Chapter 9

Love and Loss are both four letter words

The next day Luke and the Doctor started working on the TARDIS. The ship had been 'resting' for a while, according to the Doctor and was now ready to be fixed. The Doctor, however much preoccupied with the thoughts of Bree's necklace and the TARDIS, couldn't help notice noticing that Luke seemed to have a permanent little grin on his face, that had not been there before. In fact, he almost looked like a normal teenage boy.

'Why do you look like the cat that's got the cream?' asked the Doctor, after mulling over the possibilities in his head. 'It's good to see you're not homesick, but you're just unnaturally happy.'

Luke blushed, and opened his mouth when a huge explosion was heard from outside.

'What the…?' asked the Doctor, and they both rushed to the doors of the TARDIS. Racing outside, they saw a hole in the ground where a tree used to be and a very embarrassed Bree.

'Whoops,' she said, poking the charred hole with her toe. She looked sheepishly at the Doctor. 'Errr, I didn't mean to…' she gestured towards the hole.

'How did you manage that?' asked the Doctor, amazed.

'I had some Weasley's Wizard Wheeze's exploding powder, and I tripped, so I dropped it, and, well…' she looked at the hole where the tree had been. 'Hey, Luke, you coming to Hogsmeade?'

'Yeah,' he said, bounding over and putting an arm around her shoulders. The Doctor suddenly realized the cause of Luke's smile.

'You can go Luke. I think we've nearly finished that part, anyway.'

'Ok,' he said, and they both headed up to the village. The Doctor grinned at their retreating backs, and, still shaking his head and chuckling, he went back into the TARDIS.

**********

Bree and Luke met up with the others after emptying Honeydukes of half its sweets.

'Got enough chocolate there, guys?' asked Harry, grinning, his eyebrows raised.

'It's always good to stock up,' said Bree. 'Now, do you want to go for a butter beer in the Three Broomsticks, or shall we just go back to the castle? It's a bit chilly to just hang around in the street.'

As if the weather had heard her, a cold wind suddenly blew through Hogsmeade, attacking any exposed skin with a cold like knives.

'Maybe back to the castle,' shouted Ginny over the wind, 'It's freezing and I feel like relaxing in front of the fire.'

'Yeah. I've got a bit of a tummy-ache,' said Bree.

'But guys,' said Ron, staring wistfully at Zonko's.

'Come on, Ron,' said Hermione, dragging him after them. They battled against the wind on the way back to Hogwarts, as well as being pelted with leaves and grit from the path. One of the third year Slytherins also making their way back in front of their little group suddenly put his gloved hand to his face and shouted,

'My eye! I've got debris in my eye!' He swerved off the path and hit a tree. Bree giggled, and Harry looked at her.

'What?' she shouted, the wind whipping her voice away. 'The word debris is funny.'

They had just reached the Hogwarts gates where the TARDIS was, flanked by two winged boars, when a loud explosion behind them caused them to stop.

'OK, that definitely wasn't me,' said Bree, and they slowly turned around, to see most of Hogsmeade aflame.

'Death eaters!' shouted Harry, drawing his wand and looking grim. 'They're attacking Hogsmeade!'

'What's that?' Hermione shouted over the wind, pointing to a flying sphere hovering above the village, surrounded by smaller ones.

'That's not death eaters!' said Ron.

'No. It's much worse,' said Luke.

'Sontarans,' Bree and Luke said together, and they all watched in horror as the spheres descended on the screaming townsfolk.

'Oh no,' Ginny breathed, as they stood, frozen, watching the chaos. Suddenly, Bree started to run back towards Hogsmeade.

'Bree, NO!' Luke started to run after her, closely followed by the others. He took her down with a flying tackle, and grabbed her before she could run away again. 'There's nothing you can do,' he said, feeling his heart break as he looked into her glistening eyes and heard the dying screams from the village. She faced him and the others, her hair whipped out around her head by the wind so it looked like fire. 'We can't just let them die!' Her voice cracked and she turned once more towards Hogsmeade. Only to gasp in horror at the sphere that had landed on the path behind her. It opened like a fan, and Luke knew what would come out.

Ron drew his wand at the same time as Ginny and Hermione. Luke, remembering his, did the same. Only Bree stood quite unprotected in front of the sphere, her wand on the floor, having fallen out of her pocket when Luke tackled her.

Out of the Sphere climbed a humanoid shape, of about five ft., wearing dark armour and clutching a long black gun in its four-fingered hand.

'But it's tiny!' exclaimed Ron. The figure raised the gun.

'Sontar-HA!'

***********

The Doctor had his head under the main console when the first explosion rattled the TARDIS. He tried to get up, and in true comic book style, whacked his head on the underside of the console. He groaned, and wriggled out, grabbing his sonic screwdriver on the way.

'Bree, if that was you again!' He shouted, rubbing his head.

The doors opened before he got there, as though the ship was anxious to get him out. He halted as soon as he reached the charred hole that Bree had made. The column of smoke stretching into the sky on the horizon told him it definitely wasn't Bree, and his heart sank when he saw the ships above the village.

'Oh no, not here.'

**************

Ron shoved Hermione behind a tree as the jet of red energy shot from the gun towards her. The tree took the brunt of it and burst into flames. Harry and Ginny shot spell after spell at the Sontaran but none seemed to have any effect.

Luke was frozen as the gun was raised once more towards them. He knew how to stop it, but how? Then Bree snapped him out of it, by pointing behind it and shouting,

'Doctor!' The Sontaran wheeled round, and Bree punched the hole at the back of its neck. It went down like a ton of bricks.

'What in Merlin's name was that?' shrieked Hermione.

'Sontaran,' Bree said, rubbing her hand. 'Ouch, that killed.'

'How….how did you know... it….?' Luke gestured towards the fallen Sontaran. Bree looked confused.

'I don't know,' she said, her brow furrowed. 'I just… knew.'

'Can someone tell me what the hell just happened?' asked Ginny. A loud explosion from Hogsmeade punctuated her words.

'That is a Sontaran. An alien,' said Luke.

'They're a clone race, and they were grown using a tube stuck in their necks, like an umbilical cord,' said Bree, who looked surprised at the words coming out her mouth. 'An army that can never turn their backs on their enemies,' she said softly, looking down at it.

'So the back of their neck is their weakness?' asked Ginny.

'Do you think if we hit them with stunners or impediment jinx's there, it would knock them out?' asked Harry.

'Probably,' said Luke. 'They'd have to be pretty strong ones, though.' He looked thoughtful. 'I wonder why he turned around when Bree shouted for the Doctor? Surely Sontarans would never turn their backs, just in case it's a trick?'

'The Doctor is dreaded by even the Daleks. The Sontarans are nothing compared to them, and they know it. The Doctor has crushed them underfoot many times before, why would this time be any different? The oncoming storm.' Bree breathed in sharply, and then collapsed.

The Doctor appeared and caught her. His face was grim and he looked like an angry God.

'Go and help the villagers. But be careful!' he ordered. The others started off, but Luke didn't follow them. 'Luke, you can stay,' said the Doctor, before he lifted Bree into his arms as if she weighed not much more than a feather, and carried her to the TARDIS.

'What's the matter with Bree?' Luke asked, tagging after him. The Doctor didn't answer until they were in the TARDIS and Bree was lying on the mesh floor.

'She's a Time Lord.'

'What? But she's only got one heart! How could she be…'

'Do you know what this is?' The Doctor asked, bending down and picking up the locket still around Bree's neck. Luke shook his head. 'This is a capsule where Time Lords put their consciousness, when they need to hide. It turns them into a human, with fake memories of a human life.'

'So it's got her memories of being a Time Lord then? But how come she remembered the Sontarans? And he said something about Daleks, and that they feared you. She called you the oncoming storm.' Luke gasped in realization. 'Some of the consciousness of Time Lord Bree's been let out! Who was it?'

'Malfoy,' said the Doctor. 'He stole it and opened it. I managed to stop him, but some escaped. It's what's brought the Sontarans. The energy released brought them here like a shark to blood. The amount of energy, all the memories of the Time Vortex and the knowledge a Time Lord has would be enough to power their ships for eternity, not to mention give them the power to live forever and they would be able to travel in time.'

'But the released energy would go into Bree, wouldn't it?' asked Luke.

'Her human body wouldn't be able to cope with a millionth of the power. Some would, giving her painful stomach cramps…'

'She said she had a stomach ache…'

'And the rest is just hanging around, waiting until the rest is released. I thought the energy pulse around Hogwarts would be enough to shield the energy, and perhaps it was, but when she went to Hogsmeade, well…'

'So why don't we open it? Then the Sontarans wouldn't be able to get it, and she'd be herself again!'

'If she gets back her Time Lord self, she won't be Bree anymore. She'll be someone else. The Time Lord she used to be. Not Bree the human.' The Doctor looked sadly at Luke. 'She won't feel the same things.'

Luke looked at Bree. He felt more for her than he'd ever felt for any girl before, and he didn't want to lose it.

'We could always keep her human, and hide the locket…' the Doctor tried vainly to think of alternatives.

'No,' said Luke, hearing his voice break. 'The energy in her human body will kill her if she doesn't change! You know that.'

'I forget how clever you are sometimes. You look just like a normal boy.'

'That's what the Bane wanted. Just open it!'

'You do it,' said the Doctor, taking the locket off Bree and handing it to Luke. He put his finger on clasp, but paused.

'Who is she?'

'I don't know.' The Doctor looked sad, but also happy. Luke knew why. He was no longer the last Time Lord. He wasn't alone. Luke felt a mixture of sadness and bittersweet happiness as he looked down at Bree. He knew he would still love her, even if she didn't love him anymore. He loved her. A different love than the one he felt for Sarah Jane, his mum, and different for the one he felt for his friends, Harry, Ginny, Hermione, Ron, and the ones he'd left behind, Clyde, Maria and Rani.

It was the first time he'd felt it, and he was going to lose it. He gritted his teeth, and opened the locket.