Work Text:
He knew it was her fate.
Holly Potter was a fixed point. Eventually, their time together would come to this… this was always how it was supposed to end. Holly Potter, the girl-who-lived, the girl who had to die. She who was brought into the world, brought into fate, to die at the proper moment. Who was trained from infant-hood, designed by time, to end up here. To fall in this forest for her people to survive. Her life was the catalyst to change, and her death was why the sheep fought for it.
Holly’s death was the reason magic, or what her people called their energy manipulation, would make it into the future. For if she failed to die here, if Voldemort failed to fall as a result, then magic would die out. Voldemort would drive his people into extinction. Their culture would stagnant, they’d be wiped away. Becoming nothing more than legend, myth.
The Doctor knew all this. But the knowledge did not make it any better.
Not as Voldemort marched off with her body, and the Doctor was forced still. Not as he’d been the invisible witness beneath a borrowed cloak. Not as he’d watched the woman he loved fall to the ground like a collapsed puppet. The Doctor had watched the love of this life drop and had been unable to stop it. The life within Holly was gone. She was a shell, a corpse. Her people would survive because of her choice and his restraint… but he wouldn’t.
The oncoming storm. They’d called him that. The Doctor- no, he already knew what happened when he messed with him, with a fixed point. Time rewrote itself, it fixed itself, there was nothing he could do. If he stopped her death now, then she’d find another way. She was good like that, kind, selfless… trained.
That damned Dumbledore ensured it, all of the people within Holly’s made had.
The Doctor punched the closest tree, felt his fingers crack. Holly was dead- she was dead. Voldemort had her body now, he’d parade her around, and the Doctor couldn’t bear to watch. Not as Voldemort shot crucio’s into her corpse; into the body that had hours ago been pressed against him. As Holly whispered her fear despite her resolve. As he’d held her, whispered assurances after the sheer amount of times he’d died before. As he’d comforted her when she was planning on dying-
He hadn’t let the words escape him.
‘What about me?’
What about me. What about me. What about me.
The Doctor pulled his bloodied hand from the wood, barely gave the wound any mind. He had to witness it. Had to ensure Holly’s people didn’t fuck up the chance she’d gifted them. The Doctor strode through the forest. One foot past the other. He forced himself to take every step. By now, Neville would have taken his stand, no longer a figure in history, but a child the Doctor knew entirely too much about. A life. A friendship. All these little tidbits Holly had whispered to him. Neville was alive and real.
He would stand. But first, although the Doctor didn’t know it, Neville would cast his eyes out toward the forest the moment he saw Holly’s body. Because that limp form couldn’t be real- the Doctor would never allow Holly to die if he was alive to stop it-
The Doctor climbed carefully around the rubble, climbed until he could see the battlefield, as Neville took that famous stand. As Voldemort ordered Holly’s body tossed before her people to break their spirits- the way she landed- the sound it made- it would haunt him until his last days. It would haunt every life she’d touched—the souls of everyone present.
She’d been in his arms an hour ago. Her forehead tapped to his; he’d been gently nudging her to take one more trip, just one more. They’d go on a real vacation this time, no running involved for once. She’d laughed, known he was full of it because he couldn’t do vacation. So instead he’d suggested seeing her founders again, Salazar had promised another potions lesson even though Helga had looked upon Holly with knowing and Godric had tried to soothe the Doctor’s broken hearts-
‘What about me.’
Neville screamed a battle cry, Holly’s family, her people, followed. Most of them lost sight of her body in the chaos; the Doctor was no different. Spells, bloodied beat down battles, monsters, werewolves, it was a mess. The Doctor gave it little mind though, not as he picked his way toward where she’d lain. This was her fate, he’d told himself, her destiny. This fixed point would always have come. The Doctor had known it with every beat of his hearts, known it every second of their time together.
This was how it ended, with Holly’s corpse and his soul splitting apart in grief.
The Doctor stopped where the body had been dropped. It was gone- she was gone. Dead and gone, someone had moved her body in the chaos. He’d lost her- Holly was gone.
The Doctor didn’t even get to hold her one last time, didn’t get to bury her, to send her into the stars like she’d requested- tears formed, and the Doctor sank to his knees. He pressed a fist into his hearts, willing them to just stop feeling.
Stop. Stop. Please stop. The Doctor released a desperate keen, a broken sound, the sound time made when she truly lost a great soul-
-and a familiar hand fell onto his shoulder.