…the Doctor's eyes widened as a thought struck him. A thought so cold that it nearly took the breath out of his lungs—'I have lungs now, too!? Oh, this is just nauseating!'—if he was currently in the world of Harry Potter in Barty Crouch Jr.'s body then the wizard must be….
"No! Oh, come on! I finally get to see that the world of Harry Potter exists in some alternate universe, and this is how I'm treated! This is a sick joke, you know that!" he shouted to nobody in particular while inwardly cursing the bloke that played him in the fourth film.
Though he knew it to be completely illogical, he believed, that if nothing else, that prat of an actor must've been the reason why some wicked Death Eater must've been his tenth form's doppelganger in this alternate world where Harry Potter existed.
Although he was frustrated at having somehow swapped bodies with some Death Eater from a world that he thought to have been fictional, the Doctor knew there had to be a way to get back to his own universe. As he pondered things over, he searched around the small office for anything amiss or obscure; then again, it being the Wizarding World he was in, who knew what would classify as that now.
The foe glass was useless, for the Doctor had no enemies in this universe. The squiggly, humming television seemed to be equally futile as it lay against the wall, fizzling out. But perhaps that had more to do with the fact that its screen had broken when he had tripped over it moments ago.
Turning to examine the trunk, the Doctor noted that it had multiple locks to it, each opening a layer, sort of like one of those nesting dolls. The one that was currently open was completely empty and seemed to dip down over ten feet. Recalling that the real Alastor Moody had only been recently stored there, the Doctor closed it modestly before searching around the floor. He caught sight of a ring of keys at the foot of the trunk and snatched them up, proceeding to open up the other levels of the magical storage unit whose inner proportions deviated from how small it appeared on the outside.
The Doctor rolled his eyes upon noticing this.
"Very funny. Barty Crouch Jr. also has a box that's bigger on the inside. Oh, I'm just laughing at the cleverness of it all. How droll," the Doctor bit out, beginning to believe that the cosmic nature of both his universe and the one of Harry Potter had joined forces to play a cruel, twisted joke on him.
He jammed a key into the first slot, and found that the level contained a mass of spell books. But the Doctor knew he didn't have the time to pour through them, no matter how curious he was. There was some barmy Death Eater probably galavanting around his TARDIS at this very moment. Closing the trunk, the Doctor placed the second key inside and found parchment and broken quills, broken spinning tops, and something silvery, as though made of liquid.
Seeing the Invisibility Cloak being of use, the Doctor took it out and set it aside as he continued to scavenge through the other levels of the trunk. The only other thing he found to be useful was a spare wand and the Marauder's Map in the fifth level, which he set aside atop the Invisibility Cloak before shutting the trunk close.
The Doctor picked up the wand and felt an instant warmth tickling his fingertips. It was as though an old friend were greeting him, welcoming him back with open arms. Studying the wand curiously, the Doctor yelped, taken aback when red sparks shot out the end of it. But as soon as they dissipated, he couldn't help but smile.
"Magic. I can perform actual magic. I'm a wizard," the Doctor murmured in awe. "Well, isn't this wizard?"
He threw back his head in laughter, thoroughly delighted with this turn of events. Of course he would have access to magic now that he was in the body of a wizard. How could that fact have slipped his mind?
He twirled the wand between his long fingers and exhaled a deep breath. "Okay, here goes nothing." He tapped the point of the wand on the blank parchment and recited the words he had learned from the books, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."
At first nothing happened, then the parchment slowly began to be blotted with ink, telling him the whereabouts of everyone inside the castle of Hogwarts. Awed by everything that he was discovering, and just about giddy that his magic actually responded to him, the Doctor pondered over the Marauder's Map eagerly, trying to see if he could spot his name, when he saw a dot labeled Bartemius Crouch standing inside the very Defense Against the Dark Arts office he was in at the moment.
Alert, the Doctor spun around, wand held out in front of him in case the Death Eater tried anything funny. As he walked forward, the Doctor saw that the Bartemius Crouch dot matched his movements. His face flushed when he realized that since he was the body of Barty Crouch Jr., then of course he wouldn't be labeled as The Doctor. Somehow the thought managed to disturb him greatly, as though cementing the obscure, yet highly concerning situation he had found himself in.
"Right. Hopefully spellcasting will continue to be that easy," the Doctor muttered, his resolve strengthening as the reality of the situation finally set in.
After checking around the vicinity of where he was on the Map and found Argus Filch walking by the office on his way up to the third floor, the Doctor decided to take his chance and shrugged the overcoat back on.
"No use standing around here any longer," the Doctor said to himself as he slipped on the Invisibility Cloak, stashed the wand inside his coat, and carefully exited the room with the Marauder's Map held out in front of him.
Luckily the Defense Against the Dark Arts office was near the staircase to the first-floor corridor, so the Doctor cautiously walked along in the dark, all the while formulating a plan of what to do once he got out of the castle. If he had ended up in an alternate world, then surely there had to be some sort of crack in the universe. Then again, if it wasn't in the office, what were the odds it would be somewhere inside this castle?
Then there was the question of how this body swap even happened. It had to be a body swap, for the Doctor definitely could not hear Barty Crouch Jr. residing in the back of his head, sharing his mind. Unless the dementor had officially administered the fatal Kiss to the wizard, which left the Doctor with an even more disturbing thought of his body lying around as a lifeless husk on the floor of the TARDIS at the moment, probably frightening Donna half to death.
He was so lost in thought, that the Doctor's leg sank right through one of the steps on the Grand Staircase. The Invisibility Cloak slipped off his head as he attempted to wrestle his leg out.
"Come on!" the Doctor muttered to himself, when he heard someone blow a raspberry at him.
"Oooh! If it isn't the Crouch boy, all grown up!" Peeves the Poltergeist hopped up along the bannister wearing his bell-covered hat, orange bowtie, and a highly malicious grin. "I've heard you've been naughty this entire year, Junior."
The Doctor's eyes widened when he saw Peeves, knowing how mischievous the poltergeist was in the stories.
"Peeves! Be quiet!" he hissed at him. He tried to recover himself with the Invisibility Cloak, but Peeves was quicker as the pesky poltergeist snatched up the Cloak, cackling madly as he held it just out of the Doctor's reach.
"You've gotta be quicker than that, Junior!" Peeves taunted, pulling back the Cloak playfully when the Doctor was inches away from grabbing it.
"Peeves this isn't funny!" the Doctor told him. When Peeves merely flashed him his impish grin with his tongue poked out, the Doctor returned his attention back to trying to get his leg out of the trick step, which sank him in even deeper. His leg was beginning to hurt. 'Stupid human body,' he thought as he tried to prise it loose.
"Awww, having trouble I see….perhaps I should call for help. Ol' Peevesy is feeling charitable tonight after all," Peeves suggested in an oily tone. He puffed out his chest in a heroic manner but the poisonous leer that curled his mouth belied his intentions.
Before the Doctor could tell him to shut up, Peeves shouted loud enough for the entire castle to hear:
"He's here! He's here! The Crouch boy is here! He's escaping! Death Eater in the castle! Death Eater! Death Eater!"
With that, Peeves zoomed past the Doctor, dropping the Invisibility Cloak atop of him as he whirled his way to the upper floors, practically singing the news throughout for the whole castle to hear.
Now pressed for time, the Doctor checked the Marauder's Map and saw many dots moving about both above him and below him. He cursed Rassilon, reminding himself to never work with poltergeists ever again as he tried to free his leg, which the step was now squeezing to the point of numbness.
"Come on! Come…..OOF!"
The Doctor managed to finally pull himself out of the trick step, losing the single, oversized shoe in the process. The downside was that he tumbled backwards down the marble stairs and felt a sickening crunch as his nose slammed against one of the steps before he landed at the very foot of the stairwell, entangled in the Invisibility Cloak.
Just as he wrestled the Cloak off in the attempt to adjust it, the Doctor froze as he spotted something odd on the Marauder's Map, which floated just a little ways to his left. Sure he saw other dots moving around, but along with his own Bartemius Crouch at the foot of the Grand Staircase, there was another twin dot with the exact same name found just off among the Hogwarts grounds, near a tree some distance away from Hagrid's hut.
Snatching the parchment, the Doctor sat up. He ignored the blood dripping from his broken nose as he examined the second Bartemius Crouch dot intently.
"What?" he whispered to himself in disbelief right as a door to his left banged open and footsteps came rushing towards him. Quickly, the Doctor muttered, "Mischief Managed," and stashed the now blank parchment in his coat.
"Don't move, Crouch."
Looking up, the Doctor saw the hook-nosed Potions Master in Severus Snape leering down upon him, his wand aimed threateningly between his eyes.
"What?" he repeated densely, mind still reeling from the presence of the duplicate dot. He began to think of the implications of it, when suddenly, a force hit his head, threatening to burst his skull open as waves upon waves of memories that were not his own came pounding through like a rushing current.
"What!?"
"I said don't move!" Snape shouted.
The Doctor didn't hear him. He bent double, clutching his head from the sudden onset of memories—getting into Hogwarts, the Sorting on his first day, playing Quidditch as an adept Seeker for Ravenclaw, passing all 12 O.W.L.S, never being able to garner his father's attention; then came something horrible to witness, something he fought hard to forget involving two people screaming….the screaming of the two people morphed into his own pleading within a courtroom as he was being dragged off by the dementors….
'No….that's not me!' the Doctor shouted mentally as he fought through the onslaught of foreign memories bombarding him.
"Petrificus Totalus!"
The next thing the Doctor knew, his entire body suddenly locked up and he was unable to move as the illuminated point of Snape's wand hovered over him threateningly, leaving him trapped with nothing but memories that were not his own.