HP/DW: Clarke's Third Law (15/20)
Summary: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. So what happens when witch meets scientist, and each tries to teach the other about their brand of magic? Things become a tad confusing. And more than a bit fantastic. Doctor/Rose
Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who or Harry Potter. I'm not nearly that brilliant.
Note: Rewrites of Rise of the Cybermen and Age of Steel.
Chapter 14: Weasleys' World Wide Corp.
Rose, Hugo, and the Doctor ambled quietly through the streets, doing their best not to draw attention to themselves. It was rather difficult, however, considering that they (at least, she and Hugo), were gaping like tourists.
“This is so weird,” she muttered, watching incredulously as a man apparated in the middle of London, not a care in the world.
Magic, it seemed, was the order of the day here. It was as though Diagon Alley had exploded in central London. Everywhere Rose looked, she saw signs of wizardry: owls, robes, brooms, and flying cars.
“Look at that!” Hugo declared, watching as one car floated easily through the sky. “It looks like that Flying Ford Anglia that Dad used to tell us about, remember?”
“The one he and Uncle Harry flew into a tree,” Rose confirmed, “and the one that Grandpa designed himself.”
“I think that is far more interesting,” the Doctor said, brooding. Rose frowned and looked at where he was gesturing. At first, it took Rose a moment to see what he was pointing out. When she did, she almost retched.
In an image reminiscent of pictures Rose had seen of the United States, pre-civil rights movement. They had studied it in Muggle Studies. Two fountains, side by side, one lovely and clean, the other, not so much.
The nice one was labeled “Wizard.”
The word “Muggle” was scrawled onto the filthy one.
“It looks like pureblood supremacy finally won out in this universe,” grimaced Hugo.
“More like wizarding superiority,” the Doctor corrected critically. Seeing their perplexed expressions, the Doctor added, “It looks like the prejudice extends only to those of non-magical blood. Anybody with magic, regardless of blood status, is likely to be accepted into society with few problems.”
“But what about muggleborns!” Rose defended. “Or half-bloods-!”
“I don’t know, Rose,” the Doctor huffed “I’m just speculating. I could be dead wrong- well, probably not dead wrong. Maybe just a bit wrong. A tad? Maybe an iota. Or an inkling! Yes, I quite like that. ‘Inkling.’ Rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, it does, Doctor,” Rose said patronizingly.
The Doctor looked at her suspiciously. “Why do I have the feeling that you, Rose Weasley, are patronizing me?”
“Maybe because I’m making it blatantly obvious, Doctor?” Rose retorted without missing a beat. Hugo laughed and the Doctor “harrumphed.”
He crossed his arms and pouted. Rose bumped him with her hip and grabbed one of his arms, taking his hand. She smiled up at him and, in no time at all, he was grinning right back.
“I wonder what else is different?” Hugo said after a moment, looking away with a small smile on his face, as though he knew something that neither she or the Doctor did.
“He’s still alive for one thing,” Rose said softly, looking at a poster.
Hugo frowned. “Who?”
Rose walked over the poster and tore it down. The Doctor and her brother came up behind her. Together, they gazed down at the words written on the poster.
WWW: WEASLEYS' WORLD WIDE
TRUST US ON THIS!
In the middle of the poster stood Fred and George Weasley, shoulder to shoulder, grinning and winking. Hugo giggled a bit at the cheesiness, but Rose frowned.
“Fred is alive?” Rose asked. “Does that mean the War never happened? Or it happened but he didn’t die?”
“Who knows,” Hugo mused. “But they certainly seem to be doing well for themselves.”
“Uncle George said that he and Uncle Fred never planned on doing anything more than a joke shop. Making people laugh is all they ever wanted to do.”
“They aren’t your uncles, Rose,” the Doctor said firmly. “They are just two people who happen to look like your uncles. For all we know, they might have their own kids, with their own Rose and their own Hugo- where is Hugo, anyways?”
Rose frowned, realizing that her brother had wandered off, as she often did.
“Rose! Doctor!” called Hugo. The Doctor and Rose turned to see Hugo being pulled into a dark van.
“Stop!” called the Doctor, taking off in their direction, Rose hot on his heels. “Wait!”
Anybody who has ever tried to chase a fast moving car knows that it’s quite almost impossible, but Rose and the Doctor gave it their hardest try. Their habit of running from monsters, aliens, and, on one occasion, a very angry hedgehog had given them stamina and impressive speed, but even they were no match for car that could fly.
The Doctor cursed as the car, Hugo obviously still inside, flew into the air, well out of their grasp.
“Oh, better luck next time,” the Doctor lamented. “We’ll find him, though. Besides, Hugo is a big boy, he can take care of himself for a day. As soon as the TARDIS is powered up, we track him down and get out of here, right, Rose? Rose?”
Rose, the Doctor learned quickly, had stopped in the middle of the street and was tightly clutching her head. He was by her side in a flash, helping her to a bench nearby. Looking around him, he noticed that everybody in the street had frozen in place. An alarm was sounding through the air and each person was wearing ear-buds, which were flashing gently with the WWW logo on the side. Rose’s phone was beeping loudly in her back pocket.
He frowned.
The Doctor tried to get Rose to tell him what was wrong, but she couldn’t answer. Instead, she curled in on herself. Images were flashing through her head at a breakneck pace.
Sports- Germany beat Brazil...
International News-Aurors arrested Gerard Gerroff, famed con-artist, in Belgium earlier this week...
News- Weasleys' World Wide, in honor of their twentieth anniversary,, will be having a party in celebration of their success. Relatedly, Hugo Weasley, nephew to the famed entrepreneurs, is still missing...
Joke...
The Doctor frowned. Rose didn’t seem to be in pain, just uncomfortable. She even chuckled a bit. Then, as if by some magic signal (which it might have been, the Doctor admitted), everybody began to move again. The alarm stopped and Rose took a deep breath, gasping as though she had just been held underwater.
“Blimey, that was weird?”
“What is it? What happened?” the Doctor demanded. “Are you alright?”
Rose explained the odd feeling of images in her brain.
“It was like a news broadcast in my head,” Rose wrinkled her nose in distaste. The Doctor didn’t say anything for a moment.
“Let me see your phone,” he ordered. Rose handed it over to him and he flipped it open, putting his glasses back on again.
“Aha!” he declared triumphantly.
“What?” Rose demanded.
“It seems that Hugo would have been much more easily accepted in this world than back home. They love mixing magic with muggle technology, it seems!”
“What do you mean?”
“Read this,” the Doctor said, pointing to the small text on the screen. Rose read it and her eyes widened.
“So it really was a news broadcast?”
“Exactly! It seems that Cybus Industries, which is apparently a subdivision of Weasleys' World Wide, has developed a way of sending news updates directly into users’ heads! Humans. Always so impatient.”
“Yes, yes, humans are awful. What else does the article say?”
“Those headsets that people are going around wearing?”
“What about them?”
“They aren’t headsets. I’m not too sure how they work, since I can’t see them up close-once I get one in front of me, though, I’m sure I could figure it out. I’m brilliant obviously, so it shouldn’t be too difficult, I once save the universe using just a kettle and some string, after all, but that’s beside the point. The point! Oh yes, the point is that those headsets act to, well, focus the transmissions, if you will, into more identifiable and gentle images. Your experience was rather rough, wasn’t it?”
“My head is still pounding,” Rose admitted ruefully.
The Doctor nodded. “Well, everybody else looks perfectly fine, so I’m assuming that the headsets temper that in some way.”
“But you weren’t affected,” Rose frowned.
“My people were telepathic,” the Doctor brushed off. “I’ve long since learned how to block things from my mind.”
“Lucky you,” Rose muttered, her neck feeling incredibly stiff.
“I’m sorry, Rose,” the Doctor said sincerely. “The TARDIS would have protected you, under normal circumstances, but she isn’t feeling well-”
“Don’t worry about it, Doctor,” she laughed. “I’ll be fine.”
She sobered. “Doctor, you said that those news flash things were real?”
“Yes, why?” the Doctor asked, eyes glued to Rose. He had learned, in the time that they had been together, that Rose often had a habit of noticing things that others didn’t, even if she herself didn’t realize she was doing it.
Rose was brilliant like that.
“It’s just, one of the newsflashes mentioned that Hugo-Hugo from this world, that is- has been missing for some time.”
“Really?” the Doctor said, surprised. “So their Hugo is missing and then ours goes and gets kidnapped. Looks like somebody really has a grudge against your brother. Did they give any more information?”
“No,” Rose said. “They only mentioned it because apparently my Uncles, ah not my Uncles, sorry, are having a party to celebrate their anniversary. It’s weird, though, ain’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, they bought Cybus Industries or something, yea? They’re shoving information right into people’s heads. Cybus owns the cell network, too, don’t it?”
“They do,” the Doctor sighed. “You’re right. That is a low of power for one organization. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”
“Do you think it might have something to do with Hugo’s kidnapping?” Rose asked hesitantly.
The Doctor let out a puff of air. “I think it might. Weasleys' World Wide is bound to have a few conspiracy theories swirling around it-all the best big, powerful companies do, you know. Combine that with Hugo’s connection to them and his love of muggle technology... It’s all too big of a coincidence if you ask me.”
“So what do we do?”
“You mentioned a party?” The Doctor asked eyes twinkling.
Rose nodded “Yea.”
“I thought it might be a good place to start.” The Doctor said amusedly. “I thought we could put the psychic paper to good use.”
Rose squealed in delight. “We’re going to a party!”
In the car, Hugo Weasley was not having nearly as good a time as his sister and her friend. The moment he was pulled into the van, he was surrounded by voices berating him.
“Hugo Weasley!” snapped one irate, blonde woman. “Where have you been? You didn’t show up to the meeting earlier and we were worried sick! We thought that the aurors had gotten to you! I mean, honestly! What were you thinking, standing out? You’re always telling us to keep a low profile!”
“I did say that, didn’t I?” Hugo laughed nervously, realizing immediately that he had been mistaken for his parallel-counterpart. “Sorry. Lapse in judgement. Won’t happen again, scout’s honor.”
“Scout’s honor?” the young man asked. “Since when do you use muggle expressions?”
“Ah-”
“Oh, never mind,” snapped the woman, obviously in no mood for being patient, “but you need to be more careful!”
“I do?” Hugo asked. “Why?”
“Did you hit your head or something?” the young man asked. “You’re asking more stupider questions than normal!”
“I just meant, why should I be more careful than I was before?” Hugo said desperately trying to cover his mistake. He ignored the barb towards his intelligence. The Doctor had thrown far worse at him.
“What’s changed?” Hugo demanded.
“We have proof!” declared the young man.
“Proof of what?” Hugo asked unsurely.
“I saw them!” The woman said eagerly. “I saw them in big, black vans! They went around Black Friar’s and gathered people up! Like child catchers or something!”
“They kidnapped them?” Hugo said, alarmed. “Did you go the authorities?”
The man and woman laughed. “Yea, because they’d help us.”
“Besides,” noted the young man in his thick Welsh accent, “they were all homeless. Nobody gives a rat’s hat about them anyways.”
“The vans were owned by a company called Electromagics.” The woman continued. “Mr. Moore did a bit of digging, though, and found out that it’s not a real company. It’s actually a dummy corporation established by- guess who?”
“Why bother?” Hugo said resignedly. “You’re going to tell me, anyways.”
“Cybus Industries!”
Hugo nodded, not knowing what else to do at this point but just go along with it.
“Tell him the best part, Jackie!” Mr. Moore crooned eagerly.
“We’ve got it all on video!” The aforementioned Jackie said excitedly. “We now have conclusive proof that Weasleys' World Wide is involved in some dirty sort of business!”
“Hang on!” Hugo said, feeling the ire towards these people as they insulted his family grow. “What does Weasleys' World Wide have anything to do with this?”
“Weasleys' World Wide bought Cybus a few months back, love,” Jackie said slowly. “That’s when all the trouble started-”
“Actually, that’s when first started getting information from our source,” corrected Mr. Moore. “From what it looks like, the kidnappings have been going on for much longer.”
“Semantics,” Jackie denied. She looked at Hugo earnestly. “Point is, we can stop it, now. We have what we need!”
“Only problem is that Thin Jimmy has been arrested-”
“Jimmy Stone?” interrupted Hugo, eyes narrowed.
“Who else?” Jackie said with a roll of her eyes. “Are you sure you’re alright?”
“It’s been a long night,” Hugo muttered with a small smile. At least the Jimmy in this universe got what he deserved. To be fair, parallel-Jimmy could have been a model citizen, but Hugo couldn’t help but feel a small amount of satisfaction.
“A good cuppa tea will make you feel loads better, sweetheart,” soothed Jackie. “Calm your nerves. We need you in tip-top shape, after all. It leaves just you, now, after all.”
“Alright. Good to know.”
Then Hugo realized that he was still very confused. “Leaves me what?”
“The Number One. Top of the list. London’s Most Wanted.”
“Okay, cool.” Hugo said, without thinking.
He paused.
“Say that again?”
(Chapter 15 here)