CHAPTER ONE –

The Leap Back

The war had ended. Harry, and the shattered remnants of the Order of the Phoenix had won; driven back the darkness... for now. It would come again. It always did. He was one of the few that could stand against it.

For several decades, he watched and waited, looking for the signs that would indicate a new Dark Lord rising. It seemed, though, that the legend of the 'Chosen One' was still active. It had been over half a century since the final battle, but he'd become more and more disillusioned with life.

He'd been prepared to end it, ever since his wife was brutally murdered during the last battle. It was, ironically, her death that signalled the end of the darkness. Then, something changed.

A man was born. He was a Muggle, limited in power, but unmatched in brains. Even his wife would not have been able to match Sam's raw intellectual power. When the proposal first made it's way across his desk, he glanced it over, before tossing it to one side.

Weeks passed, and the document never strayed far from his mind. He'd go to bed, thinking about the fascinating technology that was being speculated. He'd wake up, dreaming that the project would be a success, and he'd be able to see her again.

When he returned to his office, he reread the proposal, deciding that the Marauder Foundation would be able to fund the project. His long life, now nudging up past a century, had given him stupendous wealth, thanks to the tricky little goblins.


It took five years. Five years for the project to get to initial test stage. In a freezing cold cavern underneath the New Mexico desert, a room was constructed. The components cost millions of Galleons, but they were worth it. The project's construction, when completed, would allow the use of temporal quantum technology to view the past.

Strict rules had been created about the project. It was for observation only. Using neurological scanning and quantum projection technology, it would be possible to observe the past, without making any changes to the time-line.

That was the greatest fear of the project. If someone were to manipulate the time-line, it could destroy everything that had been worked for. A series of protocols had been put in place the ensure that only the most trustworthy people would be able to even know about the project, let alone enter the site.

He was one of those people. As the principal source of funds, he had carte blanch to enter the project, but not use the equipment.

Of course, He was a wizard, and the laws of Muggles meant little to him anymore. He would enter the project, and be the first to use the Accelerator. If they tried to stop him? Well... there were reasons that the darkness were afraid of him.


He entered the Project's Accelerator Chamber, cane in hand. The injuries he'd sustained during the war had never really healed, even after a century of the best medical assistance both the Muggle and magical worlds could offer him. That would change, though, once his journey was complete.

The physical properties of breaking the quantum boundary, or 'stepping into the world', but heavily speculated, but no-one knew for sure. The primary theory was that the time traveller would take the form of their past self, time herself obliterating the original copy, and using the Quantum fields generated to regenerate the traveller.

At least... he hoped so.

Now... he thought to himself, wrapping his cloak tight around his ancient body, Now, I have a chance to change everything. I will make the journey, and things will go right.


He stepped into the central circle of the Accelerator, jabbing his cane onto the ground. The concealed magical cores accessed the device, setting up a powerful Protego shield, that nothing would be able to penetrate.

A series of nuclear reactors started up, channelling their immense power into a series of capacitors, which would be used to start the antimatter reaction chamber, located directly below the Accelerator room. The onset of Antimatter technology was a closely guarded secret by the Marauder Foundation, only to be used by the most honest and trustworthy people.

In the centre of the Accelerator, a series of blue lightning bolts started to arc through the air. The power was considerable, but nothing compared to what was to come.

In the background, he could hear the technicians and researchers bleating in fear.

"What's happening?"

"Who's that?"

"The Accelerator's active!"

"He's leaping!"

The last shout was the one that gathered the attention of everyone there. The project was still in the initial test phase.

"He can't leap yet! We're not ready!" The voice of the Admiral, the project's administrator and principal observer cut through the cacophony of sound. "Shut it down! Shut it all down!"

The technicians tried to comply with his demands, but it didn't matter. The reaction had become self-sustaining, feeding on the pure power from the antimatter reactor, with a healthy boost of Harry's own magic.

"He'll destroy everything!" A final voice shouted. And it was true. He would. But none of that mattered. When the leap was complete, it would all be gone anyway.

The landscape around him was changing. Instead of seeing the cool, smooth metal walls of the Accelerator chamber, he could see battered stone walls, small holes giving the impression of a draughty room. In front of him, he could see a battered couch, the outline of a fat sleeping child on it. With a grin, Harry stepped forward, in essence stepping across time. As he passed through, the project disappeared from the time-stream, never having existed.

Harry James Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, the Man-Who-Won, the Chosen One had made his Quantum Leap.