Chapter Ten: The Grieving Army of God

Not a word passed between the three of them as they made their way through the corridors toward Dumbledore's classroom. He must have been off this period as there were no students there to interrupt them as they made their way to the office as the back of the class. They passed through the doors and Dumbledore took a seat behind his desk, his hands folded in his lap.

"The door, Doctor—would you mind closing it?" Dumbledore asked. The Doctor crossed back to the other side of the room and shut the door carefully. "It's as I expected," he said.

The Doctor paused near the door. "Excuse me, what's as you expected?"

Dumbledore pulled himself up closer to the desk. "The way you closed the door, it would be truly rare for a person of magical origins to cross back to the other side of the room to do that. And yet it occurs to me that I've not seen you use one actual spell since you arrived. The thing you call a wand is I suspect some kind of Muggle technology…"

"This?" the Doctor produced his screwdriver. "This is nothing of Muggle origins—Muggles won't be able to make one of these for at least a thousand years or so…"

Amy nudged him to stop him from continuing.

"If you're not Muggles—as you can't be because you can see this school for what it is—the question becomes then what are you?"

Thinking quickly, the Doctor flipped the Psychic Paper out. "International Council of Wizards; Squib Protection Agency," he smiled over at Amy slyly as he spoke.

With a flick of his wand a plaque levitated down from the wall with the ICW letterhead embroidered on it. "I'm a senior representative of the ICW, I assure you that there is no Squib Protection Agency. Besides that, your paper appears to say," Dumbledore reached out and took the Psychic Paper, "nothing at all." He turned it around to face the Doctor and Amy and it was blank.

"Bollocks."

"Who are you really, Doctor? What are you?" he asked.

"I'm…"

"Oh would you give it a rest with the lies! You would think after nine hundred years you'd learn to do better with it," Amy shouted. "He's got us. I'm a human, just a regular human and he's—a spaceman."

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow. "A nine hundred year old spaceman?"

"An alien—he's a man from outer space," she pointed up. "Out there."

"Not just a space man—a Time Lord," the Doctor rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. "I was about to tell the truth, you know."

"Sure you were."

Dumbledore put a hand to his chin. "It would make sense that the magic to conceal the school might not work on him, but what about you Miss Pond?"

"Time travel," the Doctor said. For a moment Dumbledore just stared at him. "Traveling through time. The frequent trips through the Time Vortex have obviously changed Amy's perception of…things."

"There are methods of time travel in this world right now at our disposal, but it's a finicky and dangerous things even at the best of times. You must have picked this destination for a reason, what was here you needed to do?" asked Dumbledore.

The Doctor felt he was matched for wits, already it was clear to this man he and Amy were not on a pleasure cruise. Especially since they had been at this charade so long, he figured that he might as well confess. "There's a creature here from a world and a part of space that shouldn't be," he said.

"This creature, what can you tell me about it?" asked Dumbledore.

"It's sort of like a statue, but only when you see it. It can't move while being watched but when no one's looking it moves really fast," the Doctor said.

"And the girl—Ginny Potter, did you coerce her into going along with helping the both of you to blend in?" Dumbledore asked. "And before you began to lie again—I can tell," he smiled, tapping the side of his head with his wand.

"She's from the future, 1996 to be exact," said the Doctor. "But she knows you there and she knows far more than you should know about what happens to you and the rest of your world." Dumbledore seemed to be taking this all in and the Doctor tossed his screwdriver hand to hand. "Okay—now that we're all on the same page, maybe you could help us find these creatures faster and find out what brought them here so we could get out of your hair."

There was a long pause.

"One would have to know exactly what they were looking for," said Dumbledore. "What do they look like?"

"Angels—or well statues of Angels," Amy said. "But we can't draw one and don't have a picture, it could be dangerous if someone were to do that…"

He nodded. "I am sure you will work something out and while I thank you for helping curb this threat, I will have to insist that once it's gone you will leave this school and not venture back. I take it upon myself to watch over the students here and I would hate to expose them to anything that could turn disastrous, including their own futures…"

"We understand," said Amy. The Doctor went to say something and she socked him in the arm. "We understand," she repeated in rough tone.

Dumbledore rose from his desk. "Is what happened in the hallway with the petrified student caused by this creature?"

Amy and the Doctor shook their heads.

"Ah, then that problem is native to our own time. Then I think it is imperative that we keep this from the students and blame any complications from this Angel on whatever caused the petrifaction, to cut down the fear," Dumbledore said.

"That would be for the best, it would cause less interruption to things," the Doctor agreed.

Charlus Potter had admittedly only followed Minerva McGonagall out into the edge of the Forbidden Forest because he was sure there might be a chance that she wanted to make out or possibly even more. Every since first meeting her at the Sorting he had harbored a small crush on her, though she seemed to be into everyone but him.

The entire walk into the forest she talked. "…see if I can get enough of them in place I'm sure the Transfiguration won't be much trouble—it's my best class. It will be quite the impressive task to present to the N.E.W.T. boards and Dumbledore will be thoroughly impressed, at least I'd wager that he would be. Since they're Muggle related I'm sure that Professor Pond will be very impressed with the interest I'm taking in Muggle art."

"You seem to go on about him an awful lot," Charlus said. "You pinning over him?"

"Come off it, I just think he's an impressive is all."

"You never had an interest in Muggles studies before—now it's like your favorite class or something," he said.

Minerva clenched her fists against the sides of her skirt and huffed out a quick breath. "It's just that…look, the rest of the subjects come to me so easily, I thought it was nice to have a real go at one where not everything taught is in the books. Professor Pond seems to have intimate knowledge of the inner workings of Muggles and their culture…" her cheeks flushed.

"I think you're more concerned with letting him get a look at your inner workings," said Charlus.

With her lips pursed into a tight little knot Minerva let her eyes burrow into him. "Sod off, Potter," she said just before she turned her back to him. "I brought you out here to ask for your help with something but if you don't want to help—I understand."

"Relax Minnie," Charlus chased after her as she pushed her way deeper into the forest. "We're not even supposed to be out here…you brought me this far and I followed, I must have wanted to help or I wouldn't have come," he said.

They moved into an area where the trees thinned out and more light filtered down into the forest and Charlus froze staring at the massive stones lined up. There were only five so far and on the end there was a sixth stone that had been transfigured and transformed into a sculpture of an Angel that looked to be weeping. Its wings were drawn close and its hands covered its eyes as it hunched down into them.

"Do you like it? I plan to make all of the stones I can find of this size into one…problem is I've had to move them from all over the area to here to do my work," said Minerva.

In a wide eyed stumble, Charlus made his way forward. "That's amazing work—a bit much for Final Project…don't you think?"

"Nonsense, this project effects the rest of our lives," she said.

"True, but still," he stepped forward and touched the smoothed, hewn stone. There was a grainy sand like quality to the rock beneath his hand. "Where did you get the idea? Like where did you find the likeness?"

Minerva snapped. "Oh, sorry—I'm not really sure if it was real but I could have sworn I saw these very statues on the sides of the doors one day. They're absolutely beautiful and kind of sad at the same time, I must have dreamed them because when I tried to find them they were gone."

"Looks like you've tossed the rest of us into harm's way by doing something so extravagant…"

"Well I was going to invite you to work with me, since it's such a big project the board would have to allow me a partner for my work," she said. "We could make dozens of these things together and they'll be twice as impressive because there's two of us."

"We could change something of them though, give them all a unique look," said Charlus.

Minerva shook her head. "No need, there's art and complexity in the simplicity," she said.

"I see your point," he said. "What are you going to call the project?"

"The Grieving Army of God."

"You don't understand it Luna, though I don't know how you could claim not to get it. We can't just burst into the castle and count on Dumbledore's recognition of us to help us out, if you're telling the truth then he doesn't know who we are," said Hermione as they walked the streets of Hogsmeade.

Luna sighed. "I think you overestimate people, they often overlooked the unexplained in life, hence the number of creatures people refuse to believe in," she said.

Hogsmeade didn't look much different than it had in their own time. Hermione noted that some of the more modern additions to the small village were absent and there were even tastes of the old world about. The sky was laden with gray clouds and the smell of rain was in the wind. Before that started, Hermione wanted to make sure that she was in doors.

"Do you honestly expect that people will be openly accepting of us just waltzing into the castle as if we belong there?" Hermione asked.

"Times are far more trusting now, we're not yet into the most violent parts of our recent history, there's no Voldemort or Death Eaters to frighten the people of Britain into being scared of one another," Luna said.

Hermione had just been nodding in agreement with her when she noticed a strange old store up ahead. "Look, Honeydukes isn't there yet," she said, the idea that they had traveled this far back through time was still something she had to settle into. "It's apparently a Geoffrey's Grimoire," Hermione said as she came to a halt as she spied the help wanted sign in the window.

"What is it?"

"I was just thinking, the passage Harry takes to get to and from the castle comes out under Honeydukes, if it's still there we can gain free entry to the castle just by using that bookstore," Hermione said. "If I can get that job we can get into the castle whenever we want."

"I suppose that idea will work," said Luna. "Even the Vortex Manipulator can't go straight to Hogwarts because the school's un-plottable, so we'd need some way into it whenever we wanted."

"Then this will have to be it," said Hermione.