fic: of turners and tardis - chapter two
Doctor Who and Harry Potter (next gen) crossover
for Birdie on her birthday
Part 2/7
In the 200 or so unaccounted-for years, as the Doctor searches for a way to stop his own death, he discovers some companions that aren't as fragile as his normal brand.
A little cracky, as a crossover should be. Teen.
"Oh, pink! I quite like that on you," the Doctor said, leaning against the console and watching Ted Lupin quite happily.
Ted grinned a bit and shoved a hand in his now pink hair. He wouldn't admit that this particular color was a result of the Doctor demanding different morphs and then crowing in delight each time. Showing off was something that came to him naturally, but it was different with the Doctor. Like the Doctor would exclaim over Rosie's strange double-jointed elbows just as easily. It just rang truer.
As it was, Ted's hair had gone through several different shades and lengths in the last five minutes, and he'd done a good impersonation of the Doctor's formidable chin.
"And I quite like that chin," said Rosie in a saucy voice as she approached, having apparently raided the Doctor's closets. "This ship is immense, Teddy! Look what I found!" She was nearly lost in a regal looking cape and maybe three different boas, one of which she threw over Ted. The purple one. "To go with your hair. So. Doctor. Where are we going?"
"Ah, you found the wardrobe," the Doctor turned away from Ted and hit a few knobs before twirling toward the door. "I am not sure where we should go," he pondered aloud. "I thought first you might just like to see... space."
He thrust open the door to the ship dramatically and Rose shrugged out of the cape. Ted caught it before it could hit the ground and draped it over the rail before joining them at the door.
Rose had fallen silent at the door, and the Doctor was smiling a bit smugly as he took one of the boas from around her neck and put it on his own before stepping out of the way. Ted took his place in the door, an arm instinctively going around Rose's waist as she strained forward to see more.
It was like everything he'd been told about space and nothing like he'd imagined. It was open and vast and incredibly lonely. It was beautiful and terrifying. It was theirs to explore.
--
"The Renaissance." Ted leaned back in the console chair.
"New York, 1960's," Rosie countered.
"Prohibition!"
"The beat era. Oh, Kerouac."
"Kerouac is a talentless hack! He pretended to be poor because he wasn't smart enough to know-"
"Ooh, hit a nerve there, Weasley."
"Fine. The moon landing."
"Noooo. I've been stuck in 1969. Wasn't as fun as it looks."
"Mars?" Ted had found an atlas and was projecting an image of the page above their heads with his wand. The red cliffs and peaks made the Doctor smile but shrug.
"This is all reading a bit like a particular boarding school didn't have a great history department. Broaden your minds!"
"I don't know what else is out there!" Rose finally said, petulant. "You're the expert. You're the intergalactic tour guide. What do you usually do?"
The Doctor laughed. "It usually doesn't matter what I do, does it dear?" He was patting the railing and it took Ted a moment to realize he was talking to the TARDIS. "I pick a place and set the precise coordinates and we take off. And then the TARDIS decides where we should really go."
"That sounds like a copout for bad flying," Ted arched an eyebrow. He'd heard similar arguments when Rosie had been getting used to her new broom.
"Does it now?" The Doctor asked, his voice taking on that gentle dangerous quality that Ted had noticed once or twice already. "So pick a place then."
"Show us that one planet you were talking about. The one with the ice that smells like flowers." Rose perked up from her examination of the TARDIS.
"Ooh, yes. Let's do that one, Doctor." Ted was pretty sure it was the only one she remembered from one of their late-night talks in the TARDIS before they left, before the Doctor convinced them to come aboard. Or was it Rose convincing the Doctor to take them? First it was, oh Doctor, just go back a week or two, I'll stay here, it'll give me more time to study. Then, when Ted expressed concern, it was oh Ted, wouldn't you like to go back? See your mum-?
The idea had filled him with so much rage and hope that he hadn't talked to her- to either of them- for a couple days.
("You can't just say stuff like that to try to get me to do what you want. I'd do it anyway. You don't have to try to bribe me with my dead mother." He was harsh, but Rosie's style wasn't to give the silent treatment like his. Instead she let him have it, and they eventually hugged and made up.)
The Doctor had swayed around awkwardly and then disappeared into one of the many rooms on the TARDIS until they figured it out. Rose maintained that it'd be cool to go see his mum, and Ted had secretly been convinced already. But they weren't doing that just yet. The Doctor refused, saying something about dead parents being more of a veteran time-traveler visit.
"Even some of the most seasoned travelers can be dangerously distracted by something so precious," he had declared, looking shadowed and mysterious. Ted wasn't sure if it was a better look for him than the normal childish wonder.
--
“This is really a different planet? How can we breathe? How do we-”
“Shh,” the Doctor said, putting a hand over Rose's mouth as the TARDIS doors swung open. She huffed. “We're in a library.”
She looked around as her eyes adjusted to the light and saw that he was right. Shelves towered over them, holding ancient-looking books of every size and color, pages sticking out of the bindings, dust layering the top shelves heavily.
“You are at the most prestigious university in the galaxy,” the Doctor announced in a hushed tone.
“What year is it?” Rose asked as Ted came stumbling out from behind them. He'd been a little seasick from the Doctor's landing but seemed to be doing okay now. Poor bloke. He'd get the hang of it, she was sure.
“Oh, I'd say... 5030. Give or take.”
“Why are they still reading out of huge bleeding books, then? Even Muggles in our time had more efficient-”
“Ah, this is the archive section. I just wanted you to actually believe we were in a library.”
"Rose, the point of books isn't to just be efficient." Ted shook his head. “What planet are we on?” he asked, running a hand over some spines. Rose watched the cracked leather under his hands and tried not to sigh. “And can I stay here?”
“I told you. The university. The school is the planet. Granted, it's a small one. But welcome to New Cambridge. Discovered and developed by your people- well, their Muggle counterparts- around the year 4000.”
“So no aliens?”
“Mostly aliens, actually,” the Doctor grinned as made their way down the hall of shelves, presumably towards an exit. Rose grabbed Ted's hand so she wouldn't lose him to the books.
“The standards are so high that most Earth students stick to regular old Earth Cambridge.”
“Did you study here, Doctor?” Rose asked, teasing.
“No. But I am a visiting professor! Physics, Special Topics.”
She felt some resistance on her hand and saw Ted had stopped a few feet behind them, looking intently at some dusty book. “Oi! We're moving on here,” she tugged on his hand. "Don't wander off!" the Doctor said, and when Rosie looked up, he was already twenty yards away, clearly with a destination in mind.
"I will leave you here, Lupin, don't think I won't," she said, even as she was moderately distracted by the way he was delicately turning the pages. He had such nice hands. Artist's hands. They got to her every time.
"Where did the Doctor go?" Ted asked distractedly when he looked up again. It was a history book. Earth history- 2000-3000. The Computer Age.
"Hands off the books," Rose demanded, and pulled him after the Doctor, who was luckily only a row ahead of them in the archives. "Doctor, what were you thinking, bringing him here?"
"Shh," he said again, and Rose fell quiet. She wanted to keep chattering- something was so cavernous about the space, and it made her nervous. She'd felt that way a few times getting lost in Hogwarts her first couple years, too. Like she could be swallowed up by the emptiness. They walked for another minute, then two, Ted's hand warm in hers and keeping her grounded even if he couldn't have been more absent, scanning titles of books furiously as though he was planning on sifting through them later in his pensieve. Rose wasn't a Gryffindor. She could admit she was a little scared. Though she hadn't seen definitive proof of it yet, they were on some mysterious planet, and with a mad man as a tour guide.
It was also kind of awesome.
--
"There was a book I needed," the Doctor shrugged as they made their way back to the TARDIS.
"So because we couldn't decide on a place fantastic enough for you, we get dropped off after going on your intergalactic errand?"
"Precisely," the Doctor said, turning quickly to face her. He grabbed her chin. "Have you any idea how rare it is for me to go on one little errand without getting chased down by the natives or facing off with some potential evil alien dictator or having my mates nearly turned into robots? No. You don't. This is a blissfully boring moment for me. Don't ruin it with your whining. We'll go somewhere else, but for now I have some reading to do and you might as well go home for a kip."
"Can I at least see the book?" Ted asked, with a slight grin that told Rosie that he knew she would make fun of him for it. Or perhaps he was trying to cheer her up.
"You may not," the Doctor grinned, too, letting go of Rosie with a quick look behind him. The peace and quiet was unsettling. It appeared that no one saw them.
"Okay. We are going to have to make a run for it," the Doctor said in a hushed tone, his floppy hair falling into his eyes, looking down as they neared the archive section. The entrance was lined with security sensors. "I'm not allowed a library card."
"You are a visiting professor and you're not allowed a library card?"
"I was a visiting professor. I apologize, I must have misspoke."
"What if I just duplicate the pages?" Ted asked, glancing around. "You can have your own copy that way."
The Doctor's face was unreadable for a moment, and Ted wondered if he was perhaps disappointed in not having to make a run for it. "Do it then," he said, shoving the book at Ted. "I'll meet you at the TARDIS. If anyone stops you, don't mention anything about me," he said, glancing at the Aides coming around the corner a few rows back.
Ted looked down at the book. Immovable Objects: Earth Phenomenons, Time Travel, and the Space Between, by River Song.
"Hurry up then. I'll guard the aisle."
Rosie was good at nonchalant, grabbing a book and thumbing through it as Ted got to work. She smiled sweetly at the aides, who peered down the way the Doctor had gone. Rose felt a sudden protectiveness toward the Doctor, her new friend. He was sweet and magical in a way she'd never seen before, and with the hint of a storm behind his eyes. It was hard not to love him immediately. And she didn't like the way those two appeared to be following him.
She let out a little cough and twirled her hair, keeping her eyes lowered. The tall one elbowed the shorter one, who was about to follow, and nodded at Rosie. "You're an earth girl, aren't you?"
She put the book down to give them her attention (and slip her hands into her sweatshirt pockets. "I am. Where are you from?" She cocked her head to the side and smiled a little.
They looked like humans. "Earth," the short one said, slowly.
"Ah, well." She pouted a little. "Can never be too sure."
"Ready, Rosie?" Ted asked, emerging from the stacks. Rose noticed he was considerably larger than he'd been going in. She bit back a grin and a comment.
"Of course! Study date. Bye, boys. Be a mate and put this back for me, yeah?" She shoved her book at them before either could answer. They walked casually until they were out of earshot.
"Was it just me or was the Doctor acting a bit dodgy?"
"Oh, you mean leaving us in the middle of a library on another planet and forbidding us to mention his name as he ran off?"
"That, yeah," Ted snickered, and they stepped up the pace. Just in case. He wrapped a hand around her arm to keep her from running. Her body was always so ready to move into action, like a spring, or a bludger.
"You two are quite handy to have around," the Doctor said, pulling them into the TARDIS a brief moment later. He had her set to take off, so he pointed Ted to a seat to hopefully diminish the chances of Ted losing his dinner. "Did you get it? No one noticed you?"
"Those two library workers did, the younger boys."
The Doctor glared at Rose jokingly. "Of course they did."
"No problems though."
"All right then! Home for you two."
"Oh, but Doctor! Don't you see now? You neeeeed us."
"Perhaps I could use you. Perhaps your magic would make things too boring!"
Ted took a moment to show off, sending his wolf patronus out to greet the Doctor. "I respectfully disagree," the silvery wolf said in Ted's voice, nudging the Doctor's hand. To his credit, the Doctor recanted.
"That is beautiful, Ted, and a little creepy, with the voice displacement. I like it," he tried petting the wolf, but Ted let it turn to mist under his hand. Rosie let him show off for a moment, taking the long way around the console to him to look at all the bits and bobs that her grandfather would absolutely love. She paused at a screen that looked a lot like the telly in Ted's flat. Poking a few buttons, the screen came to life. Having thought she'd perhaps see a map or more controls or even an alien soap opera, she was surprised to see the likeness of the Doctor staring back at her, with the date "22/4/2011."
"Doctor," she started, staring. Death date death date death date. "What is this?"
for Birdie on her birthday
Part 2/7
In the 200 or so unaccounted-for years, as the Doctor searches for a way to stop his own death, he discovers some companions that aren't as fragile as his normal brand.
A little cracky, as a crossover should be. Teen.
"Oh, pink! I quite like that on you," the Doctor said, leaning against the console and watching Ted Lupin quite happily.
Ted grinned a bit and shoved a hand in his now pink hair. He wouldn't admit that this particular color was a result of the Doctor demanding different morphs and then crowing in delight each time. Showing off was something that came to him naturally, but it was different with the Doctor. Like the Doctor would exclaim over Rosie's strange double-jointed elbows just as easily. It just rang truer.
As it was, Ted's hair had gone through several different shades and lengths in the last five minutes, and he'd done a good impersonation of the Doctor's formidable chin.
"And I quite like that chin," said Rosie in a saucy voice as she approached, having apparently raided the Doctor's closets. "This ship is immense, Teddy! Look what I found!" She was nearly lost in a regal looking cape and maybe three different boas, one of which she threw over Ted. The purple one. "To go with your hair. So. Doctor. Where are we going?"
"Ah, you found the wardrobe," the Doctor turned away from Ted and hit a few knobs before twirling toward the door. "I am not sure where we should go," he pondered aloud. "I thought first you might just like to see... space."
He thrust open the door to the ship dramatically and Rose shrugged out of the cape. Ted caught it before it could hit the ground and draped it over the rail before joining them at the door.
Rose had fallen silent at the door, and the Doctor was smiling a bit smugly as he took one of the boas from around her neck and put it on his own before stepping out of the way. Ted took his place in the door, an arm instinctively going around Rose's waist as she strained forward to see more.
It was like everything he'd been told about space and nothing like he'd imagined. It was open and vast and incredibly lonely. It was beautiful and terrifying. It was theirs to explore.
--
"The Renaissance." Ted leaned back in the console chair.
"New York, 1960's," Rosie countered.
"Prohibition!"
"The beat era. Oh, Kerouac."
"Kerouac is a talentless hack! He pretended to be poor because he wasn't smart enough to know-"
"Ooh, hit a nerve there, Weasley."
"Fine. The moon landing."
"Noooo. I've been stuck in 1969. Wasn't as fun as it looks."
"Mars?" Ted had found an atlas and was projecting an image of the page above their heads with his wand. The red cliffs and peaks made the Doctor smile but shrug.
"This is all reading a bit like a particular boarding school didn't have a great history department. Broaden your minds!"
"I don't know what else is out there!" Rose finally said, petulant. "You're the expert. You're the intergalactic tour guide. What do you usually do?"
The Doctor laughed. "It usually doesn't matter what I do, does it dear?" He was patting the railing and it took Ted a moment to realize he was talking to the TARDIS. "I pick a place and set the precise coordinates and we take off. And then the TARDIS decides where we should really go."
"That sounds like a copout for bad flying," Ted arched an eyebrow. He'd heard similar arguments when Rosie had been getting used to her new broom.
"Does it now?" The Doctor asked, his voice taking on that gentle dangerous quality that Ted had noticed once or twice already. "So pick a place then."
"Show us that one planet you were talking about. The one with the ice that smells like flowers." Rose perked up from her examination of the TARDIS.
"Ooh, yes. Let's do that one, Doctor." Ted was pretty sure it was the only one she remembered from one of their late-night talks in the TARDIS before they left, before the Doctor convinced them to come aboard. Or was it Rose convincing the Doctor to take them? First it was, oh Doctor, just go back a week or two, I'll stay here, it'll give me more time to study. Then, when Ted expressed concern, it was oh Ted, wouldn't you like to go back? See your mum-?
The idea had filled him with so much rage and hope that he hadn't talked to her- to either of them- for a couple days.
("You can't just say stuff like that to try to get me to do what you want. I'd do it anyway. You don't have to try to bribe me with my dead mother." He was harsh, but Rosie's style wasn't to give the silent treatment like his. Instead she let him have it, and they eventually hugged and made up.)
The Doctor had swayed around awkwardly and then disappeared into one of the many rooms on the TARDIS until they figured it out. Rose maintained that it'd be cool to go see his mum, and Ted had secretly been convinced already. But they weren't doing that just yet. The Doctor refused, saying something about dead parents being more of a veteran time-traveler visit.
"Even some of the most seasoned travelers can be dangerously distracted by something so precious," he had declared, looking shadowed and mysterious. Ted wasn't sure if it was a better look for him than the normal childish wonder.
--
“This is really a different planet? How can we breathe? How do we-”
“Shh,” the Doctor said, putting a hand over Rose's mouth as the TARDIS doors swung open. She huffed. “We're in a library.”
She looked around as her eyes adjusted to the light and saw that he was right. Shelves towered over them, holding ancient-looking books of every size and color, pages sticking out of the bindings, dust layering the top shelves heavily.
“You are at the most prestigious university in the galaxy,” the Doctor announced in a hushed tone.
“What year is it?” Rose asked as Ted came stumbling out from behind them. He'd been a little seasick from the Doctor's landing but seemed to be doing okay now. Poor bloke. He'd get the hang of it, she was sure.
“Oh, I'd say... 5030. Give or take.”
“Why are they still reading out of huge bleeding books, then? Even Muggles in our time had more efficient-”
“Ah, this is the archive section. I just wanted you to actually believe we were in a library.”
"Rose, the point of books isn't to just be efficient." Ted shook his head. “What planet are we on?” he asked, running a hand over some spines. Rose watched the cracked leather under his hands and tried not to sigh. “And can I stay here?”
“I told you. The university. The school is the planet. Granted, it's a small one. But welcome to New Cambridge. Discovered and developed by your people- well, their Muggle counterparts- around the year 4000.”
“So no aliens?”
“Mostly aliens, actually,” the Doctor grinned as made their way down the hall of shelves, presumably towards an exit. Rose grabbed Ted's hand so she wouldn't lose him to the books.
“The standards are so high that most Earth students stick to regular old Earth Cambridge.”
“Did you study here, Doctor?” Rose asked, teasing.
“No. But I am a visiting professor! Physics, Special Topics.”
She felt some resistance on her hand and saw Ted had stopped a few feet behind them, looking intently at some dusty book. “Oi! We're moving on here,” she tugged on his hand. "Don't wander off!" the Doctor said, and when Rosie looked up, he was already twenty yards away, clearly with a destination in mind.
"I will leave you here, Lupin, don't think I won't," she said, even as she was moderately distracted by the way he was delicately turning the pages. He had such nice hands. Artist's hands. They got to her every time.
"Where did the Doctor go?" Ted asked distractedly when he looked up again. It was a history book. Earth history- 2000-3000. The Computer Age.
"Hands off the books," Rose demanded, and pulled him after the Doctor, who was luckily only a row ahead of them in the archives. "Doctor, what were you thinking, bringing him here?"
"Shh," he said again, and Rose fell quiet. She wanted to keep chattering- something was so cavernous about the space, and it made her nervous. She'd felt that way a few times getting lost in Hogwarts her first couple years, too. Like she could be swallowed up by the emptiness. They walked for another minute, then two, Ted's hand warm in hers and keeping her grounded even if he couldn't have been more absent, scanning titles of books furiously as though he was planning on sifting through them later in his pensieve. Rose wasn't a Gryffindor. She could admit she was a little scared. Though she hadn't seen definitive proof of it yet, they were on some mysterious planet, and with a mad man as a tour guide.
It was also kind of awesome.
--
"There was a book I needed," the Doctor shrugged as they made their way back to the TARDIS.
"So because we couldn't decide on a place fantastic enough for you, we get dropped off after going on your intergalactic errand?"
"Precisely," the Doctor said, turning quickly to face her. He grabbed her chin. "Have you any idea how rare it is for me to go on one little errand without getting chased down by the natives or facing off with some potential evil alien dictator or having my mates nearly turned into robots? No. You don't. This is a blissfully boring moment for me. Don't ruin it with your whining. We'll go somewhere else, but for now I have some reading to do and you might as well go home for a kip."
"Can I at least see the book?" Ted asked, with a slight grin that told Rosie that he knew she would make fun of him for it. Or perhaps he was trying to cheer her up.
"You may not," the Doctor grinned, too, letting go of Rosie with a quick look behind him. The peace and quiet was unsettling. It appeared that no one saw them.
"Okay. We are going to have to make a run for it," the Doctor said in a hushed tone, his floppy hair falling into his eyes, looking down as they neared the archive section. The entrance was lined with security sensors. "I'm not allowed a library card."
"You are a visiting professor and you're not allowed a library card?"
"I was a visiting professor. I apologize, I must have misspoke."
"What if I just duplicate the pages?" Ted asked, glancing around. "You can have your own copy that way."
The Doctor's face was unreadable for a moment, and Ted wondered if he was perhaps disappointed in not having to make a run for it. "Do it then," he said, shoving the book at Ted. "I'll meet you at the TARDIS. If anyone stops you, don't mention anything about me," he said, glancing at the Aides coming around the corner a few rows back.
Ted looked down at the book. Immovable Objects: Earth Phenomenons, Time Travel, and the Space Between, by River Song.
"Hurry up then. I'll guard the aisle."
Rosie was good at nonchalant, grabbing a book and thumbing through it as Ted got to work. She smiled sweetly at the aides, who peered down the way the Doctor had gone. Rose felt a sudden protectiveness toward the Doctor, her new friend. He was sweet and magical in a way she'd never seen before, and with the hint of a storm behind his eyes. It was hard not to love him immediately. And she didn't like the way those two appeared to be following him.
She let out a little cough and twirled her hair, keeping her eyes lowered. The tall one elbowed the shorter one, who was about to follow, and nodded at Rosie. "You're an earth girl, aren't you?"
She put the book down to give them her attention (and slip her hands into her sweatshirt pockets. "I am. Where are you from?" She cocked her head to the side and smiled a little.
They looked like humans. "Earth," the short one said, slowly.
"Ah, well." She pouted a little. "Can never be too sure."
"Ready, Rosie?" Ted asked, emerging from the stacks. Rose noticed he was considerably larger than he'd been going in. She bit back a grin and a comment.
"Of course! Study date. Bye, boys. Be a mate and put this back for me, yeah?" She shoved her book at them before either could answer. They walked casually until they were out of earshot.
"Was it just me or was the Doctor acting a bit dodgy?"
"Oh, you mean leaving us in the middle of a library on another planet and forbidding us to mention his name as he ran off?"
"That, yeah," Ted snickered, and they stepped up the pace. Just in case. He wrapped a hand around her arm to keep her from running. Her body was always so ready to move into action, like a spring, or a bludger.
"You two are quite handy to have around," the Doctor said, pulling them into the TARDIS a brief moment later. He had her set to take off, so he pointed Ted to a seat to hopefully diminish the chances of Ted losing his dinner. "Did you get it? No one noticed you?"
"Those two library workers did, the younger boys."
The Doctor glared at Rose jokingly. "Of course they did."
"No problems though."
"All right then! Home for you two."
"Oh, but Doctor! Don't you see now? You neeeeed us."
"Perhaps I could use you. Perhaps your magic would make things too boring!"
Ted took a moment to show off, sending his wolf patronus out to greet the Doctor. "I respectfully disagree," the silvery wolf said in Ted's voice, nudging the Doctor's hand. To his credit, the Doctor recanted.
"That is beautiful, Ted, and a little creepy, with the voice displacement. I like it," he tried petting the wolf, but Ted let it turn to mist under his hand. Rosie let him show off for a moment, taking the long way around the console to him to look at all the bits and bobs that her grandfather would absolutely love. She paused at a screen that looked a lot like the telly in Ted's flat. Poking a few buttons, the screen came to life. Having thought she'd perhaps see a map or more controls or even an alien soap opera, she was surprised to see the likeness of the Doctor staring back at her, with the date "22/4/2011."
"Doctor," she started, staring. Death date death date death date. "What is this?"