A/N: Do not own either Doctor Who or Harry Potter. I'm no making any profit off of these works.

Something a little different style wise from my other. Tell me what you think? Enjoy.

The veil stood proudly before him amongst the rubble, whispers calling to him from beyond the curtain, as it fluttered on an intangible breeze. The room Harry stood in was barely worthy the name. Walls hardly standing, littered with debris and a hundred years of dust. The whispers grew louder. Words carried on breath from no mouths or faces, as they tried to tempt him towards them. To traverse the endless space beyond the shimmering grey.

Harry looked at it impassively for a moment, tilting his head to better hear their siren songs. He sighed to himself once, cast a glance at where the door was one last time, before facing the object known as the Veil of Death. An accurate description.

The wizard stretched, popping his neck and back as he did so, shook himself out a second before stepping through, stepping out the other side as though through a doorway.

He found himself in a world of white and grey, Kings Cross, a relic of a forgotten age now stretched out before him as it had once before. His Limbo, the place where the veil leads - not quite a gate to death, but it's half way there and all that's left is to move on.

Harry knew this before he stepped through and he didn't need the cries of others that had passed before him - the whispering, pleading and begging, that managed to filter out to convince him to enter. There was little left in the world for Harry, he really just wanted to move on - to see his family again and find peace. To die - as he did once before.

The decision wasn't one borne of grief, heartache, or depression - as was common. It wasn't a snap decision of rage, or a drawn out process of simply feeling empty and deciding to not sit and stew in such feelings of melancholy. It was, rather, a decision somewhere between boredom, acceptance and the last vestiges of hope and a longing never fulfilled. Childhood dreams never reached, despite his other numerous achievements.

He had lived, learnt and grown, become something great and a living legend - unseen and unheard of over time, despite being visible and certainly talking. He'd wrapped himself in the stories, the embellishments and even lies of his accomplishments as a mere teen - an armour for who he was born as, who he grew to be and now will be forevermore.

And after that, when he was but a name in a book - a man who did the impossible and died, lived and won a war that no-one remembered, he changed his name and face and moved on. He disappeared into an expanding population with the falsified birth record of a boy who didn't exist. That boy too, had lived, learnt, grown and disappeared, his name meaning less than the man in a single chapter of a book written by a dying race.

Names, faces and lives. Time, death and life, everywhere across the expansion of the known world. Humans branching into space, exploring and advancing to accommodate their ever growing need and greed.

Harry knew most of it - the intricacies of most branches of research and the basics of all the ones left. It was an astonishing achievement - decades and more of development, but he had never been one for staying idle. With the memories of when their reality was a poor man's dream, learning, advancing and experimenting was the most exciting thing he could do with an ordinary face and ordinary name.

He'd watched his world grow, break, rebuild and finally shatter - dirt, dust and the lingering traces of desperation, as they grasped the thinning fragments and wisps of magic. Like water through fingers - it slipped away - genes and abilities diluted until full powered wizards had barely the strength of a squib. Necessity is the mother of invention though, and for a long while, rituals and amplifiers were the focus. Building up and strengthening what they had, stretching out their reserves to accomplish a task with as little cost as possible.

Eventually though, the power was gone and there was none left who could see the world – who could get past the repelling wards that had long been in place. There was naught but ghosts and gravestones left of magical society.

Harry had little left and even less he cared about, having learned long ago not to become attached to temporary things. Sentiment was held in his head and in his heart, the value of objects no longer holding any meaning after so long. So, packing up his life time after time, donning new names and faces – creating new versions of himself – he started again and again from scratch.

Even now, though, standing in a world of whitish grey, waiting to meet or simply find the exit to the afterlife, he had still not left everything behind. He would return them, the Peverell gifts. The Hallows were not something he'd wanted but something that seemed to not leave him alone. They took their own faces, changed with his names and the world they lived to serve, as they had been made to do.

Wand to gun to staff to blaster, weapons worthy of the title, the man who owned them and the one who gave the gifts. Morphing over the eons. Stone turned to phone, a rune array etched in crystal, a holo-disk. Cloak changed style as time passed, always moulding, meshing and changing, yet nary a thought was required and it would serve its purpose to hide him.

Now though, they were reverted to as they had been gifted. A wand held loosely in his hand dangling to the side, stone grasped in the other and a silvery cloth settled around his shoulders possessively.

Suddenly, a figure, a man in dull, faded old finery stepped from the shadows of a pillar, materialising, whilst seeming as though he'd been there all along. Which was true. Limbo was between Life and Death - but more under Deaths possession and control than that of the other. Life was but a start, she abandoned her creation upon completion, passing over to fate to touch, have, hold and twist, until almost unrecognisable.

Death did not care though, they were all his - he would watch them over the duration, then snatch them from the mortal coil. To relieve them of suffering as the journey was over. Death would take them to his world, his home - a world that had been, but would never be again - a gift of peace and a kind of forever, that wasn't really any time at all. A year or day or second, eternity in the blink of an eye - moments that never end, for time was but a concept of death, a way to measure and understand the period in which one was alive and existed.

There was no dying after one had passed on so time was not needed, not wanted and thus, simply was not.

"He who claims all three Hallows becomes the Master of Death." The man spoke, soft and dry - as he slowly gazed upon Harry with something that felt to Harry like sadness.

Harry's hands tightened subconsciously around The Hallows, and even as he stepped forward to hand them over, he held them with locked fingers. They were his and he was theirs and Death no longer had such control, such power over that part of him as to change that. The items were a link, bonded to Harry, giving him control and power as they bound Death in their hold at Harry's command.

Harry did not want them - had not wanted them - but was now incapable of giving them up.

"I greet you Death, friend and equal", Harry said, bowing his head slightly to the being before him.

"We are not equals, my Master", said Death, smiling sadly. "You have the power to hide from me, the strength to defeat me and the ability to undo my work should you so choose. Three together and you control me, my Master

"You cannot give them back. They chose you to be theirs, when you proved to each to be worthy of their gift. Strength to lose a fight, to resist the temptation to see those you have lost, and the wisdom of not taking more than you deserve, not hiding from my sight."

"They chose you to have and hold, to master them and master me. They will not let you go so simply", Death explained softly, gazing at the three items with a kind of sad pride - the kind a parent has when their child has done something they knew was to happen, but did not want to come to pass. A trial or challenge, a test that is done, not truly to pass but not to be failed. Sad and proud, accepting and happy, but filled with sorrow and pain all at once.

"Then I wish to die, Death", replied Harry. "I wish to move on. Pass through here to be with those I have lost. It is long, long overdue", Harry said, watching Death watching him, considering, calculating and thinking.

But overall - sad.

"I believe so too, my Master." Death trailed off for a moment, again looking at the three objects with a sad look, before meeting Harry's gaze".

"The Hallows were made for the world of life and living and not yet dead, and there they will stay", quipped Death. "You and they are locked, stuck and held in the land of the living and breathing and dying - but not yet dead". "Did you not wonder why you had to walk through my door to see me once again? You have certainly not survived all these years without incident and accident."

"I had hoped I could walk myself to where I wish to go, rather than hope for you to take me when you have not done so in the past", said Harry.

"It was my last hope, that I could die a painless death as so many have before me. Is it lost dreams, then?" asked Harry. "A wish to go unfulfilled?"

"Of course, my Master", responded Death.

"Here is as far as you will ever reach. I cannot give you what it is you want. I cannot take you where you wish to go. It is lost to you."

Harry was not overly surprised at his inability to die, even though he would mourn the loss of that hope. He would mourn the chance to see his friends and family again, but he was old enough to accept it. He had lived long enough without them; he had come to terms with not seeing them, although forever was a fair while longer than he'd originally prepared for.

"So," he continued, "friend, Death? As I can have no others, would you at least grant that I may call on you and talk to you, -us forever, alone, but together, in this existence?" Death being the only one that would ever live as long as Harry did. Death would have to exist as long as Harry, if only because Harry was alive - that is, so long as Harry was, there would be a need for Death. So, Death was the only one Harry could truly befriend now. Could form a bond that would not break, wither or shatter, or would be cut causing pain and loss and moving on, to where he could not follow. Broken by Death.

"If you call, I will come, my Master", Death murmured, head bowed in something akin to assent. He held that position for but a moment, suddenly standing straight and looking at Harry in contemplation.

"You do not wish to remain here, in your world?" he asked.

"No. I'm finding myself… Bored", replied Harry. "There is little excitement to be had here and the monotony is rather tedious. I tried to learn everything I could, experimented and explored, but there's nothing exciting happening. Hogwarts was always thrilling until the end. My time as an Unspeakable certainly stoked a love of learning within me. Police work and being an Auror was good for a while, or adventuring on spaceships and discovering other planets. Studies into science and magic were certainly intriguing and even after so long, I know there's so much more to learn."

"But I'm lonely, bored and I have nothing to truly engage me. I've lived the same days again and again, with a different face and name and people around me, but nothing really changes. I thought it was time. My last dream." Harry mused, considering his very long life.

"I know, my Master", said Death. I have watched and seen your journey. I could, however, send you somewhere else. You are simply unable to enter my realm. There are no boundaries to the worlds of life you can go from here. I am everywhere in those worlds, if you would like to leave this one, my Master." Death said.

"Do you have one in mind?" Harry asked, eyeing the man in front of him.

"I believe so", Death responded, an odd glint in his eye and the faintest trace of amusement, dancing at the edge of his lips.

"Then lead the way." Harry said, gesturing in front of himself to indicate to do so.

"As you say, my Master", Death agreed, turning on his heel and striding further down the platform.

Shortly after, they reached what would have once been an exit onto Main Street, but was now covered by a shimmering grey cloth filled with whispers of those still waiting to cross.

"Take this, my Master, before you go", bid Death. "Hold onto your dreams and keep them close to your heart."

Into Harry's hand, the being dropped a necklace. Harry studied it for a second, running his fingers over the thin bands of silver, feeling the cold magic contained within. It was a symbol - a circle in a triangle, both on the inside of a rectangle bisected by a single straight line running from top to bottom down the middle.

"A last gift for the last Peverell", advised Death. "To travel as I do and go wherever I may go, my Master. Of course, that does not change that you cannot move on", Death said, giving insight into the necklace. "The Four Deathly Hallows. Step through, my Master. I believe you will find this world of interest to you."

At the man's beckoning, Harry once more stepped through grey cloth and false whispers to see what was on the other side. He did not know where he would end up - when or where and only a small notion, the slightest bit of conjecture on how. He was not particularly concerned, it would be of no benefit to Death for him to find any difficulties on his arrival.

As he shortly discovered, his arrival was much the same as when he walked to Limbo - stepping through a veil as though it was but a doorway. There was no door though, simply a strange grey sheen to the air that fell away like an illusion - mist dispersing to nothing but memory. The necklace was cold where it rested beneath his shirt, heavy with power and promises and broken dreams.

He felt the wand in his hand change, shifting and morphing to something larger and more solid - whatever it was would undoubtedly be appropriate for wherever he found himself. Likewise, the stone contorted, bent and stretched and moved until on his middle finger rested the Gaunt ring. The cloak similarly flowed around him, changing ever so slightly and losing the mercury, liquid appearance into a fairly basic travel cloak - long, grey and high collared, buttons running down the length.

Hefting the weight in his right hand Harry glanced at the weapon it held and found himself looking at a revolver - an older weapon and surprisingly from before he was born. Harry studied the weapon, knowing only the basics of them - by the time he gained any interest in muggle weapons, revolvers were mostly antiques.

It had 20 cartridges for bullets, though Harry doubted he'd ever use that many at a time - gun or not, it was Death's weapon and soaked in blood already for that fact. It was and would always be, better than any other identical item. It had a hammer, trigger and curved handle that moulded snugly into Harry's hand, comfortable and as though it belonged there.

A closer look revealed a web of runes, twined and tangled and twisting around each other across the gun to boost the weapon. It made the object beautiful - a parody and mockery of its purpose.

Harry tilted his head at the item, took aim at a nearby tree and pulled the trigger. The bullet went where he expected, and satisfied he knew how to use what he'd been provided, Harry holstered the weapon. It had registered as he moved to complete the action he didn't have a holster, but a flex, twist and a wash of magic had his entire outfit shimmering and shifting to something more age appropriate. Hopefully.

He'd appeared on a roadside, kindly dropped near some form of civilization and so Harry turned left - one way was as good as another - and took his first steps in a new world.

It wasn't difficult to set himself up in the town he eventually arrived in. A poor man travelling - moving to find better pastures. Early 1800's England, as Harry found out, was a cold and dismal time to live. It took him a few days to adjust to the old language, a week to find a job and a month to rent a place. By six months, 'Taren' had easily slotted himself into town life and become a local.

He adjusted to his new life with the ease of long practice. The work hours were long - forging, hammering out tools and bits of machinery for all the new factories. It was physically exhausting, draining, but Harry had no fear of hard work. During those hours, he put his mind to work - his mind and his magic, on an internal level. He'd been working on his occlumency and legilimency.

He'd long ago mastered his mind, but there was always room for improvement - at the moment his passive legilimency was as though standing in a crowded room with everyone talking. He wanted to be able to process what he was hearing - to listen and keep track of that many threads at a time. The ability to think that fast was an occlumency skill, but a fairly basic one - he was now trying to split his concentration to have multiple thoughts at once. Difficult isn't nearly a strong enough word, but the exercise kept him occupied and his magic active, so that was enough.

Months and years passed and 'Taren' moved on to another town - bought a horse and some supplies and moved on again. He found himself in a small village similar enough to where he was previously, and now 'Kynon' settled in for a new life.

The pattern continued for years, names and lives and jobs - he didn't change his face yet. That would come with cameras and necessity. In 1865 he settled himself into Cardiff, working at the docks to export coal with a call back to his old self in the name 'Harrison'. Overall Harry was feeling underwhelmed by the new world Death had left him in. It had been a curious look into living in a still developing world - where machines were made with cogs, springs and wires working off manpower and steam, following the evolution of invention and discovery.

Harry had recently observed something odd though. A chill, frost creeping over the edge of his senses, swirling, and pushing and calling, screaming into the recesses of his mind and magic. It resonated through him, writhing, twisting and nearly drowning him in the feel of death - a tang of forever not yet passed, now and then and not yet all at once, bleeding into the air around him.

The feeling culminated at Christmas in '69, like a crescendo, the last big rise and push of excitement and noise at the end of a well-played song. Harry had felt it, felt a doorway open - not quite his gate to Limbo, but something locked in life but not in place. The thrill, curiosity and anticipation of something new and different and unknown had him venturing towards it, following magic and wisps of things that should not be.

A phone box in blue, when there were no phones, no surplus electricity to even consider such communication, sat on the street.

It was like following a trail, a path that sang to his magic, power a faint mimicry of his own. Old, tired, alone and weary. It felt to Harry of a kind of manic desperation, agitated and wild - unbound and running, former lives, racing to flee demons that were illusions, hidden in shadows, heads and hearts.

Harry followed this trail of broken, shattered things through the town at a leisurely pace - walking and wandering down streets and roads, as though out for naught but a stroll. Town's people also strolling or going about their business, oblivious to what was happening around them.

It was curiosity - a desire to follow the unseen trail and wanting to know the route those beings had taken. Where, when and maybe find a why… What did they want and for what purpose were they here? Locating the ones leaving such a trail would be the work of moments, requiring a simple expansion of his field of awareness and magic.

Harry didn't, content to simply continue as he was. He did notice where he was going though, slowly towards the direction of the chill, the persistent frost he'd noticed. In the back of his mind the screaming got louder as he edged closer, sounds of desperation, fear and hope, all rolled into one. Malicious glee came as a precursor to a wash, a wave of frigid power, made of time and unbound death. It felt as though the world was cracking slightly, fracturing at the seams, bending and breaking and tearing apart reality.

It was Time. Time was ripping apart. Initially a single tear, but as 'Time' marched on, more tears, like fabric being shredded with a blunt knife.

Harry kept walking, pace barely stuttering, even as his magic rippled and flared out around him, sparking along his fingers and smelling of ozone, skittering from him as though in excitement and retaliation, for being bottled tightly within him for so long. He kept his eyes down as he walked, letting his long wild hair hide his eyes, as they glowed the colour of a silent death – shielded from the view of those around him.

He fought with fracturing time, magic filling holes and stitching tears, pushing and pulling, wrestling and clashing, warring against nothing visible or tangible and entirely inconceivable beyond a concept and feeling, a need to understand why things don't last forever. Harry could feel the future - felt it as he felt his own eternity, a cliff against the waves of time that was everything else - bleeding and pushing and trying to force its way through, into the now, through a perversion of death. Screaming and running to survive.

"Death", he whispered softly, a call and command for Death to come to him - to give him aid.

"I am here, my Master." Death's voice and form appearing at his side, as though he'd never been anywhere else. His head was bowed to Harry, in a show of subservience, but he otherwise looked impassive, not paying mind to the chaos swirling through the air around them.

"I'm closing the breaks, but the original is too large to do so quickly and will therefore leave a scar, so I'm going to bind it to you. Is that acceptable?" Harry asked, although he didn't look at Death to confirm a response. Despite all that was happening, he was still walking, still maintaining the pretence of being out for a stroll.

"Of course, my Master", replied Death. "It is no burden". Death flanked to Harry's right side, as they moved through cold, snowy streets. Permission granted, Harry pushed and pressed, tightened his hold on the edges of the first tear, encapsulating all the energy and power it had leaked within his own magic and binding it together. He wrapped it entirely, contained everything to run across the fraying edge and held it there.

Death joined in then, his own magic bleeding into Harrys, unfurling and spreading through the air, to be near suffocating, as he replaced the wizard's magic to hold closed the seam of Time. Harry rapidly tied the two edges together, an unbreakable link, created to hold closed an eternity still waiting to pass. As the last wisps and tendrils of magic solidified and settled, loose fragments breaking down and dispersing into air, an explosion erupted ahead of them.

The persistent screaming, calling, crying and laughing beings, filled with desperation and poisonous, spiteful hope, fell immediately, abruptly silent - mental yells cut short with realisation and fear. Then it was the abrupt, empty and ringing quiet of death. They did not belong here - in this time or place - but they were and corporeal or not, psychic or not, the blast had ended them as certainly as it would have any human, were they the target of such force.

Harry and Death continued walking, the wizard spreading his magic out to the area, to sense what was left there.

"Time is different here, isn't it?" Harry mused. "Not really yours and therefore not mine, as it was, back in my first world".

"It is", Death responded. "Once it was mine and yours as you knew it to be, but that was before - in the way of eternities and therefore has always been. Time is mine only in the way of everything's end, I still must come to collect. I have less say in the in-between. There is life and fate and time before myself and before you, my Master. She called herself Bad Wolf, in her moment of forever." Death explained, voice dry as it always was.

"Bad Wolf?" Harry responded with quizzical astonishment, looking at Death from the corner of his eye.

"She wanted to make an impression, my Master." Death drawled, a smirk curling his lip slightly.

Harry hummed softly in acknowledgement and three steps later, found himself alone once again, as he walked the street.

Two presence's now entered Harry's perception, which he noted, over the rest. They were slightly different from the other humans around.

One of them felt only slightly peculiar, a hint of what Harry now knew was time clinging to clothes and skin and soul. It was still cold and felt of ends and death and moments in forevers, but Harry could now pick out a flow - like a river moving forwards without stop or pause or rest, sweeping everything along with it and diminishing, corroding, dragging everything towards its end. There was a little too much life in it for it to be Death - time was a journey Harry would forever be on and could now identify, as it moved around him.

The other one he felt, was a far stronger, larger, greater presence and a hundred times more complicated. It was difficult to grasp all the things the presence felt of and Harry knew the only one who'd be comparable to it, was himself - with his age of memories and experiences weighing on his mind and in his heart and soul. It was the one he'd been following and curiosity led Harry to expand his passive legilimency in an attempt to catch a trailing thought.

It was… Harry didn't know how to interpret what he managed to catch. The language the man - and it was a man's voice, so Harry felt comfortable with the assumption - was thinking in, was like nothing the wizard had ever heard before and he knew every language that had existed in his home world. It was complicated, words that ran around and flowed into each other like spoken song and Celtic knots. It was beautiful to hear and filled with so much depth and passion, Harry only wished he could understand.

With it though, it carried feelings, emotions and impressions, that, though there were no words Harry understood, he knew what the man felt, if not the why. Guilt, grief, longing and loneliness, and that manic desperation to run, to go, escape, don't stop - don't look back- run. Chasing adventure and excitement, a distraction from the demons in his head and heart, nipping away at his heels. Pacing around the edges of awareness and hiding in shadows, growling in his ear and barking for attention, in moments of silence. Inescapable, but he will run or fall beneath the weight of them.

He felt, also, of time and death - time flowing around him in a whirlwind, a focal point of power and energy, bending and dancing in his path. Death also clung to him, tainted him, a layer of it ever so subtly hidden beneath a cover of life and energy and unending potential. The man felt as though he should have been his, Deaths, that he should have passed over by now, yet still, he had too much life and time left for that to be true.

The pair came into view, a man and a woman, steadily walking toward Harry. The blond woman kept looking at the man with worry painted across her face, tinged with sadness and guilt. The man was stoic, blank faced and serious as he walked, a contrast and parody to his racing thoughts and wild emotions.

Both of their clothes were obviously from the wrong era, Harry took a guess at early 2000's, so long as the fashion matched up with his own timeline.

The sight brought a feeling of nostalgia over Harry - dragging his mind into memories of a childhood near forgotten. A man in a leather jacket - shaggy black hair and a barking laugh, madness a sharp glint in his eyes and ragged on his heart. A girl the same age as Harry - dressed in muggle clothes seated on the Black's sofa, heartfelt worry marring her brow, sad eyes watching him in peripherals - as the woman walking towards him, did her own companion.

Harry was so lost in another time, another place, a whole different world, that he didn't notice how rapidly the pair was approaching.

Their brisk pace slowed as they neared him, the Doctor studying the bitter, wistful look that had edged onto the wizards face as Harry looked at them. The Time Lord found it odd and his thoughts changed track, as he tried to find a reason for such a look. He was sure he'd never met the man before and he was too unique an individual not to readily call to mind or mistake for another.

During the change in tune and flow and pace of thought, Harry hadn't really stopped passively monitoring, but it had stopped, twisted paused and bent, before restarting. Like changing a song half way through, drawing a new pattern. It startled him, tugged him back to here and now and not there or them and they'd all been gone for so much longer then he thought he'd miss them for.

The Doctor watched, as the curious, strange man broke out of whatever memories he was locked in. Green eyes blinked rapidly as though surprised - though he didn't know what had gotten his attention - pain and longing and anguish disappearing from his face for but a moment. A second later and something dark flashed in his eyes, harsh and cold, lonely and empty, but so short the Doctor couldn't grasp the extent of it. That was a face he'd seen in the mirror many times and more, a kind of bone deep piercing hurt like a jagged blade lodged in the heart and twisting needlessly at every provocation - every little thing with half a resemblance to what he once had.

The eyes blinked again and it was gone, curiosity settled onto the man before him, in every way, like a cloak - face twisting and posture straitening, leaning forward slightly as though to better see. Everything the Doctor had seen was gone, and before him seemed to only be an overly inquisitive man, who didn't know you're meant to run away from random explosions.

The Doctor wouldn't admit it, but he was glad the man's thoughts had evaporated; he didn't want to see the familiar pain on someone else.

He wasn't sure whether the man was a really good actor to hide it so well, or unbalanced enough to have actually repressed whatever it was. Now he was genuinely curious. It was simultaneously disturbing and impressive. He cast a sideways glance at Rose to see if she'd seen it, caught the flash of darkness and pain and things supressed, pushed down, ignored and better left alone.

She hadn't and was instead looking at him askance, clearly wondering why he was in something of an impromptu staring contest - a competition to see and read and know and learn, to understand the man before him as the other was undoubtedly trying to do of him. Blind as she was, as everyone seemed to be.

"You're an odd man. Strangest ape I've met in a while - and I just met Charles Dickens. I'm the Doctor", The Doctor said, breaking the silence that had settled around them like fog - the outside world seemed to rush back into perception, senses expanding out from the laser focus of moments ago.

A glint entered Harry's eye, mouth slowly forming into a small smirk as he rocked back on his heels. He stuffed his hands in his pockets, looking pointedly at the man's outfit and raised a single disbelieving brow. "Harrison, and I can give you ape - rather slow and stupid race that we are", The wizard responded, making sure not to allow a show of surprise at the man's voice - the thick Northern Accent having no root in his thoughts as far as Harry could tell.

His whole response - short as it was - had been carefully thought out. Subtleties of body language and interaction being used to convey what he wanted the other to see in him. Open and backing off in posture was simple, hands in pockets closing himself off from the other slightly - not encouraging continued conversation. Agree with the man, but don't give away anything of himself. Harry didn't mention that Charles Dickens was not someone known to the general populace.

The man's thoughts were whirling again, curiosity a swirling current beneath every word. Harry didn't particularly feel like an inquisition, and also didn't feel like intruding any longer on keeping the pair in this time. Time still raced around them, reaching out to the man and caressing him, flowing and dancing and racing with him as a centre point.

It was straining against the recent scar, pushing against his stitching and Harry rather wanted it to hold for at least a week. Thus, he decided to interrupt an arduous conversation before it begun, stepping to the side slightly in preparation to start walking once more.

"Have a nice night, sir, ma'am." Harry said politely with a nod, wandering off in a leisurely fashion, down the street.

The Doctor and Rose watched Harry leave, old eyes trailing after the figure before it vanished around a corner. There was something about him, the man, something at the very edge of his mind that the Doctor couldn't quite figure out. A whisper, a hint, a mere allusion to an answer for that so familiar, so painful a look in the other's eye. A half reason, for no normal man be they human or alien or even Time Lord, could have such a heavy weight within them - he'd know and there were only so many worlds to carry on one's shoulders.

Morose thoughts were creeping into the Doctor's mind once more, memories and screams of a race forever locked away - home and family and everything that he never wanted to lose - demanding to be at the forefront of his mind once more. The demons were at his heels again, nipping at his ankles and as he always did, he did once again in his need to escape them.

He turned around to face Rose, grinned at her and offered an adventure - just to see the spark in her eye, the excitement to discover something new and exciting, different. He'd try to find things from her, to smile about again, borrow her smile and joy and excitement until he once more had his own.

Harry watched with mind and magic as the pair moved on after he left, felt the man's presence sink down into loneliness and pain as it seemed it predominantly wanted to be. A wash of determination came, tentative fragments of excitement, trying to smother the guilt and pain beneath it - to override the damaging emotions.

The second of the pair - the girl - responded in kind, her own presence flaring brightly within his magic, anticipation, eagerness and joy racing through her. From that, the other presence bolstered itself, further burying anguish and grief beneath better things. They left relatively quickly after that - a ripple through reality and a hole in space, for but a moment and closed a second later. The two time travellers were gone.

Harry continued his walk home, patching up the little tearing that had occurred as the others had left. It wasn't anything that'd last forever, but it'd hold well enough to prevent the end of everything in the near future. He could easily return every century or so to make repairs, and Death would monitor it for him.

Harry thought of the Doctor on occasion after that - usually in the context of trying to understand time and death here. The difference wasn't large, but it was puzzling and something that could be used to occupy his mind.

Conversely, the Doctor thought of Harry little. He didn't want to think on the man he'd met, who looked to carry such burdens to compare to his own. Didn't want to think of that kind of suffering, that kind of mental agony. It would be too much like looking into a mirror, and there was no use thinking on things he couldn't change.

Tell me what you think?