AN: Apologies if you saw my update and your head hurt, the upload manager doesn't like me ;) Here's the better version!

They spent the following weeks in a similar manner. The TARDIS would take them to a nice planet, and they would get out and explore, play with the local population (sentient or otherwise), and then back with little to no mishaps. It all felt very holiday-ish to the Doctor. He hadn't had to run for his life in ages, it felt like. Still, it wasn't that bad. He could see the effect their trips were having on Harry.

Where in the first days he'd hardly dared venture away from the Doctor's side, and seemed startled every time he spoke louder than a whisper, he was growing increasingly loud and boisterous, and even starting to push at rule #1 (Don't wander off. It wouldn't be until his next face that rule #1 changed). It was a good sign that he was slowly accepting that the Doctor would not throw him out for some spurious reason.

And if he was being honest, the holiday was good for himself too. He was not too proud to admit that after Donna, and the guilt over what he'd done to her, he'd been a bit lost. Or a lot. He'd caught himself entertaining thoughts some of his regenerations would have been horrified by. Taking care of the boy, and wanting to show him a better life than he'd known until now, kept him from acting on them.

He didn't really want to know what he'd be doing right now if he'd stayed alone much longer. Like Donna had said, way back when he'd first met her: he needed someone to stop him. He'd almost forgotten that in his guilt over wiping so much of her memory.

It was after one of these easy trips that they made the discovery. They were sitting in the library again, as they'd made a habit of doing in the past weeks. Harry didn't feel much like reading, instead taking his toys, both the tin soldiers and the wooden animals, and installed himself on the rug to play with them. Soon he was engrossed in the story unfolding in his mind.

The Doctor watched him for a bit with a smile, then he took the book he'd been reading (one of the tomes he'd managed to rescue from the library in Alexandria) and let the boy play.

After a while he glanced up and watched the wooden stag and doe prancing about with their fawn, while the wolf and the dog ran around playfully nipping at each other. The rat scurried around, exploring a bit but always returning to the boy's hand. The tin soldiers were performing drills on one corner of the rug.

The Doctor blinked.

Then he looked again, a bit closer, although he did not change his position. He didn't want to alert Harry to his presence, as the boy seemed to have quite forgotten him. The Doctor was glad, on one hand, that Harry trusted him so implicitly. Not many children who had grown up like he had would have forgotten an adult in the room as easily as that. On the other hand, it was intensely sad that all it had taken to gain the boy's trust was to show him some basic decency. And taken him away from his own personal hell, mustn't forget that, but still.

Whatever the cause, though, did not change the fascinating spectacle before him. These toys, by all rights, should not be moving. They might move in Harry's imagination, but that should change nothing for the Doctor's observation. In the expected situation the tin soldiers would be standing in neat rows, not practicing synchronised manoevres. The animals would be strewn haphazardly around the floor, being moved by the child's hand instead of walking around under their own power.

They shouldn't be able to do this. He'd handled those tin soldiers, they were just the regular toys you'd expect. He hadn't been able to examine the wooden animals, but he was fairly sure that if he soniced them, nothing would happen. His screwdriver still did not do wood, he really ought to add a setting. They were just too small to contain any type of machinery to make them move – or at least, any machinery that could be found on earth at the time these must have been made. The required battery alone would be bigger than the animals. Besides, they were moving too... well, too naturally, too fluidly, to be caused by any sort of machinery he knew.

He wondered if this was how Harry had played in that infernal cupboard, where he'd known nobody could see him. There was no doubt in the Doctor's mind that Harry was the one to cause the movement, and he was determined to find out how he did it.

"Harry."

"Hmm?" the boy responded, although most of his attention was still on his game.

"Are they supposed to be doing that?"

Harry looked up at him, then down at the moving toys. His eyes went wide, and a second later every last toy snapped back to their original position and froze. There was nothing left to show they'd been moving at all, but Harry scrambled away from them as if to distance himself.

"I'm sorry!" Harry was curled in on himself, like a cornered animal.

The Doctor kept his expression open, although he'd really like to frown. He supposed it was a bit much to expect the Dursley influence to have dissipated completely in the weeks they'd spent together, despite the leaps and bounds Harry had made.

"Why are you sorry?" he asked.

"I did a freaky thing. I'm sorry, I didn't think they were really moving."

"Let me stop you right there, Harry. This... whatever just happened, that's the reason your family – and I use the term loosely – treated you so abominably?"

Harry nodded fearfully.

"But... it's brilliant! Harry, don't you see?" The Doctor slid down from the couch in his excitement, to be more eye-level with the nervous boy. "Do you know what this means? Harry, you made wooden toys move without any mechanism. I think... I think we won't have to visit lots of planets to prove your uncle wrong – because you are magical! The proof is right there! Don't believe me? Watch."

The Doctor took the sonic screwdriver from his pocket and pointed it at the animals. Other than the typical high-pitched whirring, absolutely nothing happened.

"See? The sonic doesn't do wood. These are solid wooden figures, they should not be able to move at all, and yet you made it happen. Harry, magic is real!"

He carefully didn't mention that normally he was the first to deny the existence of magic, maintaining that it was no more than technology that he didn't know yet. Even aside from the fact that for now he really did not have any other explanation (regardless what he might find later), that was just not important right now. The important thing was getting rid of that haunted look in Harry's eyes, and reassuring him that he was not in trouble: another step away from the Dursley influence.

Harry sat for a moment with open mouth. Slowly he started grinning, first when he realised the Doctor was not angry, and then wider when his words registered. Magic was real! All those things that tended to happen around him, they were actually magic! And he made them happen! And uncle Vernon hated magic, so of course he'd say magic was freaky! It all made perfect sense!

"Come on, lets see if you can do it again!"

Under the Doctor's direction, Harry tried again, but he didn't succeed in making the toys move again. When he expressed his frustration, the Doctor waved a hand.

"It doesn't matter that much, it might just be an unconscious thing. You were kinda distracted. You're very likely to do something again soon, though. Now that you know it can happen, you should try and see if you can feel anything happening, and try to replicate that. I can teach you some meditation tools, a technique I learned from a Klarian Novice once, lovely chap. It might help with reaching for it and doing it on purpose.
"In any case, it's been an emotional evening. Lets get you to bed, ok? Tomorrow's another day, and all that."