Prologue
Her latest assignment was… annoying.
Killing teenagers was distasteful, but paid very well. Assassinating toddlers was revolting business, and yet again, it paid really, really well. In her line of work one got used to taking the cash and blocking off certain memories.
Her target was somehow managing to be annoying.
That didn't happen very frequently. Especially if the target was a six year-old, underfed kid living in the suburbs of London.
When she had received the letter by an owl, she hadn't blinked an eye. Much weirder ways had been used by customers in the past to conceal their identities. Getting an advance payment in pure gold coins hadn't fazed her either. Gold was much harder to track than paper currency. What did faze her, however, was when her sniper round simply bounced off the kitchen window.
She didn't really believe it at first, thinking she had simply blinked and missed her mark. So she took aim, again. And fired again. And the shot ricocheted off… again. She had observed carefully this time, and saw the shell hit a tree in the garden.
"What the fuck." She spoke out loud. It wasn't something she usually did while on missions, voice patterns could be tracked back to her.
"What in the actual fuck," she swore again, having double checked all her equipment.
This assignment needed more finesse, it seemed.
She packed up here equipment minus the binoculars, and sat down for a long night of watching her prey.
OoOoOoOoO
On second thought, she decided, the family wasn't worth saving.
Sure, she was obligated to kill the kid. But she would do a favour to the world and kill the rest of the lot along with him. They weren't the worst child abusers she had seen, yes, but they weren't the ideal parents either. Also, really, it was much easier to dispose off the whole fucking house.
The mission was turning out to be a lot more expensive than she had anticipated, she lamented as she bought C4 from her London contact. The advance payment was running pretty thin, and she would rather leave the merc life and go legit than pay for an assignment with her own wallet.
As the clock hit 1:37 in the night she started making her way into Privet Drive. Nothing exciting happened at 1:37. 2 o clock? Maybe, but not 1:37.
She eyed her shoulder bag, why did it feel so light? Had she forgotten the explosives? She wasn't that old, now was she? She shook her head.
Oh of course! She hadn't even tested the damned C4! What if the blast wasn't enough to destroy the house? What if it just warned her assignment? Getting involved with the police was always such a pain in the ass. The house had survived several sniper rounds without even a scratch!
She stopped and turned around, intent on checking everything over. And then at the edge of Privet Drive she stopped.
What the fuck?
Why in the bloody hell had she not planted the explosives?
She opened her backpack, and sure enough, there was enough there to blow up a city block. And her contact here had always been extremely trustworthy. Why was she so worried?
She tried several times that night, but her mind seemed to obsess over the smallest of potential problems. She couldn't even get to enter the Dursley household.
When she was almost spotted by the milk delivery man, she cut her losses and blended back into the shadows.
OoOoOoOoO
She was forced to amend her previous sentiment. She wasn't just annoyed with her assignment anymore, she was actually frustrated.
Nothing seemed to work on the kid. He didn't even get a mild cough from the poisoned water that had killed villages before. She wasn't aware of any allergies she could exploit, because he didn't have a single record in any healthcare system! She had tried to snipe him in school, even with the chance of accidental casualties, and two birds had intercepted the shells! This was getting mind-boggling.
Whenever she tried meeting him (again, usually a bad idea but she was getting desperate) her mind wandered off to places unknown. By the time her senses returned to her the boy was long gone.
She was almost certain something divine was protecting the kid.
And yet… she had to complete the assignment. No mercenary retained their rep after failing to kill an undefended kid living in the ass-wipe suburbs of London.
What if…?
An idea started to form in her head.
What if the kid just… disappeared?
Yes. Yes, that could actually work.
She certainly hadn't tried any non-lethal methods of removing the boy from the household. She would have to brush up on some long-forgotten methods, kidnapping had never been in her skill-set.
Making a decisive nod she bought tickets back to her home base. She had some research to get up to. After all, the letter had never specified just how quickly the mission was to be completed…