Disclaimer: Harry Potter and his various friends and enemies, as well as Sam, Al, and Ziggy, all belong to their respective owners; I'm just borrowing them
Feedback: Trust me; I'd like it
AN: To anyone unaware of Quantum Leap, the basic summary is as follows; quantum physicist Doctor Sam Beckett conceived a means of time travel that allowed people to observe history as unseen holograms (So long as the events occurred in their lifetimes) but something went wrong on the first attempt and he ended up travelling randomly from time from the moment he was conceived (Early in 1953) to the date he began his journey (In around 1999), Leaping into people's lives, changing history for the better with the aid of Al, his friend in the future who appears to him as a hologram with information gained from Ziggy, the computer that monitors the Leaps. While in the past, Sam's body is surrounded by an 'aura' that makes him appear as though he is the person whose life he now inhabits, while, back at the Project, the person he has replaced resembles Sam to all who see him
Leaping Into Magic
For a few moments, after leaving the body of Chippendale dancer Rod 'the Bod' McCarty, having allowed deaf woman Diana Quinna Perry to achieve her dream of becoming a dancer rather than being forced to become a prostitute and, eventually, die of AIDS, he was in the void that was the onyl world he knew between his Leaps.
It had no other name but the void; if it was called something else, he had never been able to guess what it was. The void was the area that he always forgot when he was back in the real world, but, simultaneously, at these moment, the only thing that gave him the drive to keep going, the only thing that proved to him that he was actually being guided by something, rather than some random fluke.
"Doctor Beckett…"
There it was.
The voice of whomever it was who selected the destinations of his Leaps.
And, as always, the voice from which there was only one question he wanted an answer to.
"Am I going home?" he asked, trying to avoid the childish tone that he sometimes felt had become his staple at these moments.
He was no longer even sure he remembered where, or what, 'home' was; all he knew for sure was that it was a safe place, with people who knew him for who he was, and he no longer ran the risk of dying or being trapped by somebody in his attempts to make things better…
He had made a difference in his new role; he would not deny that.
But he wanted to go home…
He wanted to see his own face in the mirror…
And, as always, the voice chuckled sympathetically as it prepared to say 'no'.
"Home?" it replied to him. "Oh no… not yet. It's not time.
"But soon. It shall be soon. I promise."
He sensed a brief pause, as though the consciousness that controlled the Leaps was trying to come to a decision, and then it almost sounded…
Sad?
He knew it would have to care, of course- nothing would go to this much effort if it wasn't genuinely worried about the fate of people- but still, to actually hear the voice express concern…
"He did not deserve that," the voice said, as it appeared to turn its attention back to him. "You can save him, Doctor Beckett.
"All you need do, is believe."
And then he Leaped…
As the usual brilliant light faded, he blinked his eyes open and glanced around at his new surroundings.
He noted with relief that he was in a relatively normal-looking house- the situation might not be that complicated, if appearances were anything to go by-, with a calendar on the wall saying '1997'; at least he seemed to be fairly close to his present, so hopefully he wouldn't have long to wait until help showed up.
At a closer examination of his surroundings, he was currently standing in what looked like a bedroom, but it was far larger than any room he'd seen before; it almost seemed large enough of take up a whole floor of a normal house. There were three beds in it, leather-bound books scattered around the place as though the inhabitants of the room were reading several things at once, and various other random objects that seemed to not be connected to anything else. After all, what did a bunch of buttons, needles, cushions, blankets, and a couple of…
Ornately carved wooden sticks?
That certainly wasn't all that normal.
Where am I? he wondered to himself, as he briefly looked around the room for a window. Then he shook his head and decided to focus on his more immediate concerns; namely, what gender he was now.
Checking over his body, he noticed with relief that at least he seemed to be a man this time (He had nothing against the leaps into women, of course, it was just always awkward pretending to be a member of the opposite sex). The clothing seemed to support that theory, at any rate; blue jeans, a checked blue-and-cream shirt, dirty white sneakers, and wire-frame glasses perched on his nose, with no trace of a bra or something like that around his chest. A glance up at his forehead revealed a mess of black hair that seemed to hang down over his forehead, but nothing else was immediately apparent…
"UGH!" he grunted, as something slammed into his back and he fell to the ground, the glasses falling off his face (Fortunately, like in all cases where his host wore glasses, it didn't have any affect on his vision) and…
Another ornately carved stick falling out of his sleeve?
"What the…?" he said, dazed and confused as he reached over, placed the glasses back on his face, and stared at the stick as though it would tell him what his host was doing with it. What's this all about?
"Harry!" a voice said critically from behind him. "You're meant to keep listening for me; I thought the whole reason you came up with this idea in the first place was to get some practice in case we're taken by surprise! You can't doze off, you know!"
Looking back at the source of the voice, he could only watch in astonishment as some kind of… cloak… fell to the ground in front of him, revealing a tall young man- the guy seemed as though he'd only turned seventeen a few months ago at most- with red hair and freckles, dressed in worn trousers and a slightly frayed maroon jumper that looked as though it had been knitted by hand, looking at him with a curious expression.
And he had been totally invisible before removing the cloak.
"Oh boy," Sam Beckett, quantum physicist and the unwilling agent of God, Fate, Time or Whatever in putting right what had once gone wrong in history, muttered to himself.
He'd barely even arrived in his new host, and already this was looking like it would be his strangest Leap yet.
As the resident psychiatrist for Project Quantum Leap, it had long been the duty of Doctor Verbeena Beeks to greet the new arrivals in the Waiting Room at the beginning of each Leap. As the psychiatrist, she was best able to find out how to gain the person's trust, where they were from, what they did for a living, and, more often than not, figure out from that why Sam had Leaped into them. True, it hadn't exactly been pleasant when Sam had leapt into the body of the Ku Klux Klan initiate (Admiral Calavicci had taken control of the conversation on that occasion, reasoning that making sure the only psychiatrist on the team wasn't fatally injured by a racist was more important than trying to get information out of him in a tactful manner), but otherwise things had gone fairly well since she took on her new 'job' trying to ease the new arrivals into their surroundings.
As she walked into the room, however, and saw Sam's body standing up and scanning his surroundings with a panicked yet defensive posture, she got the impression that this was going to be one of the more 'difficult' ones.
As the door opened, the body spun around and stared at Verbeena, eyes wide in a combination of fear and anger.
"Who are you?" he asked, glaring angrily in her direction. "And where's Voldemort in all this?"
"Who?" Verbeena asked, raising her eyebrows in confusion. They'd had several odd reactions upon greeting new arrivals to the waiting room (Billie Jean nearly giving birth and Jesus Ortega thinking he was dead would always remain in her mind), but never, to Verbeena's recollection, had someone actually thought that the Leap was caused by somebody; they generally just had no idea what the hell was going on.
"Don't even try it!" the new Leapee yelled, glaring defensively at Verbeena even as he tried to figure out some way out of the room; it was already clear that this guy knew how to handle himself in a fight, but, somehow, he didn't actually seem to want to fight her hand-to-hand….
"I don't know what he thinks dragging me here's going to achieve, but, quite frankly, all I want to know is how the hell you got past those 'wards' around Privet Drive!" the host continued, his eyes alone giving away the panic that was gradually dawning over him. "And who the hell are you, anyway? I thought the Order had information on all the Death Eaters, but I've never seen anything about you before!"
"Death Eaters?" Verbeena said, staring at Sam's body in confusion. "But… what are you talking about?"
The Leapee seemed about to make some kind of biting retort to that comment, but then he seemed to realise something, and just looked at her for a few moments before he spoke again.
"You… don't know who Voldemort is?" he asked, looking at her in confusion.
"Uh… no," Verbeena replied, hoping that this was a good thing. Given the rather probing look on 'Sam's' face, it looked as though the new arrival was beginning to think about trusting her, but he still didn't look as though he wanted to say anything…
"Look… sorry, what's your name?" she asked, deciding she might as well get to the point.
"Harry Potter," the host replied, as he looked at Verbeena with a slight mixture of surprise and confusion. "Are you not a witch, or did something happen to me when… well, whatever happened to me… happened?"
"'Witch'?" Verbeena said, staring at 'Harry' in confusion. "What are you talking about?"
'Harry' opened his mouth as though he was going to reply, but then his eyes fell on one of the more reflective pieces of metal in the Imaging Chamber, and his jaw dropped.
"Oh my god…" he said, as he raised one hand to touch his face. "What happened to me… Some new kind of Polyjuice potion?"
"What?" Verbenna said, looking at Harry in confusion. "What are you talking about?"
Looking back at her, 'Harry' raised a curious eyebrow.
"You don't know what Polyjuice potion is?" he asked her.
"Uh... no," Verbeena said, shaking her head. "Should I?"
Swallowing, 'Harry' looked at his hands for a few moments, as though wondering whether he should try something, and then seemed to come to a decision.
"Look, you'll never believewhat I'm about to tell you unless I do something to prove I'm not a raving lunatic, so I hope this works," he said to her, as though steeling himself to come to a decision. She vaguely heard him mutter something about a Ministry, but her attention was diverted by other things as the new arrival raised his hand, called out, "Expelliarmus!"...
And, to Verbeena's surprise, her clipboard flew out of her hands and landed in 'Harry's' hand, although she noticed that he seemed slightly paler than he'd been a few minutes ago.
Looking at the clipboard he now held, Harry smiled slightly to himself.
"Well… glad that worked," he said, as he looked up at Verbeena. "Wasn't sure I could pull that off… Guess I'm still not quite used to using wandless magic in an emergency yet…"
"Wandless… magic?" Verbeena said, staring at 'Harry' in ever-growing confusion. "Are you saying… you're a wizard?"
"Yeah… that's right," Harry said, smiling slightly as he looked back at the dark-skinned psychiatrist. "Just turned seventeen… but trust me; I had to learn some of my tricks fast."
Verbeena's eyes widened.
A wizard? A genuine, flesh-and-blood, wand-using, magic-wielding wizard…?
If this guy was telling the truth (And the 'spell' he'd just done seemed to be proof that this was the case), this was going to be a very difficult leap for Doctor Beckett.
Reaching over, she tapped the communication button that had been installed in the Waiting Room since this all began; it had already proved helpful in cases such as Billie Jean nearly giving birth upon her arrival, and this was another case where she needed to talk to Al as soon as possible.
"Admiral?" she said. "You need to get here soon; our guest has a very interesting story to tell."
And, of course, they'd need to get Ziggy in to record the information; she strongly doubted that the information in Ziggy's databanks would extend to include the full details of the life of a wizard…