Lone Gunwitch in the Great Hall
By Lady Lilith
Ananda Leah Eumenides (pronounced you-men-I-dees) was the best assassin in the entire wizarding world. She had amassed a huge arsenal of unconventional weapons, poisons, and other tools of the trade. She was a skilled lockpick and could move around any house or building without being seen. This was due in part to her skill, and partially to the ritual she had performed when she graduated.
On her graduation day, she had carved three runes into her right hand: on her pinkie, a ko; on her middle finger, an acha, and on her thumb, a yot. This is also what is carved in the flesh of a Hand of Glory; the word koachayot is the Truename for "thief". Ananda had managed to attain the attribute that any thief or killer would long for: complete unnoticeability.
Ananda had gone to Hogwarts, and had only managed to keep from getting expelled by never attracting the notice of any of her professors. She had been an excellent thief, and had actually managed to steal something very valuable from the headmaster without his noticing for an entire day. She had been a Ravenclaw.
Ananda was a thin, quick girl. She had long black hair, and a pale, freckled face. She didn't seem remarkable at all until you looked into her eyes. They were electric blue, the color of the screen you get on a crashed computer.
Ananda had just pulled off a huge job, a heist from Gringotts. She was sitting in the backroom of the small pawnshop in Diagon Alley that served as her over, poring over a small black book she had picked up.
Her magpie, Caliaphas, hopped onto the back of her chair. "Visit visit visit," he chanted. "Customer lookin' for a service."
Ananda sighed and got up. "Fine." She brushed her hair back and pushed the curtain aside that led into the shop. There was a young man with a worried expression, looking through a large rack of swords. He had apparently triggered Caliaphas's sudden attack of annoyance.
Ananda leaned slightly to one side, to get a better look at him. "Sir?" she called. "May I help you?"
The man looked up with a guilty start. "Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't see you." He nodded at the swords. "Yes. Um, how much are these?"
"Depends on which one you were looking at," Ananda told him.
"I see." The man left the rack of swords and crossed the room to Ananda. "Let me introduce myself," he said. "My name is Peter. I, um, was actually sent here to, um, hire a…" He gestured vaguely. "You know."
Ananda's eyes narrowed. "If you're looking to buy love, there's a brothel in Knockturn Alley. We don't do that kind of thing here."
Peter looked taken aback. "No! Oh, no. I'm looking for an, um, a hired blade."
Ananda nodded. This was familiar territory. "An assassin. Yes, I see. You want to slice your way up the corporate ladder?"
"Nothing of the sort," Peter told her. "Actually, my employer sent me here. You're familiar with, um, the Dark Lord?"
"Voldemort?" Ananda asked carelessly. "Yeah. So you work for him?"
Peter blushed. "Yes," he admitted. "He, um, needs someone inhumed."
Ananda raised one eyebrow. "Really? I thought he could kill whoever he wants. Isn't that one of the perks of being an Evil Overlord?"
"No, he can't kill this person," Peter explained hurriedly. "Look, why don't you just come with me? I'm sure he can explain it much better than I can."
Ananda shrugged. "Lead the way."
There was a whooshing sound, and Ananda was thrown on her face on a cold stone floor.
She scrabbled for a handhold. "What the HELL?"
"Thank you, Wormtail," said a dry, cool voice. "You may go."
"Yes, my lord," Peter squeaked.
Ananda looked up to see the snake-faced Dark wizard. "Was that really necessary? I mean, you could have just—"
She was cut off by a hiss. "Silence! You know why I have brought you here."
"Yeah," Ananda said, standing up and brushing imaginary dust off of her long black dress, "you need me to eliminate someone. Look, I just need the name, the fee, and any specs, okay? No need for intimidation."
"The target is Harry Potter," Voldemort said. "The fee is whatever you ask. The specs are that he is still at Hogwarts."
"No problemo," Ananda said. She shot a glance at Peter, who was standing on the side, looking worried. "Time limit?"
"As long as it takes," Voldemort said. "Do we have an agreement?"
"Sealed and signed," Ananda said.
Once back home, Ananda hung the CLOSED sign on the door of the pawnshop and started canvassing her collection for appropriate weapons. Swords were out, since Gryffindors had some sort of weird empathy with swords. Crossbows wouldn't work; too slow, especially if the target had the agility needed to snatch a Snitch out of the air while it was whizzing by. Daggers didn't work quickly enough. Poisons would work, but might have the nasty side effect of putting the Potions professor in Azkaban. Ananda had rather liked Severus Snape, for her own reasons, and didn't want him to be put in prison.
Ananda sat on the floor of her small warehouse, surrounded by tools of her trade that had been disqualified for one reason or another. Nothing would do…except…
Ananda let her eyes travel up to the one Muggle artifact she had in her shop, on a rack on the wall. It was a hollow-point Sterling revolver, made out of blue steel. She even had custom bullets for it. They were made out of a certain alloy of silver and iron that automatically nullified any magical influence. She called it the Glory Stick.
She drifted over to it, let her fingers caress the barrel of the gun. "Yeah," she murmured. "That's gonna work."
Ananda finished packing her bag. Hogwarts was fifty miles away, and she didn't have a broomstick. It would take a large amount of hitchhiking, some creative Apparating, and a lot of concentration to get there.
The last thing she put in was the Glory Stick. As she pulled the drawstring of the bag, Caliaphas started screeching again. "Visit visit visit! It's yer boyfriend," he added.
Ananda glared at him in disgust. "I don't HAVE a boyfriend." Still, magpies were perceptive. She tugged the drawstring and went into the shop.
Peter was standing there, his hands in his pockets. When he saw her, his face lit up. "Ananda, there's something I think you should know."
Ananda put her hands on her hips. "This had better be good. I have to pack."
Peter blushed. He was, Ananda thought, really quite cute when he was embarrassed. "I'm not supposed to tell you this," he admitted, "but…you can't kill Harry."
"Why not?" asked Ananda.
Peter looked around nervously. "I can't tell you here," he whispered.
Ananda dragged him into the back room and sat him down on the bed, then sat next to him. "Better?"
Peter blushed again. "Yeah. Um, where do I start? Look, Voldemort and Harry are connected, somehow. If one of them dies, the other dies."
Ananda raised one eyebrow. "Two for the price of one."
"No," Peter said, "it's not like that. If Voldemort is killed, the other Death Eaters will go after you."
"Why won't you?" Ananda asked softly.
Peter squirmed. "Um. I…never mind. Voldemort just wants Harry taken out of commission, so to speak. Can you do that?"
Ananda nodded. "Thank you, Peter. I really appreciate this." She gave him a kiss on the cheek. Peter blushed bright red.
Ananda, clad only in a tight catsuit, hung upside down on one of the many gargoyles that hung around Hogwarts. She watched the students milling around, trying to find Harry.
At last, she caught sight of the greenish-red aura that surrounded the boy. "Finally!" She had spent a week in Hogwarts, hiding out on the roof, eating food pilfered from the house-elves, waiting for a good time to get the kid.
She tucked the Glory Stick into her belt. "Here goes nothing."
She swung down from the roof in a series of complicated acrobatics, and landed on the stone floor. "Gotcha, sucker." She took aim. She couldn't hit him in the head, or in the heart. The shoulder would be favorite...
There was a scream. Damn it. Someone had spotted her.
A redheaded kid threw himself in front of Harry. "She's going to kill you!"
Ananda quickly disappeared into the shadows.
She had been looking forward to that, too. Ananda prided herself on her skill as a markswoman, and enjoyed playing a sniper.
She would just have to get him the old-fashioned way—while he was sleeping. That was too easy for most, but Ananda had a sneaking suspicion that the kid was protected by something. "Probably that Dumbledore guy put a spell or something on him," she muttered to herself, tucking the Glory Stick back into her belt.
"Actually, I did nothing," said a voice from behind her.
Ananda froze. Oh shit.
Albus Dumbledore stepped out from the shadows. "I could," he said calmly, "simply kill you where you stand. But I don't use Dark magic."
"Yeah?" Ananda's hand snaked to her belt. "Whatcha gonna do instead?"
Dumbledore reached for his wand. "I'm going to simply put a Stupefy spell on you," he said. "Then you're going to Azkaban."
But before he could draw his wand, Ananda had whipped out the gun and had fired a round of deadly bullets into his chest. Then she pushed him into the Hall, to fall on the floor.
While everyone was gathered around the dead wizard, Ananda effected her escape. She was actually shaking from the shock. She had never been this close to getting caught. Not even that time she lifted a huge amount of jewelry from Malfoy Manor—and they had booby traps all over the place.
That had been really scary. Of course, next to Voldemort, Dumbledore was the most powerful wizard in the world—she had to expect a level of difficulty.
She mentally congratulated herself on the presence of mind she had with using the gun. No wizard would expect that. Sometimes the simplest way of killing someone was the easiest. Screw the Avada Kedavra curse—nothing worked as well as hot lead pumped into your enemy. If Voldemort had tried that fifteen or sixteen years ago, he would be ruler of the world right now.
Later, I'll have to get a trophy. It was her custom to collect a trophy from every kill she made. She had originally been planning to cut the scar off of the kid's forehead, or take his glasses, but she'd have to make do with something else. Maybe a cut from his beard, or those stupid golden spectacles he wore.
Ananda swung, and dropped in a crouch onto the stone floor in front of Voldemort. "Hey."
Voldemort acknowledged her. "I saw what happened."
"Yeah." Ananda held her breath. "So I don't get paid?"
Voldemort stood up. "While you did not fulfill the agreement to the letter, it was still a success. You have managed to dispose of someone that has been a great obstacle to me in the past. No, you still get paid." He nodded. "Choose your gift. I can give you anything—eternal life, untold riches, power beyond your greatest imagining."
Ananda thought for a second. "Hmm." She shook her head. "Nah. I don't want any of those. What I do want," she added, "is Peter Pettigrew."
Peter flashed her a brief, grateful smile. Voldemort, on the other hand, was not pleased. "He belongs to me!" he roared. "You cannot take him."
Ananda grinned. "You said anything I asked for," she said.
Voldemort hissed. "I could kill you."
"Yeah," Ananda said, "and I could get you in the head with a bullet before you touched your wand. What's it gonna be, chief?"
Voldemort sighed. "Take him," he said, "and good riddance."
Peter ran over and kissed Ananda.