ROAD NOT TAKEN: FIC & ART: Burning Up A Sun (Just to Say Goodbye) Title: Burning Up A Sun (Just to Say Goodbye) Author/Artist:writcraft Rating: PG-13 for fic, G for art Word count: ~2,500 Media: Digital art using tablet Content/Warning(s): (highlight for spoilers) *A Harry Potter fusion with Doctor Who, with Severus as the Doctor and Harry as his companion. The story is told from the point of view of the TARDIS. Warning for the suggestion of future major character death and regeneration.* Summary:He's like fire and ice and rage. He's like the night and the storm in the heart of the sun… He's ancient and forever. He burns at the centre of time and can see the turn of the universe… and... he's wonderful A/N: This was much, much harder to write than expected but I had a lot of fun with this fusion. There aren’t spoilers as such but I have taken liberty with some quotes and references from various seasons and characters in the New Doctor Who, including the title and summary. Please forgive any abuse of the laws of time travel. Thanks to A for the beta and to the mods for running this exciting and challenging fest.
Burning Up A Sun (Just to Say Goodbye)
The next regeneration took us both by surprise.
He spent longer in front of the mirror than usual, patting his cheeks and taking in every line and detail of his new features, from the hooked nose to the thin lips, which he pursed together in exasperation while he contemplated his new face. His eyes were darker than before and his hearts beat rapidly as he turned left and then right, taking in a slim frame which bore scars he clearly didn’t remember getting.
He had taken on the figure of a man who had seen battle – more than once. The universe had chosen to give him the form of someone capable of waging a bloody war. He had become a warrior – a dark knight, floating through the sky on his way to oblivion. I knew from his black expression that this one would be a man brimming with vengeance and moral ambiguity. My heart shivered and shimmered at the sight of him and I wondered if there would ever be a fitting companion for this Doctor.
I suspected not. I thought he would be the sort that preferred to travel alone.
He settled on black clothes. Black, with lots of buttons. A tunic buttoned high to the neck and cuffs with sliver buttons on the edge. Black trousers, black boots and a momentary flash of silver well hidden beneath the hem of his garments. His overcoat was long, and when he stalked around me, the fabric would sweep out behind him and billow just enough to make him appear taller than his average stature.
No, I didn’t imagine he would want for company. I imagined he would brood at my console, running his hands over my buttons and talking about suitably depressing things while we travelled through space and time.
How wrong I was.
* * *
The boy arrived somewhere between one galaxy and the next, welcomed inside only because I decided to open my doors to him when he knocked. I think I knew even then that there was something special about him.
“Harry Potter.” He held out his hand and unhooked his cape, his face smudged with dirt and perspiration. “Pleased to meet you. Blimey, this place is bigger on the inside.”
“Indeed.” I couldn’t help but giggle at the way the Doctor scowled.
“Well, aren’t you going to tell me who you are?” Harry laughed with me, clearly not intimidated in the slightest. I liked him even better then – his laugh was warm and made me glow inside and out.
“I’m the Doctor.” He said it through gritted teeth and looked down his nose at the new arrival with a haughtiness that wasn’t becoming.
Harry frowned. “Doctor who?”
I smiled and the Doctor snorted.
We’d both heard that one before, too.
* * *
“I think I’ve been trapped for at least a decade.” Harry looked at a strange contraption on his wrist and gave it a shake. “In some kind of vortex which might as well have been a cupboard under the stairs for all the space I had.” He stretched and yawned, almost purring with contentment. “This is much better. Roomy.”
“You can’t stay.” Horrified, the Doctor began to pace and gave his robes a theatrical billow, which didn’t appear to bother the new arrival in the slightest. “I’m not in the habit of providing living space to foolish little brats who haven’t yet grasped the finer points of time travel.”
“I’ve got the details just fine, thanks.” Harry shrugged. “It was an accident which could have happened to anyone. Besides, you don’t have to take me on holiday to your favourite planet or anything.” He winked, and I had to admire his cheek. “We’ll save that for when we know each other a little better.”
“I can assure you we will never know one another well enough for that.” The Doctor pursed his lips. “If you don’t wish to sit here for the foreseeable future making my TARDIS look untidy, where do you wish to go?”
“Earth.” Harry’s easy smile vanished and his face took on a grim, determined look which made my heart flutter. “There’s a war coming.”
* * *
If Harry was a soldier, he was a reluctant one. He preferred chocolate digestives and hot mugs of tea to fighting, and frequently proclaimed that toast with lashings of butter and marmalade was one of his favourite things. He would let his fingers get sticky with jam and hum with satisfaction, sucking his fingers into his mouth one by one.
“You’re like a child. I don’t appreciate crumbs all over the place,” the Doctor snapped, thinking I didn’t feel his heartbeats quicken at the way Harry licked the jam from his thumb and released it from his parted lips with a pop.
“Am I?” Harry’s brow furrowed. “I hardly think that’s fair just because of a few crumbs.”
I had to agree with the Doctor for once. Harry wasn’t a child by any means, but he wasn’t as time-worn as the Doctor. He hadn’t lived for long enough to let bitterness take its steady grip and he retained a sense of purity and hopefulness which seemed to evade the Doctor more and more as time passed.
“You must tell me about this war.” The Doctor settled back, the crumbs forgotten. I allowed him to pretend that the thought of battle piqued his interest more than a messy mop of hair and a firm body, taut and lithe.
“Yes, I suppose I should.” Harry settled into a seat and stretched his legs, crossing them at the ankle. “I should probably also tell you I’m supposed to save the world.”
“Is that so?” The Doctor arched his eyebrow and looked sceptical. “Is there any particular reason you consider yourself to be the Chosen One?”
Harry shrugged and rubbed his forehead as if it pained him. “It’s in all of the books.”
“I see.” The Doctor didn’t seem convinced, but I could tell he was intrigued. “I believe you should start from the beginning.”
Harry nodded and began to talk.
* * *
We landed in London while the Millennium celebrations were in full swing. My doors closed behind them as they argued their way onto the street and out onto the pavement before they got swept up in the crowd.
“I suppose we should have a glass of something fizzy with the Muggles. It seems rude not to.” Harry grabbed a bottle and popped the cork, taking a long swig from the bottle.
“Muggles?” The Doctor grabbed the offered bottle and took a swig of his own. “I’m not sure that’s even a word.”
“Yes, it is. A word for people who don’t time-travel. Haven’t you heard it before?”
“I’m a Time Lord. I can assure you, if I have not heard that term, it doesn’t exist.”
“Whatever you say.” Harry shrugged, amused. I could almost feel the Doctor bristle beside him and wondered if he was trying to intimidate Harry with more billowing robes and glowering.
I expected Harry wasn’t easily intimidated.
I liked him for that.
* * *
Everything changed when they returned after lingering long enough to make me worry.
The Doctor pushed his way inside and Harry dropped to the ground with a dull thud. His body was broken and his cheeks red with exertion and streaks of blood. His pain resonated through my floor and touched my heart, and I could feel my Doctor’s anger and fear as he crouched over the boy.
“Breathe. You must continue to breathe.”
“It’s just a scratch. Nothing at all, really.” Harry’s voice dipped and he raised a faltering hand to brush the Doctor’s cheek. It sent fire through his veins and left my own heart pounding as I gave Harry all of the energy I could muster. “We have to go back.”
“You little idiot. Why must you always behave so foolishly? You are impulsive and reckless. I expect you want me to be killed protecting you?”
“I don’t think so.” Harry laughed but it was weak and I understood how the movement hurt him. “I’d never want that. I told you what it said in the books. You have to stop trying to save me. I know how this ends.”
“Rubbish.” The Doctor worked to make Harry as comfortable as he could. “They are simply words on a page. Words you should never have read if you had any sense or basic grasp of the laws of time travel.”
“Have you ever wanted to believe in it?” Harry’s voice thickened and slowed to a mumble of long, drawn out words. “Magic, I mean. People with wands that could make everything alright again. Like that screwdriver of yours.”
“There is no such thing as magic – particularly not the kind of alchemy which can bring somebody back from the dead.”
“It’s not what the books say.” Harry smiled and closed his eyes. “Don’t worry, we still have time.”
“Of course we still have time,” the Doctor snapped. His worry reverberated through my core and made me tremble with fear and grief.
Harry nodded. “It won’t begin until the stars start going out.”
The Doctor growled and held Harry close to his chest, and the energy hummed through the vast space until Harry breathed steadily once more.
* * *
He lives, for now.
The Doctor saved him using some of my energy and some of his own. I know Harry feels it still, because sometimes he looks as if he can see the whole of the world and I know he can feel its pain. I can hear his heart beat now, and listen to him weep sometimes when the nights are long and the planets are dark and lonely. He feels the pain of the moon and the sun and sometimes, when he sleeps, he sees the beginning and end of time – he feels the universe turn and the chaos of the stars.
“You’re insufferable.” The Doctor brushes Harry’s hair from his forehead as they move together in the privacy of my shell, which keeps them warm after long battles and adventures.
“You don’t care,” Harry murmurs and he smiles brightly enough to make my Doctor’s hearts break. “You love me anyway.”
“You’re a hopeless romantic.” My Doctor caresses Harry’s cheek and slides his hands down Harry’s body, which he eventually claimed for his own one night after a heated argument and too much wine from a distant planet. “It’s infuriating.”
“Is it?” Harry laughs and he wraps his arms around the Doctor and pulls him into a heated kiss. They make me blush sometimes and I have to look away or pretend to avert my eyes, although I can feel every part of them when they come together.
“It is barely tolerable,” the Doctor amends. I smile with Harry at the way he protests, because we both know the truth.
“Then let me make it more tolerable.” Harry rolls his eyes and chuckles, sliding his hands over the buttons on the Doctor’s clothes and opening them one by one. He uses his lips to great effect and kisses and bites down the Doctor’s neck, leaving crescent-shapes on his skin like little moons eclipsed by shadow.
“Far be it from me to dissuade you.” The Doctor sounds light, amused and happy for once. I’m not sure why he lets himself go with Harry when he has such strict rules about this sort of thing.
The Doctor tells me one night when Harry sleeps that he’ll burn up a sun before saying goodbye. He is desperate and fierce and I wonder how this exploration of emotions will change him. I don’t think he wants to be a lonely traveller anymore, but it’s a peculiar curse of the Time Lord that keeps them living when everyone else dies.
I wonder sometimes, when the Doctor watches Harry sleep, if he believes all those stories after all. The ones about Harry Potter, the hero. The books full of magic and tales of the impossible boy.
“Doctor?” Harry turns from my open doors, where he’s taken to looking up at the sky before he sleeps.
“Hm?” The Doctor looks up from his book and his face holds the same fond look he always gets when he thinks neither of us is really looking.
Harry’s expression clouds with a flicker of surprise and confusion. I surge forward, because for a moment I think he’s going to stumble and fall. The air is suddenly cold and the chill descends until the Doctor’s breath leaves his mouth in white, visible clouds.
“The stars are going out.” Harry’s mouth sets in a firm line and he wraps his cloak around his body with a shiver. “It’s time.”
The Doctor’s fond expression falters and I sense his rage. In that one cool breath I feel every atom of his anger more deeply than before. He’s a warlord, a Time Lord, both a vehicle of destruction and the saviour of planets and suns light years away.
I wonder if there’s ever been a sun that burns as powerfully as my Doctor’s hearts when he looks out of the doors and up at the sky.
“We’ll change history.”
“No, we won’t.” Harry shakes his head and I close my doors for them both to lean against.
I take them to their destination, and I hope the books are wrong.
It’s time to believe in magic.
-The End-
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