He won the war but lost his world...

A Harry Potter/Doctor Who Crossover

~'(-.-)'~

Don't Wake Me Up

Dreams

He blinked at the oncoming clown headed in his direction, staring in disbelief...Harry hadn't counted on something like this happening when he got up that morning. Then again, a lot of things had happened since he got out of bed that were highly unusual, to say the least and at least now he had a pretty good idea of the cause. And it had to be the version wearing The Coat, at that. He sighed, blew a raspberry at the now rather startled Time Lord and huffed.

"Don't wake me up, okay? I don't mind the Coat all that much, but if you wake me up or convince me that I'm not sleeping, I'll still do something nasty to it." He told him. "So don't wake me up. This is the best dream I've ever had, it's so good it's nearly wet and if you ruin it by waking me up, Doctor, I'm going to do something mean." He growled. "Now, that said, I'm pretty good at lucid dreaming so I'm not surprised you look this real. I've always dreamed in color, too...never understood why so many people...humans anyway, claim to do all their dreaming in gray-scale, makes no sense."

The Sixth Doctor looked at the rather young human male he'd accosted looking for directions to a concert hall, going from startled to bemused fairly fast. He'd said quite a lot there, more than he probably realized. "Well, the concert was a nice idea but I can do that later, you need to come with...what's this?" He gingerly, but firmly supported the squirming youngster the lad had given to him to hold while gathering up his things.

"What does he look like?"

"A baby."

"Well, there you go then. That's my godson, please don't drop him. I go no place without Teddy and Thelma."

"Who is..." He paused as the boy pulled a stroller out from the shade where he'd had it and woke the very large dog lying near it. He folded up the stroller since the alien had his son and leashed the dog. "Oh dear, she's quite shaggy, isn't she?"

"Well, English Sheep dogs do tend to be, yes."

He felt the lad poke him when he just stood there and stared between the infant and the dog.

"You were saying?" Was that a touch of a smirk on his mouth?

He shook himself out of it, and nodded. "You need to come with me to my TARDIS. I don't think you're supposed to be here, not alone at any rate: This isn't Earth."

"I told you, it's a dream. It's not real because dreams aren't real...and that means I'm fine here. I'll come along, though."

He sighed and wondered what the boy's definition of 'mean' was as he realized he had to convince him that he wasn't dreaming.

"Could be better." The teen mused out loud. "Could be Second, Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, Tenth or Twelfth. Could be worse, too, not all that fond of First or Third, Seven is a manipulative little bastard and Nine is busier than a one-legged man in an arse-kicking contest. Ten has way too many fixed points established on his watch and I don't think messing with about with him is worth being able to stare at the best looking ass you'll ever have." He continued, ignoring the Time Lord's flush. "Eleven is a complete moron, stopped thinking almost entirely and did it on purpose and Thirteen is just a tad...stuffy."

"Thirteen?" The lad seemed to know him far too well and wasn't that a bit worrisome?

"Reset. The Eye got destroyed on Nine's watch and was never replaced...no controls on regenerations then, so..."

"Ah...oh dear...shouldn't have told me most of that."

"So look up the word 'dreaming', it's not real, so we're safe enough." The young lad told him indifferently, his attention held raptly by the fact he'd spotted the TARDIS. As they approached and drew near, the unknown boy who really shouldn't actually be on this planet alone anyway, patted the ship and then said, "You pretty thing! You look just like you did on the telly when you were with this one! Who's the darlin' girl, then?" before cooing at her and running lightly tickling fingers up and down the pseudo wood of the door frame. "Poor baby, having to look after this great lug while he's dressed like a Halloween version of a male Dollhouse hooker. How about we go find Jack and introduce him to this 'call-boy' version? He'll have a grand time, won't he? Jack, I mean...: Just don't wake me up, okay? This is a lovely dream and I don't need anyone spoiling it. If it were real, I'd be in school right now and it's not been a good year for me, could be worse I suppose, since the Second War is over, but I hold the Hallows so there's other issues, y'know? Not surprised, given that, what this dream's based in. Still, I might as well enjoy it while I can, yes?"

"OI!" Sixth protested the description, wincing as he understood what the youngster meant and decided that 'Jack' was probably from the 51st or worse, the 64th Century Earth. The boy, though...he sounded like the last decade of the Twentieth and that, together with him being on Gratu, apparently alone to start with, was upsetting for the Doctor.

That his ship was laughing at him didn't help at all. Nor did his realization that the TARDIS apparently knew who this 'Jack' was and had just agreed with the boy rather firmly.

He studied the lad. "How old are you?"

"Fourteen in three months, sir...Teddy is six months, Thelma is two years. She's a crup, but mostly I have to keep a glamour on her if I'm around muggles."

"Oi. Just Doctor will do, thanks." He paused. "Wait. Muggles? I've got a young wizard on the TARDIS? Fourteen, you mentioned school...you're a Brit so that means...Hogwarts."

"Yes, Healer." The boy answered, a cheeky grin firmly in place when he huffed.

"I said 'Doctor'."

"And where I've been living, that's a Healer."

Six threw up his hands and told the boy to follow him, "Surely she's got rooms for you three by now. Not quite fourteen years old is far too young for a human to be on their own, magical or not. What's your name?"

"Harry Potter."

The Doctor's pause was in milliseconds but Harry noticed.

"You do know that the Harry Potter books are just storybooks, right?"

Harry pulled out his wand and banished The Coat and all it's copies by way of reply. "You do know that Doctor Who is just a telly prgram and you're not real, either, right? As demonstrated, Magic works, even in dreams."

"Where's my coat? What did you do to my lovely coat?" Sixth's voice was in a near wail.

"Banished, for the betterment of anyone that uses any variation of eyes and can see in color." He shrugged. "Sometimes my 'saving people' thing extends to objects that should never have been made to start with."

"How could you?" Six was nearly in tears.

"Like this." Harry flicked his wand and sent yellow striped pants after the coat. "Or I suppose I could have just done this...and with a complicated series of wand movements turned what was left of the Doctor's wardrobe choices a nice, sober brown. He was in buckskins, complete with whangs, moosehide thigh high moccasins and was wearing a coonskin hat, too. Harry figured the guy'd have to go to the wardrobe now if only to change out of that get-up. He was right.

"This is horrible! I look like a complete savage!" The Sixth had darted into a nearby restroom and nearly gagged when he saw what he was wearing, for one thing, it was miles too big for him. He missed the boy's little grin as he came back out into the hallway, then ran for the wardrobe room to find something decent...behind him, Harry's wand flicked one more time...restoring the signature outfit of the Sixth Doctor. He was pretty sure there would be no more 'remarks'.

Harry was also pretty sure he wasn't dreaming, but when he had realized he'd gotten the Sixth, he had decided it was probably best if this particular Doctor thought he already had something to do rather than leave him to get into things that Harry was also pretty sure that he, Harry, would then have to get him out of, probably at wandpoint. He'd already had an odd day as it was and he was positive it had been MacNair's final spell, a simple banishing charm, that had sent him here. There was a great deal they didn't know about Banishing Charms, but Hermione had been curious about where things went when you banished them...so she had reverse engineered the spell. They went to the best possible place for them at that moment. Ergo, he was supposed to be on the TARDIS and apparently with this version of the Doctor. At least for starters.

He told the ship these things quietly and ended with, "You, Lady Idris, I'll tell just about anything to, I'm used to talking with Hogwarts, after all...same thing, for the castle is also alive and has a soul and a spirit as you do. The Doctor on the other hand...not Sixth, I think...or Seventh, but I'll be here for him and with him as long as you allow it. I am not without experience in war and an I can do things to Daleks that will have their former species members killing them off themselves. Mostly out of embarrassment."

The Ship chuckled at the suggestive images of the vicious things being turned into living but harmless actual pepper-pots, planters, terracotta pots and other things, like sauce pans or even toilets...and in some cases, such as the high ranking ones, chamberpots with legs, feet and a compulsion to empty and clean themselves.

She listened as he told her about the DVDs he'd watched at Hermione's house one summer, though Dumbledore certainly hadn't known he was seldom at the Dursleys after he started Hogwarts, just the two weeks to maintain the wards and off he'd go. Third Year...last year, the war year...he let the memories surface without actually thinking about them, allowing her to take them as long as she actually took them...and told her to let the Doctor see what he'd been in the middle of for the last six months. The final battle was much earlier than portrayed in the books...and the Tri-Wizard had been cancelled when Hogwarts had been attacked during opening ceremonies. On the plus side, the best of the best of two extra schools was there to help with defense, but it hadn't mattered all that much.

Voldemort hadn't needed to kidnap him, he'd only needed to have Pettigrew steal bloody rags from the infirmary after a game where he'd got a busted arm and had to wait a bit with his arm wrapped up, while Poppy tended a head injury. It had been a compound fracture so there had been plenty of blood...and the rags soaked in his blood, being stolen, counted as being forcibly taken. It had been enough to restore Tom Riddle, anyway. It had also happened right before summer break, by the time he'd shown up with an army of death eaters and dark creatures when there were plenty of witnesses, including the press...and Fudge had been unable to deny his return.

The war that followed had been bloody, if short and the wizard world had lost more than two thirds of it's total population. At that point, being magical was more important than being a pure-blood because of the numbers that needed to be made up. In a way, the war had been a final purging of old ways of thinking, mostly because the hardliners had died as death-eaters during it. He was fortunate, he told her, that the last dying death eater had only just enough power remaining for a third year charm, instead of something deadly.

He looked up at a sympathetic noise and saw the Doctor's expression, the TARDIS having relayed much of what Harry had told her. Six, it seemed, could be gentle when he needed to be. He could be patient for a good reason, too and he had decided that Harry was an excellent reason. Harry had been Teddy's only remaining family, as his godfather and so he'd taken the lad...he'd been holding the boy's stroller and had his dog on her leash when MacNair had jumped them. MacNair had missed and he'd returned fire with a powerful cutting hex, but the thing didn't do the job fast enough...so now, Harry and his godson and their dog was here.

"And the Hallows?"

"All it took was to be holding the lot for a few moments, all at the same time." Harry sighed. "I still have my cloak and the Elderwand, but I destroyed the death-stone, though, so it won't happen to anyone else. But I'm not aging as far as magic can tell, or if I am, it's too slowly to detect."

"Not for us, you are, for the Timelines are a bright gold, but it's perishingly slow." He cocked his blond head at the boy. "Banishing Charm?"

"Yup. Magic dislikes waste, so that one sends you wherever you're supposed to be and I landed almost under your nose."

"So, the books got it wrong."

"Most of it, yeah. The Dursleys weren't too bad, really, not after Vernon was effectively out of the picture when I was about eight, anyway. Accidentally turned Vernon into a lizard, a big, fat weird looking one... and when the clean up people came I lied and said he was a pet. Turned out he was a magical lizard and I was told I couldn't have him cuz I lived in a muggle area. So I asked them if they could move me, my aunt and muggle cousin to a magical area so I could keep my lizard. Turned out, when they found out who I was, they could...moved us into Potter Manor. At that point, I got live-in tutors, was assigned a new magical guardian since the Headmaster was only allowed to be one for kids as lived with muggles in muggle areas and Pet was no longer in control. She had custody, but I had true wealth so it sorta took the wind out of her...sails. She hadn't realized that mum had married so well, I guess."

"Mhmm. Well, let's see if she's made a room for you, shall we?"

She had, it had an attached garden, too, as well as the usual en-suite. Harry was enchanted, figuratively speaking.

"You're right, you know. This isn't the best self for you...but you are supposed to grow up on and make your home on the TARDIS." Sixth told him. "So, stay in your room or garden or take a shower or something, for a bit and an older me will let you know when she's moved you by coming to fetch you."

"Figured."

"Not next me, she says, since Ace...a future...what? Oh, you know about Ace?"

"Yeah. She'll start with you though. She's the same age, sorta. She's six...and she needs you. Small kids love bright colors and won't really notice that you're immature as heck this go."

"Oi." He grunted. "Teenagers..."

"Takes one to know one, Six."

~ tbc ~

~'.'~