Prologue

He hadn't heard the strange whooshing sound, nor did he notice the blue box that appeared when there was a flash of lightning and a roll of thunder. He sprinted out of the oncoming storm and into the safety of a tunnel.

He was running again, he had been doing that a lot lately, not that he would remember. He heard footsteps splash, echoing through the tunnel, the moment he stopped for breath. They would catch him soon; he wasn't healthy enough, strong enough to go much farther. He knew for a fact that one for his ribs was broken from the excruciating pain in his side and his own wheezing breathing. Shakily, he pulled his wand out of his a pocket of his baggy, damp sweatshirt pocket with his right hand. His wand wouldn't do him any good, but it made him feel better.

They would catch him, corner him, wipe his memory and dump him back in the hell hole he was supposed to call home. He was starved and beaten but still hanging by that thread of hope Dumbledore couldn't take away from him.

The only reason he even knew what was going on was that he had started a journal, at Hermione's insistence, after Sirius died. He was flipping back through the pages, rereading what he had written, when he realized what was there and what he remembered did not match. Thus, came the planning and the counter attack. He was a lot cleverer than what people gave him credit for. Hermione would be proud.

The sound of a tin can clanging along the concrete floor, echoed in the cavernous space. He heard his name being called out.

"Potter, I know you're there."

Holding his wand in front of him, defensively, he slowly backed up, trying to make as little sound as possible. The tunnel bent in either direction and he didn't know which way his captors were coming from. He was surprised he had even made it this far from Privet Drive without collapsing, but he was going to soon.

His free hand flew to the pocket of his oversized jeans as Mad-Eye Moody came into view around one of the corners with Kingsley Shacklebolt, close behind coming from the opposite direction. Harry grasped at something metallic and glittery with his left hand and pulled it close to his heart, in a calming motion.

Harry looked behind him, hoping for an escape route but there was none and he knew he wouldn't be able to make it if he tried getting away in this torrential downpour. He was surrounded. It was a lost cause, but he swore he would go down fighting once again.

Before he knew it he had two wands pointed at his chest and no way out.

He backed right up against the cold, wet wall, letting out a single shrill cry. Wand still out stretched, albeit shakily, the other hand still clasped to his chest.

They were talking to him now, telling him he was useless and he shouldn't try to fight what was laid out. And other degrading remarks. It shouldn't have bothered Harry, these threats. It wasn't anything different than what the Dursley's told him daily. It was more the fact that these had been people he had trusted with his life and they were now doing the unthinkable.

"You are an inconvenience and a trouble maker. I don't know why Dumbledore keeps you around."

Something moved out of the corner of Harry's eye, the direction Moody had come from.

It was a man, silently running down the long tunnel, dressed in a suit and an overcoat, holding a thick silver rod with a blue light blinking at the end. Their eyes met. Once the man was close enough, he mouthed 'duck'. Harry let his legs give out just as the gas main behind him exploded, sending his two attackers flying.

Once the dust had cleared from the exploding gas main, Harry tried to sit up but realized he didn't have enough strength to. He squeezed his eyes shut in pain.

"Shh, don't move." Came a voice Harry didn't recognize, but opening his eyes he saw it belonged to his savior. The man laid a hand on his shoulder and waved the rod over his body. Harry closed his eyes again and his ears filled with the sound of a strange but comforting whirling noise.

His savior sighed sadly and with a rustle of fabric something soft was tucked under his head.

"What is your name?"

"They call me Harry." The metal object in his hard warmed slightly as Harry answered. He didn't know what made him answer that way but it felt right.

"And they call me The Doctor." The man said. He grasped Harry's hand, the one holding the glittering metal. "Let me help you."

"Alright." Harry slowly opened his eyes back up and got a better look at the man called The Doctor. Doctor, a man who makes people better. Brown hair stuck up in all directions and dark, rectangular glasses framed a pair of ancient and sad brown eyes. He looked about thirty, but Harry suspected he was much older than that.

With an overwhelming urge, Harry slipped what he had been holding in his left hand into The Doctor's and the warm metal switched hands. It was a silver pocket watch, tarnished slightly with time but still glittering all the same. It was warm to the touch and not from body heat, but heat of its own.

The Doctor slowly turned the time mechanism over in his hand, written in Gallifreyan were the words: The Leader.

He looked at the child now breathing shallowly now, covered in dust and surrounded by rubble. He was certain that this belong to the boy. Memories of a Time Lord. But how had he survived the Time War, the only ones able to escape the Temporal Shield had been himself and The Master. Everyone else was there, on Gallifrey, summoned by the Call and destroyed, by him, in the Time War.

Harry squeezed his hand that still held on to one of The Doctor's, he didn't know how much longer he could last.

"Come on, kid." The Doctor said. He wrapped his coat that he used for Harry as a pillow and draped it over him before he picked the boy up bridal style. "Let's get you someplace safe." Harry groaned in pains as his body was lifted up and carried out of the tunnel. The two attackers hadn't even stirred. Outside it was still raining but not as hard. Thunder still rumbled in the distance but the worst of the storm had already passed.

The door to the TARDIS swung open at its own accord to let her pilot in and shut it with a click behind him. There was a chaise chair in the Console room by the Captain's chair ready for use and a cup of water complete with a straw sat nearby on the console.

The Doctor laid a still conscious Harry out on the chaise the TARDIS had provided. He got some fluids into the child before he passed out.

The Doctor settled on the chair next to the chaise, to watch over the child. He had seen a lot in all his centuries of travelling, but child abuse got him every time. He had felt the TARDIS scan the child and catalogue him for the future. He was just barely sixteen according to the records the TARDIS collected.

It began raining heavily again outside the TARDIS, this time without the thunder and lightning. The Doctor sat in the Console room turning the silver pocket watch in his hand over and over. The presence of the time piece meant two things. One, the boy was a Time Lord and he had looked into the Untempored Schism already and two, he was hiding or being hidden, but why?

Now came the tricky part of whether or not to get the child to open the pocket watch. He could feel the child dying and the TARDIS already confirmed it. Not saying anything would allow the child to die peacefully, and never knowing of the great heritage he carried. He saw the look in the child's eyes though; it was the same one he saw in his reflection every day, the look of having seen too much, too many battles and too many deaths. There was that glimmer of hope though, that wanderlust, especially when the child had seen him coming. He could persuade the child to open the watch, open all that could be done, who he was and who he could become. He wouldn't be alone; he could teach him and have him carry on the legacy of the Time Lords of Old for hundreds more years. But then loneliness would befall the child too.

He would leave that decision up to the child.