Title: Not Your Average Muggle

Author: TardisIsTheOnlyWaytoTravel

Pairings: None in particular.

Story Summary: Nineteen year old Harry Potter is breaking into Voldemort's secret base when he meets two exploring muggles, one of whom calls himself the Doctor… Doctor Who x Harry Potter crossover.

Setting: Two years after Harry's seventh year. Deviates from Harry Potter books after the Department of Mysteries. More or less follows Doctor Who canon (whatever that may be) until half way through series three, ignoring the Shakespeare episode.

Author notes:

I would write this in first-person for either the Doctor or Martha as well, but frankly I don't have any idea how they think and don't want to make them OOC, whereas Harry is supposed to be OOC.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NOT YOUR AVERAGE MUGGLE

CHAPTER TWO

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Hang on, wizard?" Martha was smiling in half-nervous disbelief. "You're joking, right?"

I just smiled at her.

"What, you're serious?" She glanced at the Doctor. "But… magic can't be real."

"Fascinating," the Doctor mused, gazing at me with a serious stare that I was sure meant something if I only knew what. "It's been a long time since I last came across someone with magic, don't think I ever met any humans with magic either. You've even got little wands, too!" Delight shone through there. "And oh, of course magic can be real. When you come down to it it's just a different sort of science really. Your lot," he nodded at Martha, "went into maths and physics and things, while this lot," he tipped his head in my direction, "channelled their investigations into magic. 'Sides, if magic isn't real, how come he can channel power through that stick, hmm?"

"It's called a wand," I pointed out coldly, offended. A wand is what makes a wizard a wizard, and we don't take kindly to having them insulted. I explained this to Hermione once when she wanted to know why Neville made such a fuss about his wand being broken back at the end of seventh year, but all she did was mutter something about rampant Freudian symbolism.

"But surely someone'd notice a bunch of witches and wizards around?" Martha protested. I felt like I was dealing with another Hermione. It left me with a nice nostalgic feeling. I grinned at her.

"Of course they do," I said indulgently, "but if you take an average person and give them a choice between believing someone is a wizard or believing they're just on oddly dressed weirdo and your mind is playing tricks on you, which one d'you think they're going to pick?" I changed the setting of my grin to 'evil.' "Besides, anytime someone does anything too obviously magical we simply fiddle around with their memories and make them forget."

"That's horrible!" Martha said. She was looking horrified again. The Doctor looked inscrutable. My grin was wry this time.

"So's being burnt at the stake or dissected by a bunch of overenthusiastic scientists who never passed Professional Ethics," I pointed out, which made her frown and go quiet, clearly disturbed. "I mean, hey, we've got to look out for ourselves, right? Not our fault the muggles couldn't handle us."

"Muggles?" the Doctor questioned.

"Non-magical people."

"Oh, I see."

He looked like he wanted to ask more, but Martha was talking again.

"You might have been burnt in the Middle Ages, but that was centuries ago!" I glanced back. Her brown eyes were big and earnest in the darkness. "People have civilised since then!"

I shook my head sadly. So like Hermione. I whirled on her and she took a step back as I loomed over her, channelling my anger and frustration into my words. Hermione had been one of those rare people who should have been born in some future Golden Age and was born into our era by mistake. Brilliant, compassionate, and so essentially civilised that deep down she simply couldn't believe, despite what her intellect told her, that other people weren't as essentially decent as she was. Her refusal to believe had cost Hermione her life.

"You say people are too civilised to fear and despise us," I spat. "Fear and hatred of difference has been reinforced by millions of years of evolution. It's not going to disappear all of a sudden just because we can think. Oh sure, everyone seems reasonable on the surface, but deep down, underneath, where their thoughts and fears and instincts are, there's a monster that says that any difference is a dangerous mutation and a threat to the species and – must – be – exterminated." I glared at her. "People are not really civilised. It's a veneer, nothing more." I turned to stalk onwards.

"Someone hurt you, didn't they?" her voice said softly. I stopped. Even the same goddamn perceptiveness. I continued walking on.

"My aunt and uncle." I spoke abruptly. "I was a baby when my parents died so they raised me. Their greatest fear in life was the abnormal, and they had a wizard living in their house. I wasn't a person to them. I was the personification of everything they hated and feared. They treated me accordingly."

To my surprise she didn't say anything, merely continued following, the distress coming off her in waves.

-

"Tell me," the Doctor murmured thoughtfully as I peered around a corner, "what's he like, this Dark Lord of yours?"

"Well, he tends to meet all the criteria of your standard stereotypical Dark Lord," I said, motioning them forward. "Psychopathic, highly intelligent, brilliant even, but too blinded by his own arrogance and perceive superiority. Insists on telling me all about his evil plans and how worthless I am and how he is going to kill me, now, like this, every time he captures me, which usually gives the rescue squad enough time to get there. He tortures and murders people, as do his minions, and his goal is to take over the wizarding world and ensure blood purity among the wizards. That help?"

"A bit, yes." He joined me in peering round the next corner while Martha tried to peer through the gap left between our heads. "Shouldn't someone have noticed we're here? I mean, we've been walking around for half an hour, and chatting. You'd think someone'd've heard us."

I smirked.

"You'd think so, but the Death Eaters are the dumbest bunch known to man; we've managed to hit most of the few smart ones. Hermione used to say it's all the inbreeding." Oh damn. Said the name. Now they're going to ask me…

"Who's Hermione?" Thank you Martha. Right on cue.

"Dead," I said abruptly. "Was the smartest witch to go through Hogwarts school in decades, but her parents weren't witches which meant to the purebloods she lacked that certain sort of something." I stomped ahead down the hallway. "And she was on my side of course. So she's dead." And boy does that hurt, even now. "Anyway, nope, half the time they don't even patrol the place, and you know when they're coming because they talk to each other at the top of their voices, incidentally usually about some Top Secret Plan. Morons."

"What, seriously?" Martha asked. "I thought that was just something for bad movies."

"Oh, you'd be surprised," the Doctor said, joining Harry at the next corner. "One of my greatest enemies used to tell me all his evil plans, actually. You'd think a Time Lord would have more sense."

A what?

"A what?" I asked sharply. Tenseness. He knew he'd said something he shouldn't. He stuck his hands in his coat pockets to try and hide it,

"Oh, it doesn't matter, just something we called ourselves, a bit conceited really, smacks of hubris, you'd think we'd never…"

"Doctor."

He glanced sideways at me, met the Person of Steel look, and sighed.

"Time Lords," he said vaguely, "ancient and powerful race from the planet Gallifrey capable of travelling through space and time. Just me now, though." He looked pensive.

"Aliens." I looked sceptical.

"Mmm-hmm." His voice was light and casual. "Do some kind of spell if you don't believe me. I've got two hearts."

Raising an eyebrow I cast Madam Pomfrey's favourite basic diagnostic spell.

"Great blazing hells."

"Better than wizards, isn't it?" Martha asked with some satisfaction.

This was going to require greater explanation.

-

"Hang on," the Doctor complained as I cast three successively more refined diagnostic spells in quick succession, "can you not do that? it's giving me an itch under my right lung."

"Oh, only two of those then?" I asked in feigned surprise, completely ignoring his request, "I'd've thought maybe you'd have four or something, seeing as how you have twice as many hearts as you're supposed to."

"Hey, listen –" Martha began, but I turned my wand on her too.

"You an alien googamoogah from the planet bill too?" I got the results, "nope, standard average human, bar some strange energy readings and some really great cross-brain connections. You play sport as a kid?" Back to the Doctor.

"Yeeaargh!"

He yelped as I zapped him in the foot. He straightened up, full of authority.

"Now look," he looked annoyed now as he flashed first blue, then green, "I'm an alien, from another planet, 'kay? That's it. I'm not out to hurt anyone, I'm not part of some massive conspiracy or takeover threat, I'm just your friendly neighbourhood alien who was passing through, noticed something a bit odd and stopped off to have a look. That's all. Handle that or don't, but either way stop shooting the spells at me."

He waited, eyes meeting mine, annoyed but patient. I took a deep breath.

Another.

"Sorry," I said after about a minutes silence. "Panicked a bit there. I've come across a lot of things before, butaliens are a new one on me."

"Oh, that's all right," the Doctor gestured my apologies away, "perfectly understandable. Normal human reaction, eh?"

"Yeah," I agreed. "And Martha?"

"Yeah?"

"As Parvati would tell you, 'it so does not beat wizards, you sad, sad girl.' "

I dropped the accent and beamed.