Best Short Time Travel Fanfics
Time Travel novellas — 10k to 50k words, polished and contained. Curated from AO3, ranked by kudos.
Top 20 Short Time Travel Fanfics
Ranked by AO3 kudos. Each fic is tagged with time travel and falls in the 10,000–50,000 words range.
Three's Family
by darkbluedark
It’s May 1979 and the Order has just apprehended a pair of mysterious wizards who look remarkably like a Potter and a Malfoy. Naturally, James Potter and Sirius Black are called in to identify the strangely familiar strangers and determine their backgrounds and loyalties.(This would be a lot easier
Don't Fuck With Florists (They'll Fuck You Up)
by MayMarlow
Unsatisfied with his post-war life, Harry decides to get to the root of all of his problems when that root was still working at Borgin and Burkes shop in the late 40s. He’s the Master of Death, damn it, he can do what he wants for once in his life.Tom Riddle isn’t particularly happy about working at
The Family You Choose
by TunaFishChris
Some people are born with soulmarks. Zuko has them, but his grandfather burned them off because they "make you weak." Team Avatar has a few things to say about that.
Looping Back to the Beginning
by Feneris
Where Class 1-A finds itself in a time loop centered around their first year at UA. After getting over the usual angst, they decide that the best way to grow as heroes is by antagonizing dangerous villains for fun and amusement.
journey to the past
by aloneintherain
Izuku is five years old the first time he's saved by heroes. He's an instant fan of the woman in pink with her cheerful smile and the man with his ice powers and fine-boned features, even if they both refuse to tell him their names. For most of his life, Izuku has been the centre of villain attacks,
Fly a Little Faster
by mirrorkill
Everyone knows when you go back in time, you shouldn't step on an ant, just in case you accidentally kill your own grandparent or something. But what happens when you go back in time and, uh, accidentally interrupt the one event that apparently made the Grumpiest Alpha in Town into a ball of mindles
The Source of Grief
by withthekeyisking
No one had ever met Hadrian Gaunt before the man suddenly whirled into their lives and started fixing problems they didn't even know existed.And yet, not a single person regretted meeting him.
Fairy Godbrother
by envysparkler
What are brothers for?(Or: some minor dimensional travel, pseudo-kidnapping, and a whole lot of meddling.)
Pythonicus
by Lomonaaeren
Sequel to “Princeps” and “Potens.” Harry has gained the loyalty of many of the young Slytherins, and others he never expected. Now he attempts to find and destroy Voldemort’s Horcruxes and protect and teach his students while avoiding Time’s plans—and his followers’—to make him into a Lord.
The One in Which a Time Loop is Fucking Exhausting.
by badpancake
It’s the first time in a while that he doesn’t know what comes next. He’s dove into the water hundreds of times. Screamed as his flesh was torn apart, heard Master of Puppets in the distance and held back tears. Felt Max’s cold, small hand in his as she laid in the hospital bed. There are things tha
Eight's Company
by darkbluedark
The first two nights, Harry sleeps like the dead— or, well, maybe that's not the best comparison, given the number of inferi attacks reported lately.He sleeps like a log. Like a dead log. An un-re-animated dead log. From an everyday, inanimate, non-whomping tree.After that, Harry wakes up screaming
Potens
by Lomonaaeren
Sequel to ‘Princeps.’ Harry has changed time in a way he never anticipated, and now he has to deal with followers, assassination attempts from Voldemort, questions from Dumbledore, and being Hogwarts’s first returning Defense Against the Dark Arts professor in a decade.
Just a Few Changes (will Keep you Safe)
by Blueseabird2
It's been over five years since Voldemort's defeat when Harry Potter gets pushed through a portal and falls into the Great Hall of Hogwarts. This wouldn't be a problem, exactly, except it's his parents' Hogwarts instead of his own. Thankfully, Hermione and Ron aren't about to let him face this newes
there but for the grace of god
by wanderlove
There’s nothing particularly remarkable about Sullust.Well, except for Obi-Wan’s time-traveling son. But, you know. Apart from that. Or, baby-Luke-raised-by-Ben-Kenobi shows up in the middle of the Clone Wars, causes Anakin and Obi-Wan to put two and two together and get forty-five, and in the proce
slow it down (go easy on me)
by newamsterdam
It’s at that moment that Bakugou realizes something is very, very wrong. He glances down at himself and sees scars he’s never had before along his arms, little nicks and scratches he’d never have been oblivious to. When he reaches up, his limbs feel longer, and as he staggers to his feet he stands s
Relativity.
by Ideasofmarch
"We would like to give you a chance.”“A chance?”“That’s right.”“A chance at what?”“Why, at living, Mr Potter.”-When Harry Potter is approached by a mysterious third party organisation that offers him the chance of a lifetime, he finds himself flung five decades into the past with a new name, new pa
Crazy Diamonds
by pantheon_of_discord
A week ago, Dean was pulled out of Hell. Now, he’s apparently woken up in 2018, and the angel that a mere twenty-four hours beforehand had threatened to chuck him back into the pit is sleepily pouring himself coffee and wearing Dean’s second-favourite Zeppelin shirt. It all seems like a perfect happ
time out of mind
by aknightley
Keith and Lance wake up married. In the future. He lays there a moment, processing the faint throbbing in his head, a strange bitter taste like lemons in his mouth. When he opens his eyes, the room spins wildly into a kaleidoscope of colors, so he closes them again, breathing in and out until he
psalm 40:2
by unicornpoe
“How the fuck do you know my name?” Dean hisses.The man doesn’t look scared. He is watching Dean like there is nothing else worth watching, lips a little parted, eyes a little soft. And blue. Real blue, like the ocean on a postcard.The ice spreading down Dean’s spine makes him shiver.“I suppose you
Thunderstorms & Polish Lullabies
by Whispering_Merely
Boyd is there, hovering over his claws, Isaac looks devastated, Jennifer looks bewildered and concerned and horrified, Kali looks smug, the twins are carefully keeping their faces blank but they're playing along, and- Gods, he's really going to be forced to do this, isn't he? Pack, his Pack, the mak
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About Time Travel
Characters travel through time, either to change events, escape danger, or by accident. Romance may span different time periods or involve changing the past.
The excitement of different time periods, the complexity of temporal paradoxes, and the possibility of fixing past mistakes or finding love across time.
Common scenarios: Going back to fix mistakes, accidentally traveling to the past/future, meeting historical figures, changing timeline for love.
About This List
This list of 20short Time Travel fanfics spans 552,929 total words. Kudos range from 14,315 on the newest entries to 48,040 on the most established. Nearly all (95%) are complete, so you can start any of them without WIP anxiety. The most common rating is Teen And Up Audiences (15 of 20 fics).
Recurring tags across this list: Time Travel · Time Travel Fix-It · Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence · Hurt/Comfort · Fix-It.
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