Full Summary: A Time Lord alone in the world is a terrible thing. When Harriet Potter regenerates at the battle of Hogwarts, nothing will ever be the same again. A first regeneration is potent, hazardous, and not one often endured alone. When the Doctor feels a shift in space and time, a swing that only the birth of a new Time Lord could cause, the chase is on. However, he's not the only one who's on the hunt. A runaway in a blue box, a madman haunted by drums, and a lucky girl are all that's left of the once great civilization. Yet, this is not the end. Only the beginning. As any good Time Lord knows, all good things take time. 10th Doctor-11th Doctor/Fem!Harry/Master

CHAPTER ONE:

The Ambitious Card Trick

The Ambitious Card Trick: a magic trick in which a playing card seems to return to the top of the deck after being placed elsewhere in the deck.

Hermione Granger's P.O.V

It was over. Voldemort was gone. They had won. Against the odds, contrary to overwhelming hardships, against death itself, Harriet Potter had triumphed. Searching across the cluttered and chaotic grounds of what was once the magnificent castle of Hogwarts, darting between families reunited, huddled in grief, mourning and rejoicing life lost and life gained, the whiff of hope was heady in the air. On the horizon, peeping out from between the gloomy trees of the forbidden forest, a new dawn was breaking, and with it, a new day came.

Hermione was crying. Hermione was laughing. Hermione was, most importantly, running. Ron Weasley's hand clasped firmly in her own trembling one. It had been hectic, that moment when Voldemort had fallen, dead, cold, like any other man, like any other human, on the shattered slabs of the courtyard. The remaining Deatheaters had crumbled, the head of the snake lopped off, and in the rush by the Order to detain who needed to be detained, from brothers scouting for sisters, mothers and daughters embracing, sons and fathers reassured in one another's arms, Harriet had seemingly disappeared in the mess of bodies.

Yet, Hermione was Harriet's best friend. She knew that girl better than she knew herself sometimes. And, crucially, she knew where Harriet had vanished off to. She would be somewhere high. Somewhere she could see the sky clearly and cleanly. Somewhere she would be able to watch the sunrise when, tragically, only a few hours ago, Hermione included, no one had thought she would see another dawn come and go.

Of course, as was usual, Hermione was right.

They found her perched on the ruined and wrecked ramparts, back to the castle, face to the soaring sun. Ron's hand slipped from her own as Hermione hurtled towards her in great, loping strides, feet bouncy against the rubble, as if her legs were made from springs rather than muscle and sinew and brittle bone. Harriet turned just in time to catch her, Hermione's arms coiling around the smaller girls thin shoulders, tight and stiff, and so very desperate. Harriet reeled back a step, they almost toppled, but none of that mattered.

"Oh, Harry! You're alive! You're alive!"

Watching your best friend die, as one would assume, was not a pleasant experience. Watching that friend, limp and blue and gone, be thrown to the floor like trash, by a lunatic with venom for blood, the man who had made all their lives a living hell, was salt in the wound. It had all been so very hopeless then. Miserable and bleak. Not because Harriet was the chosen one. Not because Harriet was meant to defeat the Dark Lord. Not because of some prophecy or scheme told or planned by men or women who should've known better than to use children to win their war, but because…

Because a world without Harriet Potter, Hermione truly believed, was a world with a little less sunshine.

A decidedly dull world Hermione Granger wanted no part in. So, when Harriet had sprung back up, fished out her wand, and took her final stand, as Voldemort died and Harriet lived… Again, it appeared everything was right in the world. Right and good and true. Ron must have thought so too, for, uncharacteristically, he was there suddenly, hugging the two girls, squeezing just as tightly as Hermione had, his voice gravelly with scarcely controlled emotion.

"Blimey, mate. You really had us going there."

They eventually hauled away from Harriet, as all good things, and one could argue a hug was the best of all good things, must come to an end, and Hermione caught the tail end of a grimace swiftly being hidden under a lopsided smile. Harriet was in pain. She was good at hiding it, yes. She always had been. However, Hermione had become adept at reading those little twitches she gave. Still, Harriet had just revived herself, fought a battle for nearly eight hours straight, and, of course, they were all feeling a little bit sore. It was nothing to worry about.

It wasn't.

"Truthfully, I think I had myself fooled too. Merlin, I feel stiff. Stiff and… Fizzy and, I think, a bit nauseous. Remind me next time, if I plan on dying again, not to do so on a full stomach."

Hermione searched Harriet's face with a keen eye. There was something… Different. Yes, different. A… Ripple. A rigidity. It reminded Hermione of a balloon with too much air, the colour translucent, the pattern of a smiley face imprinted on rubber distorting, seconds away from… Popping? Popping. The insides too full and filled to be contained by something as measly as skin. That's what happened when the inside became to big for the outside. Pop.

Nevertheless, it was definitely Harriet. Same short sawn black curls. Same evergreen eyes. Same lightning bolt scar and wonky circle glasses on an upturned nose. Same round cheeks and pointed chin and impish smile. That was her friend, alright. So, why did something sink in the very pit of Hermione's gut? It could be, she supposed, now that the wonder of having her friend alive, actually alive, was waning, the confusion of exactly how that came to be was beginning to rear its ugly head. Hermione had never been good at handling the unknown or not having an answer.

"How did you do it? Did Dumbledore leave you something? A spell? Time-turner? The cloak? Was it the cloak?"

Harriet frowned at her, eyes rolling up to the brightening sky as if it could give her the answer. Perhaps, if the sky was feeling kind, all of the answers. Hermione chewed her lip. It had to be something, didn't it? And if it was something, a spell or hex, or book or object, then maybe that was what was hurting her friend, what made her seem, well, like she was swelling but not swelling right out of her body at the same time.

Or, conceivably, Hermione was overtired, overworked, and in dire need of a good sit down.

"I just… Came back."

Now it was Hermione's turn to frown deeply, sluggishly enunciating each word with the carefulness of incredulity.

"Just… Came… Back…"

As if it made perfect sense, which, with Harriet, it likely did to her and no one else, she grinned and shrugged her shoulders, her gaze falling back to a frazzled mud-streaked Hermione. It's sunny today, isn't it? The post has come. I've brushed my teeth. I just came back from the dead. Genial. Mundane. Completely, wholly, irrevocably bonkers.

"Yeah. I just came back."

Hermione shook her head violently in disbelief. For all these years, through all these trials, one thing remained constant. Harriet Potter was an odd one. She always had been. If she weren't running about on some half-baked scheme on a hair trigger, half-mad, half-genius, half-something else entirely, that somehow, ironically, worked, though Harriet only swore she was just lucky, she was baffling everybody around her.

She liked to draw, Hermione thought. Or, more aptly, Harriet needed to draw. Intricate sketches and illustrations lining any paper or parchment she got her hands on, and sometimes a wall or floor or her own arms if she could find no paper, as if she needed to let the image out, exorcise it from that dense mind of hers. Cityscapes of great domed cities with high spires, foreign and beautiful. Machinery Hermione had never seen before, couldn't even dream of, and, really, couldn't hope to fathom even when Harriet would tell her what it was or what it did. Swirls and spirals of codes and numbers, never ending, winding. On a few occasions, she'd accidentally handed one or two of them in for homework. Even McGonagall, the smartest witch Hermione knew, didn't know what they were and couldn't make heads or tails of it. And what did Harriet say when questioned?

They just come to me sometimes.

Rarely, she had dreams. Peculiar dreams. Hermione only knew because the two girls shared a dormitory. She'd wake up laughing sometimes, yet, crying or shouting more often than not, in a language Hermione couldn't understand. Maybe it was no language at all. Harriet never remembered her dreams. Hermione had asked her once, what the one word she kept hearing meant. Harry had looked at her blankly, puzzled in a way that reminded Hermione of a toddler. Innocent and endearing.

I have no fucking clue what Dalek means, Hermione. Sounds German. Why? Please tell me this isn't going to be on our O.W.L's . I'm already bored with the laws of transfiguration. Laws? Laws? Who needs laws in magic, anyway? It's all a loud of bullshit if you ask me.

Then, most extraordinary of all, were those little instances where Harriet seemingly… Knew things. She'd pull you away from the library bookcase right before, as luck would have it, it fell and slammed on top of your head. Without looking, she'd tell you to tie your shoelace or you'd fall down the moving stairs, only for you to forget and right as you trip, exactly where she said you would, on your way to potions, a hand would shoot out of the crowd and grab you, balance you, Harry grinning from the throng with a sing-song I told you. Just as you were lifting that cauldron cake up to bite, she'd whistle. I wouldn't do that if I were you. You're going to get sick and miss a lesson on Druid Runes. Runes that will come up in the next test. Oddly enough, Druid runes would be on the next test, and as you glanced back, frowning, confused, wondering if the professor had unfairly given Harriet the heads up, she'd only wink at you from across the room.

Yet, regardless of all this, or because of it, coming back to life was far flung from drawings, dreams and divination. It was in a league of its own. As Hermione knew her flaws intimately, her need to know all the answers a crippling one, this was not something she could easily let go of. Of course, she could have been less shrill about it.

"People don't just come back to life, Harry! Not even witches and wizards! That's impossible!'"

Harry's mouth opened, white teeth glinting, and Hermione knew what was coming. The same thing that came every time Hermione, or anybody, said something was impossible to Harry. How can impossibility be impossible, when I'm and possible is in it? It's almost like it's daring me to try! Thankfully, before the two witches could break down into an old argument about semantics and how vernacular doesn't work that way, Ron smoothly butted in.

"Leave it, Hermione. We'll figure it out later. Come on, you're looking a little peaky there, Harry. Let's get you inside. Coming back from the dead can't be that easy, can it?"

He was right. Obviously, he was right. There was a sheen to her now, sweat glistening on brow-bone, that flowing but not flowing still undulating just underneath the surface. For a moment, Hermione felt guilty. So very apologetic. Here Harry stood, grinning through the pain, having just survived the greatest battle their kind had ever known, and Hermione was interrogating her. Doggedly, she stomped down on any questions, on the meandering concern nibbling at her intestines, and began to follow the pair back to Hogwarts. It was over. Voldemort was gone. They had won.

"Easier than McGonagall's detentions, I'll tell you that."

Ron chuckled, so did Hermione and Harry, but the latter's cut off steeply into a sharp intake of breath. Harry's hand shot to her stomach, wrapping into her torn shirt, pressing in tightly as her steps stumbled and veered off to the side a tad.

"You alright there, Harry?"

Hermione asked as she stretched for her friend, but Harry waved it off before the limb could reach her arm, determinedly walking forth, talking over her shoulder.

"Just a stitch. A headache too. Who the hell is playing those drums? Tell them to stop it. I can't think straight."

Hermione's pace puttered off to a halt pathetically, Ron tumbling into her side as he too froze, knocking into her side. Harry, bless her, carried right on walking back, one, two, three, seven steps before she realized she was walking, or limping, alone. Sluggishly, she stopped too, as she turned to face them, one eyebrow tilted high underneath her scar. She was almost hunched over, with that hand pressed into her side as it was.

"What drums?"

Ron's head cocked to the side, as he echoed Hermione's hesitancy.

"Yeah, I don't hear any drums?"

Harriet glanced between them, from Hermione to Ron, Ron to Hermione, and back again, chuckling a laugh that gently perished to silence like a spluttering candle caught in the wind. Her smile strained on her face as she waited, hush drifting, as if she expected them to tell her got you! and say it was the twins or Ginny, or perhaps even the centaurs in the forest celebrating. When nothing of the like came, she blinked rapidly at them, once again a child, once again naive and charming.

"You can't? Really? They're nearly deafening! It's all I can do but not have my head bloody burst. Shite… They're getting louder! Are you sure you can't hear them!? How can you not hear them?! They're screaming!"

As if to extenuate her point, her hand darted away from her stomach, palms to ears as she rubbed vigorously, head tilted in such a way as if she could scrub the noise right out her head and have it fall out her other ear. It was true too, since they had caught up with Harriet, she had been speaking a little… Louder. But, Hermione thought, that was normal. Normal. They had been in a battle. Explosions had gone off. Ravenclaw Tower had come down with the worst bang Hermione had ever heard, and Harry had been close to the crash site at the time.

"Harry, maybe we should sit you down and get someone to-"

Hermione took a lone step forward, but Harriet backed away, ambling off to the stairs that would lead to the courtyard bellow.

"I'm fine. Honestly. I might have just popped an eardrum. Voldemort did clobber me around the head at one point. Let's just find Molly and Arthur, and get out of here to-"

She never made it to the stairs. She got a few feet away before she grunted and spasmed, contorting horribly as if someone had crucio'd her. Harriet's legs gave out from beneath her and she went sinking to the floor on bent knee and skinned elbow. Hermione dived for her, hollering.

"Harry!"

Hermione collapsed alongside her, almost twisting her ankle on a loose bit of roof tile blown onto the battlement from the attack on Gryffindor turret. She thought her shin might be bleeding, but she could not feel it or care to. Harry was on her hands and knees, pushing, heaving, falling all over again when the strength refused to stay in her loose trembling limbs. Hermione grappled for her shoulders, encircled an arm around her chest, hoisted her up, this little newborn fawn skating on ice, and plopped her down, leaning Harriet heavily on her side, head lolling on her shoulder, up, sitting. She had stopped struggling, but she was shaking something fiercely, mumbling to herself.

"Dizzy… Dizzy… That's all… That's all…"

Hermione rolled her head back from lolling to the side, spotted the blown pupils, so wide her eyes were almost black, pale, so pale, and burning to the touch. Something was wrong. Something was dreadfully wrong. No. No! They had… They had won. It was over. Finished. The sun was rising. A new day was coming. They were meant to-…

They were meant to be happy now. They were meant to grow old and grey and cranky. Harry would keep drawing her strange doodles, running off for her next big adventure at the drop of a dime, Ron would stuff his mouth to his cheeks bulged and moan about a quidditch match lost, and Hermione would exasperatedly chuckle over a scroll with a nice mug of peppermint tea in her hand and marvel, lovingly, how she ended up with these two for friends.

"Harry… You're hand… You're hands… They're…"

At Ron's unsteady voice, Hermione zipped a glimpse down to Harry's lap, where her legs laid skewed on the remains of the floor, one bent awkwardly over a small rock, hands resting lifelessly in her lap. Hermione's voice pitched high, eyes wide and, for the first time since she was a child, she stuttered.

"T-They're glowing."

Vivid golden light seeped from the very pores of her skin, creeping up her wrist and splintering across her arm like vines, smoke wisps shifting and swaying in the air. Mist and twists and searing golden heat. Harriet lifted one shivering hand up, flexed her fingers, furled and unfolded, watched as the golden light left an impression of her hand before it dissipated into the air. Her gaze met Hermione's, voice croaking, words gliding on the golden light pouring out between pallid lips.

"Well… That doesn't seem normal."

She tried to joke, but the gasping cough carried with a puff of golden smoke cut her off brutally. The golden light was there too, smouldering out the corners of her eye, blazing in the pupil and irises. Hermione couldn't tear her gaze away, it was bright, almost too bright, too hot, it was hurting to touch her, to be so close, but she couldn't look away. She could, however, she found, call frantically to Ron.

"Get McGonagall! Remus! Molly! Anybody! Ronald! Go now!"

Hermione didn't see Ron go, but she heard the pound of his heavy footsteps beating on the brick. Harriet contorted again, bone creakingly, bent right out her arms with a half-bitten scream and all Hermione could do was lower her to the ground, hold on, watch as her dear friend crooked and crumpled and writhed hard enough she nearly arched herself up of the floor. Her neck craned back, tendons taut, snapping beneath the skin, and Hermione saw the golden light inching up the pale column.

"Stay with me Harry. Help is coming. Do you hear me? Help is coming. Just hold on a bit longer. We'll-… We'll fix this. You see. Everything's going to be fine. Harry? Harry, can you hear me? Please, Harry, don't do this. Not now. Please. Just hold on, okay? Help is coming. Please."

Harriet wilted, sagging, breath fast and hard and faltering, and Hermione jostled for her hand, crushed, kept, held. Those glowing eyes floated up to the sky above them, glistening, gleaming, and then… Then she was smiling. Broadly. Toothily. Hermione had to drop her hand. It was too hot. Blistering.

"I see the stars. I can see them all. Can you see them, Hermione? They're beautiful… So beautiful… Countless stars… Endless wonder. I think I would like to go there one day."

She's smiling. She's smiling and dying and erupting in golden light and, yes, yes it's beautiful and tragic, and something warm and wet trickled down Hermione's cheek and dripped from her quivering chin. The crack of apparition echoed out behind her. Hermione whirled around, spotted Remus and McGonagall, as war torn and bloody as she and Harriet, standing between the wreckage and ruin. They saw her too. They saw Harriet on the ground. Glowing.

"Help! Please! It's Harry! I think she's dying!"

Remus sprinted for the clustered duo. Hermione cried. Harry thrashed. McGonagall lifted her wand. It was all too late.

"Harriet!"

Harriet wrenched one last time, and Hermione went sailing through the air on a flare of unseen force, boiling heat. Hermione crashed into professor Lupin, he barely managed to catch her as the two plunged to the ground in a heap of entangled extremities and winded groans. The two wrestled for a moment, slipping and sliding and elbowing as they fought to a stand. It hurt, boy did it hurt, but she was okay. Alive. By the muted swearing of Lupin, he was too. Squinting, wheezing, confused and terrified, Hermione glanced up just in time to see Harriet…

Explode.

Light, gilded, unadulterated and pure, exploded about them in a surge of a star going supernova, in the middle, the spectre of her friend stretched and scattered. Hermione grimaced, hand racing to her face, to shield herself from the blinding light. She could barely see McGonagall guard her own face with her arm, or Remus crouch within himself. Then, as fast as it came, it faded. Gone.

Hermione briskly blinked away the white spots obscuring her vision. Gradually, her hand dropped from her face. No one spoke. No one dared breath. There Harriet was, partially buried by a bolder, one leg peaking out from behind the debris. Still. Silent. Away. Hermione hobbled forward, closer, sobbing, aching, reaching. No. Not like this. It wasn't fair. It wasn't-

The body lurched up, over the bolder, with a dramatic gasp, as if the person had been drowning, sitting up tall and proud and, unmistakably, perplexed as they looked all around them with stunned, curious eyes.

But it wasn't Harriet. Not Hermione's Harriet. It was all… Wrong. Her hair was curly, yes, but longer, brushing shoulder not earlobe, no more black but a red that touched on burnished copper. Her face was not right, away was the suppleness, the soothing lines and slopes, replaced by a fox-like grace of keen angles and wiry strength, and… Dimples. The girl had dimples. Her brows were too thick, her legs too long, her body too thin, nimble and lithe and-

Silver eyes. Silver bloody eyes and-

It wasn't Harriet where Harriet had been and-

A stranger. A total and utter stranger.

Hermione spoke without meaning to, her mind a jumbled box of rattling, displaced thoughts.

"Harry? Is that you?"

The silver eyes locked on her. One eyebrow cocked high in a slant Hermione knew all too well. A different body, a different face, different eyes and a different gaze. Yet, somehow, someway, Hermione knew, just knew, that was, one way or another, Harriet.

"Who else would it bloody be? Did I pass out? Wait… Is that my voice? Why do I sound so strange? What accent is that? What-… Blah…. Blugh… Bloo… My mouth feels funny… Toothpaste… Toooooothpaste… Toothpaaaaaaste… See? My tongue…"

Her hands bolted to her face, tugging and stretching the skin, probing into mouth and yanking lip, sliding up to nose and pulling ruthlessly. In any other circumstance, with any other person, Hermione might have wept. Instead, she laughed, she laughed so loud and so long it hurt, because, really, when it came to Harriet, it was either that or lose your bloody mind.

"Why are you all looking at me like that?"

Would You Like To See More?

A.N: I've been sitting on this fic for a while now, a long while truthfully, as it's actually one of the first fics I ever wrote. It's a lot different to what I normally write, a bit more whimsical and free, and I think that was the reason I've hesitated in posting it for so long. However, I had a lot of fun writing it and planning it out, and thought if anybody else might enjoy it, even just one person, that's reason enough to send it out into the big wide web! So, here it is! I really hoped you enjoyed chapter one, and if you have a spare moment or two, please drop a review.

Timeline: As we can see, it's set just after the final battle of Hogwarts, and in Doctor Who-verse, this fic is set just at the end of Doomsday season 2, but before the episode Runaway Bride and the introduction of Donna Noble. Expect heavy AU and huge liberties taken from both canons.