Seven – Fast Forward
River Song was one of the most incredible people the Doctor had ever met, and that was certainly saying something, because he had met a lot of people over the years. She still wouldn't tell him who she was – Spoilers, she'd say. Urgh, how he hated that word! – but she had told him once that he would come to trust her completely, and each time they met he became more convinced of the truth behind her words. She'd been at Hogwarts not five minutes and he already felt reassured that they'd have the TARDIS working again and be back in their own universe by that afternoon; But he was not going to tell her that, because she would be insufferably smug if he did, and also because she'd been incredibly reckless in coming here, and he was feeling disapproving. He didn't even want to think about what could have happened to her had she got stuck in the void, and the more he thought about the risk she'd taken the more upset with her he got. So he stood before her now, his throat constricted with warring emotions and his old eyes surveying her closely, trying to decide how to proceed.
"But I don't understand," Amy breathed, gaping up at the woman standing in front of her. "How did you know we were here?"
"Spoilers," River said, shaking her head and making her blonde, corkscrew curls bounce.
"Never mind that," the Doctor said quickly, staring at the Vortex manipulator River had cuffed to her arm. "Did you use that to get here?"
"Don't get all snobby now," she tutted at him. "It did the job."
"It's rubbish!" He yelled, throwing an arm out as though the device personally offended him.
"You'll find it very useful one day, you know," River said, smiling knowingly – infuriatingly – at him.
"What does that -" He began to ask her a question, but stopped as soon as she opened her mouth. "Spoilers, I know! Don't say it. I hate that word. Ruins all my fun."
The Doctor plonked himself heavily back down onto the bench seat and pouted at her, arms folded across his chest and his legs crossed.
"Is this a friend of yours, Doctor?" Dumbledore glided over to them and appraised River; his tone was as light and friendly as ever, but his eyes were wary.
"I don't know what she is," the Time Lord said. "She won't tell me. Oh don't give me that look, you know what I mean!"
River, who had been looking at the Doctor imploringly, turned her gaze to the Headmaster. "Sorry, he gets like this some times. I'm River Song, a friend of the Doctor and Amy." She held out a hand, which Dumbledore shook.
"Lovely to meet you, River. I take it you have some knowledge of what's going on here?" Dumbledore asked.
"Do you know how to get us home?" Amy asked hopefully.
"Unfortunately, we can't use my Vortex manipulator," River said, gesturing at the brown cuff she had on.
When he saw Amy's expression change from hopeful to questioning, the Doctor sighed heavily and then said in a bored voice, still refusing to look at River, "It's a rubbish mode of transport, quite primitive and, now that it's inside Hogwarts, utterly useless, as the magic here will have cut out its signal. It's not as powerful as the TARDIS; rather than storing the magic like she is that thing has just blown its circuits."
Everyone was staring at him. Amy put her bottom lip out in a pout and said teasingly, "Aw, you're being Mr Grumpy Face again."
"Sorry, who are you?" Sirius asked River, voicing the thoughts of all the other students.
The Doctor was oblivious to all of them, though; he was so wrapped up in River. As his anger won out, he exclaimed suddenly, "You could have killed yourself!" He stood up and pointed a finger threateningly at her. "What were you thinking, using that to cross the void?! Do you know how dangerous that was?"
Somewhere in the otherwise silent hall someone dropped a fork, and it clattered noisily against the stone floor.
River didn't even bat an eyelid, saying in an ever-so-slightly flirtatious voice, "Did you really think I'd let you come somewhere this fun without me, Doctor?"
"Did I- Wha – You are impossible!" The Doctor spluttered, looking absolutely furious. "You are reckless and irresponsible and- and -"
"And you feel better now that I'm here, don't you?"
There was a tense moment, where the two of them just stared at each other, River's face impassive and the Doctor's a mask of rage. And then she quirked up the corners of her lips in a smile and suddenly all of the tension left his posture as visible relief flooded through him.
He bopped her lightly on the noise and said, "River Song, I am happy to see you."
"There, was so that so hard to say?" River's face broke out into a full grin, and the Time Lord beamed back at her, both of them looking incredibly pleased with themselves.
"You really shouldn't have done that though, it was very dangerous," the Doctor said, but he couldn't bring himself to sound quite as stern as he wanted to.
River smirked, "You know I love a bit of danger."
"Of course you do, you bad girl," the Doctor said flirtatiously.
Lily leant over to Amy, their red hair falling into one sheet, so it was impossible to tell where one of them ended and the other began, and asked quietly, "Are they married?"
"They totally are," Amy replied at a normal volume, continuing on sarcastically, "And if they're done with the flirting, there is the whole 'cracks in the universe' thing to deal with. You know, just some trivial stuff."
"Right, stop distracting me," the Doctor said, his tone suddenly serious, even though his eyes were still shining. He began to pace up and down the length of the table, talking to himself despite the audience of a thousand students and a dozen staff hanging on his every word. "You knew we were here but you didn't tell us how you knew, which means that one of us contacts you in the future; You'll have to tell us when the time's right so we don't create a paradox. Have you sent the Home Box yet?"
"Two weeks ago," River replied.
"It arrived in wizarding London just yesterday," Dumbledore told them.
Amy accused the Doctor indignantly, "You got a message from River and you didn't tell me?"
"I was going to tell you, but then she went and actually turned up and I didn't have to," the Time Lord said, waving away his companion's complaint. "That's odd, the time difference. Very strange. But that's alright, I'll figure out what it means later... Speaking of time differences!" He spun around to face River, blue eyes wide. "Where are you up to?"
River pulled her diary, decorated to look like the TARDIS, from her pocket and began flipping through it. "Asgard?" The Doctor shook his head. "Jim the Fish?" Another no. "So the Weeping Angels were the last time you saw me, at the Byzantium?"
"Yes," the Doctor and Amy said in unison.
"What is going on?" James asked, looking hopelessly lost.
"We're both time travellers," River explained, "I'm from his future; we keep meeting in the wrong order."
"You said it was complicated, but I didn't think it could be quite this bad," James said to Amy, rubbing his forehead as though trying to comprehend what was happening was giving him a headache.
"You have no idea," the Doctor muttered, grabbing his sonic screwdriver from his pocket and scanning River's Vortex manipulator. He held it up to check the readings, and frowned at what he saw.
"Can I have a look at the TARDIS?" River asked sweetly.
He lowered his sonic and aimed his frown at her. "Why?"
She shrugged her shoulders in a show of false modesty. "Because I might be able to help -"
"She's my TARDIS," the Doctor said petulantly. "What makes you think you'll be able to fix her if I can't?"
"Well, River doesn't leave the brakes on when she lands," Amy said.
"Thank you, Amy," the Time Lord said sarcastically. "I take you travelling through all of time and space and how do you thank me? By insulting my driving!"
"No one's insulting you, Doctor," River said, her voice placating, "But don't you think if we work together to fix her we can get home quicker?"
He didn't respond, just swept away across the hall to the TARDIS, stalking inside and shutting the door behind him. A few moments passed before he flung it open again and called out, "Are you lot coming, or not?"
There was a scramble at the Gryffindor table, and the next thing the Doctor knew he had not only River and Amy in the console room with him, but Lily and James and the three boys who had been sitting with them, as well.
"Don't you have to go to class?" He asked, eyeing the new comers.
"What's class compared to a space ship?" Sirius said, looking around in awe.
"A real space ship," Remus breathed, walking in a circle around the centre console.
"It's bigger on the inside!" Peter gasped, and the Doctor laughed.
"Right then, I suppose you can stay. As long as Dumbledore says it's okay," the Doctor said, adding the last bit as an afterthought – He didn't want to push his host's hospitality.
"Oh yeah, of course, he's fine with it," Sirius said, waving a hand dismissively, even though he was obviously lying.
The Doctor couldn't be bothered fighting with headstrong teenagers though, so he let it go and instead pulled the screen down to show River what was happening. Her hip bumped his as she sidled up close, leaning forward to get a good look at the screen.
"So she's got power, but she doesn't know how to convert it into a useable form," River said thoughtfully.
"Exactly," the Doctor said. "And it's really thrown her, crossing the void. She burnt up the second library, and the cricket pitch…"
"You had a cricket pitch in here?" Lily asked. "How big is this place?"
"I told you, it's a whole other dimension," the Doctor informed her, proudly patting the console. He grinned as a thought occurred to him, and said politely, "Amy, why don't you take our guests on a tour?"
"A tour of the TARDIS?" Amy asked, raising an eyebrow. "Doctor, do you even know your way around?"
"Of course I do!" He bristled. "And you do, too. Don't worry, she won't let you get lost. Go on."
With a sigh, Amy rounded up the Hogwarts students and led them away down the closest corridor, in the direction of the library with the swimming pool still in it.
As soon as they were out of ear shot, the Doctor turned to River and clapped his hands onto her shoulders.
"Oh, Doctor," she purred provocatively. "If you wanted some privacy you could have just asked…"
His cheeks went pink as she stared up at him through thick lashes, and he cleared his throat awkwardly and gave her a bashful smile as he removed his hands.
"River," he said, and then had to clear his throat again to get his voice back to its normal pitch, which made her laugh. As his gaze turned serious, however, so did hers. "River… I need you to tell me what you meant about the Daleks."
[[…]]
Amy loved the TARDIS. She loved its impossibility, and the sheer genius of it. She loved its hospitality, and the way it had always felt like a proper home to her, however unconventional it may have been, ever since it had first crashed into her garden shed all those years ago. Yes, Amy loved the TARDIS as if it were her own; and, accordingly, Amy loved showing it off. It wasn't every day she got to give people a guided tour, after all!
"What's through there?" James asked, pointing to a bright red door.
"Uh… No idea actually. Probably best not to check."
Even if she didn't quite know where everything was, or what everything was, for that matter.
"I can't believe this," Lily was saying, and the fact that her emerald green eyes were almost as wide as dinner plates made Amy certain she was telling the truth.
Not that there was anything wrong with that; Amy lived here, and she still couldn't quite believe it was real.
"What about Hogwarts, though?" She asked, "It seems like a pretty amazing place, yeah?"
"Oh, Hogwarts is brilliant," Lily replied, and, as always, Amy was just a little bit shocked to her an English accent come from her mouth. "Yeah, Hogwarts is incredible. It's just… This is a whole new kind of magic, you know? I mean, I'm talking to my alternate self! How cool is that?"
Amy laughed. "Yeah, it's pretty amazing."
"What's up here?" Sirius called out from a few hundred metres ahead of them.
"No, wait, don't go down there!" Amy called out, sprinting forward to try and catch up to the four boys as they rounded the corner. "Stop! That's the -" As she turned, a set of silver doors shut in front of her face. "-lift," she finished dejectedly.
"Oh, no," Lily sighed. "They always do this." She hit the closed doors with her open palm and yelled out crossly, "James Potter, open these doors!" The only response she got was the clanking of gears as the lift took off. "Of course they wouldn't just step back out; they'd have to press a button and go explore."
Amy leant her forehead against the wall before turning around and saying to the TARDIS ceiling, "Can you bring them back, please?"
Silence. Absolute silence. Oh, if they broke anything the Doctor was going to kill her.
"Bloody Marauders," Lily huffed, crossing her arms over her chest.
Amy blinked at her. "Bloody what?"
"Marauders," Lily repeated. "It's what they call themselves. Have for years. And it just sort of… stuck, and now everyone knows them as the Marauders, because they're constantly getting in trouble."
Amy let out a bubbling laugh as an image of Mels flashed into her mind. "Oh, I know the sort."
"And James has changed this year, he really has," Lily continued, leaning up against the wall beside Amy and unconsciously mimicking her pose, with her legs crossed at the ankles and her shoulders slumped forward. "And I do genuinely like him, a lot. But I don't know, sometimes I wonder if – if I'm doing the right thing, going out with him. I mean, it took three years of him asking me to go on a date with him before I finally said yes, and, as much fun as he is, sometimes I can't help but think that I said no all those times for a reason, you know?"
As Lily spoke, Amy felt something painful constrict in her chest, blocking her throat and making it hard to breathe. There was that niggling feeling again, something nagging at the edge of her consciousness, saying that she was forgetting something, something big, and why couldn't she remember….
"I'm so sorry," Lily gasped, and Amy was taken aback.
"What for?" She asked.
As soon as her eyes locked onto the other girl's, the oppressive feeling was gone, the pressure lifted from her heart and the fog cleared from her mind. She shook her head lightly, blinking and trying to remember what Lily had been saying that had made her feel so strange.
"For just… blurting all of that out," Lily clarified. She did look genuinely mortified, Amy thought. "I'm sorry, you don't even know what I'm talking about, you're a stranger, and I just went and told you all of my problems that I haven't told anyone, not even Marlene -"
"It's fine," Amy told her, patting her arm reassuringly. "Honestly. And I'm not a stranger, am I; I'm you."
Lily laughed at that, and gave Amy a fond smile. "I suppose you are, yeah."
"So, what's going on with James? He's a bit of a hottie, I must admit."
"Yeah, he is a bit of a looker," Lily stood up straighter and pushed some errant red strands of hair back off her forehead, a small, fond smile playing on her pink lips. "He's been chasing me since we were thirteen, and at the start of this year I finally agreed to go on a date with him."
"And you're seventeen now?" Amy mentally calculated, and then let out a low whistle as she realised James hadn't been exaggerating at all when he'd told her he knew all about waiting.
Lily nodded, and then groaned, her smile vanished. "It's just – he really loves me. He says it all the time, and even though most of the time he tries to say it like it's a joke, or just an offhand comment, I know it's not. I see the way he looks at me, I've seen the way he's looked at me for all these years, and I- I don't think I look at him like that. I don't think I love him like he loves me."
"Well, that's normal, isn't it? For one person in a relationship to be more keen than the other," Amy paused for a moment, chewing her bottom lip thoughtfully and trying to ignore the tug on her heartstrings. "I'm sure it happens all the time."
Lily looked at her hopelessly. "But I don't want to lead him on, Amy. And I don't think I'm ready for the type of commitment he's asking me for."
"It's not like you're getting married," Amy chuckled, but when Lily's face paled she gasped, "Are you?!"
"No, no," Lily hurriedly assured her. "Well… Not yet, anyway. I'm worried he might ask soon."
"You're seventeen," Amy enunciated slowly. "What are you even doing thinking about marriage?"
Lily shrugged one shoulder tiredly. "There's a war coming, and we all have to grow up eventually. I think James is just more keen to get started with a domestic life than I am… I think he's a bit worried about how much longer we'll have the opportunity."
"Who says we have to grow up?" Amy asked stubbornly. She had resolved to get this thing sorted out, as she couldn't bare to see her alternate self so conflicted; and so she gave Lily the advice that she herself wanted to hear. "And who says marriage is the way to go about it?"
"It's not that bad, really. James is a great guy, practically every girl in school would kill to be in my position," Lily informed her. "And I do really like him... I don't want to hurt him, but I can't change my feelings."
"But you do want to keep dating him?" Amy questioned, "Just not marry him?"
"Yeah," Lily said, sounding a bit more enthusiastic now that it seemed Amy was understanding. "Yeah, exactly. I mean, I'd like to see how things turned out, because I do have feelings for him. I'm just not as sure about them as he is."
"Well then just give it time!" Amy exclaimed brightly. "Hopefully he won't ask you for any big commitments until you're as ready as he is, and everything will be fine."
Lily seemed to hesitate over something for a moment, before asking slowly, "How old are you, Amy?"
"Twenty-one," she told her.
"And are you married?"
Amy laughed, but it was a hollow sound that reverberated off the TARDIS walls and held no cheer at all. "No, I'm not really the marrying type."
Lily suddenly stepped away from the wall in alarm, looking back at Amy with a regretful expression. "Oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to upset you -"
"I'm not upset," Amy stated, gazing at the other girl quizzically.
Lily stepped forward again, and lightly brushed her finger tips against her cheek. "Then why are you crying?"
Amy reached up to her face, and once again felt warm, wet tears sitting on her eyelashes. She pulled her hand away and looked to Lily, who seemed just as confused as she was, "…I don't know."
Suddenly she remembered Vincent; the two of them walking to the church and him admiring her strength to carry on; the thought of their children with red hair, brighter than sunflowers. That must be why she was crying, she decided. She was just mourning a lost friend, nothing more. A completely normal emotion. Never mind that it had started while she'd been with Vincent.
"Are you sure you're alright?" Lily sounded very worried.
"I'm fine," Amy assured her, wiping her tears away with the sleeve of her jacket. "Totally fine. Now, what do you say we go track down those Marauders of yours?"
"Merlin knows what havoc they're wreaking on their own in here."
Lily rolled her eyes, and both girls laughed as Amy pressed the button to open the doors of the lift. When they stepped inside, she turned to Lily to ask her what floor she thought they should look on first, but before she could articulate her question the other girl had flung herself forwards and wrapped her arms around her neck in a tight embrace.
"Thank you," Lily said into Amy's shoulder.
After a few awkward seconds, Amy hugged her back. "You're welcome."
They parted with identical smiles, and Lily exclaimed, "Right, let's go stop those boys from tearing another hole in the fabric of the universe!"
[[…]]
The Doctor was fiddling with some wires beneath the console when he saw feet on the glass floor above him; a pair of narrow, black school shoes, attached to a lean body, and a gangly arm reaching out to touch something…
"Don't touch anything!" The Doctor yelled, springing up and brandishing a floppy blue wire at the boy like a weapon.
Although of course the Doctor never carried a weapon, and if he did happen to have one he certainly wouldn't aim it a person, because violence was never the answer. And who needed a weapon when you had a sonic screwdriver? Speaking of which, where had his screwdriver gotten to…?
"Arghh, sorry!" James apologised loudly, flailing a bit before whirling around and clapping a hand to his heart. "You scared the cr- living daylights out of me!"
"Sorry," the Doctor said insincerely, "But you really mustn't touch anything. You don't know how to drive her."
"Do you know how to drive her?" James asked, his tone suggesting that he wasn't entirely joking.
The Time Lord scoffed, "Do I know how to drive the TARDIS? Of course I know how to drive the TARDIS, she's my ship and no one can drive her better than me."
"What about that woman who turned up this morning; River? She seems to know how to drive it."
The Doctor appraised James with narrowed eyes, wondering if the boy was deliberately trying to antagonise him or just being ignorant.
"She likes to think she knows how to, yes. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm trying to re-rout the -" the Doctor stopped suddenly as he realised that James was on his own. He craned his neck to look behind the boy, and saw nothing but the empty console room and an empty hallway stretching away beyond that. "Where is everyone?"
"Oh, uh…" James rubbed the back of his neck, looking sufficiently awkward. "We got… separated."
"You got separated?" The Doctor repeated as he slowly, deliberately, made his way up the stairs to stand in front of James.
"Yeah, we boys took a wrong turn, and, uh, when we realised we'd lost the girls we decided to split up and go looking for them…" James stumbled over his poorly rehearsed explanation, ruffling his hair as he spoke.
The Doctor sighed and turned to the console, typing something in on the keyboard and pressing a bright white button. "That's okay, I'll just activate the guiding lights and tell them to follow them back here -"
"Uh, Doctor," James said hesitantly, stepping up to the other man and moving to tap him on the shoulder. When he turned around, though, James dropped his arm quickly back to his side. "Before they get back, I was wondering if I could ask you something?"
The Doctor looked James up and down before focusing on his hazel eyes, and he found that, behind the round spectacles sitting on his nose, they were completely serious and actually pretty clever.
"Sure," he said simply, flashing a small smile.
"When I met first met Amy," James began, and then stopped to take a deep breath and consider his words, as though he hadn't thought of what to say past that opening line, "When she saw me for the first time, she started crying. And when I asked her why she was crying, she acted like she hadn't even realised." James paused expectantly, but when the Doctor remained silent he added, "Why? Why was she crying, and why didn't she realise?"
The Doctor sighed heavily, his lips pressed into a thin line, and shook his head once. "It's a long story."
"Please tell me," James near-begged.
"It's complicated," the Doctor said with finality.
"Please," James persisted. "Please, Doctor, I – I need to know. If she's Lily from another universe, then who's to say that their experiences aren't going to be similar? The way she was crying, it was… it was... I don't know what it was, but I don't ever want to have see tears like that on Lily's face, ever again."
The Doctor closed his eyes, and when he opened them again he saw James still standing there expectantly, desperately waiting to hear an explanation.
"You know how Lily is an alternate Amy?" The Time Lord began, continuing on when the boy nodded, "Well, you have an alternate in our universe, too. Had. You had an alternate in our world."
"What- What happened to him?" James asked, worry lines creasing his young forehead.
"He was swallowed by one of the cracks in the universe... Completely erased from history – he didn't just die, he was never born," the Doctor said, and he didn't bother trying to keep the sadness or the exhaustion out of his voice. If James was going to learn about Rory, he might as well learn about all of the feelings that went along with it. "Amy's forgotten him, because technically, now, he never existed."
The Doctor had expected a moment of silence, a brief pause for James to contemplate what was being said – but instead the boy looked him straight in the eyes and said fiercely, "But she was crying when she saw me, so she remembers, right? Some part of her remembers?"
"Amy Pond is an extraordinary girl," the Doctor said cryptically. "She shouldn't remember Rory at all, but some part of her does. Her dreams, her memories, they're stronger than most peoples'. When something triggers it, they leak through into her consciousness and she feels them, even if she can't quite grasp them."
"Can he ever come back?" James asked quietly. "Rory?"
There was a split second of internal debate, as the Doctor looked at James's painfully familiar face, and then he told him honestly, "I wish he could, but I don't think so… No, I don't think he can."
James's face crumpled, and the Doctor turned away, leaning on the console and looking so, so old. Because it was his fault that Rory was gone, his fault that Amy had lost the man she was supposed to marry… His fault that he always got everyone into trouble. A lump formed in his throat, and he closed his eyes against the memory of watching Rory disappear, of watching all of them disappear…
"What was he like?" James queried, his voice sounding slightly strained.
But, even if it ended badly, there was a reason that so many people wanted to travel with the Doctor. Because sometimes he couldn't see the wonder in the universe, and more often he couldn't see the wonder in himself – but they could. His companions, so young and so enthusiastic and with their whole futures stretching out in front of them; they saw the inherent goodness in the strange, old alien, and when they looked at him as though he could save their world, sometimes, just sometimes, he saw it too.
James was looking at him like that now, as though what the Doctor said next could make or break his opinion of the Time Lord.
"He was fantastic, Rory was," the Doctor told him, turning around with a genuine smile. "Funny, cleverer than he looked. And she really loved him, even if it took her a while to realise it. She still does. She just doesn't remember."
James appeared to be deep in thought; the Doctor could practically see the cogs turning in his head. "Do you think I -"
"I've got the tools you asked for, Doctor, and the jammie dodgers. You've moved the kitchen since last time, though, took me a while to find the right cupboard…" River's voice drifted into the room ahead of her, and when she came into view the Doctor was pleased to see that she was in fact carrying a red toolbox and a packet of his favourite snacks.
"Smashing!" the Doctor cried, racing over to her and grabbing the biscuits.
"Oh, sorry," she said when she saw James. "Did I interrupt something?"
"No, no, not at all," the Doctor told her cheerily, ripping open the packet and taking a large bite out of a biscuit. "James is just the only one of our new friends who's managed to find their way back to the console room. Turns out Amy's a bit of a rubbish tour guide. Jammie dodger, anyone?"
River declined with a laugh, but James gratefully took one from the packet the Time Lord extended to him. "Thanks," he said around his mouthful, spitting a few crumbs onto the front of his robes.
"Welcome," the Doctor said back automatically, and then shoved the whole packet into James's arms and spun back to the centre console. "Now, if I just turn on these lights -" he flicked a yellow switch next to the white button he'd pressed earlier, "- and then turn off those ones -" he flicked another switch, and suddenly the whole room was plunged into darkness, "No, sorry! Not those ones, definitely not those ones!"
"These ones, perhaps?" River's disembodied voice floated to his ears, and just as he reached the switch he was looking for he felt her hand slide on top of it, her fingers brushing the side of his palm. He felt the shift in pressure as she flicked it up, and saw the smug grin on her face as the lights came back on.
"I had it under control."
"Of course you did, my love," River sighed.
He stuck his tongue out at her and grabbed the radio from its holder atop the console, speaking into it, "Hello there, lost little children! I've turned the guiding lights on for you, so if you could all please just walk down the lit up corridors and avoid the dark ones, you'll end up back in the console room in no time! Yell out if you're stuck and we…might… hear you. Hopefully. See you soon!"
He put the mouthpiece back and snatched the jammie dodgers back off James, shoving a whole one in his mouth and grinning.
"How long do you think it'll take them to get back here?" James inquired.
"Depends how far away they are," the Time Lord replied helpfully.
Measuring time in biscuits, it took two for Remus to appear, four for Lily and Amy, seven for Sirius – who kept finding so many cool things on the way! – and the rest of the packet for Peter, who came scurrying in apologising and saying how they really needed some signs or something, and swearing that the corridors kept moving around.
"Well that's what you get for running off," Lily chastised the Marauders once they were all back together.
"We didn't run off," Sirius protested.
Amy sarcastically replied, "Oh, yeah, you didn't run off at all; you just went in the direction I told you not to, and then disappeared in the lift."
"To be fair, Remus accidentally pressed the button, we didn't go to the third floor on purpose," James explained.
"Right, well, either way, I'm out of jammie dodgers now," the Doctor declared, tossing the empty packet over his head. "You lot have eaten them all."
"We had one each," Amy complained.
"Yeah, well, there's a lot of you, aren't there?" the Doctor insisted, wiping his hands on her sleeve. "Far more than I'm used to, actually. Too many people in the TARDIS!" He felt a bit manic, all of a sudden, and began waving people towards the door. "Isn't this a school; shouldn't some of you be in class, learning…magicky…stuff?"
"Are you kicking us out?" Sirius asked waspishly.
"I wouldn't call it that," the Time Lord said, "I'm politely asking you to vacate the TARDIS."
The seventeen year olds all stared at him, looking more than a little put out. He sighed heavily, raising and lowering his shoulders in a dramatic show, and ran a hand through his hair.
"I'm sorry. I'm not kicking you out just because, I promise. I need to do some tests and some work, and I don't want you being in here if anything goes wrong."
"Doctor, what do you mean 'if anything goes wrong'?" Amy asked.
"I mean, I'm not sure how stable she is, and I don't know what all of this magical energy is doing to her circuitry. If anything… I don't know, blows up, I don't want you caught in it," the Doctor explained.
"You said you wanted to do some tests on James and I," Lily reminded him. "You haven't done them yet."
"Right you are, Lily!" The Doctor declared, stepping up to her and looping an arm over her shoulder.
She smiled, for the briefest of moments; until he grabbed a strand of her hair and pulled it from her scalp, and she let out a shriek. James, of course, came rushing helpfully over, and the Doctor yanked a strand of his hair out, too.
"Ow! What was that for?" James asked angrily, rubbing the back of his head and glaring at the Doctor.
"I needed some of your DNA to run the tests on," the Doctor told them, putting the two hairs on a glass slide in the console and typing on the type writer. "And now I've got them, so you can go about your normal business without a worry and I will come and get you when the results are in."
"You're unbelievable," James snapped, wrapping an arm around Lily's waist and holding her close to him.
Suddenly the TARDIS was rocked by a violent shake, and the familiar whooshing, wheezing noise of dematerialisation began to sound out.
"No, no, no, no!" The Doctor cried out, running around the console. "No, no, what are you doing?"
"Doctor!" Amy yelled out as another violent rock sent her flying to the floor.
James managed to catch her before she fell, and he tucked her under the arm not holding tight to Lily.
"What's happening?" Remus asked urgently, gripping onto the railing with Peter and Sirius.
"She's trying to take off," River explained. "Doctor, why is she suddenly trying to take off?"
"Where are you trying to go?!" The Time Lord asked his TARDIS hopelessly, holding onto the scanner with both hands. "We can't leave now, not with all of them in here!"
"Where are the stabilisers?" River asked, looking blankly at the area of the console the blue buttons used to occupy.
He could not believe she was bringing this up now.
"They're boringers, River, they are blue boringers, and they have no place on my TARDIS," the Doctor snapped, glaring at the area of the console River was pointing at.
"They were stabilisers," River growled, "They stabilised her. They were helpful."
"They were boring!"
"You're so childish!"
"You're so annoying!"
"You think you know everything!"
"So do you!"
Amy yelled out, "Yes, you're both very clever, can you stop now?! I think there are a few things higher on the agenda to worry about at the moment!"
The Doctor and River shared one last intense gaze before River relented a nod, and the Doctor rushed to her side, the two of them putting their expert skills to good use and trying to regain control of the TARDIS.
"We need to land her, we need to get her back down and get everyone out -"
There was another powerful thud, and then absolute silence. Everyone remained still for a minute, waiting to see if any more movement was going to happen. When nothing moved, the Doctor bounded to the door and River went straight for the scanner, pulling the screen down and peering at it closely.
"We haven't moved, apparently," the Doctor pushed open the door to reveal that they were, indeed, still in the Great Hall of Hogwarts. It was empty now, except for a slightly dazed looking man in a tattered coat, and a fluffy brown cat circling around his ankles, who hissed at him.
"Uh, Doctor," River said worriedly, "We have moved."
"We're right where we were, though," Sirius said, gazing out past the Doctor.
The Time Lord turned around slowly, ignoring the still hissing cat, and watched Amy's eyes go wide as she realised what River meant. Lily looked over at her, and slowly her expression mirrored Amy's.
"No," she breathed.
"Yes," the Doctor said. "River, when are we?"
"When are we?" Peter repeated, his voice squeaking.
River dropped her hands to her sides as the Doctor came to stand right in front of her. Her eyes slid to the screen and then back to meet his, and she let out a worried sigh.
"We've skipped two weeks."
Alright, so that wasn't exactly good, but it wasn't as bad as he'd been expecting; a little bit not good, but it definitely could have been worse. He looked at the scanner, and contemplated what could have given the TARDIS the sudden surge in power, enough to catapult them two weeks into the future…
"Two weeks?!" Everyone exclaimed, their worry raising their voices to a shriek.
"Not to worry, two weeks is no time at all," the Doctor said, ushering everyone over to the doors.
"Yeah, he left me for twelve years once," Amy declared.
"How many times do I have to apologise for that, Pond?" The Doctor said, and he was glad when he saw she caught the sincerely sad look he gave her, belying the annoyed tone of his voice.
"Why have we gone two weeks into the future?" Sirius asked as the Time Lord pushed him into Remus, who was just stumbling out the front doors.
"No idea," the Doctor replied honestly, grabbing River's hand and pushing her out in front of him. "But we're here now, and there's no telling if the TARDIS is stable or not, so out we go, back into the Great Hall!"
The eight of them ran out into the hall, the Doctor turning back to look worriedly at his beloved TARDIS, hoping that it wouldn't dematerialise without him inside; because it was always such a pain getting her back when she did that.
"We need to find Dumbledore," Lily said straight away.
James nodded. "We need to find out what we've missed, and what's going on now."
"Yes, right you are," the Doctor agreed, but his eyes were still focused on the blue police phone box.
A loud explosion sounded out from behind them, in the closed off entrance hall, and while the sound seemed to stun everyone else it made the Time Lord spring into action. He ran over to the man with the cat, quickly scanning him up and down, with both his eyes and his sonic screwdriver.
"That explosion, what was it?" The Doctor asked urgently.
Instead of answering his question, the man snarled, "What do you think you're doing, parking that box there?!"
"What was that explosion?" The Doctor repeated.
"Another bloody mess for me to clean up, that's what it was! Everyone making a mess everywhere," The Man yelled, and his cat gave a sufficiently angry hiss in agreement. He turned to growl at the students, " I'd thought with you Marauders gone the castle'd be kept a bit cleaner, but -"
"Oh, quit your whining, Filch!" Sirius snapped, "Just answer the question, or we'll put that explosion to shame with our next round of pyrotechnics. You know we're capable!"
"You can't talk to me like that," Filch said, pointing a dirty finger at an irate Sirius.
"Excuse me!" Amy snapped, glaring at the infuriating man. "You are dealing with something far more complicated than what your little brain can comprehend here, and if you don't stop being rude and start giving us the answers we need, I'm going to come over there and -"
"Amy," the Doctor said evenly. Even though she was sure he meant it as a warning, the fact that he was barely suppressing a smile almost ruined the effect. Amy heeded it anyway, stepping back with only minimal huffing. The Doctor stared Filch down and repeated, "Tell me what is going on out there."
"The war's started," Filch finally relented, and his cat meowed and scratched at his boot. "Death Eaters are at Hogwarts' doors."
a.n. Righto, there's a super dooper long, relatively actiony chapter for you. I hope you enjoyed, and are now looking forward to the fighting in the next chapter.
Please let me know what you think of the story! How did I go with River? There'll be more flirting in the next chapter, between River/Eleven and Amy/James. Because that's fun. But how were these conversations? In character, interesting to read, understandable?
Again, I'll try to not leave it too long between updates, but uni is absolutely crazy with the workload at the moment, so I can't make any promises. As always though, the more reviews I get the more inspired I am, so the faster I'll get the next chapter written. Thanks for reading, favouriting, alerting, reviewing; you're all marvellous!