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:

This was originally going to be a short story about a much younger Harry being held captive in Voldie's dungeons getting rescued by a Doctor and Martha who are releasing all the prisoners and working to bring Voldemort down. It turned into a story about a dangerous, trained, confident Harry running into a Doctor and Martha exploring and odd situation that they don't know anything about yet.

I like the idea of a Harry who's powerful and trained and used to being at the top slowly realising that he is totally out of his league, even though they're muggles.

NOT YOUR AVERAGE MUGGLE

I dangled upside down from the ceiling by one leg, revolving slowly, and cursed myself for not making sure I'd removed all the booby-traps around the window. I mean, seriously, all this trouble just to slip up here? I stared up at the rope looped around my foot. Of all the amateur things to fall for, it had to be the old 'slack piece of rope with a loop at one end that tightens around the foot of any person who steps into and yanks them into the air' trick. If anyone found out about this I'd never live it down.

I titled my head back and craned around at an awkward angle to see my wand lying innocently on the floor below me, nearly a metre out of my reach.

Damn.

I paused to assess my position. It wasn't good. I sighed. It was time to try and break out the wandless magic. I never use wandless magic unless I have to for the very good reason that it was capricious and erratic and most importantly, only occasionally worked.

I held out a hand and willed.

"Accio!"

The wand shivered, but stayed where it was. Bugger.

A short while later I just hung limply. I'd used up a lot of energy attempting to use wandless magic and on top of that all the blood had rushed to my head, making it difficult to think and consciousness distinctly uncomfortable. On top of this the rope was cutting painfully into my ankle. I was beginning to wish the Death Eaters would find me already. Weren't they supposed to be patrolling this place?

The sound of voices coming my way made me jerk to attention. Unfortunately this set me revolving again. I ignored this and listened intently, straining to work out what they were saying. Whoever they were they were conversing quietly, which meant that they didn't want anyone to overhear; Death Eaters, being rather lacking in the caution department, usually talked loudly. I felt cautiously hopeful as they came closer.

"Doctor, are you sure this is, well, wise?" hissed a female voice. The reply was low, and male.

"Quite probably not, but someone needs to investigate this place. I've never seen anything like it."

The woman seemed to just have the normal fear of trespassing, but the man's voice was grim as though he actually understood the significance of this place. How on earth did they get in here, and more importantly, why?

The next moment an attractive dark-skinned woman and a wary-eyed man rounded the corner, coming to a halt as they spotted me. The woman was in her twenties, verging on beautiful, and dressed in clothes that weren't cheap but not especially expensive. Likely educated. The man – well, he wore a light brown overcoat over darker brown trousers and a matching waistcoat, improbably paired with a pair of plimsolls. The woman blinked in surprise while the man relaxed slightly, his expression taking on a bit of interest. I suppose a nineteen year old man dangling from the ceiling of a dark and sinister mansion is neither an expected nor threatening sight.

The man eyed me.

"Well, well, what have we here?" He sounded faintly delighted.

oo o0o oo

Martha and the Doctor stared at the kid suspended from the ceiling. He revolved slowly, crimson face coming into view, but a moment later had rotated enough that his face was no longer visible. He craned his head around at an awkward angle to stare at them with faint embarrassment.

"Well, well, what have we here?" the Doctor murmured. His eyes gleamed with interest as he looked at the hanging figure. Martha glanced around, taking in the open window and putting the pieces together.

"I think he came in through the window and got caught," she observed shrewdly.

"I think he did," murmured the Doctor, before taking a step forward and asking brightly,

"Well, who are you then? And I wouldn't have tried breaking in here, it's not very safe you know."

The boy snorted.

"Oh, I know." His voice was filled with irony. "Believe me, I know." He let his head drop and muttered to himself. "I can't believe I managed to avoid or get rid of all the other traps and got caught by this one. That's just embarrassing."

The Doctor nodded sympathetically in agreement, although the boy didn't notice. He knew what getting caught by the amateur traps felt like.

"Anyway," the boy said, craning his head around again, "I'm Harry, Harry Potter." He sighed. "According to prophesy I'm the only one that can defeat Voldemort, which is why I came in the first place, only I was sneaking around to avoid the Death Eaters." His gaze was curious and slightly guarded. "Who are you?"

"Oh, he's the Doctor, and I'm Martha," Martha explained in an oh-it's-not-very-important voice. "We were just having a look around. Exploring, you know."

The green eyes in front of her turned unexpectedly hard.

"Exploring." There was suspicion and dawning menace in his tone.

"Well," the Doctor screwed up his face and stuck his hands in his pockets, "that's what we do, you see, we explore, we're the universe's greatest explorers aren't we Martha? And when we saw this big old place in the middle of nowhere surrounded by the ruins of a village, we thought 'well, something's going on here, we better take a look, it's time for some of our exploring,' didn't we Martha?"

"Yep, that's right," Martha nodded obediently.

"Right."

Suddenly the boy's hand shot out towards the floor and a stick Martha had noticed but dismissed shot upwards into it, and in the same movement the boy's hand came around in a swoop to point at the rope and with a shout of "diffindo!" a flash of light severed the rope and he fell. The next moment he was on his feet and pointing the stick at them, face blank but eyes extremely dangerous.

"I think you had best explain your exploring a little further, such as how you got past all the booby-traps and how, despite the muggle-repelling wards, you managed to get onto the base in the first place," he said flatly.

oo o0o oo

The face of the man called the Doctor stayed very still. Whoever he was, he was either unusually self-possessed or a professional.

"Well, I can't explain that," he said, quite calmly, "since I have no idea what a muggle-repelling ward is, but I can answer the one about the booby-traps. We've been detecting and deactivating them as we go."

I just watched him suspiciously, trying to decide what to do next while I waited for him to tell me more. The girl had gone still, but it was the stillness of someone who doesn't quite know what is going on and are hoping that they do not catch the attention of someone in charge. Her face was tense.

"You know," the Doctor said conversationally, "I don't know about you, but I don't think that harming us is going to bring you any information, and I can't help noticing that any moment now someone might come along and overhear us, and I don't think that would be a good thing. So how about you trust that we're just looking for information and continue whatever it was you were doing, and we can come along and fill you in about what we were up to. 'S that sound alright to you?"

I frowned. Everything the Doctor said sounded like a good idea, but I've had learned not to trust good ideas from strangers who may or may not be one of the enemy. Ideas like those usually come back to bite me in the butt. Still, like he said, harming them wasn't going to help me and I couldn't afford to wait around here, so what else could I do?

Sighing, I stowed my wand away.

"Alright, I don't trust you though, so don't try anything," I warned, relaxing slightly. "Come on, let's get a move on before someone notices something."

"Too late, Potter."

Instantly the other two whirled towards the voice, while my battle-trained eyes instantly picked out the human shape in the darkness and noted the pale shade of moonlight glinting off its head. Lucius.

I jabbed my wand forward without missing a beat hissed out "diffindo!" again. Lucius gurgled for a moment before he pitched forward into the rectangle of moonlight cast by the window, the two halves of his body separating to lie in a growing pool of blood.

I glanced at the other two. Martha was transfixed with horror, but the Doctor was looking at me with a face like stone.

"Was that really necessary?" His voice was quiet. Normal. But it lacked the light-heartedness for the first time, and that sort of change should be taken as a warning.

"Had he captured us or even alerted the others to our presence, you two would have been tortured into insanity before being murdered, and your friend over there would likely have been raped as well. I would have been tortured for a bit, perhaps kept captive for a while, then forced into a rigged duel with Voldemort," I informed him casually as I checked that no one else was lurking in nearby shadows somewhere. "I did not think that was a particularly pleasant destination on our life's journey, so yes, I consider it necessary." I met his gaze squarely. "I don't kill innocents."

The Doctor gave a slow nod, then turned to his companion who had gone from transfixed with horror to mere disgusted revulsion.

"Come on Martha, time to get a move on," he reminded her, which gave me a chance to close my eyes and take deep breaths and try to forget his eyes.

God. Merlin. Even Salazar. Those eyes… I'd seen some battle-weary people in my time, but this bloke… He was old. Very old. Ancient and implacable. And he understood battle alright. I wondered what kind of war could age a person like that. I decided that I didn't want to know.

"So," the Doctor whispered as I set off again, following close behind me with Martha, "where exactly is it that we've all broken into?"

I stopped and turned and stared. Then I bowed. Some announcements just need the dramatic touch.

"Lady and gentleman," I said with false solemnity, "welcome to the secret lair of the most feared wizard of our time, the Dark Lord Voldemort."

Silence.

"Hang on, wizard?"