DW/HP Fic: Clarke's Third Law (2/20)
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. If I did, not nearly as many people would have died and I would own a swimming pool filled with chocolate pudding.
Notes: A rewrite of Season 1 Ep. 1 (2005): Rose.
Chapter 1: Doctor's Orders
Rose was rudely awoken by the loud sound of her alarm clock. She reached over and slammed down the snooze button with the ease of somebody who performed the motion on a semi-daily basis. She remained in her bed for a few minutes, before finally sighing and sitting up in bed, her blonde hair sticking up at all angles.
She checked the clock. 7:34 AM. She needed to get a move on, unless she wanted to be late for work. Rose scrambled off of the bed and shuddered as her bare feet met the chilly floor. She made her way quickly to her closet and into the shower. She washed herself quickly and made her way into the living room of the small London flat she shared with , Al.
Albus, who was her cousin on her father’s side, was currently training at St. Mungo’s to be a healer. He had been kind enough to offer Rose a place to stay when it became clear that she would not be able to afford London on her own. Never one to take charity from her parents, she had accepted.
At the moment, she worked at her Uncle’s joke shop. It was fun work and she always had a good time, but it wasn’t exactly where she had hoped to end up Nevertheless, considering her less-than-great NEWTs, it was as good as she would get.
At least for the time being.
“G’morning, Al,” she said to the young man sitting at the counter with a cup of tea. Albus Severus Potter gave his best friend a smile, watching her run around quickly in hopes that she wouldn’t be late.
Rose stopped her frantic scrambling to give her cousin a quick kiss on the cheek and mumble a quick, “Love you, see you later,” before running out the door. She took the steps two at a time, almost falling over the last one, and prayed to god that she wasn’t late. She knew her Uncle would never fire her (he said he loved having her around too much for that), but the summer was always the busiest time at Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. She hated to leave him and Aunt Angelina all on their own to deal with the chaos.
She made it to work, thankfully, and was immediately bombarded with a horde of customers all trying to pay for their purchases. She plastered on her best smile and began to organize them into a somewhat decent queue, working through them one by one.
Rose felt another stab of remorse once again, as she contemplated her position in life. She hadn’t always planned for her life to be like this, but she had been so naive. She was still naive. Her family, despite their assurances and constant support, deserved something better.
Not a nineteen year-old shop girl.
“Excuse me,” screeched a nasally, whiny voice. Rose was broken out of her thoughts by a middle-aged witch wearing far too much make-up. She was holding a rubber chicken from the Muggle Gag department of the store and, judging by the impatient look in her eyes, Rose was going not going to enjoy the next few minutes of her life.
But, nevertheless, she got to work.
Several interesting hours later, Rose found herself immensely grateful for her lunch-break. She grinned when she saw Al waiting for her at the small diner they frequented.
Al had just finished telling Rose about his day at St. Mungo’s so far, when he fixed Rose with a firm look. “Rose,” he began. Rose thunked her head on the table. She knew that tone of voice.
“Al,” she matched it, although her answer was slightly muffled due to her position.
“Rose,” he repeated, this time not letting her interrupt, “Do you plan on working at WWW for the rest of your life?”
Rose raised an eyebrow at him. “Got any better ideas?”
“You know that you could come work at St. Mungo’s with me. They would be happy to have you!”
“A place like St. Mungo’s would never hire somebody with my NEWTs.” she denied, taking a sip of her butterbeer. Albus sighed and leant back in his chair.
“You could always retake them!” he informed her crossly. Rose stubbornly refused to meet his eyes and Albus grimaced.
“Rose,” he said, his voice surprisingly soft, “Its time that you moved on from what happened with you and Jimmy Stone.”
“I’ve moved on!” Rose retorted. “I’ve completely moved on! Jimmy who?”
Albus gave her a fond smile. “Rose, you may be able to lie to yourself, but you can’t lie to me. I know you better than anybody. I saw how Jimmy treated you like garbage for almost a year and, over time, I think you might have started to believe it. I think you still do!”
“s not true!”
Al sighed and dropped it. Rose leant back in her chair and crossed her arms. They each sat in silence for a moment, sulking. Rose knew that Al was right, to some degree, but that didn’t mean she was going to let him know that he was right.
“Listen, Al, whether or not I’ve moved on from Jimmy Stone-”
“You haven’t,” Al said tartly. Rose continued as though she hadn’t heard him.
“-ain’t important ‘cause, at the end of the day, I honestly don’ know if I want to be a Healer anymore. Maybe that whole thing with Jimmy was a sign or something-”
“A sign?” Albus snorted. He gave his cousin a skeptical look. “Have you been reading those ridiculous horoscopes again?”
Rose ignored him. “I just can’t help but feel like there is something I am meant to be doing! Something important!”
“And you think you will find it working at Uncle George’s joke shop?” Albus shook his head dubiously. Rose had officially lost it.
Rose shrugged and fingered her wand, feeling the comforting warmth of the reed and dragon heartstring in her hand. She looked up at him and nodded carefully.
“Yea. I do.”
Albus let it go after that, much to Rose’s relief. They split a sundae and it was with a reluctant grin that she gave him a hug and then headed back to what she expected was dull night doing inventory at the shop.
“Rose,” came Uncle George’s voice. Rose looked up from the back room where she was working and was met with the sight of her Uncle’s smiling face. He walked up to her.
“You need something, Uncle George?”
“Would you mind closing up shop tonight? Its Angelina and mine’s anniversary and-”
“Say no more,” she said kindly. “Takin’ her somewhere special?”
Her uncle nodded and left, calling out a goodnight as he ran. Rose shook her head fondly and went back to work. If she hurried, she might be able to meet Al for dinner. Scanning the list of items in front of her, she realized that she was done. She just needed to carry some spare parts down to the basement. She made to levitate the box upwards when she realized she didn’t have her wand.
She patted her clothes and, when she couldn’t find it in any of her pockets, she realized that one of the pygmy puffs (cheeky little buggers) must have taken it. Her uncle denied it, but she knew that he was breeding those things to get more and more devious. She huffed. Resolving to get it on the way out, she jabbed the lift button several times, even though she knew perfectly well that that wouldn’t speed it up in the least bit.
Under normal circumstances, she would have gone and gotten her wand, then simply vanished the box downstairs, but some of the things in the joke shop didn’t react well to being transported via magic, anyways. Not knowing exactly what was in the box, the last thing she needed was to try vanishing it and end up in Cardiff or something. It would be easier for her to just shove the box into the lift, like she was doing now.
The lift finally opened and Rose entered the basement, trying to ignore the odd feeling in the pit of her stomach. The basement was always a bit scary at night, but, for some reason, it seemed particularly ominous tonight.
She pushed the box into a specific corner (well, not really) and sighed in relief. Her work was done. She was about to leave when a noise caught her attention. She frowned. “‘ello?” she called out.
More banging.
“Is somebody there, mucking about?”
There was no answer, but Rose found herself compelled to move towards the noise. S’ probably just one of Uncle George’s prototypes, she tried to convince herself. At least, until a louder crash resounded across the basement.
Or not. Rose swallowed.
“Whose there?” she called. “Uncle George? Is that you? This ain’t funny!”
She entered one of the old storerooms, finding herself surrounding by boxes of plastic muggle toys. Trying to quench the irrational fear in her stomach, she rolled her eyes at her Uncle’s insane need to save everything and continued towards where she thought she heard the noise.
“Is somebody there?” she called again.
All of a sudden, a loud thud resonated through the room. Rose gasped and turned around, only to find the door to the basement closed. She sprinted up to it and tried to yank it open. It was pointless.
She was officially locked in.
Taking a deep breath, and sorely wishing that she hadn’t left her wand upstairs, Rose began, once again, to walk into the storeroom.
Movement from the corner of her eye caused her to turn her head, but there was nothing there. She took a few steps forward, frowned, and stopped in her place, now knowing that there was something behind her. She turned around slowly, afraid of what she might see.
A mannequin from one of her Uncle’s old displays was walking towards her.
It was walking towards her.
Rose had seen many strange things her short life (she had grown up in a household of wizards, after all), but this had to be the most bizarre.
It was then that she realized the mannequin was not the only thing moving. Other dolls of all shapes and sizes were carefully making their way towards her. Some weren’t even dolls, but, rather, spare parts glued together to make a demented sort of figure.
“Is this some sort of joke?” she demanded, trying not to let any fear into her voice. “‘cause if it is, it ain’t funny!”
The figures made no response, simply continuing to back Rose further into the wall. Rose let out a squeak as a Barbie doll grabbed tightly onto her ankle. She managed to kick it off, but it didn’t change the fact that she was still stuck.
One of the mannequins slowly raised his hand. Rose watched, horrified.
She was going to die.
She was going to die alone, in a dirty grimy basement.
Killed by a piece of plastic.
Out of all the ways to go... She shut her eyes and waited.
A hand on hers.
Rose’s eyes snapped open and she looked up. She found herself staring into a pair of clear, blue eyes, belonging to a man. His hair was shaved close to his head, his nose was large, and his ears would make some House-elves jealous.
“Run,” he ordered. Rose didn’t stop to think about who he was or what he was doing in the basement of her Uncle’s shop. She just did as he said, letting him pull her along and onto the lift.
She gasped as the arm of the largest mannequin reached through the closing doors, groping for them. The man seemed unconcerned, wresting for a moment until he yanked it off completely. The doors closed and the man tossed the arm to her.
Rose caught it out of instinct. “You tore his arm off,” she stuttered.
“Yup,” he said with a grin, watching the numbers of the lift light up.
“You-you can’t just go around tearing people’s arms off!” she accused. The man raised his eyebrow.
“Why not?” he retorted, crossing his arms, “They were trying to kill you!”
“Were they magic, then?” she gulped, trying to think of why in the world would a bunch of dummies be after her. “Was that some sort of magic? ”
“Why would you say that?” the man asked, looking up from the signal on the lift, genuinely curious.
“Well-” she stuttered, “I don’t know.”
The man raised an eyebrow as the lift began to move. “You said it, not me. Why magic?”
“Well,” she stuttered, “You know. S’ a joke shop. A magic joke shop. Uncle George loves doing stuff like this. What else could it be?”
“Very good,” the man said, sounding very impressed. His grin disappeared. “But your uncle didn’t organize this.”
“Well who was it then?” Rose demanded, suddenly worried. “Death Eaters?”
"It's not any type of magic." The man snorted. “Do you really think Death Eaters would bother with something like this?”
“They can be pretty desperate to get revenge on Uncle Harry and his friends!” Rose defended herself, “And some of the ones still around are hardly rocket scientists!”
“Fair enough.” the man said nonchalantly. Rose gaped at him. “But, like I said, this whole thing has got nothing to do with magic.”
“No?” Rose questioned, sounding doubtful. “Then what were those things?”
“Autons!” The man said cheerfully, as if it was the greatest news in the world. Rose realized that the lift had stopped. The man once again grabbed her hand and pulled her along.
“Watch your eyes,” he warned. He took what looked to be small, metal, wand and pointed it at the lift controls. She squeaked as the control sparked. Then he turned and walked purposefully away.
“Wait a minute!” she called. She ran after him. “What’s goin’ on? Who’s that lot down there? What are ‘autons?”
"Autons,” he explained, “are alien entities. They are being controlled by a relay point on the roof. A relay point tat I’ve got to destroy, now. And I might very well die in the process, thank you very much.”
“Destroy?” Rose muttered, as he yanked her forward once again, leading her towards the entrance to the store. “Die?”
“Oh, don’t you worry about me. Go watch a Quidditch match! Have some Butterbeer! You wizards have some good stuff, ya’ know. Relatively speakin’, anyways. Better than most of the stupid apes on this planet.” He grew serious for a moment as he opened the door. “Don’t tell anybody what you’ve seen here tonight.”
Using her shock against her, he chose that moment to shove her out the door of the shop. He left her there, a bit dazed and confused, still holding the mannequin arm. For a few moments, she wasn’t sure what to do. Before she could come to a decision, though, the door opened. A small horde of pygmy puffs scampered out the door.
“Oi!” she exclaimed indignantly. “What you letting them out for? It’s gonna take me ages to get ‘em back in their cages!”
“Is this yours?” he asked, ignoring her. He held up her wand and she took it, gratefully. “The pygmy puffs had it. Adorable little things, aren’t they? I’m the Doctor, by the way” he told her, grinning. “What’s your name?”
“Rose,” she said, trying to return his smile. He grinned wider at her attempt.
“Pleasure to meet you Rose.” He inclined his head and held up a different small metal object. “Now run for your life!”
The door closed and Rose did as he said, running as fast her legs could take her away from Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. Once she found herself safely across the street, she stopped, catching her breath. She looked around and was surprised to see how empty Diagon Alley was. It must have been later than she had anticipated.
She had to get home, she decided. She needed to get home and tell her dad about “the Doctor.” He was an auror. He’d know what to do. She looked over her shoulder at the shop and wondered what that man had meant about destroying the autons.
She got her answer a second later when the shop-the same shop that both of her Uncles had opened over twenty years during the war- blew up.
It blew up
Rose looked around. The flames had attracted quite a crowd, including several Ministry officials, from the looks of it. She couldn’t be seen here, she realized, not if what the Doctor had told her about telling people was true. Her original intent had been to inform her father, but that was before she realized that this Doctor liked to blow up shops. Rose really didn’t want to know whether or not this fondness extended to people.
She took two steps backwards and did exactly what the Doctor ordered.
She ran.
(Chapter 2 here)