The Mara raised itself up in one smooth motion, unnatural in speed and precision. One moment Harry Potters body was unconscious and unmoving, and the next it was sitting straight up, its eyes open and simmering with a dark red glow. The Mara had taken full control of Harry's body and by extension his magic.

"Oh, my boy, you're finally awake," came the tired voice of an old man sitting in the corner. "How are you feeling?" He asked, rising feebly to his feet.

The Mara cocked its head to one side and considered the old fool as he shuffled toward its new form. An old and weak human, usually he would have no use for such a creature. But the Doctor was here, and it had met that madman many years before. He was dangerous, wily, cunning, and the Mara would need every resource he could get his hands on to bring such a deadly opponent down.

The Mara reached into the boys pocket, the very same that Harry had reached into in the dreamscape, and was comforted to find the rugged wooden shape of a wand, completely undamaged after Harry had been dragged through the warzone above.

"Stupefy," The Mara said lazily, drawing on Harry's own knowledge of spellwork.

Though it knew what to expect the Mara was still surprised to see a red jet of highly powered energy leap from the tip of the piece of wood and impact the elderly man. The man went rigid and fell back to the ground with a loud thud. The wand, Harry's magic, was incredibly potent. Using its power rushed through the Mara like a drug, it was a power the likes this universe had never seen before. The Bad Wolf had really outdone herself this time.

But even with the power coursing through Harry's magical core, the Mara could not afford to be complacent. The Mara had encountered the Doctor before, and there was no telling what tricks he would have up his sleeve. The Mara caught a glimpse of Harry in the mirror and was struck with sudden blinding fear, it lashed out with Harry's magic and shattered the mirror in an instant. Not this time, the Mara wouldn't be banished to the dark places of the inside once again.

With a smirk on Harry's face, the Mara crept from the medical bay. "Homenum Revellio," the Mara muttered and was disappointed to find that it revealed nothing around it. That was to be expected, none of the people on this planet was strictly baseline human. They were clearly too far away from anything the spell would recognise, that would require some slight editing in the spellwork.

"Sentiens Revelio," The Mara tried again, twisting the spell slightly to seek out all sentient life, instead of just human life. The Mara felt a dramatic tug on Harry's magic, not enough to deplete the wizard's reserves any large amount, but enough to be felt. It could feel the presence of other sentient lifeforms near-instantly, presences pushing down on it from all sides. The Mara had thought its armies would have been able to pacify this planet with relative ease, it was after all just a simple human colony, but they were still having trouble in high orbit. The local systems had lent their aid too quickly, realising the Mara's empire had begun to suck up too much territory too quickly. An alliance had formed against The Mara, trying desperately to hold it back.

With so many people concentrated in such a small area, this must have been some sort of high-grade military base, that or a civilian bunker to escape from orbital bombardment. Either way, losing it would deal a heavy blow to the colonists standing in the Mara's way. The Mara smirked and began to navigate its way through the labyrinth, it would take this base right from under the Doctor's nose… and with Harry under its control, the Time Lord would be helpless to do anything about it.

~ This is a Line Break ~

Esra was finding it hard to keep up with the Doctor's incessant babbling as they made their way up to the briefing room. The Time Lord had a habit of saying an awful lot, most of it nonsense, with only brief hints of useful information buried within them. Deciphering the useful from the verbal diarrhoea was near impossible.

Despite that, Esra had managed to learn that the Doctor had in fact crashed, he had never intended to come to her planets aid. Something had happened on his ship, something to do with the boy that they had left in the medical bunkers, that he couldn't explain and it had led to them crashing. It made her concerned that they had left the boy in the care of Dr Sint. If he could take down a TARDIS just by appearing in it then he was surely a powerful being, not one to be trifled with. But the Doctor seemed to be sure that the boy wouldn't harm anyone, if he even became conscious to begin with.

The walked into the main control room while the Doctor was still mid-rant, having somehow pivoted from his musings on the battle above to the merits of combining sweet and savoury foods, citing fish fingers and custard as a prime example.

"Ah, so this is your central command hub then," The Doctor said, twirling on the spot to take the whole room in.

Computer banks lined the walls, a holographic command unit took up the centre of the room. It displayed the status of the ongoing battle around the planet in exquisite detail, providing real-time displays of ongoing orbital skirmishes. The planet was surrounded by a coalition of forces, not just from the Human Empire either. This planet had become simple in its function, a roadblock to stop the Sumaran fleet in its tracks. One small world, orbiting a standard M class star, standing up and saying no. The Doctor couldn't help but feel his hearts beat a little faster, species banding together to stop the injustices of the universe, it was very much his sort of adventure.

"Esra, may I ask who you have brought into central command?" Asked a man standing at the holo-unit. His eyes were sunken into his face, rimmed with deep bags. He clearly hadn't slept for a while, focusing entirely on the war effort. Something it seemed he was doing even while taking a moment to ask Esra his question if the small movements of his fingers and the three wires jutting out of his head and into the command console were anything to go by.

"Oh, now that is Cool with a capital C!" The Doctor exclaimed, cutting off Esra before she could reply and pulling out his sonic screwdriver. He gave the man a brief scan and let out an impressed whistle. "Linking your neural pathways directly into the battle computer so you can have complete command over the fleet, using your brain as part of the computer," he babbled, "Dangerous that is, human neurology isn't meant to handle that much data for too long, and you've been going at it for far too long… I'm the Doctor, by the way!"

The man's eyes widened, his gaze darted between the Doctor and Esra. "Does he speak the truth, Esra, is he really… The Doctor?"

"Yes sir," Esra replied, "I found his ship out sen-zone, just before it was beamed up. It was a wonder the idiot hadn't been scorched!"

"But this… this changes everything," the man breathed, barely able to stifle a cough "We might actually have a chance!"

"Doctor, this is Grand Strategist Alcom, he's… well, he's the last surviving strategist we have. He's leading all our remaining orbital defence forces and liaising with the ships that have entered the fight to help defend against the Sumaran Empire," Esra explained.

"But he's been going for too long," The Doctor said, scanning him again, slower this time. "His mind has been heavily altered from the base human standard of this era, he's able to parse much more incoming data, but even for a mind engineered like that… directing an entire battle group for an extended period of time? It's taking its toll, isn't it Alcom?"

The old man shook his head, "This planet is my home Doctor, and look at what the Sumaran Empire has done to it. Laid waste to everything, killed almost all of its people," A tear trickled down his cheek. "When I think about what has happened here, what could yet happen on other worlds if ours was to fall and the Sumaran's were allowed to continue to ravage this galaxy unimpeded… it doesn't bear thinking about Doctor."

The Doctor nodded in understanding. He had fought in a war on a scale bigger than even this, and when he was the last one who was willing to stand up and do what was right, he had no choice but to answer that call. Even if it was a choice that burned in him every waking moment. The Doctor gave the man a smile, one that crinkled the corners of his eyes.

"Okay then," he said, tossing his screwdriver from hand to hand. "First thing's first, I'm gonna need my TARDIS back. The Sumaran's shouldn't be able to get inside her, but a TARDIS in the wrong hands is dangerous even with the doors closed. That means we need to get up into orbit."

"All surface to space shuttles are destroyed instantly, we have a transmat grid, but getting our signals through the disruptor field and onto a friendly ship is a bit of a gamble," Esra said, "we may end up getting intercepted and shunted over to an enemy craft, or worse, deep space."

"I should be able to keep that from happening," Alcom interrupted, "If I direct our forces to concentrate fire on their disruptor ships it'll give you a much greater chance of landing on the designated target."

"But if you do that, you'll be leaving this base, yourself, open to an orbital strike," Esra said, "It's a chance they won't miss, you know that Alcom."

"Esra please," Alcom said, giving the woman a sad smile. "I'm an old man and the Doctor is here. You won't need my oversight any longer."

"Ah yes, The Doctor is here, the saviour to all your problems," a voice spat from the entranceway, dripping with acid.

The Doctor recognised the voice immediately, how could he not, the movies had been favourites of so many of his companions and this Harry Potter was clearly based around Daniel Radcliffe. There were differences, of course. This Harry stood a little taller than the actor, his face was older and more rugged. If you saw him on the street you might not quite realise who you were looking at, but the voice was unmistakable.

"Harry," The Doctor gasped, and took an involuntary step back.

"Not quite," Harry hummed, "I'm sure you'll figure it out if you try hard enough, but by then it'll already be too late…"

"Doctor? What's going on?" Esra asked, moving to stand in front of Alcom. "I thought you said this guy was harmless? A hero on his world?"

"Ahh, yes, well," The Doctor laughed, his eyes focused on the wand held deftly in the boys hand. If that energy was anything to go by, Harry could probably use that wand just as one would expect such a wand to be used. "I'm missing something, probably something big and obvious and right in front of my face really. You know, thinking about it, the Sumaran Empire does ring a bell, not sure why. The red eyes look familiar too, that's not normal even for someone bathed in Artron radiation like Harry is."

"Stalling for time isn't going to work Doctor, you've defeated me once, I won't let it happen again," The thing inside Harry's body sneered, before almost lazily yelling out "Bombarda!"

The creature had clearly expected the spell to explode right in the midst of the Doctor's group, but he was dismayed to see it harmlessly bounce off of a forcefield. The exploding charm did nothing but cause a few energy ripples across the surface of the field. The low level magic the creature had been keeping itself to so far clearly wasn't going to cut it.

"I've started the transmat lock sequence," the old man exclaimed, "I'll hold it off with the forcefield and get you out of here."

"But Alcom… whoever that is, clearly they aren't going to hesitate at killing you," Esra cried, making a move to stop the man.

"Esra, please. I'm old, I'm dying. I've got maybe days left in me, if that. Let me do this, child, let me save you," Alcom replied, lifting a hand to stroke her face.

"Doctor, stop him," Esra said, but the Doctor wasn't responding. He was standing, wide eyed with fear at the man in front of him. The creature wearing its skin. He knew what it was, he had seen it before. Only then it hadn't been as powerful, it had been in a normal human companion. Teegan didn't have such strength to be abused by The Mara.

"Ah Doctor, I see that recognition in your face, you've worked out exactly what I am, haven't you," The Mara taunted from behind the forcefield. "Bombarda Maxima!"

The Explosion was much more powerful this time, cracks rippled out from the impact site and for just a moment the light blue of the forcefield flickered. It wouldn't be able to take much more punishment.

"I wonder, Doctor. There's one spell in this strange human's mindscape, one that must never be used above all others," The Mara began to lecture. "I wonder, could a Time Lord regenerate from… AVADA KEDAVRA!"

A beam of sickly green light lept from the tip of Harry's wand, broiling hot with the rage of the Mara behind it. The spell punched clean through the flickering blue forcefield, shattering it entirely. But The Doctor was already disappearing. The spell passed clean through his flickering form as the Transmat lock took hold. The last thing he and Esra saw was the green light striking Alcom in the chest, the old man crumpling to the ground.

The Mara let out a harsh bark of laughter, twisted on the spot, and disappeared in a clap of displaced air.