So you get two updates two days in a row! Except I don't know when I'll update next, so please don't gettoooooooo excited.

The Tales of the Time Keeper and Time Taker

Chapter 5: Time threw a wobbly (always).

Timelines (or time wobbles, because time was not in fact linear) were extraordinarily tricky. Harry learnt that first hand when he was sitting in the common room rolling his golden egg in his hands and trying to ignore the burns on his back (he wasn't going to tell anyone that he was injured, it wasn't half as bad as some of the things the Dursleys did this summer) when his favourite noise sounded from the empty corner.

Now Harry knew that the Tardis could land just about anywhere, included inside the vast (said to be impenetrable) wards of Hogwarts, but he hadn't really thought about the Tardis landing inside of the castle before.

Harry's thoughts were thrown out the window when suddenly the doors blew open and a gangly Doctor walked out, his face scrunched up.

He had fluffy hair, distinctively not ginger and he looked almost as old as Harry did. Maybe a few years older. But like he could pass as a student none-the-less. Ah, thought Harry, this is the Doctor's…eleventh cycle. One he had not formally met yet. For whatever reason, the doctor's War, ninth, and tenth cycles were the ones that crossed Harry's timeline the most.

"You fought a troll?! How….what were you thinking!? Why did you fight a troll?"

Amy hadn't walked out of the Tardis, so Harry wasn't exactly sure which part of the timewoobly this Doctor was in, but he was also very sure that the Doctor hadn't quite landed right.

"Um…Don't you mean a dragon?"

"A-A….when the heck did a dragon come into this, I'm talking about the troll you fought! The one that was there at Halloween, don't you unders…." There was a pause as the doctor's voice dropped off and he suddenly looked at Harry. "You're not eleven."

"I'm not. I just turned fourteen." Harry replied, smiling despite the constant nauseating fear churning in him about the tournament. "I did fight a troll when I was eleven though. So you're not exactly wrong."

Things seemed to catch up with the Doctor quickly, because he was obviously remembering things from past generations.

"WHY ARE YOU FIGHTING A DRAGON?!"

The doctor's voice wobbles with worry and with the inherent strength of a timelord that only came to the surface when he was genuinely worried or scared or angry. He was probably a bit of all of those right now. Maybe he's just regenerated. That'd explain the confusion. Harry had just seen his Doctor, the tenth cycle (of whom he was closest to, though that was weird considering every doctor was Harry's really) just a few days ago, and he had reacted similarly, having been there when Harry was drawn from the goblet.

"Who put your name in?"

Harry sighed in a way that it sounded like a sob. The Doctor was by his side immediately and like with any incarnation of the Doctor, and any one of his companions, Harry collapsed into his arms, dropping the dragon egg away and not even worrying about breaking it.

If Harry didn't hold on now he was going to break.

"Oh little merlin." The time lord sighed, his eyes burning at the sight of the broken backed boy. He wanted to do more, he should, but Harry here was only fourteen, and not in any position to accept or understand the change their relationship would take in the coming years. Right now, all the Doctor could do was hold this boy, this child with no one else and help him through this stress.

The eleventh doctor hoped that Donna would turn up soon. He missed the woman so hollowly, her departure was brutal, and rivaled only Rose's 'death' in this world. He couldn't remember if the woman turned up to Harry in this timeline, he sure hoped so. His memories were a bit jumbled, but Harry's fourth year was one that Donna turned up fairly often, so it was likely that Harry's mother figure would be here to help sooner rather than later. That woman was more of a mother than anything. Especially someone who never admitted to wanting children.

Though, if the Doctor remembered correctly, Donna's first child was going to be named Harry James.

"Talk to me, little merlin." The Doctor sighed, hands tight on Harry as Harry's were around his waist. "I can't tell you what's going to happen, I don't even really know myself. But talk to me."

And so Harry did. Spilling his heart out to the Doctor who grew ridged with fury as Harry spoke of friends and distrust.

"I am literally fourteen, if the twins couldn't do it how could I?! As far as anyone but the teachers are aware I am literally useless in class." Harry had mentioned dumbing down his answers in class so as not to draw attention to himself. He wasn't as smart as Hermione or the twins he liked, but he certainly didn't struggle. "How can people even think that I'm smart enough to mess with Dumbledore's circle?"

The Doctor just shook his head, because he don't know what was wrong. He assumed that people just wanted someone to be angry at, someone to blame for the strange goings on. Harry had survived the killing curse, so people probably assumed that a few rough words would roll off him.

"I can't help you much. Time is preventing me from knowing what's happening. Even if I've been there before. Cause I'm a part of this timeline because I'm a part of yours. But I'll see what I can do." The doctor leant forward and picked the egg off the floor. It was heavy, far heavier than he had thought from the way Harry tossed it around with ease. "Is anyone here that'll hear this?"

Harry shook his head. Everyone else was at dinner. He hadn't been able to stomach anything for the past few days. Ron was still temperamental, even after he'd made a suggestion at being sorry. Hermione had been forced to eat by Harry himself. She was killing herself over books to try and help. He wasn't about to let her fade out from lack of eating. Harry was on a one way trip to his early grave at this rate, he wasn't about to let Hermione join him out of her everlasting sense of duty and friendship.

The screeching had become almost a lullaby to Harry at this point. It wasn't as harsh as his childhood dreams of Voldermort at least. He heard the music in his head, at night, in class when he attended them, when he was eating. He had memorised the screeching, and knew there was a pattern. It looped, he could tell. He didn't even flinch when the egg opened and lit the room in a stunningly warm light.

Harry watched as the Doctor screwed his eyes shut and tilted his head in concentration. After the 'song' cycled three times the Doctor closed the egg and sighed.

"Unfortunately buddy I don't know what it is. I mean I do, but I can't actually remember what. It's the timeline interference I think." The Tardis hummed loudly as if agreeing. "What I can tell you, is this." The Doctor paused when Harry sat up, cradling the egg to his chest with hope in his eyes. "It's aquatic. That song sounds a lot like one of the creatures I met on that water-logged planet when I was first generation. So maybe start there."

Harry smiled and hugged the Doctor in thanks. "You never disappoint, Doctor." Harry sighed and leant into the man.

The rest of the dinner hour the pair talked about everything else. Quidditch, Sirius, class work and the Dragons. Harry admitted that he was extraordinarily interested in learning more about the Dragons. He knew they were only so aggressive because their eggs were in danger and wondered about their normal temperament.

Wondered if he could talk to them.

When he yawned though, the Doctor sent him to bed and left.

A few days later, Cedric took Harry aside and gave the younger boy the last clue he needed. Though even after the bath, Harry was none-the-wiser about how to swim underwater for an hour.

Harry sent a letter that evening, thanking the Doctor, whichever doctor for the clue. It would have taking him hours in the tub to figure out that he had to submerge the egg. Cederic really did help, and Harry appreciated the good sportsmanship, but the older fella's clue was a little more cryptic than Harry's "We're fighting dragons."

Harry was shaky and queasy as he and his friends hunted through the library for answers. But Harry knew he'd make it. He had the Doctor after all, and no one really lost if the Doctor was on their side.