I do not own any of these characters, except Jordan McNeil and Gregory. They are all property of J.K. Rowling

The Presence of the Heir

It was early December when flue struck Hogwarts school. It was an especially bad case and most of the school was absent from classes ( including several teachers) for a few days. Ron and Hermione had been struck with the right after Harry fought it off. So harry walked alone to potions that day, or at least he thought he was alone. Walking down one of the corridors he heard an all too familiar voice from behind him.

"Hey Potter"

Harry turned around to find Malfoy smirking at him.

"Did your friends finally wise up and leave you to yourself?"

"What about your friends, Malfoy?" Harry retorted, for Malfoy was also alone for the same reason Harry was. Malfoy quieted at this but shot Harry an awful glare. Harry was about to continue on his way when there came another voice from his left. This voice was more mellow then the first and this time he was clueless to who it belonged to.
"That didn't hold much Slytherin spirit, Draco."

Harry looked back and saw Malfoy wearing a confused sort of look on his face. Standing next to him was a girl with light bond hair that glinted gold in yellow light of the lanterns hung on the wall. She wasn't very tall, and it was odd to see her standing there looking Malfoy, who was about twice as big as her and ten times uglier than her in the eye with no trace of anger or frustration. Malfoy pissed everyone off. Did she honestly think he would leave her alone after this, or was she just very stupid. The next few moments proved both these thoughts wrong.

" What?" exclaimed Malfoy.

"Its just that, I cant believe," she continued " that your going to give up bothering Harry so quickly. Im sorry that your so afraid of him when your little friends aren't around that you have to quit making your petty remarks to crawl up your ass in fear, or do you hang out in there all the time?"

Harry burst out laughing. He had never seen someone handle Malfoy like that. The look of confusion on his face and transformed from confusion to compete shock. His mouth was gaping open like a fish as he searched his mind for something to say.
"Its all right," she said patting Malfoy on the shoulder with a kindhearted smile " you can send me an owl with your answer as soon as you figure out what I just said." She glided off with an expressionless face leaving Malfoy still stunned, and Harry hooting with laughter.

"Well that will give me my jollies for the day," she thought to herself as she continued down the corridor. " It has been a long time since I've made anyone laugh and successfully made a fool of some desperately pathetic weasel." It had been a long time since she had made someone laugh. She hadn't since she came here. How long had she been here anyway? It seemed like forever she had been the friendless no name on campus, but it hadn't been forever, it had been a little over a month and a half.

She thought back to that day in mid September. What class had she been in? History? No, it had been math. The teacher, Mrs. Joyreaper, dragging on about something that made no difference to her, had called out her name. Actually the teacher had called it out several times, only she had been to busy adding to the intricate pencil design on her left arm to take notice.

"Jordan McNeil, judging by how attentive you have been this period, I was hoping you could explain to the class how to factor and solve this problem," Mrs. Joyreaper said piercingly.

She looked at the problem on the bored. It seemed to take up the whole thing. It was invading her brain and beating it to a bloody pulp. Why again had they put her with the smart kids? Oh, yes it was because thay had a strange notion that she herself was intelligent. Jordan thought to her self, "Well, they are right I am intelligent, its just that I don't care about x and y, and I don't see why I should." In all honesty there was no point in caring about the problem on the bored, not to Jordan. The drawings covering her papers and tests(and left arm) were what held her future, not x and y and were they intercept. Jordan didn't want to do anything that involved math as a future job and would die before she did. What was the point of living if she hated what she did in her life? She was tired of the teacher's remarks on her ability to not listen in class. It was time to make it clear.

"Judging by the fact that I don't care," she said in response to Mrs. Joyreaper's blabbering, "you may as well turn your hopes to someone else."

Mrs. Joyreaper crinkled her stunningly pink lips into a squished little prune and gave a great blink to cover a quick roll of her eyes.

"Ms. McNeil, You may find this surprising, but mathematics will some day be a necessary skill for your everyday life," she commented in her high whining voice.

"I'll worry about that when I get there," said Jordan with a light shrug.

In the end Mrs. Joyreaper gave up and gave Jordan a detention for her "bad attitude." Jordan went back to the design on her arm. She knew she shouldn't have pushed the teacher's button like that. She knew when to stop, but sometimes she just couldn't take it anymore. The thought of detention had her feeling a bit low. She rarely got them, because most times she just lied and gave teachers what they wanted. Honesty got you in trouble so Jordan generally avoided it. She receded back into her own world. She couldn't even see her arm anymore and didn't know she was still drawing it because she was so deep in her thoughts. Her mind went clear. The feelings that did invade her brain were uncommonly pure. The strongest was: "I wish I wasn't here."

The black of her mind melted away and in its place came a fuzzy white light. She was spinning around and she didn't care that her logical thinking told her that was impossible and she was sitting math class. Screw logic.

Just as the black had given way to light, the light gave way to color which slowly gathered itself into place. There she was, in a forest of evergreens and maples with burning leaves and bare oaks.

" I have either died or fainted," she thought "because this is way to much like 'The Wizard of Oz.'"

Utterly confused, she came to the conclusion that she had no idea where she was, she had no idea how to get back, but it wasn't math class, so she might as well make the best of it. If she had fainted, she would come to quickly, and if she had died, she would probably be here for a long time and better get to exploring it. After all, it was a very interesting place to be dead in.

She crunched along in the fallen leaves going in no particular direction. She was entranced by her surroundings. She had been in many forests before. She liked going on walks with fiends and her family went camping every summer, but this forest was different. She didn't know how. She could identify almost all the trees and plants, but she somehow knew that she had never been in a forest like this in her life.

Suddenly, Jordan heard something coming from a distance in her direction, but she wasn't worried. In fact she was relieved, for the sound was of a human walking, not of some fearful unknown animal. She began to run tward the sound, which continued to come her way. It was only about a minute later that she saw who the footsteps belonged to. She was confronted with a tall boy of about her age. He was wearing a long black robe that matched his hair and his eyes, covered by thick rimmed round glasses, glittered green. Jordan might have noticed that this was a very odd sight, but she was too relieved by finding help to notice the oddities. The boy hadn't spotted her yet because he called out "Hagrid? Is that you?"

"No, over here," Jordan shouted.

The boy turned his gaze to her. He looked a bit surprised.

"Um… hello," he mumbled "who are you?"

"I'm Jordan McNeil and I don't know where I am," she cried urgently. Jordan was brave when she had to be, but when help came she was quick to forget her pride.

"Well…uhh… your in the forbidden forest…" he stammered. He was looking her up and down with an unreadable look that seemed to be a mixture of complete confusion and total understanding. She decided not to try and decipher it.
"Look, I don't know how you got here or… um… what's going on, so…uhh…I'm gona take you to Dumbledor," he said finally.

"To who?" Jordan said with a high almost scared tone.

"Never mind," he said, " Just follow me."

A few more steps and they were out of the forest, and Jordan found it very hard to "never mind" because of her current surroundings. Above her rose a massive stone castle decorated with gargoyles and towers and beautiful old English architecture. She felt like a bag of popcorn about to explode with questions, but she only asked one.

"I'm sorry," she started " but who are you?"

"Oh right," the boy said with a smile " I'm Harry Potter."

~~~Hey, I'll post the next chapter soon. I'm just to technologically challenged to do it without my friend, so don't make fun of me! It's not my fault my parents are retarded and didn't get me a computer until like 5000 years after they were invented. So there! No, I'm not really that bitter, but I am technologically challenged, so the next chapter will be up in a little while. Please review me and tell me how much I suck. Thanx!