A Doc, a Looney, and a Box

Author's Note: Sorry about all the cliffhangers. What was originally supposed to be one chapter just keeps going on, and on, and on. Not necessarily a bad thing, though. It's getting interesting. I'll probably have one more chapter by the end of the day.

Chapter Seven: The Chieftain, Part Three

"Luna, what are you doing? You're supposed to be escaping!" The Doctor's ghost, or temporal hologram, or whatever he wanted to call it, sailed along after her as she ran up into the castle. Her heart was pounding.

"I'm finding Dumbledore," she said grimly.

"Luna!" he appeared suddenly in front of her. "You can't!"

She tore through him, feeling a faint chill. "I have to," she said, and with that she closed the distance between herself and Dumbledore's office.

The entryway was open, the statue thrust hastily aside. She darted up the stairs and into the office, where Dumbledore was standing beside the broken window and looking out onto the school grounds.

"What a clever witch. It's a wonder that you were the chosen one. I never thought much of Harry Potter myself." Dumbledore turned slowly around, looking at her through his glasses. Eyes that she had only ever known to be merry were cold and hard. "I never thought much of the Luna that went to school here, either. I guess it just goes to show you how different a person can become under different circumstances."

"Why are you doing this?" said Luna, panting.

The Doctor's ghost hung back, watching what was happening through a crack in the door.

"Why? Look at this world," said Dumbledore. "I read that book of yours. How could I ever let things go back to the way they were?" he said. "War. Death. Destruction. The lives of four little people are not much to pay for…"

"For the Greater Good," interrupted Luna. Dumbledore smiled at her. "And it's not just four people. Everybody I ever knew is dead now, because things have been changed. The Harry, and the Ginny of my world…they don't exist anymore. That isn't right."

"If you asked your dear friend Harry to put it right – to go through all that pain and suffering, just to change the world back the way it was – do you think he would do it?" asked Dumbledore.

Luna thought. She hadn't really considered it. And she was surprised to find that she didn't really have an answer for him. "But…it's not right," she said. She started to back up as Dumbledore advanced on her. "Things shouldn't be…"

"Miss Lovegood," he said mildly, "I have been obeying the orders of the Chieftain for my entire life. I am not going to stop because one little girl tells me it isn't fair – that it isn't right."

"The Chieftain? You know…"

"Of course," he said. "She has directed my actions for many years now. It was she who ordered me to follow the Doctor, under the name of Al Dorian. She told me that the time would come when he might interfere with our business, here in the magical world," he said.

Dumbledore strolled casually throughout the office, finally coming to stand next to the phoenix. He stroked his hand down its back. "Amazing bird. He dies, and is immediately reborn in a new form. Time Lords and Ladies, they live the same way – always changing."

"I am, perhaps, the only one who remembers Before." Dumbledore smiled. "I can't remember it all clearly, now – I have so many different realities jumbled together in my head. She was looking for a way to change the war – to change everything – and she came to me. Back when she still called herself the Time Witch."

"We worked together. Planning it all out, so carefully – each little change throughout time a ripple effect. The first thing to do, of course, was to get rid of the houses. Hogwarts resisted it, of course. We had to settle for keeping the house names, in the end." He smiled.

Luna listened to all of this, stunned into silence. Then the Dumbledore she had known had been a part of this, she thought. At least, in the beginning, he had. The changes had slowly been changing him, too, she realized, as each of the actions of the Time Witch – the Chieftain – had turned him into the man who now stood there, facing her.

For the first time, it really occurred to Luna that she too had been changed, changed without ever realizing that it had happened. Her memories of Hermione had gotten her trapped inside St. Mungo's, and suddenly everything became clear to her.

The time loop, the one that the Doctor had rescued her from, hadn't just been some random occurrence. It had been time resetting itself, over and over again, as the infinite number of changes the Time Witch had been causing played out.

And the Luna that had remained, she thought, was a Luna that had been willing to forget everything just so she could forget the truth.

And suddenly, the idea of truth became a brightly burning beacon to her. She would stop at nothing, Luna finally decided, to make the world right again. The moment she made this decision it felt like a giant weight had been lifted off of her shoulders.

She stood up straight and stared Dumbledore straight in the eye.

"You'll have to kill me, then," she said. "Because I refuse to give it all up."

"As you wish," said Dumbledore, raising his wand.

"No!" The Doctor's ghost came roaring into the room them. Dumbledore stumbled back. "Come on!" he shouted, making to grab her hand and passing right through her.

"All right!" Luna took off running, staying as close to the ghost as she could when she discovered that his silvery glow illuminated enough of the darkened corridors that she could still see where she was going without pulling out her wand.

They were halfway to the great hall when the Doctor briefly flickered out of focus. "Amy and Rory must be getting close to the boundaries of the castle," he said. "We had better move quickly!"

Luna started running faster. She was almost to the Great Hall when she saw one of the hooded figures leap out from the shadows, nearly grabbing her before she managed to dart under his arm and out of his grasp. In that moment, she caught sight of his face and her heart threatened to leap out of her chest.

Neville? She thought in horror. Then he was working for Dumbledore too.

She burst out of the doors and stumbled to her knees. The Doctor's ghost had just whipped around to see whether or not she was all right when all of a sudden he faded from view, leaving Luna completely alone. That was that, she thought. They must have all reached safety.

Slowly she picked herself up, starting to run again. She turned toward the Forbidden Forest, seeing it now as her only hope for escape. Neville and a second hooded figure appeared as she entered the woods.

"Let her go," said the second figure, whose voice sounded horribly like Remus Lupin's. "She'll never make it out alive."

Luna dashed through the undergrowth for what felt like an hour, finally coming into a small clearing where she collapsed to the ground. She didn't know how she had kept herself up for as long as she had – her legs felt as if they were made of rubber, and there wasn't a part of her that wasn't numb.

She was sitting there, barely able to even think, when she heard a rustling in the undergrowth around her. She turned around, looking up to see a centaur standing above her with a quizzical look on its face.

"Who are you?" it asked.

Luna thought. After a long moment she shrugged. "I'm nobody, anymore. In this world I don't even exist."

"Hello, Nobody," said the centaur after a little while. "I am Firenze. And I don't exist in this world, either." He moved closer to her, and she could see that he was in fact the centaur that had helped Harry during the war, so long ago and never before.

"Firenze," she said. "Can you tell…I mean, can't you feel…"

"All centaurs feel it. The illusion. The not-right," he said.

"I need to get out of here," said Luna. She meant the forest, and she meant something else too. The centaur seemed to understand both. He knelt down in front of her, and Luna scrambled on to his back. Moving at a slow trot he ran deeper into the woods. Deeper, in fact, than Luna had realized there even was. Finally the trees began to think out and the ground became rockier, and they emerged in a small clearing that led towards a narrow path into the mountains.

"Go that way, and you will be off Hogwarts grounds," he said. "You should be able to Apparate away."

"Thank you," said Luna, sliding off his back.

The centaur eyed her for a long moment. "You will bring things back to how they are meant to be?" he said.

"If I can," said Luna. "I promise."

"Then my race thanks you, Nobody," he said, and bowed deeply before turning around and disappearing into the woods. Luna waited a long moment, and finally she took the long and winding path upwards.

"How long do we have to wait here?" said Amy.

"Until the Doctor wakes up, I suppose," said Rory.

They were sitting down inside the Shrieking Shack, watching the Doctor's body as it lay prone and still unconscious on the floor. They didn't know how much time had passed, and Amy was beginning to grow restless.

"There's got to be something we can do," she said. "We've faced vampires and Daleks and who knows what else."

"Yeah. But they've got magic wands," said Rory.

Amy fell silent. "There's got to be some way of waking him up," she said after a few more minutes. She suddenly seemed to make up her mind and, getting down on her knees, leaned over the Doctor's body. She slid his Sonic Screwdriver out of his pocket.

"Oh Doctor…if you don't wake up, I'm going to have to mess around with this and…oops! Possibly break it," she said. She began pressing random buttons. There was a high pitched whining and a bright green glow. She continued to mess with it for five minutes until it started to hiss and with a shriek she dropped it, clutching at her hands. She narrowed her eyes.

"All right, so I guess that wasn't enough, eh?" she said. Another long moment passed. Then, with a shrug, she leaned forward, and before Rory could realize what she was going to do and yell out in protest Amy kissed the Doctor full on the lips, clutching at the lapels of his suit.

"Aaagh!" The Doctor suddenly shot up, pushing Amy off of him. "I thought you'd gotten that out of your system!" he said, scooting back and away from her. Then he stopped, turning around. "Hello, Rory."

"You're awake!" shouted Amy. "Oh, thank God!"'

"And we're stranded here in this little magic town place without a witch to get us out of here," said Rory. "So what do we do now?"

"Why don't we find some of that green powder stuff and a fireplace?" suggested Amy. "Seems to me you don't need magical powers to work that."

"That would be a great suggestion," said Rory, "if we weren't being hunted by people who want to kill us."

"Actually," said the Doctor, "that's still not that bad of a suggestion." He slowly got to his feet, ruffling his hand through his hair absently. Spotting the Sonic Screwdriver laying on the floor, he glared at Amy. "Accio Sonic Screwdriver," he joked, holding out his hand. To his surprise, it flew off of the ground and straight into his hand. He stared down at it, and Amy and Rory stared at him. "Well, that was unexpected," he said.

"Lumos," the Doctor said, giving the Sonic Screwdriver a little wave. All of a sudden it lit up bright green, filling the small dark room with light. "Nox," he said, and everything went dark again.

"Doctor," said Amy, slowly getting to her feet and moving over to him. "Do you have magical powers?" she said.

"I can't have magical powers. I'm the Doctor. I don't do magicky thingies."

"Oh come on," said Amy. "You know you want magical powers."

"I do not!" said the Doctor. "That would make things too easy. I like a challenge."

"Come on!" said Amy. "Try something. Like…what was that one Luna used? Wingardium Leviosa?"

"I'm not going to say it," said the Doctor.

"Oh come on! Just try it! It would be so cool if it worked!"

"Amy…" the Doctor warned.

"Oh, come on!"

"Fine. Wingardium Leviosa," he said, swishing and flicking the Sonic Screwdriver. All of a sudden a small stone at the center of the room floated up into midair, hovering there for a long moment until the Doctor went reeling back in shock and it dropped back down onto the ground.

"I told you!" said Amy.

"How is this possible?" said the Doctor.

"Maybe it was the magical energy from when that wizard tried to kill you," said Rory helpfully. "Like…since it couldn't kill you, it had to go somewhere, so your body absorbed it. Something like that."

The Doctor turned and stared at Rory. "I hate it when you're smart," he said, seeming slightly annoyed.

"All right, so this will make things easier, won't it?" said Amy. "You can do magic type things to help us escape. Then we can find Luna."

"Yeah. That could work," said the Doctor, though he didn't seem to be too happy about his newfound magical abilities. He glanced ruefully at the Sonic Screwdriver once again, and then with a sigh he pointed it at the window. The glass shot out. "Ready?" he said, looking at Rory and Amy. They nodded. "Geronimo!" he said then, leaping out and onto the ground below.

"There they are!"

The Doctor cringed, but luckily the men who had spotted them were still turned away. "Stupify!" the Doctor shouted, and they fell down onto the ground.

"How do you know all these spells?" said Amy.

"I got bored, I flipped through a magic book. So sue me, I have a good memory," he said. They ran around the prone bodies of the men on the ground and headed towards a row of houses. "Somebody's home, somebody's home…" said the Doctor, darting around and looking in windows. "A-ha! Empty," he finally intoned. "Alohomora!"

The door to the small house flew open, and he quickly ushered the others inside, slamming it back behind him. He pointed the wand at the fireplace and it quickly caught on fire, lighting up the small room. They heard shouts outside – presumably more of the Dumbledore's followers finding the ones that the Doctor had knocked unconscious.

"I need some of the green powder stuff…" said the Doctor, looking all around the mantle. There was more shouting and he looked up, then over at Amy. "Oh all right!" he said. He marched to the window and yanked it up a fragment. "Accio green powdery stuff!" he hissed.

After a short moment there was a faint crack of broken glass, yet again, and a small leather pouch came flying into the Doctor's hand.

"Breaking a lot of windows tonight," said Amy.

"Reparo," said the Doctor, pointing the wand over his shoulder. "There. I fixed it."

"You did not!" said Amy.

"You're right. I didn't. But I could have if I wanted to," said the Doctor.

He opened up the pouch, measuring a small amount of the powder into his hand. "All right, so let's review. Step into the fire, say the name of the place where you want to go…"

"Where is that anyway?" said Rory. "We can't go back to the Leaky Cauldron, Dumbledore would know to look for us there."

"We can't go back to the Potters," added Amy.

The Doctor paused. "Will it work?" he said to himself. Then he shrugged. "Only one way to find out."

He threw the powder into the flames and it glowed a bright green. The Doctor stepped into the flames. "TARDIS!" he called out, and suddenly he felt himself zooming along. He came crashing out, covered in soon, in one of the least commonly used rooms of the TARDIS. In fact, he didn't even think he'd used the study since his seventh incarnation. It was a great place for introspection he thought, dusting himself off as he moved away from the fireplace just in time for Amy to come crashing in.

"Are we in the TARDIS?" she said, craning her neck and looking around.

"Study," he said.

"I didn't know it had a study. It's cozy," she said. At that point Rory came crashing in, and he stayed down on the ground for several moments before Amy knelt down to pull him up.

"Oh, we're in the study," said Rory.

"You knew there was a study?" said the Doctor.

"I found it a month or so ago. It's a great place for thinking," he said.

"What do you have to think about?" asked Amy.

"No time for that!" shouted the Doctor. He scratched his head. "You're giving me a headache," he murmured.

"No, almost being killed and then getting magical powers is giving you a headache," said Amy.

"That too." The Doctor looked around for a moment, locating the door, and stepped into the hallway of the TARDIS. He moved along with Amy and Rory close at hand, opening random doors until he finally located the hall that would lead him back to the main room and console of the TARDIS. "We need to find Luna," he said. "But we can't chance taking the TARDIS back to Hogwarts. At least, not right away."

"So where do we go?" said Rory.

The Doctor stopped. "Well, if Dumbledore was the enemy it makes sense that Luna would go to the enemy of her enemy for help, wouldn't it?"

"Er…yes?" said Amy, a confused look on her face.

"Just what I thought!" said the Doctor. "Back to the Ministry!"

The Ministry was dark when Luna Apparated in. It reminded her very much of something that had happened long ago, or perhaps not at all anymore. In her mind she could still see herself and her friends battling the Death Eaters that fateful night. It was that memory, she told herself, that was now keeping her going.

She walked through the large, empty room, glancing over at the statue of the Chieftain. She muttered a not so nice word at the statue, and was standing close to the entrance into the main rooms of the Ministry when she heard a wheezing that made her heart leap for joy. She turned just in time to see the TARDIS materialize, and she went at a run towards it.

She threw herself into the Doctor's arms as he stepped through the door and he held her close. "There you are!" he said. "Right as rain. I knew I hadn't lost you yet," he said.

"What the hell is going on here?" said a voice all of a sudden. They all turned to see a tall, handsome man standing not too far from where Luna had been when the TARDIS arrived. He was dressed in deep emerald robes and his dark black hair was turning silver at the temples.

Both Luna and the Doctor swiftly pulled out their Sonics. "Are you with Dumbledore?" asked Luna.

The man stopped in his tracks. "No. And I can see you aren't either." He glanced from one to the other, then held up his hands. "Any enemy of Dumbledore's is an enemy of mine," he said simply, taking a step towards them. The Doctor and Luna glanced at each other and at the same time dropped their wand and screwdriver.

The man came towards them. It wasn't until he was next to them that Luna saw the small green snake peeking out of the collar of his robes.

"Allow me to introduce myself," he said. "I am the Minister of Magic. Tom Riddle."