Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling. I do not own Harry Potter.

Note: The following one-shot is rated 'M' and involves character death. It is set in a universe which differs from canon in the existence in it of a graduate of an Istanbul school with her own agenda. This story commences during the autumn of 1981...

Further Note: This piece was mostly written in the late summer of 2013, before my current ongoing (as of the date of posting, in December, 2013) period of 'writer's block' struck. Sadly, its posting is no indication that said block has cleared.

The fidelius had proven a minor problem, in so much as it had obliged the woman currently going under the name of 'Angelica Gabriel' to spend several weeks in surveilling James Potter's closest friends, until she had identified the one he had appointed as his secret keeper – after which it had been a simple matter of getting the friend in question drunk, dosing him with veritaserum, and obliviating him of the fact afterwards. Still, it had been an annoying hold up of her plans – especially since every time she left home these days, for something like this, she had to arrange childcare.

After circumventing the fidelius, it had been a matter of a couple of days of observation of the target location, and several more of mental preparation and readying herself. Since it had been mid-October, when she finally pinpointed James Potter's location the ideal night to call in on him for one last time had identified itself rather neatly as Hallowe'en – when there'd be sufficient other things going on, she was sure, that if anything did go wrong the chances of it going unnoticed in the rowdiness of the night were greater.

Well that, and it was stylish.

'Angelica', upon arriving in Godric's Hollow, on the evening of October the thirty-first, had an uneasy feeling of something amiss.

She glanced casually around the streets, but if there was some threat to her present, it was impossible to casually discern it amongst the occasional people about, either costumed or not.

'Angelica' herself was costumed, in a manner reminiscent of occasional female denizens of muggle vampire films. Beneath the silk-lined cloak, she was dressed in a manner intended to be alluring – as she might need the distraction – and with conveniently puffed sleeves and plenty of other handy spaces that could be put to use to conceal various useful items. Her attire was also designed to allow her a surprising degree of flexibility and freedom of movement.

Making her costume for tonight had been part of her process of readying herself. She wasn't an expert seamstress, but force of habit, schooled into her years ago, was that she should never rely on anyone else to do anything she couldn't reasonably do herself – especially not when it involved an errand such as this night's.

'Angelica' arrived at the front gate of where the Potter family were staying, and got out a mirror and fiddled with it, under the pretence of checking her hair. She was actually checking to see if she was being followed, without being overt about it.

There did seem to be a sinister fellow lurking in the shadows a short way off, in a highly effective costume that many would find disturbing. It was possible that it was some Order of the Phoenix watcher, assigned as additional protection for the Potters, and taking advantage of the night to be slightly more open about their presence than usual.

Oh well, it wasn't as if every member of Albus Dumbledore's little order recognised one another on sight – Albus Dumbledore insisted on keeping some of his operatives hidden and unidentified from the others – and presumably the watcher would simply assume that she was a previously unknown member of the Order, the moment that she went into the residence. Still, she'd have to be as fast about this as possible, in case some sort of alarm was about to be raised.

She made a last minute adjustment to her attire, tucked the mirror away, strolled up to the front-door, and knocked.

A few moments later, the door opened, and James Potter stood there.

"Yes?" he said, sounding puzzled.

Of course he didn't recognise her. It had been on one night, months ago, that he'd last seen her, and she'd looked entirely different and had been going under the name of 'Michelle Chateauroux'.

"Angelica Gabriel." she said. "Peter asked me to deliver an urgent message. May I come in?" She glanced around, making a show of looking nervous. "It's highly confidential he told me."

James frowned, no doubt wondering who she was, but apparently figuring that someone wouldn't show up on the doorstep and knock unless she was a friend.

"I thought Peter was between girlfriends at the moment?" James said. "Or are you some distant relation he's never mentioned?"

'Angelica' deliberately flushed.

"He's not mentioned me to you? I know he said he was afraid of the fun you'd make of him, if he told you, but I didn't think he was that serious."

James rolled his eyes.

"We're not that bad to him." Apparently reassured of whatever minor doubts he may have had, he stepped aside and pulled the door right open. "You'd better come in."

'Angelica' stepped over the threshold, James pushing the door shut behind her.

"Go on through, Lily's in the sitting room." James said, indicating the door. He raised his voice to call out: "Lily. Some friend or relation of Peter's just turned up, with a message she says."

'Angelica' went through into the next room, glancing around in curiosity. She had seen no sign of James having a wand on him on the doorstep, and she saw no sign of Lily having one to hand now. Some sort of board with lettered tiles on it was on a table – maybe a divinational tool, or perhaps a game of some kind – and Lily was peering at a rack that held a selection of tiles.

"What did you say your name was again?" James asked, coming into the room behind her.

"At the school in Istanbul where I studied, they call me 'The Angel of Death'." 'Angelica' said, turning and drawing one of her concealed blades as she did so. "Goodnight, Mr. Potter."

She was fast, and they were taken completely off guard. Honestly, she was doing Albus Dumbledore a favour if these were the sort of people he was supposedly relying upon. James was down on the floor, choking and gargling up his lifeblood whilst Lily was still gaping, and 'Angelica' twirled across the room drawing another blade (faster than pulling the one out of James), to deal with Mrs. Potter.

"And goodnight to you, too." 'Angelica' murmured to Lily, before the light went out of the other's eyes.

Two down, one to go, and then the 'clearing up' operation and then 'Angelica' could enjoy a long and financially secure 'retirement'. The child, she was sure, would be in the nursery.

Without pausing to retrieve the weapon buried upto the hilt in Mrs. Potter either ('Angelica' was hardly short on weaponry, and making sure all the targets were dead as fast as possible was the primary objective tonight), she headed back out into the hall, at which point, with a spectacular roar and crash, the front door burst inwards, and 'Angelica' barely avoided the flying maelstrom of splinters by drawing protectively up against the wall.

Damn.

She glanced at the door, shaking her head and trying to clear the ringing noise from her ears, and saw the sinister figure of earlier framed in the doorway, a wand in his hand and his eyes gleaming red. Now that she saw it, the wand – of course – identified him at once as who and what he was.

'Angelica' had obviously heard rumours that the latest British dark lord was after the Potters for some reason, but she hadn't expected him to have such a personal interest in them. And it looked right now like she wasn't the only person Peter had been careless of the Potters' security to.

Right. So, she'd been taken by surprise by 'Lord Voldemort', and whilst it was possible she might be able to fast-talk her way out of this (she had just killed the two adult Potters after all) she estimated her odds of doing so were fifty-fifty at best. (Or considerably less, if he'd wanted to kill all the Potters personally.)

In the meantime, he was looking at her, a sneer on his lips (he'd seen her go into the house, so he hadn't been surprised by her presence) and he started to languidly slowly raise his wand.

She knew that expression. It was one of supreme confidence and arrogance – he didn't see a wand in her hand, so he assumed she could pose a minimal threat.

'Angelica' engaged in a rapid mental calculation, estimated that the odds were considerably better in her favour if she went for violent action ahead of talking, turned – sweeping off her cloak and tossing it through the air at the head of 'Lord Voldemort' as she did so – and leapt for him, pulling her third blade of the evening.

He had some protective measures in place against physical violence, but they were inadequate for coping with 'Angelica' and the selection of weaponry she had brought along for this night. Still, his protections made the struggle a lot closer to being equal than she would have liked, and even after he'd stopped moving and she'd stabbed him quite thoroughly a number of times in vital spots just to try and 'make sure', she doubted he'd be permanently inconvenienced by this. He was a dark wizard who dabbled in Hassan-knew-what kind of ancient and seedy magical arts. This was probably just a simulacrum, or the body would slowly regenerate, or he'd have loyal followers watching over a 'spare' body waiting for his spirit (if suddenly unhoused) to arrive and adopt it. Or something else…

Still, there was a positive side to this. She'd planned to set things up such that it seemed the Potters had simply all died in a 'mysterious fire'. 'Lord Voldemort' being dead on the premises, too, would make the fire seem considerably less mysterious. Obviously (though she'd need some way to enforce Lord Voldemort's co-operation, if and when he inevitably revived) there would have been a tragic confrontation, in which…

She looked up, on instinct, to find an old man standing there on the threshold, a frown on his face and a wand in his hand.

Oh crap. First 'Lord Voldemort' and now Albus Dumbledore, as well. Either her hearing was still recovering from that exploding front door or Albus was really good at stealthy approaches.

She didn't bother wondering what Albus Dumbledore was doing here – for all that she knew he might have been intending to pay a social call, had been tracking 'Lord Voldemort', or something which had happened here had triggered some sort of magical alert which had brought him here post-haste. What did matter was that thanks to this latest highly inconvenient witness the 'mysterious fire' plan to cover the manner of the deaths of the Potters had just gone to blazes. Albus Dumbledore was reputedly even tougher than 'Lord Voldemort', and she didn't have anything else conveniently to hand she could throw over his head to disorientate him so she could close the distance unimpeded to try to get the better of him up-close-and-personal. If she tried to kill him it would be a race between the speed and accuracy with which she could draw and throw a knife and his ability to either sidestep or snap up a shield charm – and if she missed, she didn't doubt she wouldn't get a second chance.

Attempting to use magic against him was laughably out of the question.

She turned and ran, whilst he was still hesitating, trying to work out what was going on, letting his obvious confusion and doubt about her, given that that was 'Lord Voldemort' on the floor that she'd just killed, get the better of him. She would have liked to have stuck a knife in Harry Potter on the way out – her original plan had called for his death, along with the demise of his parents – but the original plan was at this point shot to pieces anyway, and Harry was looking immediately more useful alive and as potential future leverage now that a hunt might well end up on for the person who had killed James and Lily Potter not with spells but with cold steel, so she snatched him instead. 'Mysteriously disappeared', with long enough, would probably be as good as 'dead'. There were going to be goblins involved in this, after all, and goblins hated being supposed to look after someone else's money with no discernable owner that they could charge fees to.

And then she headed home, via a very circuitous route, switching disguises several times along the way, apparating multiple times, flooing, and making sure that Harry Potter was very clear of tracking charms, and with her applying suitable measures to ensure he was unlikely to be magically located.

She hated having left three blades behind, but it wasn't as if they would reveal anything about her that a man as shrewd as Albus Dumbledore was reputed to be wouldn't be capable of already guessing anyway, and they certainly couldn't be used to magically track her.

And she was going to have to discard her 'Angelica Gabriel' name and persona, which was a shame, as she'd started to become attached to it…

Maybe it was time to go back to 'Michelle Chateauroux'. She'd planned on doing so anyway – after all Michelle was Meredith's mother – but she'd intended to have a few more years of activity before sinking back into that role.

Oh well, given the way that tonight had turned out, she was going to have to lie quiet that little bit longer…

"All the evidence, Severus, points to a woman trained as an assassin by the School of the Golden Hand in Istanbul having killed James and Lily, and then Lord Voldemort." Albus Dumbledore said to his potions teacher and spy. "At present, I can only imagine that Lord Voldemort took her along as backup – perhaps controlling her by means of the Imperius Curse – and that once James and Lily were dead, she shook free of his influence, turned on him and took him down. Harry is currently missing. I am, alas, in my old age, somewhat slow on my feet, and she was a woman several decades younger than myself, clearly accustomed to violent physical exertion. She abducted Harry on her way out, for purposes that I must confess that I am currently unable to fathom."

"I care not for the brat." Severus said. "And I want to see your memory of what this woman" his knuckles whitened ever so slightly as he made a barely restrained movement with his hands, "who killed Lily looked like."

"I would certainly welcome any useful thoughts that you wish to share with me regarding the scene I discovered in Godric's Hollow, Severus, and I will certainly allow you to view my recollection of the night alongside me in my pensieve, but if she truly was a student of the School of the Golden Hand, she will already be unrecognisable as the woman that I briefly saw, Severus. And I think that you underestimate the importance of Harry in all of this. He was a son who Lily loved dearly, and he is the only thing left alive of her. If Lily could have asked anything of you, I feel sure that it would have been to ask that you ensure, as far as possible, her son's safety."

The years flew past, and on her daughter, Meredith Potter's, seventh birthday, 'Michelle Chataeuroux' finally ventured into the territory of Gringotts, Meredith in tow.

There was rather a fuss with the goblins. And then the goblins sent for the Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, Albus Dumbledore himself, since the Potter family was involved.

Albus Dumbledore listened patiently as Michelle explained yet again her story that she had been part of the 'entertainment' that the notorious Sirius Black had arranged for James Potter's 'stag night' and that James had got blindly drunk and bedded her. Nine months later, Meredith had turned out to be the result.

Yes, Michelle had tried to locate James Potter at the time, to inform him that he had fathered an illegitimate daughter, but with the war on, and everything, it had been impossible for she, a poor humble hedge-witch from Provence, to track him down, and in any case, she had been reluctant to put her neck on the line to venture into Britain to try and make enquiries in person, having a daughter to care for. And then she had heard that the Potters had been killed – absolutely terrible! – betrayed by their friends to the Death Eaters and at that point it was obviously futile to further attempt to contact James. And she had given up on any further thought of them, at least until recently, when times had become exceedingly difficult, financially speaking, and it had occurred to her that since James Potter's son was missing, perhaps Meredith might make claims for maintenance from the Potter fortune?

Dates were checked, Meredith's birth documents were requested and again examined. It was verified that in March and April of 1980, a French notary had attempted to notify James Potter that he was believed to be the father of a recently born girl, but the notary had been rather third-rate (the best available to Michelle) – and that to successfully contact James Potter, from a foreign country, had been completely beyond his abilities.

The goblins did not like gold sitting in their vaults which nobody – themselves included – was allowed to claim. The Potter vault and the legal limbo that it currently occupied was something of a sore point with them, and they made it quite clear that unless Harry Potter were to turn up upon the instant, they were inclined to hand the entire thing off to Meredith Potter, or whomever the Wizengamot wanted to appoint to hold it in trust for her. By the time that Albus Dumbledore had arrived, the goblins had already carried out sufficient tests to establish, to their own satisfaction, that Meredith Potter was indeed the natural daughter of James Potter.

Michelle protested that she had only been seeking a small stipend to assist with ensuring her daughter had a comfortable life. Albus Dumbledore pointed out that should Harry Potter be ever discovered, he was the principle surviving beneficiary of his parents' wills. The goblins expressed polite disbelief to Michelle that it was possible for a witch or wizard to have too much gold, and to Albus Dumbledore something to the effect of 'if Harry ever does turn up the Wizengamot can sort out what claim to the Potter fortune he should have'. The goblins were firm believers in the oldest inheriting, in cases where confusion arose, and Harry could have been not much more than a twinkle in his parents' eyes, at the point that Meredith had been born.

The issue was settled, to the satisfaction of the goblins.

Author Notes:

There are numerous fanfictions around whereby various females try to get hold of 'the Potter fortune' (whether that actually exists in canon or not) by means of various shenanigans involving Harry. I thought I'd give a one-shot a go in which a woman goes fishing for such fabled gold a decade or two earlier by going after James. Coincidentally she ends up selecting the same night to take out the Potters as Lord Voldemort does...

I'm unclear on the date in canon that James married Lily, but for the purposes of this universe, I've assumed James' 'stag party' occurred at some point in early 1979, with Meredith being born towards the end of that year. Several months passed between that and 'Michelle' hiring the third-rate notary. Her explanation about that would be that it took her, a poor hedge-witch, several months to save up enough money to attempt to hire even the legal functionary that she did.

The 'School of the Golden Hand' is as far as I know an addition of my own to the Harry Potter universe, but loosely inspired by stories of assassin organisations (historical or fictional) which operated out of desert/middle-eastern settings. In particular, 'Knightmare: Fortress of Assassins' by Dave Morris can be held partly responsible (along with the original 'Dragon Warriors' book Out of the Shadows which he co-authored).

'Angelica'/'Michelle' is perfectly wand-capable, but she finds stabbing people much more effective and faster in close-quarters than going through elaborate arm-waving motions and saying/thinking specific 'magic words'. Plus not having a wand out tends to lead to her being frequently underestimated by witches/wizards, at least until she does start killing people.

Albus Dumbledore didn't get a sufficiently good look at 'Angelica Gabriel' on Hallowe'en 1981 to be able to identify her as the same woman, in a different disguise, half a decade later in Gringotts. And he's developed so many theories by then about what exactly happened on Hallowe'en 1981, that it's merely an interesting coincidence from his point of view that it should turn out so many years after the death of James that he had in fact fathered a child during a drunken night out before his wedding. Albus Dumbledore certainly takes 'Michelle' as being nothing more than she says that she is.

Obviously, sufficient people named in any Potter wills extant in this universe are dead/incapacitated/in prison (or mysteriously vanished in Harry's case) that the bulk of what James/Lily had to leave sits in legal limbo for years before 'Michelle' shows up in 1986 with Meredith.

As a reminder this piece is a one-shot.

Update (March 6th, 2014):

To clarify, Meredith Potter is a half-sibling (an older sister) to Harry Potter, not Harry Potter under some magical disguise/transformation. 'Angelica'/'Michelle' disposed of Harry in a fashion she considered appropriate, and didn't bother with keeping any but the most perfunctory of tabs on him, once it was clear that she was unlikely to find it useful to produce him anytime soon as a bargaining chip. (For the record, she found a very old, rich, pure-blood family, running short on heirs and prepared not to ask too many questions about a child they could adopt and bring up as one of their own...)