Title: Potential Luck

Disclaimer: I don't own anything. At all.

A/N: There will be no romance in this story, and the rating is for violence (and maybe a bit of language) only. Thanks for reading!

Chapter 1

The floor rose up and smacked Harry on the cheek hard enough for his vision to momentarily darken, but not so hard that he worried about any broken bones. A loose tooth, perhaps, but nothing to be too concerned about.

Getting his hands beneath himself, he twisted back towards the man who'd sent the curse his way and spat, "That was your big surpr-". He cut himself off mid-word to frown at the blurry room.

His tormentor was not where he'd been. And he could see the room.

Well, no, technically he couldn't really see much more than out-of-focus blobs of color, but there were definitely colors. Colors other than black. Certainly this was a surprise, considering he hadn't seen much more than grimy black walls for several weeks. Frowning, he surveyed as much of the room as he could see from his position on the floor. Grey walls (a pleasant change) were interrupted by several brown blobs he tentatively identified as a door, a desk, a bookshelf, and two rigid wooden chairs. A red mass that looked like it might turn out to be a comfy armchair sat in a corner complete with a large yellow accent pillow.

Not exactly the décor of a Death Eater prison cell.

It was also noticeably lacking the Death Eater.

What had happened? Avery's curse was obviously responsible for his new location, but…why?

With slow, cautious movements, Harry rose to his feet and took a step forward.

Nothing moved to stop him.

He spared a glance at the door, but couldn't imagine it would open for him. And even if it did, leaving bare-handed when the Death Eater had been stupid enough to send him to a room filled with potential weapons would be a mite short-sighted on his part. It seemed a rather foolish thing for Avery to have done, but Harry had no problem making it something the man fiercely regretted.

A growing feeling of grim determination mixed liberally with dark humor moved him towards the desk.

Squinting, Harry picked out the white rolls of parchment and a stubby quill on top of the desk. Snatching the quill up, he pressed a finger to the tip. It felt like it'd been recently trimmed, sharp and pointed. Ignoring the black smear of ink he's gotten on his finger, he snapped the feathery end off the quill keeping several inches of the hollow stem.

With quick, efficient movements, he riffled through the rest of the desk. Several more broken quills joined his first in a neat little pile. A smooth, glassy rock the size of his fist also joined his stash. It probably served some magical purpose, but Harry didn't have any way of determining what that might be and a muggle paperweight could be just as effective a bludger as an elaborately spelled device. The bottom left drawer was spelled shut and without a wand Harry couldn't open it so after a bit of tugging simply left it. More parchment, a package of spell-o-tape, a leather bound book, a small mirror, and an unopened box of lemon drops were the only other things he found. When he uncovered the candies, his heart gave a sharp lurch and he quickly dropped them back in the drawer. The Death Eaters liked to play their little games with him, but on this latest capture they had given him plenty of food, so the small treats were not tempting and the memories they invoked would have destroyed any hunger pains in any case.

Harry picked up the mirror and glanced over at the door. It had been perhaps three minutes since his arrival and he was beginning to wonder why there were no panicked voices shouting that he be found. Either Avery's spell must have teleported him to this location on purpose (which made him rather nervous) or he was much farther from his dark little cell than he thought.

Glancing back down at the mirror, Harry frowned at the surface. It was no longer reflective but had turned cloudy. Magic, obviously, but he had no desire to find out what it did. With a flick of wrist he tossed the mirror to the stone floor. As he'd hoped, it didn't have an unbreakable charm and shattered into a spray of glass, several of the smallest slivers embedding themselves in the scuffed toe of his sneaker. Grabbing one of the larger shards, he waved a hand at the rest of the mess and whispered a short spell. The smaller shards scattered around the room as if they'd been blown there by a sudden explosion of wind.

Wandless magic was not a talent that was generally thought to be very useful, but since Harry seemed to spend more time captured and wandless than free, he'd devoted a unusually large amount of time to stretching its usefulness. A person could do very simple charms with it such as Lumos, write on things at a distance, and levitate small, light objects, but that was about the extent that Harry had discovered. He had often wished that something like Reducto or conjuration would have possible, but there wasn't much he to do to change the properties of magic. It appeared that wands were necessary to conduct more complicated or magically intense spells as they needed the focused precision a wand provided; willpower alone was not enough.

A soft murmur of voices whispered from beyond the door and Harry tensed, frozen for a moment, listening. They were quiet, un-hurried, calm voices, too soft to distinguish exact words. Harry felt his heart rate speed up as adrenaline rushed in. Snatching up the stack of quill ends, he tossed all but one to the floor to join the broken mirror. The single, sharp quill remaining he clenched in the hand not holding the jagged remains of the mirror.

The voices grew louder and Harry slid up against the wall next to the door and took another rapid glance around the room – the books would be too heavy to levitate, perhaps one of them would emit some violent attack if opened – but, no, he didn't have time to check. The smooth paperweight was in easy reach. Should he have checked the window? Maybe he should have concentrated on escape rather than attack? No. He dismissed those thoughts and drew in a deep breath trying to ready himself. This wasn't the time to second guess himself.

Louder now, Harry could tell that the voice was female. He started to run through the list of female Death Eaters he knew the names of and tried to match it, but it wasn't striking him as someone familiar. New recruit, perhaps?

The thought made him hesitate. Last November, Lucious Malfoy had been the lucky Death Eater to make his capture and, instead of stupefying him and sending him directly to Voldermort, had kept him alert and started parading new recruits through, showing Harry off as if he were a prize pet. Harry had gotten loose, as he always seemed to eventually do, and had killed one of them before being re-captured. Malfoy had re-bound him and then coolly proceeded to inform him that he had done them a great service by ridding them of the one boy who'd seemed to be wavering in dedication to their cause. He'd congratulated Harry for proving to the rest of the recruits the correctness of their choice.

That had also been the capture where the Death Eaters learned not to leave Harry with his glasses. Gouging Malfoy's right eye out with a broken lens had not made up for the gnawing horror that the wizard's words had left, but it'd helped. Later it had occurred to him that the dark wizard had been lying to him, but he'd never known for sure and the idea that he was being played for a fool now ate at him.

The voice was almost at the door. Assuming it didn't just walk on by, he had only seconds to make a decision – continue to flatten himself beside the door and try to stab the woman in the neck with the mirror or…

With a grimace, Harry dropped the quill tip and transferred the mirror shard to his left hand. The voice paused at the door and Harry could now tell that it seemed to chiding someone. Exasperation and annoyance tinged the tone, but the words still didn't penetrate to make sense.

As the door swung open, Harry stepped forward and grasped the back of one of the wooden chairs. Hefting it in the air, he twisted and lobed it at the slim woman just stepping into the office. Her head had been turned away, still speaking to whomever her companion was, but the movement of the chair headed directly towards her caught her attention and with a jerk her wand moved and a shield formed between herself and the projectile.

Harry ducked down beside the desk, swearing under his breath. He had been hoping to incapacitate whoever she was and escape out the door, but it looked like he might be in for a fight instead. And if the speed with which she'd produced that shield charm was any indication, it would take more than a little luck for him to win.

"What do you think you're doing?" The outraged voice called from the doorway. "That was not an appropriate prank, neither very clever nor very subtle."

Again, the uncertainty flared up. Who was this woman and why was he here? Had Avery sent him here knowing he'd hurt her in order to escape? There was no fear in her voice at the unprovoked attack. No fear, and no real menace either. She spoke like someone who was simply annoyed.

"Um, professor…?" A more timid voice, much younger ventured from behind the woman and Harry stiffened. That voice was far too young to be a Death Eater. A child's voice. Then what the child had said caught up with him. A professor? The woman was a teacher? He supposed it was possible that the Death Eaters had stopped simply recruiting young adults and had started their own school program, but even as he tried to convince himself of that idea, doubts rose up to claw at him. He had jumped to the offensive without checking that his target was actually an enemy and he had the feeling he was going to regret it.

Glass crunched underfoot at the woman moved further into the room. "What are you doing?" There was more caution in the voice now, although the firm authority and annoyance was still in evidence.

He cleared his throat, "Um, Ma'am? I think I made a mistake."

"You most certainly did." The footsteps drew closer and Harry made no move to retreat further around the desk. He still gripped the large mirror shard and sometime in the last several seconds had managed to slice into his palm with it. A stinging sensation alerted him to the shallow wound, but he simply tightened his fist around it. He was unsure enough about whether the woman was part of Voldemort's crew to refrain from further attacking her for the moment, giving her the opportunity to make the next move, but he was not so foolish as to throw away every advantage. If it turned out he was wrong, she would find that just because he didn't have a wand didn't mean he was helpless.

The length of the woman's wand, glowing as if with a spell held just at the tip, was the first he saw of her advancing figure. The thought crossed his mind that perhaps he had overestimated her dueling capabilities since someone with more combat experience would have moved the desk out of the way or demanded he toss his wand to her. Anything but move into close striking range. Harry could easily reach out and snatched the wand from her hand - or at the very least immobilized her so she couldn't make the gestures most spells required. But he stayed where he was, crouched down, pressed against the desk. He had made the decision to wait and so that was what he would do until the situation clarified itself.

A slender, pale hand gripping the wand emerged into view followed by a slender arm wrapped in a green material which seemed to float around it. The arm paused and Harry reluctantly took his eyes off the wand to dart a glance upwards. The corner of the desk prevented him from seeing most of her body, but her head was now visible peering over at him. Her face matched her hand, slender and pale, with auburn hair fixed up in an untidy bun. If it hadn't been for the striking green eyes and the knowledge that she was long dead, he would have wondered if this woman was a grown version of Ginny Weasley. Perhaps she was perhaps part of an off-shoot of the Weasley family that he hadn't been introduced to. Maybe one of Arthur's cousins? Those green eyes nagged at him though. Where had he seen this face before? A newspaper photo? Although the features were blurry, she was close enough that her expression of confusion was nonetheless distinct.

"Who are you?" Her voice had dropped to nearly a whisper and the uncertainty had grown.

Harry squinted up at her. He knew it had been a while since he'd bathed so he was plenty filthy and certainly the last photo from the Daily prophet had been taken from a distance, but surely he was still recognizable? The lightning bolt scar on his forehead had grown to be just one of many curse scars he carried, even if it was still the most famous. The ragged edge of scar tissue that traveled from his hair line down his left cheek to end at his jaw line was rather hard to miss.

He cleared his throat again and wished, not for the first time, that he had his glasses again. You could see so much about a person if you could see their eyes, and not just through Legilimency.

What should he say? He hadn't been expecting her to not recognize him. He had an opening to lie, be anonymous, be a nobody… if it wasn't a trap.

"Professor?" The child's voice questioned from the doorway.

The woman took her eyes off him to turn to her student. It was only a flicker, but Harry still had to tell himself not to take advantage of it. It crossed his mind that he had spent far too long fighting if he had to restrain himself from attacking someone that wasn't presenting a threat. He wondered what Neville would say if he told him he was going to rectify that by taking a vacation to Australia. Or Antarctica. Or better yet, the moon. That sounded far enough away from everything.

"It's fine," The woman was telling the child, her eyes once again focused on the man at her feet, "Everything's fine. Would you go get the Headmaster for me? He's probably still in the Conference Room."

The small feet scampered down the hall, back the way they had come from.

"I don't believe you are one of our students, Mister…?" She trailed off, inviting him to supply a name.

He shook his head. "No. I -" He broke off, eyes darting between her face and her wand. It had never been pointing directly at him, currently it was held steady at a point off to his side, but even as he watched, it dipped to point at the floor.

This time when he looked back up he couldn't make out her expression. "Who are you?" Her voice gentled, soothing, and he wondered if he looked that bad. The bruises had faded, hadn't they? He was just dirty and scruffy looking, not someone who looked like he needed to go to St. Mungos, right? On the other hand, maybe she was just talking like someone who was facing a vicious dog – talk soft and maybe it won't bite.

But he still hadn't answered her question.

What were the chances he could get away with a lie for more than a few minutes? Whoever the kid had gone to get would certainly recognize him, but would that be a bad thing? If these people weren't on Voldemort's side, there was a good chance they'd help him. Or at least wouldn't hurt him. They'd probably kick him out the door and lock it behind him, but he couldn't really blame them if they did. People had a tendency to die if they helped the Boy-Who-Still-Lived, after all.

Rather than answer, he side-stepped the question, "I'm sorry. Where are we? Who are you?" He didn't relax, but he did make a show of scrunching his face into an expression of confusion and hoped she'd give him a few more minutes to sort out his options.

She narrowed her eyes at him, but answered, "We're at Hogwarts, young man, and I am Professor Potter. Now, I ask again, who are you?"

His mind stumbled over the 'Hogwarts' and he nearly missed the significance of the woman's name, but when he did register it, the rest of what she said immediately stopped holding any meaning. Forgetting any fear of being cursed, his eyes shot to her face.

Those eyes! It hit him that they looked so familiar because they stared out of every mirror he'd ever looked in. They smiled out of the precious photo album Hagrid had created for him. They belonged in the face of his mother – the face peering down at him right now.

With a roar of outrage, Harry lunged at her.

From his crouched position, he extended one hand, wrapped it around the wand, and yanked. Simultaneously, the other hand lashed out and embedded the shard of mirrored glass into her wrist.

With a cry of shock, her hand spasmed, releasing her wand into Harry's full control. Stumbling back a step, she also inadvertently freed herself from the glass as Harry had no intention of releasing hold of it. It tore free leaving a deep, ragged gash.

Harry hoped he'd ripped a tendon, at least. She wouldn't be able to hold a wand correctly with that hand until it had been tended to that way, and most people were not nearly as competent with their non-dominate hand in spell casting. He had no way of knowing if she was carrying a spare wand somewhere and at least this would slow her down some.

"Incarcerous!" A set of ropes shot from his stolen wand and wrapped around the woman. Already off balance from jerking away from him, the ropes around her legs caused her to topple over, although she did manage to twist so that her uninjured side took the brunt of her weight.

"Now," Harry snarled at her, "Who the hell are you?"

Her eyes, already dilated with shock, seemed to grow larger as she took in their change of position and her own wand leveled at her forehead.

"Wha-?"

"Perficus Totalus!" Harry had already begun twisting and ducking before the first syllable finished, but he still wasn't agile enough to avoid the spell aimed at his back and mid-spin felt every muscle stiffen and lock into place. Momentum carried his frozen form further around and sideways so he fell facing the door, his back to the woman he'd just wounded.

He silently cursed himself for seven kinds of fool to have left his back to the open door.

Immobilized eyes took in the hem of a purple satin robe woven with silver threads. Pointed slippers topped with a tuft of silver yarn peaked beneath the robe with every footstep as the man wearing them rushed forward and plucked the wand from Harry's hand. In the brief instant that he leaned forward, Harry could see the man's face. If he'd been able to move, Harry would have jerked back in shock. A long white beard and neatly tied white hair framed a wrinkled face Harry would never forget.

He wanted to howl his outrage and spit at the feet of the person who had stolen Dumbledore's face. It was even worse than seeing someone wear his mother's face. He had never met his mother and could easily imagine that the woman was some Death Eater wearing a mask, but this face was one he'd known, one he'd spent time talking to, one he still missed. He'd know those twinkling blue eyes anywhere. Albus Dumbledore had been the strongest wizard, most compassionate leader, and kindest man Harry had ever met and to see someone desecrate that memory was beyond infuriating.

However, not only did the spell he was bound with prevent him from physical movement, it also prevented his heart from racing or adrenaline from kicking in and blinding his reason, so although the rage rose in a torrential wave, it subsided just as rapidly, leaving only a cold fury that simmered down into bitter resentment.

"Incarcerous." The calm voice of the headmaster wrapped Harry in a swirl of ropes, doubling the spells that chained him.

"Albus!" The woman behind him cried.

With the nimble movements Harry remembered the aged wizard having, 'Dumbledore' hoped over Harry's prone form and banished the ropes binding the woman. "Here you are my dear." Another spell and Harry knew the gash on the woman's arm was healed.

He silently let loose another string of vicious swearing. He should have just cast petrificus totalus at that woman and ran while he'd had the chance. But, no, he'd been so furious that some Death Eater was impersonating his mother that he'd had to try to stop and figure out who she really was first. Stupid, stupid, stupid mistake

He should probably have cast Diffindo and made sure the woman never got up again. But, even as he thought it, he knew he wouldn't have actually done it. He still remembered Ron's horror when he realized the 'Death Eater' he'd killed had actually been a captive muggle polyjuiced to look like Crabbe. Harry wasn't sure if Ron had ever recovered from that mistake.

Claiming to be Lily Potter or not, this woman had not yet actually attacked him and her lack of vigilance, the ease with which he'd subdued her, still made him uneasy. Even now, bound and frozen, likely to be returned to Avery, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was missing something important. There was just too much wrong with this whole situation.

The two other wizards were now arguing behind him. 'Lily' was refusing to go to the hospital wing for her arm where 'Dumbledore' seemed to be urging her to go to ensure everything had healed properly.

However, neither of them had noticed the broken quills or the bits of shattered glass around the room. If they kept talking long enough, there was still a chance he could escape.

As long as he was conscious, there was always a chance for escape.

The petrifying spell he was under would last anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour without renewal, depending on the power of the caster. The more time he waited before attacking these two, the greater the likelihood that the spell would wear off first. And he definitely preferred being able to move when he tried doing anything. Of course, even with the petrificus totalus gone, he would still have to deal with the ropes. They would stay until banished; even though they were magically conjured, they were still just ordinary ropes, but Harry still had his piece of mirror tucked into the palm of his hand.

The woman was now describing what had happened and Harry listened with half an ear, most of his attention focused on running through different methods of snatching either of their wands before they managed to stupefy him.

A small portion of his brain, however, was also mulling over how the Death Eaters had managed to pull off such an elaborate stunt why they'd bother. What did it gain them to have someone claim to be his mother? Did they think he'd fall at her feet and suddenly blab every Order secret? There was no way anyone could think he'd be that gullible. And Dumbledore? Did someone think he'd forget watching the man die? Half of Hogwarts had seen the greatest light wizard in over a century succumb to a curse that left his body a mutilated mess just outside the Great Hall.

How had they done it? Polyjuice, the best disguise available, was out of the question. It was impossible to use that potion to imitate a dead person. There had been a reason Barty Couch Jr. had left Moody alive in that trunk all those years ago, after all. A glamour of some sort? It would have to be more than that though to get the man playing Dumbledore to not just look like him but sound like him as well. And that didn't take into account the fact that the wand still pointed at him looked like the gnarled length Harry distinctly remembered the Headmaster carrying. It took much more elaborate spells to hide a wand than it did to hide someone's face. He didn't understand the reasoning behind that despite Hermoine's attempt at explaining it once. Something about the innate magical reasonance of a wizard's wand disrupting typical glamours. Or something like that. Whatever.

The point was that it just seemed like so much effort had been put into this farce and Harry couldn't figure out why!

It occurred to him to wonder if the latest round of Death Eater torture had somehow included scrambling his brains. This could just be a hallucination, or a bizarre concoction of a broken mind. He took a moment to scan back over his past. Everything up until the present seemed to be logical. The years in the cupboard under the stairs, the years at Hogwarts, the years of war, it all seemed in order. Of course, do insane people ever really think they're insane? Wouldn't the most illogical of things be perfectly reasonable to someone whose thinking has been twisted out of sync with reality? But that didn't explain why his current situation was then so far beyond sense. If he was truly insane, shouldn't he find this all perfectly reasonable?

The old man jarred him out of his thoughts by asking the woman, "Do you want me to contact your husband?"

'James Potter' was around here somewhere too?

"I'll just get my mirror and call him over. He can bring another Auror with him and take this crazy man away." Lily skirted past him and Harry could see that while she rubbed her wrist as if it ached, the actual wound had vanished.

She started rooting around in her desk. Once she'd stepped behind the desk Harry could no longer see her, but he could hear her opening drawers and moving parchment before it suddenly stopped, "He went through my desk!" The outrage in her voice was almost comical. Out of everything that had happened in the last several minutes, the fact that Harry had rifled through her desk seemed to offend this woman the most. "These papers are out of order and my quills and mirror are gone!" She moved away from the desk and quickly moved back into Harry's line of sight. Or rather the bottom of her robe and her shoes did. They were sensible shoes, black creased leather over a flat sole. In other circumstances Harry might have approved of them. As it was, they didn't rate as much attention as the hands that started patting his pockets. If he'd have been able to, he would have let her know exactly how much he didn't appreciate the frisking, but since that wasn't an option, he settled for mentally insulting her appearance, intelligence, and lineage. He would have quickly moved on to magical prowess if she hadn't been interrupted by the old man.

"My dear, perhaps a summoning charm?"

"Oh, yes, thank-you Albus." She stood up and for a moment Harry was afraid she might kick him, but she stepped back instead. "Accio Communication Mirror!"

Harry's frozen grip prevented the shard in his hand from jerking away, but the rest of the broken mirror was not so handicapped. Silver dust and flashing splinters of glass rushed up to be met with twin gasps of surprise and a glowing shield that rose a few seconds too late.

Harry wanted to grin. That had been far better than his wandless magic could have done. He couldn't see the damage, but having several hundred slivers of glass embedded in her hand had to hurt. And nothing quite matched the pleasure of making life difficult for people who were on Voldermort's side.

It didn't last long, of course, the old man quickly banished the glass and murmured a few healing spells and it was over. It only took, perhaps, two minutes, but that was two minutes closer to when the blasted spell holding him frozen wore off.

"I-I think I better just fire-call James." The woman sounded shaky and tired and Harry had had to firmly banish a twinge of guilt. It was not his fault that this woman had chosen to put on his mother's face. Which again brought up the question of how she'd done it. Transfiguration on humans was a bit risky; painful and likely to result in some permanent disfiguration. Some sort of layered Glamour? Something new?

"Let us adjourn to my office and you can use the floo there. I wouldn't mind if your husband did his questioning there too as there are a few things I'd like to ask this young man as well."

"Would you like me to levitate him?" Her voice had lost its shaky quality, but it still sounded tired. Harry tried not to feel relieved that she'd regained her composure. It was a lot harder to do than he'd have guessed and it made him wonder where all the rage had disappeared to. He blamed it on the spell he was under.

"Actually, since it'll no doubt take James a bit of time to get the Veritaserum, why don't I just make sure our young guest here stays out of trouble."

Harry had just enough time to consider why that statement might concern him before his mind tumbled into darkness, never even hearing the stunning hex the headmaster sent his way.