A Marriage of Ministers

CkyKing prompt: Doctor Who/ Harry Potter/ Torchwood : Doctor/Harry/Master, with Harry thinking something like this : He never Saw that coming, what with being the 'wife' of the Prime Minister who is also an insane Time-Lord hell bent on world domination. And is that some 'tension' between the Doctor and the Master. (While all I can think of is that the "Prime Minister" (Master) is "married" to Harry by Harry being the Magical World's Minister for Magic. Please note, I know the government doesn't work this way…but, darn-it, if people are writing about "Marriage Laws" for wizards and witches – why not? To those that don't know, the American editions of Harry Potter lists the title as "Minister of Magic", when it's "Minister for Magic" originally. I'm not quite sure why, but I'll use the English type as this is set there and sort of makes more sense when applied to Prime Ministers and Masters and Doctors and Saviors. Oh, and this is a long idea.)

Hermione had odd ideas, scary ideas, and Harry never wanted to cross her (partly because she would never forget it, might forgive it, and would surely get revenge for good measure) – his best friend, his genius best friend – but this? This was insane. He'd gotten the evening paper yesterday, and he'd been on the front page, as a proposed (or, rather, not proposed, voted for, to be instated – he'd even gotten a few early letters this morning congratulating him) Minister for Magic. He in the end, put up a token protest by sitting down with Hermione at breakfast the week after the Dumbledore's funeral – the marked day of the downfall of the Dark Lord and rise of the Savoir, Harry Potter. At least it wasn't still The Boy Who Lived.

"…you'll be Minister for Magic; I don't doubt they'll have you in the office this time next week…" It was Wednesday. Harry caught that bit of Hermione's rambling, and while Harry had known that there would be a vote for Minister for Magic he hadn't paid enough attention to it to realize his name was up for application. Let alone in the running. Now he was elected and he would have to either step up or decline.

"Wait, what? Why?" Hermione blinked very slowly at him, just to be sure he was living, and yes, had a question she considered self-apparent.

"Harry, you've got to stop thinking it's us verse them, when we are them, or – well, trying to be liked by them." Hermione sipped her tea, and when Harry blinked back at her like a deer caught in headlights, sighed.

"Then I'll just decline it, being Minister for Magic." Harry tried to suggest, shrugging and trying not to give it much thought either way. Hermione nibbled on her toast thoughtfully, and then spoke very seriously.

"Give it a try." Hermione prompted, smiling as if she knew something he didn't.

"You want me to what?" Harry said it slowly, deliberately, so he would not be misunderstood, neither his words, nor his disbelief.

"Take the job, Harry – you are, like it or not, the most powerful wizard in the world, naturally you're going to be the Minister for Magic. And I think you could be happy, married to your work – or rather, by it" Her tone was reasonable, she was even smiling. Harry caught her last words and munched on bacon, quite savagely.

"I don't want to be Minister for Magic!" Harry protested, but she waved it away, it was a silly thing for him to complain of, he would be – and she would see to it. Her nose wrinkled up in amusement that he would play at savagery when she knew him best – knew, in fact, what was best for him. As her best friend she had to watch out for him, had only his best interests in heart. His choices in employment were otherwise very limited, if he would be employed at all – not that he had to work, but Hermione knew Harry well enough that he would not sit idle at home, he would have to do something – and this? This was perfect - if he would only try.

"Yes, but think of our world Harry – and the muggles! What must they think of us? We'll have to show our world soon, it can not remain hidden, what better way to join their world and our own but with a celebration, a marriage of Ministers?" Hermione was outright gleeful.

"Why would I marry a stranger? Have you even met this woman – is it a woman, Hermione?" At this she seemed almost uneasy. As if she hadn't wanted to bring up this subject. Harry was quickly suspicious.

"Well, it was – but it's a man now, and the magical contract still holds between the Muggle and Magical Ministries as an agreement of an arranged marriage between Ministers, never mind gender. I suppose that you would be married to any Minister while the he – or she- was in office. I don't see our people ever really choosing another Minister for Magic rather then you. So, you wouldn't really be married to them, but to the job. You wouldn't even have to let them know. No harm if they don't read the fine print. It's perfect." Harry knew he'd paled, feeling ill and uneasy.

"A magical contract …for an arranged marriage…between Ministers?" Harry knew he sounded a bit winded, as if he'd been hit in the abdomen. A magical contract could not be broken, had to be fulfilled, upheld, until terminated. He'd be married to a stranger for their term of the Prime Ministry (however long that lasted was determined, he knew but vaguely, by the Queen).

"Right, like being married to your work, only a little literally. Until you aren't the Minister for Magic, or they aren't Prime Minister: and really, who else would you rather be Minister for Magic?" She patted his hand absentmindedly, and when he rolled his eyes knew she had won.

"Well, who is Prime Minister?" Harry gave up, knowing he was – for now – beaten. He hated fame less then he liked the thought of starting off a Minister for Magic who might lead them to ruin: being married or not.

"Harold Saxon." Hermione sipped her tea a little gleefully.

0o0o0o0

Harry and Harold met face to face for the first time when Harry took office, on a Monday. No one had really told 'Harold Saxon' about the small (now blank) portrait in the corner, but he thought it important, as he couldn't remove it. So, naturally he was quite curious about it. He just happened to be staring at it, and scheming, when he saw what he did.

"Hello there." The portrait wasn't now blank, as there was a boy in it. He had wild hair and willful green eyes; he tilted his head and tapped his fingers in a rhythm against the seam of his pants. 'Harold' wondered if he heard drums too.

"May I step through?" He was – for a portrait, and a boy – polite, so Harold nodded and the boy 'stepped through' out of the portrait and into the Prime Minister's room.

"You're the Prime Minister then? Harold Saxon?" He looked about, and the Prime Minister oddly found he was comforted, this had apparently not happened before; the boy hadn't come and gone into his rooms. It was important, privacy.

"Yes, that's right, but really – who are you? That's the interesting thing, isn't it? Boys aren't supposed to come into blank portraits, or step out of them. So, who are you?" Green eyes met and measured him, and his answer was surprising as all the rest.

"I'm Minister for Magic, Harry Potter from the British Ministry of Magic. In your world and mine, our power is… equal, in so far as government goes. I think. They just newly elected me." Messy black hair got suddenly messier with a hand running through it, and a shrug – almost dejected – there was almost a longing look toward the portrait, to a world 'Harold Saxon' couldn't reach. The Master, quite selfishly, did not want the boy to go, so spoke.

"You don't sound very thrilled with that." And power should thrill, was earned, by motivated enthusiasm and energy and ambition: all the Master had and more. This wasn't it, this was tired and won. This had a history he did not know, and doubted the Doctor knew; for all that the Earth was the Doctor's obsession. This was his, the Master's – this boy and his history, his world.

"There was a war, I won it, and they think I want this as a reward." It wasn't bitter, or amused, merely the facts as the boy – Harry Potter, saw them.

"You don't? I'm hurt, I worked hard for what I've gotten, you? You were given it." The Master smiles, lets the disgust settle in the eyes of Harold Saxon there for all to see.

"Never mind that then. I'm just supposed to tell you that the war is won, that I'm Minister for Magic, and that if something happens we're to let each other know. Goodbye." In a whirl of sound and movement, he was gone. To anyone else, he would have just disappeared, but Harold had seen the boy fiddle with a button, had heard the empathies on the word 'goodbye'. Seen too, the expression on his face, the half hurt.

The portrait wasn't blank anymore, and that last look was on his face still.

'Interesting, very interesting,' the Master smiled.

0o0o0o0

Eighteen months ago, the Master had found himself trapped between the end of time and the Earth year 2007. What both had in common had been humanity (depressing, and frantic, to his view rather then fantastic and fascinating by the Doctor's own words) . What they didn't have in common, indomitable and inconceivable, was magic. Oh, Time Lord's knew magic, what was magic but another science of nature? Time Lord's in their own way, well, they were magical. He'd never thought about humanity having a magic of their own, yet here it was – the proof in his very one hands.

A relic of a pocket watch, gold and glinting, empty of the soul he'd known it had contained only days, months, years ago – but he had gotten here too late, with a Time Lord's curving mark, the 'S'. It'd gotten it on Saxon Street, off a human Mundungus Fletcher who mirrored his own kind – a Time Lord, of sorts, though Earth born and not of Gallifrey.

"Who's was this?" The Master had asked with locket in hand, memory keen upon his own pocket-watch. That could turn a Time Lord into a human, if used.

A Time Lord knows another Time Lord on sight, always, can sense them – in their head, minds melding and bonding and fluttering like a heartbeat. No wonder the Doctor so loved Earth, here there were the Time Lords of Earth, wizards and witches so called.

Impossible, inconceivable, indomitable.

"Slytherin's, the Hogwart's founder: it was in Lord Voldemert's keep, but young Harry Potter, our hero put an end to it." Fletcher smiled proudly, as if he knew young Harry, and how the end to 'Lord Voldemort' had come about. His name was said hesitantly.

"Lord Voldemort?" The Master asked, brow arched. He knew the meaning of that word, French: flight of death, theft of death.

"The Dark Lord." Hushed, wide eyed. And the Master, playing at being a mere muggle nodded at the vanity of Time Lord's and wizards, so alike to be sincere.

It was then that the Master made up his mind, to meet Harry Potter, to bridge time itself from 2007 to an uncounted, untold future of 100 trillion: Time Lord's had to come from somewhere, and perhaps the Doctor had it right, that they came from here. Certainly on Gallifrey was the story, the Toclafane –Time Lord bogyman – taking away the Time Lord's from somewhere, some when else, putting them upon Gallifrey and the rest remaining all a mystery.

"What's your name then?" Fletcher asked, and the Master smiles a smile that chills the mind.

"Saxon, let's say." He waves to the Saxon Street sign, a twisting side road off Knockturn Alley. His last name, he decides: and what better first then Harold, from Harry?

"Harold Saxon." He mused on that, as it sounded right and when Mundungus Fletcher turned away with a snort, his fingers twitching in a beat of drums, the Master merely hummed.

0o0o0o0

What the Master knew best of all, was defense. So, of course, he had to be high up in a current and controlling government – and he liked the English north accent – so why not Minister of Defense – for now? That way he would know what he was up against, exactly, and in this nothing could be guessed.

That was his end of it, on the human (muggle, mud, how quaint and quietly right!) side. He would be Prime Minister within eighteen months, for he had the Archangel Network to telepathically hypnotize the world. He would win, of that he did not doubt.

But how, oh how, to get the attention of wizards and witches? Particularly, there was one he wanted to meet – his namesake, of sorts – Harry Potter.

To get to him, through a whole race, well nay impossible! No muggle would touch Harry Potter if all wizards and witches had their way. So to get around them, to get to the heart of Harry's little inner circle (a whole family of Weasleys, a Order of the Phoenix – the less fierce Ministry of Magic, and one genius) Harold Saxon wrote a book, Kiss Me, Kill Me and met one Hermione Ganger (and Ginny Weasley, of now no importance for when he looked into her eyes, her mind, he made sure she wouldn't go near his Harry) at a book signing.

A witch of true genius, Harry Potter's best friend: everything started to fall into plan, to maneuver the magical and muggle world into a marriage that would birth a Time Lord empire. He was so close he could not help rubbing his hands together and giggling in glee.

0o0o0o0

"Harry!" The Master waves at the portrait of Harry Potter, to catch his attention. The portrait, of course, has become quite familiar with his antics.

"Something's happened, happening!" He sing-songs, quite giddy.

"What is it?" The portrait snaps, ruffled hair, dark eyes. Lips that the Master thinks he ought to kiss, as Harry is his, in law, in marriage. They are in this together, if Harry likes it or not, the Master loves it.

"Aliens!" Harold Saxon claps his hands and wishes (waits), and Harry just as he wished (waited for) is standing there, frowning. Appearing out of thin air, this time nothing in hand.

"Where…?" Not impossible, not what, not – are you smashed at 9AM? Not even a 'I don't believe you', or baffled shrug. It's where, and the Master falls a little bit in love. Here is a challenge, like the Doctor. The Master fancies asking, can I have both? Then wonders who he would ask, because of course – the answer would be yes if the being knew what was best for its continued heath and happiness.

Granted, that whereisn't exactly believing him is it; but the Master will change that.

He works well with what he has, the Master does.

"Right here." The Master purrs, meaning also (of course) him: but the Toclafane hover in sphere's of three. So it's them.

"What are they?" Harry asks, narrow eyed, he's seen stranger the Master lays a bet.

"Toclafane!" The Master says, liking that word, saying it is like saying chocolate.

"Any you?" The Master's smile is devious.

"Guilty as charged, a Time Lord. And you, you're a wizard Harry Potter, the wizarding war hero, the Boy Who Lived, the Minister for Magic – do you know, I think I just figured out where my people came from, and I'm not the only one either – it bothers me, not figuring it out first. But, you see this little locket of Slytherin, it clued me in, fob watch, pocket watch, what does it matter when watches watch time? It matters what's inside, and no one knows, no one – not muggle, not witch, not wizard has ever opened this little locket. What would happen if I did, Harry? Do you know, I don't know! Only, I think, the Doctor mightknow. That's whose coming, and oh, you'll like him as much as I hate him – or is that love? It's going to be a party – lights, camera, action, adventure, life, and death, aliens, invasions, wizards, witches and magic!"

It's then that Harry notices the bodies, the dead Ministers.

"You're mad." Harry takes a step away, and flickers, fades and comes back, like he'd tried and failed to get away. It looks like it hurts, that Harry is pale, sweating, and cradles his navel. It works, and it doesn't work, and the Master laughs.

He approaches, and takes Harry's wand from his pocket, before his green eyes, it snaps. Bendable, breakable –frail.

"Oh, yes, I quite am. And you? You're trapped. The thing about where I come from, it's called Gallifrey, but unlike humans, Time Lords don't come from there, weren't we'll say – grown – not from evolution, not there. I know, as not every Gallifreyans is a Time Lord, and not all Time Lords are Gallifreyans. So you see, you really will see, I think – and I'm a genius – that you're the first, the very firstTime Lord. What makes a Time Lord a Time Lord is the Untempered Schism, a gap in the fabric of reality. They make eight year olds look into it, I looked into it – the Doctor looked into it, can you imagine what that does –more, oh, what could do that? Well, I'm going to do that. Today, one tenth the population is going to go away, very far away. All the wizards and witches will find themselves on Gallifrey, not dead, but saved. All of them but you." The Master's arm is over Harry's shoulder and Harry can't get away – his magic feels torn, inside – and it hurts. He hates that he feels so weak, and when the Master guides him down the stairs, keeping him steady so he does not fall down them head first, he's grateful not to make a fool of himself.

He meets the President of the United States, he thinks, but the Master keeps a warning grip around his neck, and a smile on his face. This is his plan. His trap, a trap for Harry – no, he doesn't think so, not only for Harry. He mentioned another Time Lord, and maybe that's just what they call wizards and witches on Gallifrey.

There is an itch at the corner of his eye, and it tells his eyes to look away – he doesn't.

The Doctor, it must be. The Doctor among three.

Out of that corner of his eye, he also sees the Master smile knowingly.

Harry has no time to warn him, as a van arrives full of a family, and this is bait too, for the only girl who has a family, for no one who has a family would stop her for wanting to kill the Master. Harry wants to do just that, but he's pulled along in the Master's wake.

"I built this." The Master says, as if Harry should be proud. Or he wants Harry's approval.

"We want the Master." The Toclafane say, over and over like a cheer: the Master raises, taking Harry with him, his fingers cold, his tone clear.

"Alright, alright – let the invasion begin!" And then he does it, rips a gap in the fabric of reality. You could go anywhere, any when from that point. With a song, a dance, they send the wizards and witches off. All the world mourns, thinking one tenth are dead.

The gap closes on this side; it'll be open till the end of time upon Gallifrey.

0o0o0o0

Ron is gone.

"You may be the last Time Lord, Doctor – but he…? He is the First. And from him, thanks to you, this Earth is where the Time Lord Empire rises."

Hermione is gone.

0o0o0o0

Everyday of the year that never ends, (they call it the "year that never was") which is never to be remembered by those on Earth, Harry wakes from the Master's bed.

"I hate you." He says - giving voice just once to misery, to mourning, to a depression that hinges on his survival, his sanity: just once a day.

"I love you." The Master returns, gleefully.

0o0o0o0

"Can you save them?" Harry Potter asks the Doctor, in his dog house, on the day Japan is burning. They are talking about people, about Earth, about Toclafane too.

"No, but I can save you, save him. I will, just watch, just wait –survive, please." The Doctor reaches out, to touch, and Harry pulls his hand away, weeping and shaking his head silently. It's the last thing the Doctor says, after all it's the day he realizes what Harry will never say, what the Toclafane are.

The Doctor has made his choice.

And the First Time Lord, he has made his.

0o0o0o0

"Hey pretty boy." Jack greets, glibly.

The Doctor and the Master share much alike in differences and similarities, but in one thing that they are is Time Lord. And Jack, a fixed point in time, what has to happen, makes them uneasy. The Master is happy to chain Jack away out of reach, but within it, and forget him.

They are prejudiced against Jack, time agent, for Time Lords are a people who can change things, and things not changing it makes them….disturbed, prejudiced.

Worry.

Harry, First of Time Lord, so called, is only really relaxed when he rests against Jack's legs, at his feet.

There is something greater then he is, then Time Lords will be, and it gives him ease to feel it in his blood and bone when Captain Jack Harkness, a fixed point in time, is a warm and living and breathing being at his back. Hope for maybe.

Time goes on, after all. Jack does not die, but lives on.

"Captain..." Harry greets respectfully, the only real respect Jack gets here and now – but it will not always be so. He vows it so.

0o0o0o0

"He will expect something." Harry tells them, as the Master oversees his many statues being placed all over America.

The Jones is the family he saw the Master trap, just as the Master trapped him.

"He's hunting her, my baby – our daughter." Harry nods, in agreement.

"We must give her time, she has the key – so what we plan. It will hurt. It will be pathetic and hopeless. It will push him thoughtlessly into doing what he wants, what we want." One thought, one moment, only.

It's an impossible gamble, to save the world, all the world must think one thought. And it is Doctor.

It hurts, it's pathetic, and it's hopeless.

It's humanity.

And if Harry is the First Time Lord, then he is also human.

0o0o0o0

Jack Harkness can't die, but it never struck Harry that the Master could die: would choose to die - to spite the Doctor, as the Last Time Lord. The bullet came from Martha Jones.

"I won't let you die." Harry tells the Master, tells the Doctor both. They frown, unknowing and unsure of his meaning.

Harry's magic has been itching at his fingers, for a year, but a wizard must learn wandless magic, and magic of any kind takes time. It took Harry eleven years to learn to use magic with a wand, he is no wandless wizard.

What he is a Time Lord.

And he gives it, the glowing magic, gives it to the Master, forcing his hearts to beat, his regeneration.

It's a choice made for him, just as the Master made Harry's choice.

"No! You're killing yourself – to save him!" The Doctor realizes struggles to stop him, anguish in his tone. He'd wanted to save them both, Harry knows. It's Harry's turn to look at him, eyes glowing green and gold.

"A gift, Doctor." The First Time Lord says to the Last, so there will be neither First nor a Last, but Time Lords together.

The Master gasps and breathes and his regeneration is unchanged.

"The TARDIS." He gasps, grabbing weakly at Harry and pulling, struggling, for be damned if he will live at the First Time Lord's death day, living on while Harry did not.

"What? Oh, I'm an idiot!" The Doctor's grin is proof that he doesn't mind being one, for once he has not all the answers – and it saves a life. Jack helps them, hauling Harry in as Doctor and Master open a hatch to the heart of the TARDIS.

The TARDIS reaches in, and Harry opens his eyes as a heart touches his: two hearts beating under his breast.

"So that's how it is?" The Doctor murmurs, touching his chest smiling.

"Now what?" The Master sighs, running slim fingers through Harry's hair. His head is on the Master's thigh, and neither moves, for while it does not feel right, it is not wrong. The beat of drums in his head is silenced with Harry near.

"We go on." Harry answers, as Time Lords must.

"Yes, but to where?" Jack muses, and the Doctor laughs.

"Where indeed, does it matter, where? Or when?" The TARDIS sings, fading away from sight, but not mind, not time.