Chapter 3: The Man in the Bow Tie
He had woken up. Or, at least that was Lily had assumed, judging by the immense crashing coming from her spare room. She had put the strange man to bed in there, unsure of what to do with him after that. She knew the perfect person to talk to would be her dad but he was probably very busy and in any case, there was probably an ordinary explanation for what had happened. So she had resolved to wait until the man woke up and explained his situation. Which was now the case. Or at least it would be when she spoke to him. Lily headed upstairs and unlocked the bedroom door with a flick of her wand. She stepped inside cautiously, still slightly wary of this strange man. He was on his feet, rummaging through the cupboards for something. Lily raised an eyebrow and he stopped her. He stormed over, trying to look as intimidating as he could. Lily found herself both apprehensive of this man, and oddly amused by him.
"Where? Is? My? Bow? Tie?" he asked, punctuating each word with a movement of his feet.
Lily burst out laughing. The man stomped his foot and snatched up her wand, which she reacted to with both amusement and horror. He snatched up his own wandy thing that clearly wasn't a wand from the desk and pointed it at her wand. She lunged forward but the man was laughing, the green light at the end of his wand lighting up and he threw her back her wand.
"Now that's very interesting. No wonder the sonic wasn't working. Look at those energy feedback levels, they're frankly extraordinary. You must have receptacles like this all over the planet. Hundreds or thousands of the things, in every country. They all connect together somehow, some underlying energy field that they tap into. But they're also honed to your specific DNA. They're intelligent things. Almost sentient. Not quite but oh boy is that clever. I love it. Now then, I've tuned the sonic into the energy field, should enable it to work properly now. Where exactly are we anyway, what year and planet is this?"
His wand thing (which she assumed was called a sonic) was still humming and he was looking at her expectantly. She hadn't understood much of what he'd said at all and was still processing it.
"It's Earth, 2030," she said slowly. "We're in Gloucestershire. Near the Cotswolds."
"Ah the Cotswolds, love the Cotswolds," the man continued ranting. "I once visited the Cotswolds in 1103 with…" he trailed off, staring in horror at his 'sonic'. "No. No. No. No. Clara. Where is she? Where is Clara? I need to find her this instant!"
"I'm sorry?" Lily was confused. "Who's Clara? You landed in my garden, just out of thin air, alone. No sign of how you got here or anything. Who are you? How did you get here? What are you talking about?"
"I'm The Doctor, I'm a time-traveller from another dimension, another world far away from here. Clara, my friend. She travels with me, she's from Earth but another Earth, a twin Earth!" The Doctor paused. "We got sucked into a dimension tunnel that dragged us here. My ship was badly damaged, but it must've jerked. A final shot of time energy, like an aftershock from an earthquake. I was clinging to the edge but I fell, that's how I landed in your garden. Clara was still inside. She must be around somewhere, the TARDIS was already crashing…TARDIS, Time And Relative Dimensions In Space," he added quickly, seeing the confused look on her face. "That's my ship. Anyway, I need to find Clara. This entire planet is toxic. Not toxic to you of course," he once again saw the horror-struck look on Lily's face and backtracked. "You're used to this energy field; you've been living in it your whole lives. But Clara hasn't, she'll be poisoned by it. She could only have a few days, or even a few hours. I have no idea, depends how concentrated the field is in her location…"
"And isn't it toxic to you too?" Lily asked quickly, grappling onto what little of what the Doctor said she understood. He shook his head and pointed to his chest.
"Two hearts, it won't affect me anywhere near as quickly. Plus I have this," he pointed at his thing. "Sonic screwdriver. Now it's tuned into the energy field, I should be able to use it to stabilise it, so it isn't dangerous to us. But unless I find Clara in time…" He eyed her up and down. "Sorry I'm being rude. Who are you?"
"Lily," she replied. "Lily Luna Potter."
His face changed instantly. Shock, horror, almost a giddy childish joy all crossed his face in a matter of moments. He was grinning like an idiot.
"Lily Luna Potter?" he asked. "As in THE Lily Luna Potter, daughter of Harry Potter. The Harry Potter. Oh, this is brilliant. This is Christmas. Clara is not going to believe this when I tell her. She'll probably whinge about how he looks nothing Daniel Radcliffe but never mind, we're going to meet Harry Potter."
"I thought you were from another world?" Lily remarked suspiciously. "So how do you know my dad?"
"Because," The Doctor paused. "In our world, Harry Potter is a story. A story we tell to each other, the legend of how the great Harry Potter defeated Lord Voldemort. It's a story that gives us hope and joy and sorrow. And now I'm living in it."
"That's…" Lily paused. "You're insane."
"Yep, but I'm still telling the truth. Now Lily, as much as I'd love to chat, I need to find Clara and the TARDIS. So I'll ask you again, where is my bow tie?"
"Why do you need the bow tie?" she asked. "Why is it important?"
"The bow tie is important, Lily Luna Potter, because without it, I cannot hope to find Clara. And also, and probably more importantly, bow ties are cool."
"It's in the garden, it fell off and I didn't bother to pick it up," Lily said slowly, as the man rushed past her, haring towards the garden, Lily in pursuit. "Why is the bow tie going to help you find Clara?"
Lily felt for the poor girl. Even if this man was telling the truth, he must be a nightmare to travel with. Unless she was as mental as him, in which case, they were perfect for each other. The Doctor had thrown open the back door and found his bow tie. He laughed triumphantly and whizzed his sonic at it.
"Because, Lily. Clara straightened my bow tie," he said, as if that explained everything. She gave him a blank look and he sighed, applying his sonic to the bow tie. "That means it has her genetic imprint on it. Normally that would be next to useless but you lot, you humans. You've all been affected by this field, your genetic makeup is so totally different, so totally not Clara. And this, well this is Clara. So I can use it to find her. And when I've found her, I can stabilise her, get her into the TARDIS, try and find a power source to get them both home and, if I'm lucky, manage it before the dimension tunnel closes and I'm stuck here for all eternity. Which, believe me, for a man like me, is a long time. So, are you still with me?"
"Nope, you've completely lost me," Lily replied, raising an eyebrow. The Doctor's triumphant smile faded and his shoulders slumped. He shook his head and clicked his fingers at her. "I'm going to need a horse!"
"We have a car?" she tried hopefully. The Doctor's eyes lit up. "Oh of course, I forgot that cars worked in this reality. They shouldn't you know, what with all this background radiation or I suppose you call it magic don't you? Ha I love humans, always calling things magic."
"It is magic!" Lily snapped, annoyed at this man. "I can show you some if you like."
"Nah, it's quite easy really. You're just tapping yourselves into the psychic network that controls the energy field and manipulating it to varying degrees in order to produce various results. It's so easy a child could do it," he laughed, as if he were enjoying some private joke. "But yes sorry, you're right, magic. Let's go with that," he sniggered. "So, yes, car. You drive, I'll navigate. Ooh, timey-wimey. That'll be the TARDIS. TARDIS and Clara, this is going well. Hurry up Lily, we haven't got all day!"
"Look, why don't I just take you to my dad?" Lily tried. "He'll be a lot more help to you than I would. If there's any incidents he takes care of them…"
"Oh of course," The Doctor hit his forehead in disbelief. "You lot, you notice things don't you? Great big blue box crashes down and the entire country goes crazy, wizards would be swarming all over it. Yes take me to Harry Potter. And I can't believe I just got to say that out loud. Oh this is just peachy."
Harry was still sat by the girl's bed at St Mungo's. She hadn't woken since they'd brought her here and whatever magic they tried, she was only getting worse. She had a horrible fever. She was deteriorating quickly and there was nothing he could do. There was nothing anyone could do. The healer had told him she had maybe 24 hours to live. And all Harry could think about was what the hell was going to do with a big blue box leaking dark magic…