Authors notes: So continues my re-write of the Devils End arc.

Since this is a new chapter in an older arc I'm going to leave it here at the very end of the story for the time being, since when the update e-mail is sent out it links you to the very end of the story, not to the new chapter. I'll move it back into it's proper place after a week.

Chapter 64

The White Witch of Devils End.

Raven stared at a chip of paint in the ceiling like it was the most interesting thing in the universe. Her breathing was slow and steady. She wasn't meditating, not properly. She tried to focus her mind, but this was proving easier thought than done.

"Think about something else." Raven said, banging her head against the pillows. But the stubborn chemicals floating around her body made her focus on what she could not, and did not want. The boy, Tobias Hopkins. Raven rested a hand on her chest. There was no pain but that which was in her mind.

She'd never felt this way about a stranger before, not to this intensity. Not even when she fought the Cybermen with Armstrong all that time ago. What was different now?

"Raven Hopkins?" God, just put her in the ground right now. She could've died of embarrassment. The boy must think her a total freak.

"I am a Monk of Azarath." Raven reminded herself. "I should be above such base thoughts and desires. I am above such thoughts and desires."

"He won't like me anyway." Raven thought. "Boys don't like me. Not in the way I'd want them to like me." She snorted. It was that stupid comment about her eyes. That's what's triggered all this gush and fluff.

But still, her mind imagined him holding her in his arms. "I think I'm going to be sick."

She shut her eyes and dived into her psyche to check her feelings, find the source of them and kill it. But the source was like an elusive rabbit, hopping out of her grasp before she could grab it. Raven growled.

"We're too different. He's... he's normal. I'm a half-breed freak! And he'll care about that, I know it."

She played a scenario in her head where she turned up at the coffee shop and met the boy. It would be civil, at first. But Tobias would eventually start to act like the Monks of Azarath. He'd lose that charm that ensnared her, that warmth that made her feel wanted, and he'd become cold and uncaring. He'll move onto the next girl the moment he gets bored or disgusted of her. That's what boys were like. Her books told her so. He'd leave her in the shadows with the fragments of her broken heart.

That was the best case scenario.

There would come a time where she'd feel compelled to tell him about her heritage. That she was the daughter of a demon who wanted to end humanity. He would say that he could never love a creature so vial and hateful. What would sting most of all was that she could see herself pleading that she didn't want to be like her father. But her feelings on this wouldn't be acknowledged. Not to mention her macabre tastes that are partly there to keep people away from her. Raven was social poison, hang out with her and you could kiss your friend circle goodbye. Raven had been stabbed in the back for less.

"Kill the bully. Kill the bully. Kill the bully!" Her friends in the Land of Fiction had chanted. It had been a long story that had lead to that awful moment, but Raven had not been bullying anyone. Her only crime was telling some narcissistic cow called Dolores, "No." She had gotten supremely pissed at Raven's constant resistance to her control and her ideology that painted Raven's constant 'No's' as the most regressive and offensive thing Raven could possibly say to her. Dolores had then turned her energies into turning Raven's fantasy friends against her. It had worked, and it was so frighteningly easily.

Her friends first abandoned her. Then had proceeded to beat her. Raven's hand rested on her chest. Her eyes watered. She was trembling. Raven wiped away her own tears with the back of her sleeve. It was hard to trust new people after experiencing betrayal like that.

Raven preferred to be lost and lonely, that way she was safe. Raven turned in her bed and looked in the mirror and saw a vision of herself. She was old and bitter. Totally alone. She'd die in her bed. Old. At peace. Alone. Unloved. Thought of as only the daughter of the destroyer Trigon. Not as Raven Roth, the broken, magic girl.

Raven frowned. The idea of spending the rest of her life old and alone actually terrified her.

She pressed the balls of her hands into her eye sockets and tried to stop this self-pity party, but she didn't know what to do! She rolled over in her bed and wondered where the Doctor was. It was nearly ten O'clock at night and she needed something to distract her from her thoughts. She'll gladly listen to one of the Doctors ramblings of historic figures. Maybe she could pick the topic. Mary Shelly sounded interesting. Or maybe Boudica. Edger Allan Poe. Oh wait, J.P. Lovecraft. Raven hungered to know how such a man could create such beautifully dark pieces of fiction.

Raven took out the mobile phone and activated it. She brought up the Doctors call number, but she hesitated. Raven felt silly calling the Doctor away from whatever he was doing just to distract her mind. Anyway, he would suspect something was bothering her and would somehow get it out of her.

She text him instead.

"Hey. It's late. You okay? Are you in trouble?"

"Please, God, let him be in trouble!" Raven thought.

Raven stared at the phone waiting. It went black as it went into standby mode. Then a message popped up. Raven reopened the phone. A message from the Doctor.

"Hello, Rae-Rae." Why did he use his nick-name for her? That was seven characters, 'Raven' only has five. "No. Thanks for the concern. I'm just with a friend. We're having a cup of tea and chewing the fat. Maybe you should meet her. You'll like her. I'll send you the address."

The address appeared. Raven had no idea where that was. You might as well have told her it was in Narnia for all the good this information was.

She text back. "I'll think about it."

Raven was up in an instant, pulled on her hoodie and left the pub. She'd walked out into the cool night. She was walking for ten seconds in the blackness before she stopped, turned back and asked the barkeep how to get to the address.

Why was the barkeep looking at her like that?

Raven didn't know if it was a house, or a cottage as it loomed out of the blackness. The garden was overgrown and uncared for and the front door was just a flat piece of wood with little detail. The door had a small window of pebbled glass and a dull, black handle and knocker.

There was no doorbell, so Raven used the knocker.

A few seconds later the door opened and she was greeted by the Doctor, he looked surprised.

"Oh. Hello Rae-Rae." The Doctor said. "I wasn't expecting you."

"You invited me." Raven said raising her eyebrow.

"So I did. Come in, and I'll introduce you." Raven's enthusiasm suddenly dipped. She wasn't interested in meeting any new people right now, but she now felt committed. The Doctor stepped aside to let her into the house. Her nostrils were assaulted by the scent of incense sticks and smoke. Raven did like to burn incense sticks, but she was certain this amount would give someone lung cancer. No sticks were currently burning, which meant it had soaked into the fabric of the furniture.

It was amazing. The house appeared smaller on the inside than it was on the outside. The walls were dully decorated and furnished with a mixture of styles that Raven had seen from the seventies and the thirties. Raven didn't mind retro, but a lot of this was on the really fucking old side of retro. There wasn't a television Raven noted, though there was an old-timey radio set on the mantelpiece and a small bookshelf in the corner. Raven felt herself drawn to it, but the Doctor ushered her into the kitchen away from the tantalising call of the tomes.

"Ah, this must be the delightful girl you told me about." Said the shrill voice of a woman sitting at a table. She had a very thin face with a nose so pointy it looked like it was dragging her skin taught across her face. Her hair was greying and she was wearing a shawl and sat with some mystique about her at a table covered by a moth eaten table cloth. Raven looked at her like one might look at a used car salesman in a garish, chequered suit.

"Raven Roth." The Doctor said, Raven was caught off guard. He'd never used her full name before. "May I introduce you to Miss Olive Hawthorne."

"Delighted." Miss Hawthorne said, offering Raven her hand. Raven looked down at it, but did not take it. "Your guardian has been telling me that you have a keen interest in the dark arts."

Raven turned to the Doctor and eyed him. "Did he now?"

"I can see through the Aetheric realm that you are very much like me." Miss Hawthorne said, "a White Witch. From this place called Azarath in Ireland."

"Uh-huh." Raven nodded and looked back at the Doctor with a look which said. "What have you gotten me into?"

Miss Hawthorne turned back to the Doctor. "I am rather surprised you are showing a keen interest in the supernatural. Your predecessor poo-pooed the very idea of the other world."

"I am sceptical to the existence of magic." The Doctor said matter-of-factly, Raven wanted to contest this, but didn't have the energy. The TimeLord could be so block-headed sometimes. "But in some ways magic could be just another form of science." Yeah, sure it was.

Miss Hawthorne laughed. "I think I almost had that other good Doctor convinced, before he left. He conceded that the psychic realm existed."

"Not really the same thing. But potato-po-tar-toe." The Doctor said half muttering.

"Who the fuck says po-tar-toe?" Raven thought.

"Oh. Where are my manners." Miss Hawthorne turned to Raven. "Would you care for a cup of tea my dear?" Miss Hawthorne was up and moving into her kitchen before Raven answered.

Out of ear shot Raven turned to the Doctor.

"Doctor, who is this old crone?" Raven said.

"Raven, don't be rude." The Doctor said.

"Okay. Who is this old crone, sir?" Raven said mockingly. The Doctor gave her a stern look, and she countered with a bored, accusatory stare.

"She's a friend of mine. We met in my third incarnation. We helped defeat a great evil here. Azal the daemon." The Doctor said.

Raven perked up. "Demon?"

"No, a daemon. An alien creature rather than a spiritual creature, with great psychic potential and the silhouette of the prince of darkness himself."

"Oh." Raven said, disappointed.

"Miss Hawthorne doesn't know this is me in a younger body. Regeneration is always difficult for people to get their heads around, so just play along and pretend I'm his successor in UNIT, alright?"

"Yeah, sure. Whatever." Raven sighed. Playing along was all she seemed to be good for.

"What do you think of her?" The Doctor asked, like a child shown Raven his favourite dinosaur. "She has some psychic potential to her." Raven looked at the old woman.

"She's an ant compared to me." Raven said dismissively.

"She might not be powerful. But I personally find her mystique of a 'magic user' particularly charming." A kettle could be heard whistling. "She uses her powers to 'calm the local spirits.'" He said with verbal finger quotes. "But it's not enough to affect the material world."

"So, she's more of a Rincewind than a Gandalf." Raven stated.

Miss Hawthorne returned with a cup of tea for Raven. Raven sipped it and detected evidence that she hadn't used a strainer, meaning tea leaves would settle in the bottom of the cup. Raven suspected she was going to try to read her tea-leaves, so deliberately swirled them around to break up any pattern.

"So, you and your uncle are just visiting?" Miss Hawthorne said.

Raven glanced at the Doctor. Why did he always make her out to be a relative? What's wrong with them just being friends? Raven thought about it for a few seconds, then it hit her. "Oh... okay, never mind."

The Doctor took a sip of his own, half empty tea cup. "I'm just here to check if Azal's final resting place is undisturbed, and the psychic mini-quakes have subsided."

"Oh, it was a dreadful time nineteen-seventy-two. Neighbour turned against neighbour. The world very nearly ended at the hands of Azal, or fell to the whims of that imposter vicar Mr. Magister. But I have guarded that church since it blasted itself apart. I have felt disturbances beyond the vale, but nothing to be concerned about." Raven listened and felt her brain rotting. She wanted to correct Miss Hawthorne for some incorrect terms she'd used, but Raven bit her tongue. "You know." Miss Hawthorne said, "it was such a lovely church and that dreadful demon had to blow it up."

"That was actually my fa... my colleagues' fault. The psychic energy had to go somewhere, so it exploded upwards and outwards." The Doctor said, taking a sip of his tea. "I heard the foundations are still strong."

"Well, yes. But no one wants to build on it, not even to rebuild the church. Tainted ground, you see. Even if the church were reinstated I doubt any would worship our Lord there." Miss Hawthorne said. "Did you know Mathew Hopkins, the Witch-Hunter trapped several, accused witches down there and set them all alight?"

"I was aware of it." The Doctor said. Knowing the Time Lord he probably was there.

"A dreadful man, dreadful." Miss Hawthorne said. She turned to Raven. "Would you like an aura reading, dear? Free of charge."

"I... don't know..." Raven said trying to be polite. In reality she felt this was a waste of time that she'd rather spend doing something productive. Like making sure paint dried or that the snails got home safely from their trip across the garden.

"Oh, come now dear." Miss Hawthorne said. Raven's enthusiasm took a nose dive when the old woman took from under her table a crystal ball the size of a teapot. That stupid thing won't work. To catch the Aetheric resonance to do anything it would have to be the size of a old style television. A sneeze would be more powerful than that thing.

"I'll go make some more tea." The Doctor said, finishing his cup. Raven's hadn't even gone cold yet.

"I'll have coffee." Raven said. She had a feeling she was going to need it.

"No you won't." The Doctor turned back to her. "I know you. You'll get irritable and grumpy and you'll be jumping around all night talking at a million miles an hour."

"So like you then!" Raven replied flatly.

"I don't need as much sleep as you do."

"Why?" Raven hissed, her eyes became accusatory, "because I'm human?"

"No, because you're a teenager." The Doctor said, and left the room before Raven could retort. Something suddenly clicked in her head.

"Hey, wait! Who are you calling irritable?!" She shouted at him. "You fucking mortal!"

Miss Hawthorne laughed.

"What's so funny?" Raven glared.

"You act like father and daughter. It's rather sweet." Raven's eyes could crush coal into diamond.

"Sure it is. Just get on with it." Raven laid her hands on the table. She knew the con, she'd seen it many times.

Miss Hawthorne began rubbing the crystal ball. Raven had to restrain herself from using her forbidden abilities to mess with the fraud.

After shuffling a deck of tarot cards Miss Hawthorne held them in a fan and urged Raven to take one. Raven plucked one from the fan. It was the Magician. Without prompting Raven extracted another. It was the Empress. Raven shook her head. This is not how the act was supposed to go. Oh great, she couldn't even con you right.

"You're a troubled young girl." Oh yeah, here comes the play book. Always give vague answers that could be seen as truth, but could apply to anyone or anything. "There is a lot of anger in your soul." A look of concern crossed Miss Hawthorne's face. "Anger, because you feel you are not respected. Not from the Doctor, but from before. The is... a demon." Raven perked up. "A powerful demon. His name is... Hate. There is a person? No, a group. A small group. They make you miserable. They joyfully poke your demon. You were punished for actions that you wouldn't commit in your right mind."

Raven stared at her, it was wrapped in poetic language, yet was oddly specific. Miss Hawthorne gestured Raven to extract another two cards. Miss Hawthorne laid Raven's choices flat on the table before consulting her crystal ball. The cards had been the Hermit, then the devil.

"You are blamed for things that are yet to happen. You are held responsible for crimes inherited, but not committed." Miss Hawthorne rubbed the crystal ball again. "But I see that you are destined for great things."

"Isn't everyone?" This current time period was shortly before a time known as the era of entitlement where everyone thought they were special and important. Raven rolled her eyes and rested her head in her right hand, elbow on the table, technically breaking the ritual.

"I see four others. There is a word that is quite strongly associated with them. Friends."

Raven turned and looked at the door the Doctor had vanished through. He was the only friend she needed, anybody else was unnecessary. Though she knew the Doctor wouldn't like it, she would willingly murder to protect him. But the other three? They must be three other incarnations.

"I see a man. I see... Azal?!" Miss Hawthorne fretted. "No. Not Azal. Bigger. Four red eyes so full of hate." Raven perked up again at this, it was frighteningly specific. Raven waved her left hand under the table. "He wishes to use you. Oh, it's clouded over." Raven didn't need her dark demonic powers to cause interference, just sheer force of will, so she hadn't broken her promise to not use her powers.

Raven's mind suddenly turned to the boy, Tobias. Raven wanted to know about him. Would he betray her? Would he break her heart? Was he worth pursuing?!

"I see another man. The Doctor. You wrap him in a protective shield that he keeps walking out of. He is as precious to you as a sapphire." The old crone rubbed the crystal ball again. "You have a mission, but you fear you will fail without a coat tail to ride."

"What mission?!"

Raven didn't like this reading. She stared at the ball to prompt it to tell Miss Hawthorne what Raven wanted to know about.

"I see a boy." Finally! Raven leaned closer. "You must not trust this boy. He speaks with silver tongue, but the tongue is forked and his edges are sharp. His delicate form casts a large shadow."

'I knew it! ' Raven thought.

"I see another boy." Another one? "Immature. Mischievous. Full of jokes and quips. He'll do whatever it takes to make you smile, though he rarely succeeds. He has a good heart, and a good head on his shoulders when applied." Raven didn't know who this was, but she wanted to know more. Was this one Tobias and not the first boy?! "He is loyal. The boy prowls like a beast to guard you from the encroaching darkness that you fear."

Raven leaned forward and put her own hands on the crystal ball. She wanted to know everything, but the mists of the crystal ball refused to let her see.

"Beware the mirror boy, he will break your heart." That was more like the vague mumbo jumbo Raven expected.

"Who is it?" Raven pressured. "Who will break my heart? Who is the other boy? Give me a name! Is it Tobias Hopkins?" Raven looked up at Miss Hawthorne.

The old woman looked up at her in confusion. She motioned to speak but something caught her attention in the crystal ball. "Now, I see a woman."

"No! Go back to the boy!" Raven's brain snapped at the crystal ball.

"She looks like you, but is not you. She's older. She's made a mistake. Her trust was misplaced, but she is in a better place far, far away from here." Raven felt even the greyness of her skin drain of colour. "She's sad. So very, very sad. She misses you deeply." Raven gripped the edge of the table. "She wishes you'd come home to her. She'd give anything to see you again. She is so very, very sorry, and... Oh..." Miss Hawthorne stopped and looked confused. "She's asking me where you are."

The glass orb cracked like an egg in a puff of darkness. "LIAR!" Raven snapped. She pushed herself away from the table and stormed out of the room.

"Raven, what's wrong?" The Doctor asked, carrying mugs of tea.

"That bitch is so full of shit!" Raven snapped holding her hood firmly over her face to shield her eyes from the Doctors sight. She pulled open the door and rushed out at a very brisk walk leaving the door ajar. The Doctor followed, but stopped when Raven was swallowed by the shadows.

Authors notes: Another short-ish chapter to set things up. I decided to take this arc in a different direction than what I'd original intended, one that is hopefully more interesting.

I thought since we're in Devils End we should drop in on an old friend of the Doctors. Miss Hawthorne, the White Witch of Devils End. An opportunity I'd missed in the original telling. I also thought it'd be fun for Miss Hawthorne and Raven to interact but from the perspective that Raven thinks she's a total fraud. I plan for her to pop in a little more as the story goes forwards.

I hope Raven's anxieties about Tobias weren't too tedious to read. I took it from my own tedious thoughts I used to have as a teenager with regards to a girl I liked. lol

I've also removed the Azarath bits because reading the whole story back I don't think they were necessary.

Hope everyone enjoyed it, and please feel free to drop a review to let me know what you think? I've also worked on my writing style, so I hope I'm a little more concise and do more showing than telling.

-TimeLordParadox