sewers, getting the stare of death from everyone."

"I still liked that last part," Ioan sighed looking around. "This was one of the places touted after a good Quidditch career, nice easy paying job in the Ministry."

"Not living off Quidditch royalties?" Harry mused.

Ioan laughed shaking his head. "Not unless you're developing brooms with them or something," he paused to sip his tea. "Working with you and LPI is much more fulfilling, fun and better, even with the danger."

Harry nodded. "And what do you think, danger wise?"

"Of the cubes?" Judith wondered.

Harry nodded and shrugged. "I want them to be dangerous, to be something, it's suspicious," he finished with a wrinkled nose.

"That they're nothing, and not in a dwarf star block that we used," Ioan paused as Harry gave him a look. "They were nothing in a different way."

Harry nodded. "This is different, a deliberate nothing. It's almost like an anti-notice-me-not, with the features of...?" He shook his head. "I don't know what I'm saying now."

"Like a cloaking device that doesn't do anything?" Judith wondered in an amused tone.

Harry opened his mouth to say something to counter her and then stopped. "Back when I was at Hogwarts there was a lot of that, deliberate nothing as tests and whatever."

"Stuff dressed up as meaningful life threatening, but in hindsight, deliberately nothing," Ioan continued.

Harry nodded in agreement. "I wonder if this is deliberate nothing?"

"Masquerading as something else?" Judith added. "That doesn't bode well."

"No..." Harry pondered as he finished his cup and threw himself out of the chair.

-/

Harry walked through UNIT's facility at the tower, he'd said to Roger as they was leaving

'Keep storing them at the storage facility Roger, I'll prepare a proper report for you and Ministry properly signed, I just have to go and see someone, just to make sure.'

"Harry Potter, I was told by the security gate you'd arrived," Osgood greeted. "Kate's in Geneva."

"These cubes?" Harry wondered, he didn't have one to hold up but motioned with his hands a cube shape.

Osgood smiled brightly at mention of them. "Oh, you've noticed they've been cropping up?"

"In the wizarding world too," he said as she directed him into the inner parts of the UNIT facility.

"Anything?" Osgood said as she fumbled the security pass at her lab, inside there were some cubes held within boxes and various equipment around it, obviously analysing them.

"Probably the same as you; almost no mass but-" Harry started.

Osgood nodded enthusiastically. "But they definitely weigh something, they exist, but I think there's some sort of substructure within or maybe in a different dimension, I'm waiting for some more equipment that's coming from our storage facilities to make better analysis of them."

Harry smiled and nodded. "My thoughts similar, they exist, and it's a huge amount of effort to go to if this is a wizarding this..." he trailed off looking around him. "It doesn't look like something wizarding, doesn't respond to anything magical," he paused with a slight sigh "doesn't really feel right."

"I wish we weren't bound by the esoteric protocols. There's so much we could learn from..." she stopped short of saying magic pausing to breathe deeply and then looked around and grabbed her asthma puffer "The esoteric."

Harry chuckled. "No one likes to say magic even the," Harry stopped himself as he was casually going to mention working with the Daleks, that was something you did not casually drop into conversation. "Other people don't like it, but there's an equivalent some some alien languages."

Osgood brightened even more by the mention of alien languages. "I've been working on a universal translator, or adapting it. It's not quite at the Star Trek level quite yet or-"

"Or telepathic circuits? There's the Doctor's TARDIS parts knocking around since the 1970s I've used bits and bobs from that information store here and there," he admitted.

Osgood nodded enthusiastically. "But I think the TARDIS must do a lot of the post-processing," she narrowed her eyes curiously at him. "What alien languages do you know?"

"My associate knows a lot of Drahvin, they've got some universal translator but the finer parts we needed, and I've made something of a study of-" Harry was cut off a noise of the TARDIS's materialisation filling him with a mixture of angst and anticipation as he looked for the source of the sound of materialisation before Osgood looked to him in an apologetic way.

"Sorry, my phone," she explained looking to him oddly, perhaps reading his body language.

Harry let out a breath he didn't realise he'd been holding since hearing that noise.

"I'll leave you," he said turning.

"Oh, it's Kate," she looked to Harry. "Hi Kate, I've got you on speaker, Harry Potter's here."

"Investigating the cubes no doubt, make my life easy Harry and say it's wizards," she asked.

"Have to disappoint Kate," Harry said looking from the phone to Osgood "too big for wizarding, plus it doesn't feel right, there's something weird about them, it's in UNIT's territory."

"I thought as much, didn't think it would be an easy fix, we've still got other paths to pursue," she seemed to pause.

"As we're working together a bit more I should say that my wizarding associates are storing the cubes when they find them," Harry interjected.

"They thought they might be dangerous?" Osgood wondered looking to him curiously.

Harry shook his head. "That they might be wizarding related, I've told them to keep doing it, better that they're out of the way, the storage facility is away from prying eyes."

"I'd like to see a lot of them if-" Osgood started.

"Let's keep focused Osgood, there's enough for UNIT to be kept busy without chasing down more storage facilities' worth of cubes," Kate cut Osgood off.

"I'll let you get to talking about secretive UNIT stuff that you called about Kate," Harry made to leave the room "Osgood," he finished by way of farewell as Osgood picked up the phone.

"I still want to know what languages you know Harry, it might be useful for translation."

Harry again had to stop himself from making a death and extermination joke and instead opened the door and left the Osgood's office with a brief non-committal nod.

Harry chastised himself as he walked through the security checkpoints as he exited UNIT, if there was someone who would appreciate Dalek poetry and the complexities of learning a language like that it would be someone like Petronella Osgood. He'd just have to keep his professionalism and vagueness about his interactions with them to a minimum, UNIT didn't need to know the specifics about the Yellow one and any of his chums, and what he got up to and on what side he was during his 'sojourn' away. He'd learnt mostly about the Dalek language not from a first hand source, he'd just used it on them.

Really if they managed to put two and two together they'd find him hosting a Dalek saucer back when they decided to try invading UK airspace throwing their weight around, but he supposed that would require a lot of cross-referencing.

Turning back to look at the tower Harry wondered if he should go back and chat with Osgood and then cursed his awkward conversation skills. "Too used to chatting with Saucer Commanders," he muttered to himself shaking his head.

Next time he was meeting with Osgood he'd bring the warning message the Eternal had given him and his translation, maybe even do a new one based on all the new words he'd learnt.

A/N:

Just a bit of minimising the cubes' affects on things, Harry and LPI wouldn't really be involved with the slow invasion (The Power of Three). So instead dancing around the edges.

I initially wrote some author notes when I finished the first draft of this chapter (a month or two ago), and was feeling creatively bogged down then from the last two years.

Now as I do a read through and another edit just before posting it I find there's still a lot to disengage my brain from to try and be creative.

My apologies for very sporadic nature of the updates to this story. I am still writing it, working on the next half dozen chapters.

Just finding it slower, difficult to just sort of sit, not distracted by other things.

I still have oodles of plans for this story.

Thanks for reading, and patiently waiting for this (and future chapters).