***Disclaimer: All of the wonderfully familiar characters places and ideas belong to JK Rowling. She is the creative genius, I'm just nobody.

Chapter 1: Half a Chance

"I'm so sorry Harry, I could only grab your wand."

Harry gives Hermione a tight nod. He tries not to think about his father's invisibility cloak, his firebolt from Sirius, or his homemade photo album from Hagrid.

It's been nearly two months, and his wand is warm and welcoming in his hand. Unexpectedly filled with irrepressible joy he gives it a wide wave as he did the very day he bought it, but only a few pitiful sparks shimmer in the air.

They both stare at the wand in horror. He knew that his magic was getting weaker but this..."Looks like I'm leaving at just the right time." He says quietly to Hermione.

She hands him a dainty bag filled with British pounds as well as a dark brown wig with straight bangs and butterfly clips in it. It's definitely a girl's wig. He hugs her fiercely. "Have I ever told you how brilliant you are?" She grips him back just as tightly. They do not say goodbye. It feels too final.

Hermione lowers him gently out the window. His feet have barely touched the ground when he hears-

"Hello Professor Lupin!" loudly and brightly.

Harry flattens himself along the wall. Grimmauld Place's ancient paint flakes off onto his skin and hair. He stifles a sneeze -don't look down, don't look down-

"Hermione? I keep telling you to call me Remus. Where's Harry?"

-don't look down, please don't look down

"He's in the bathroom Pro- Remus."

"Okay, thank you, maybe I can catch him by surprise."

Harry can't see, naturally, but it is obvious that something in Hermione's face must give her away when Lupin says "You know it's for his own good right?"

"Of course," Hermione says.

"Run!" Hermione whispers down to him six rapid heartbeats later.

He does not need to be told twice. After all he's been running his whole life.

-HP-

The gentle rumble of the bus is making him nauseous. He does not want to think about where he is going, he does not want to think about those he left behind.

"Excuse me Miss?" A stranger woman takes the seat next to him. She has kind eyes, but Lupin had kind eyes too.

"Yes" he says in his squeakiest voice. He pulls his arms tightly around himself.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you, I just, here" She hands him a frilly handkerchief. He touches his face, his fingers come away wet. He hadn't realized he was crying.

"Thank you" he manages to say through his embarrassment.

Then he remembers he's pretending to be a girl. Girls are allowed to cry. Suddenly he can't hold himself back. Quiet sobs shake his too thin frame. He hadn't cried this hard when his godfather Sirius had died, he hadn't cried this hard when Cedric had died in his arms. The last time he had cried this hard he was a little boy and had finally grasped that his parents were never coming to save him. They were dead. Dead meant left alone forever.

When he finally glances up he is surprised to see the woman is still there. "I don't know anything about your story, but you are not alone." She grips his hand tightly and gets up.

He gapes after her. He hopes he hadn't let something slip while he was ...acting. He hopes no one obliviates the uncommonly kind woman for his loose mouth, but he knows how useless hope is.

She left something on the seat. It's a pamphlet for a battered women's shelter in Crew.

-HP-

Harry had thought he was jumping on random buses but he is not surprised when he somehow ends up in Crew. His pamphlet is well worn by now. He keeps staring at the women's smiling faces. Their palpable relief is not for the cameras.

The shelter's name is Providence.

They make him sit down almost as soon as he walks in the doors. Gentle hands raise his feet up and ice them. He hadn't noticed how swollen they were. They try to call a doctor for him but he must refuse; the doctor will discern that he is not a girl.

He is unable to explain to them that the ache in his feet is nothing to the ache in his heart.

He stays only one night. They are muggles. They cannot protect him. It's still the best uninterrupted sleep he has had in too long.

In the morning, he asks about other shelters in Crew. He doesn't plan to stay at any of them but if the Order manages to track him here they'll think that is where he went next.

As he's turning away his conscience rebels, there are pregnant women here, and he is no longer naive enough to believe the Order would never harm a pregnant woman for their cause. "There are people after me-"

"Don't worry we won't tell them where you are." Interrupts the lady in white with feather earrings behind the front desk.

'You won't have a choice' he thinks to himself. He grips his useless phoenix and holly wand, but turns around and runs. Again.

-HP-

He hadn't perceived how much the thought of the shelter was keeping him going nor how much it would drain him to walk away from Providence. He is tired and dizzy all the time now. For the first time in his journey he takes a train. It reminds him of the first time he had gotten on a train at age eleven. Back then he had thought that he was going to a wonderland, now a train was taking him to almost certain death.

When he steps off the train it is raining. It is not an omen, it is not.

He goes into the nearest clothing store and buys a blue cloak for the rain and a new shirt. His old shirt was getting uncomfortably tight. Even with no appetite and on the run he still eats better than he ever did at the Dursleys. The clerk at the counter gives him a funny look. Belatedly he realizes that he had automatically shopped in the men's section. He gives the man an absent smile and leaves quickly.

The rain washes away all traces of his passing.

-HP-

He chucks his wig at some bushes and walks right through the formidable wards. Harry almost smiles. Doubtless the Order will never understand the opportunity they had lost.

He follows the pull of his magic throughout the overly decadent manor. Marble, mirror-like wood floors, reflections of crystal chandeliers, Harry drips rainwater onto them all. No one stops him. Between his casual approach and the hood of his blue cloak they probably do not recognize who he is.

He stops outside a set of ornate double doors, raises his hand to knock, and hesitates. He groans. Harry cannot believe himself, the time to turn back had long since passed, but still ...he wants to live. He lets out a slow breath and gently leans his head on the door. 'Half a chance' he thinks, he is exchanging his life and everything he had ever stood for to give someone he will never meet half a chance. He holds onto his queasy stomach. A puddle of muddy water is forming under his feet.

Harry does not knock, he shoves the doors open.

"Hello Tom."