14/01/2022 - Here you go, second chapter. I revised the story, so I advised you to reread it.

What happened to Electra during the years since she woke up in the new world will be revealed gradually, including what happened to Sirius. I probably won't use actual flashbacks scenes though, but you never know.

Also, Shadowcat has nothing to do with the Shadowcat/Kitty Pride character of the comics. I just liked the name (also her power is connected to the shadows - through the Darkforce - so, it was a fitting name).

Hope you like it, tell me what you think!

Chapter 2

8th January, 2015, The Docks – Hell's Kitchen (NYC), USA

Electra Black was just a secretary nowadays. After…well, after everything, the idea of getting involved in anything more complicated than that wasn't the least bit appealing. Her job was simple, perhaps a little boring, but easy, predictable; she liked it that way.

Hanna Potter had been the girl-who-lived, she had been the hero, the person that wanted to help others – Hermione had called it her 'saving people thing'. But she wasn't Hanna Potter anymore, she hadn't been Hanna Potter in six years, not since she woke up in this new world, alone but alive, with the chance to start over, to have a clean slate.

Hanna Potter was dead. There was only Electra Black now. Just a secretary, who did her job and minded her own business.

Or, at least, that had been the plan.

It always came down to one simple concept, something Sirius had once told her: 'if you have the power to help, but you do nothing, then you're just as responsible as the people who do bad things.'

Perhaps Snape had been right. Hanna was arrogant; arrogant to think that she had been granted these powers for a reason. Oh, she didn't want to be a hero anymore – been there, done that, thank you very much. Hanna Potter had been so committed to being a hero that she had sacrificed her own life.

But she had been granted a second chance – that was how she preferred to see it, at least, because the alternative was too damn depressing. The alternative was that she was just a freak, that the Dursleys had been right, and that she wasn't supposed to be here at all, that she was supposed to be dead – she was supposed to stay dead, after Voldemort killed her. This life, it didn't belong to her, not really. She stole it because she had been afraid to die, afraid of everything being just…over.

And yet, sometimes, she couldn't stay away – like today.

She had berated herself more than once for her decision, and yet, here she was.

It all started three years ago, at the battle of New York. Or, rather, the aftermath of the battle. The Avengers might have saved the city and all, but they certainly didn't stay for the clean-up.

In front of so much death and destruction, Electra couldn't help herself. She needed to help, but she also didn't want to reveal her powers to the world. That was how the Shadowcat was born (that was how people had started to call her).

The Shadowcat would help people find missing loved ones, in the midst of all that chaos, save them from the rubble, helping them escape the crumbling buildings.

It was supposed to be one-time thing, but it grew. And now, three years later, that was what she did. Electra Black was a simple secretary…but with a rather big secret.

She would find missing people, as the Shadowcat. It was all rather simple. She would be contacted on a burner phone, they would explain the situation to her, and then she would either accept to meet the person who had called her face to face, or not. No one who would ask for her help knew her name or her face, it was better for them and for her, safer.

After the initial meeting, she would decide whether to accept to find the missing person, or not – sometimes, the people who contacted her had less than honorable intentions, but, thanks to her abilities, she could tell whether they were lying to her or not.

Nobody knew how the Shadowcat would find people, only that she always did and that such an ability was very coveted, by a lot of people, and that, during these three years, she had made a lot of enemies, reason why she kept her identity a secret. If she would accept 'the case', the 'client' – for lack of a better word, since she didn't charge anything – would then leave the item belonging to the missing person on a private mailbox and that was that.

To be honest, Electra didn't know either. She didn't know how she did it, or how was it possible that she had this ability in the first place – why she had any of the abilities she had, really. She only knew that, after the accident in New Orleans, once she had been discharged from the hospital, she had noticed that her magic was gone, but that she had developed these strange abilities in its place.

She only knew that all she had to do was to touch an object belonging to the missing person. She could perceive the person's fear through the object and that fear would work as a beacon that would lead her to that person's location. But it only worked if that person was still alive. If that person was dead then…then there was nothing, emptiness. She called it her sixth sense.

Her latest 'case' was the disappearance of Sasha Kirova. This morning she had received a call from a woman – Martha Nielsen.

Martha's housemate and work colleague, Sasha Kirova, had gone missing. Sasha was a young Belarusian woman who left her birth country to find work in the USA. She had only been in NYC a few months, she had found a job as a waitress and got a work visa that allowed her to stay in the country. She had no family or friends there, only work acquaintances. Martha had offered her the other room in the house so they could share rent. It was comfortable for both of them, since they worked in the same place. It didn't take long for them to become friends, perhaps more than friends – not that it was any of her business, if they were.

Last night Sasha hadn't shown up at work, even though Martha swore she had left the house at her usual time – Martha had a different shift that day, so she had still been at home when Sasha left. Sasha didn't warn anyone that she would have missed her shift, not even Martha. Sasha didn't return home that night either.

That was when Martha decided to contact the police. Unfortunately, because it had been less than 24 hours since Sasha disappeared, there was very little the police could do.

It was then that Martha, out of other options, had decided to contact Electra.

All Electra had needed to find Sasha was her silver dolphin necklace, the one her mother had given to her on her sixteenth birthday. With the necklace in her hand, Electra had teleported using the shadows, following the fear coming from the necklace, to then reappear where Sasha was, her fear working as a GPS signal that indicated her location to Electra.

So, here she was now, donning the black outfit that the Shadowcat was known for: a cotton spandex catsuit, leather gloves, knee-high flat boots and ski mask to cover her face, leaving only her eyes uncovered – she was wearing dark contact lenses to hide the distinctive color of her eyes; her hair was styled into space buns, left uncovered by two additional holes in the ski mask, on top of her head. Comfortable, practical, easy to move in.

Electra observed from her position, lying flat on top of a container, the thick shadows around her hiding her presence, two Russian men dragging four girls – one for each arm – towards another container. There were two other men there, one black man standing in front of the open container that she recognized as Turk Barrett – usually a petty criminal but he was rising in the world, it seemed – the other sitting on a chair, eating a sandwich.

"Help! Help! Help me! Help! Help me!" one of the girls screamed.

"Hey! Hey! Man, shut up. I'm getting $1,000 a head for y'all. So, you be quiet I let you have a bucket," Turk was saying, a bucket in his left hand. "You don't…" he showed them a taser stick with the other hand.

"No. Please, no," the woman kept pleading.

Turk used the taser on the woman to shut her up. The Russians threw the women inside the container and Turk laughed. "Scream all you want. Come on, let me hear you scream. Scream loud. Nobody gives a shit down here."

Electra decided that was her clue. She was just about to intervene when a man dressed all in black with a black mask covering his eyes jumped from one of the other containers – how did she miss his presence there? – and punched Turk squared in the mouth. Turk fell down and lost his taser.

"The hell…?" Electra murmured to herself, but decided it was time for her to join the fight, she had remained watching long enough.

The man in the mask was fighting one of the Russians so Electra took on the other.

After a quick exchange of kicks and punches, the man went on his knees. One final kick to the head brought him down, unconscious.

The man in the mask knocked down his opponent as well, breaking his leg. He turned around and titled his head in her direction, mouth now open but before he could say anything, Turk retrieved his gun. He pointed it alternatively at both of them, seeming undecided on whom to shoot. He decided on the man in the mask, at last, and Electra heard him pull the trigger.

"Watch out!" she shouted but there was no need. The man leapt out of the way of the bullet with an impressive somersault before jumping between containers with an agility that Electra was convinced was supernatural like hers.

Electra knocked the gun out of Turk's hand with an axe kick. Before she could hit him again the man in the mask, who had retrieved the taser Turk had lost, used it as a baton; it bounced with incredible precision from container to container, until it finally struck Turk, knocking him down again.

The man in the mask retrieved the stun baton from the ground and used it to hit the man in the chair, making him fall into the water.

Electra approached the container. "Who among you is Sasha Kirova?" She asked in Russian.

A girl with long, blonde hair and vivid, blue eyes, raised her hand as if she were in class.

"Martha sent me to look for you," she explained, still in Russian, before switching back to English but with a southern American accent, her words directed at all four girls. "You're free now. Go!"

The girls just looked at her, still frozen in fright.

"Head towards 48th. Stay in the lights," the masked man, now standing next to her, told the girls. "Flag down the first officer you see."

When the girls still didn't move, the masked man smacked the side of the container, shouting, "Now!"

The girls scattered away immediately.

"Who the bloody hell are you?" Electra asked, her real accent slipping through without meaning to.

The man in the mask tilted his head again, almost like he was listening to something, and then answered, "my name is not important." His voice was raspy but warm. It was a rather sexy voice, Electra couldn't help but think, and the rest of him wasn't any less attractive: well-defined jawline, slight stubble on his cheeks, full mouth, straight, white teeth, and lean but muscled body underneath his black outfit.

Electra took notice of his smell next – clean, fresh, no particular fragrance, no aftershave or cologne, only unscented soap mixed with the salted scent of his skin. And underneath all that, the metallic taste of blood on her tongue, his blood.

While they were distracted by each other, Turk retrieved his gun. Before he could fire it, Electra jumped on him in an inhumanly fast movement, like a cat on a prey, one foot over the wrist that held the gun – she was rather sure she had broken it. She knocked him unconscious with a well-placed kick to the face.

"Who are you?" he asked her, sounding impressed. He didn't sound winded in the least.

"My name is not important," Electra answered back at him. "This was fun and all, but let's not do it again, yeah?"

The man smirked, looking amused. He tilted his head again – a gesture she was starting to recognize as something he did when he was listening for something (did he have heightened hearing like her?). He nodded in farewell at her, before hopping over one of the containers. He started running and, in a few moments, he was gone.

Electra shook her head, between amused and puzzled. Then, with a shrug, she disappeared into thin air.

10th January, 2015, Interrogation Room, 15th Precinct Police Station – Hell's Kitchen (NYC), USA

Electra sat in the interrogation room of the Hell's Kitchen police station, one hand cuffed to the desk, berating herself for her stupidity and her obsessive need to stick her nose into things that were none of her business. First her decision to become Shadowcat and now this. Perhaps, she did go looking for trouble, after all.

She could just teleport out of there, of course – she could have done so the moment she was found in her apartment, a kitchen knife in her hand, blood all over her (so much blood), a dead body next to her – but what would be the point? She didn't want to spend the rest of her life running.

Daniel Fisher didn't deserve this. It was all her fault. She brought him into this and now he was dead. She should have just pretended she had never read that damn file, never saw it, never opened it.

The door opened, distracting her from her thoughts. Four men entered the room, two of them detectives, she presumed. Various smells hit her nostrils – cheap wine, chicken salad, pine aftershave, sweat, tobacco, expensive cologne.

"Okay, can we please take the handcuffs off the 110-pound woman?" A blond, chubby man, that strangely reminded her of a teddy bear – the one who smelled of chicken salad and pine aftershave – asked the detectives.

If you only knew this 110-pound woman could snap you like a twig, you wouldn't say that, Electra thought, a little resentfully.

His companion, a handsome, brown-haired man with red glasses obscuring his eyes, and a cane – blind, then – followed him inside.

She barely took notice of him, at first, but then his scent hit her nostrils and she tensed in her chair, her heart pounding in her chest.

The unscented soap, the smell of his skin, the blood. It was the guy from the other night, the masked man. No way, she thought, but her senses didn't lie. Blind Lawyer by day, vigilante by night?

"Miss Black, can you tell me who these men are?" one of the detectives asked her.

Electra didn't answer. I would like to know the same thing.

"We're her lawyers," the masked man said. "Uncuff our client and give us the room, please."

How did he even know she was here? Did he recognize her too?

One of the detectives uncuffed her. "Thank you, Detective," the lawyer/vigilante said – and then both detectives left the room.

"Miss Black, my name is Matt Murdock. This is my associate, Foggy Nelson. Do you mind if we sit down?"

Electra shrugged. She had no idea what to do. Should she pretend like she hadn't recognized him?

"She gave a vague shrug," the blond man – Foggy Nelson – said. "I say we go with it."

"We understand you're in some trouble," Murdock said, once he and Nelson had sat down. "We, uh, may be able to help."

"Can you tell us what happened?" Nelson asked her.

Electra kept mum.

Nelson sighed at her stubborn silence. "Why don't we start with what we know, then? You were found in your apartment with one Daniel Fisher."

"Who appears to be the victim of a homicide," Murdock continued for his colleague. "And currently, you're the only suspect, Miss Black."

"Okay, one – who the hell are you? And two, who sent you?" Electra asked, hands clenched in her lap, suppressing the desire to just disappear.

She couldn't ask what she really wanted, not with Nelson in the room. What if the other man didn't know about Murdock's nightly activities? And there was an entire police station that, if they happened to overhear, would not be kind to him. The police didn't like vigilantes, after all.

Murdock smiled at her. She recognized that lopsided smile, that mouth, those teeth, the jawline, the stubble. It was really him. Bloody hell.

"I'm Matt," Murdock said, before pointing at Nelson next to him. "He's Foggy. And, as for, who sent us. No one sent us."

"So, what? You're just a couple of Good Samaritans? Today's just my lucky day?" She scoffed. Pretending it was then, for the time being, at least.

"I bribed the desk sergeant with a box of cigars for his mom," Nelson explained.

"Our practice is relatively young, Miss Black, and we are aggressively pursuing new clientele," Murdock said before addressing Nelson. "You gotta stop giving Bess cigars."

"She likes to smoke, Matt. It's a free country."

Electra observed them, a little bewildered. They were clearly friends as well as colleagues, she could tell from their banter. Perhaps, what they had told her was the truth. Perhaps, they were simply looking for a client to represent, nothing more, nothing less. Perhaps, the masked man hadn't recognized her and this was just a coincidence, a trick of fate. When it came to her, everything was possible.

If that was true, then, she found it strange that they hadn't chosen someone easier to represent, someone who didn't look as guilty as she did – someone whose innocence would be easier to prove. But perhaps, such a case wouldn't be much of a challenge for someone who liked to dress up as a ninja to beat up bad guys.

She didn't trust lawyers, as a rule. They were just a step below politicians in her list of categories of people she didn't trust, and one step above journalists – for obvious reasons. Mostly because, instead of being interested in defending innocent people, they always cared more about making money. Most lawyers would represent the most awful human beings on the planet, as long as those awful human beings would be able to pay them.

But perhaps, she could trust Murdock, knowing what she knew about him. Just this once.

"So, how long have you been practicing law?" Electra asked them.

Murdock grinned and asked Nelson, "what time is it?"

Nelson checked his watch. "It's 12:22 AM."

"About seven hours," Murdock answered, turning in her direction.

Nelson scoffed. "Well, if you go from when we passed the bar…"

"I was going from when we got our own desks."

Nelson nodded at Murdock's words. "Oh, then, yeah. Seven hours."

Electra widened her eyes, more amused than worried – though, she should probably worry a little. She was running the risk of spending her life in jail, after all.

"You've never done this before?"

"If you were to hire us, then, yes, you would be our first client," Murdock sent a smile her way, before turning serious again. "Why don't we start at the beginning. Tell me, how did you know Mr. Fisher?"

"We worked together," Electra answered.

Nelson pulled a notebook out of the pocket of his jacket, ready to take notes. "And your place of employment?" He asked.

"Union Allied Construction. I'm a secretary. Daniel worked downstairs in Legal."

"And how long have you been working there?" Murdock asked her.

"Not long. A year, more or less."

"And did you move to New York recently?" Murdock shifted in his chair, appearing slightly uncomfortable at his own probing. "I'm…I noticed your accent. British, right?"

There was something strange about his question. Perhaps, he did recognize her after all. Electra's expression remained blank though. There would be time for the two of them to talk in private, eventually.

"No, I've moved to New York when I was 19 and I've lived in New Orleans before that. But yes, I'm from London. I've never lost my British accent. Never bothered tried to cover it up either," except for when I'm dressed as Shadowcat, of course, she finished in her mind.

"And what was the nature of your relationship with Daniel Fisher?" Nelson asked her this time.

"I didn't know him very well. But he was always nice. I asked him if he would have a drink with me."

"You asked him?" Murdock asked her.

"Yes, but it wasn't anything romantic. He was married and with a child. And I don't sleep with married men, if that's what you're implying. I didn't have an affair with him and I have no idea how the bloody hell we ended up in my apartment, since I met with him at the Three Roads bar, on 49th Street, at least three blocks from where I live."

Nelson raised his hands in a placating gesture and asked her, "Alright. And what happened yesterday at this meeting?"

Electra sighed. "We had a few drinks, and the next thing that I remember is waking up on the floor of my apartment covered in blood. His blood." At the lawyers' meaningful silence, she added, "Look, I'm not stupid. I know how this sounds. But it's what happened. We met at the bar. We had a few drinks and I have no idea what happened after that. I only know that it wasn't me.

"Someone is clearly going out of their way to make it seem like I did, though. They must have drugged my drink or something, it's the only thing that makes sense." They had caught her off-guard, whoever they were. And it must have been a potent drug too or a very heavy dose, since, with her accelerated metabolism, drugs and alcohol wouldn't really affect her in the way they normally would a woman of her build.

Then, because she couldn't stop thinking about the fact that, if everyone believed her guilty, nobody would bother trying to find the real killer and Daniel's murderer would remain unpunished, she added, "I swear I didn't kill him."

Murdock nodded. "I believe you, Miss Black."

10th January, 2015, Nelson & Murdock Law Office – Hell's Kitchen (NYC), USA

"I'm friends with Gary Feinstein in the DA's office. I'll give him a call first thing in the morning, see where their heads are at," Foggy said, walking up and down the office, a ball in his hand he would throw in the air and then catch again. "I'm guessing they're gonna puff their chests, but they have to know murder two's a risk. We end up at manslaughter, we get the right judge, - maybe she's out in five to 10."

Matt shook his head, hands on his hips to emphasize his unmovable stance on the situation. "We're not taking a deal."

"No, this is why they have deals, Matt," Foggy protested. "So, the straightforward cases don't waste everybody's time."

"I don't think she did it." Matt knew she didn't. Electra Black was innocent. He heard her heartbeat, strong but steady, when she swore she didn't kill Daniel Fisher – she was telling the truth. Not that he could tell Foggy that. Therefore, someone was trying to frame her. But who? And why?

Matt heard Foggy stop his pacing. He shook his head in exasperation, blond locks slapping his cheeks. "She's the sole suspect, found at the scene, covered in blood, with the murder weapon and no defensive wounds. If they offer anything it'll be a gift, and we will take that gift. We do not want this to go to trial."

"They don't want this to go to trial, either. Why hasn't she been charged yet?"

"They have 24 hours. And it's the weekend. They're gonna take every last second to collect the evidence before they move."

It was Matt's turn to shake his head, denying his friend's words. "They've got the evidence. You just laid it out yourself. This is a good arrest, Foggy. We should already be reading about it in the papers. There's something not right about this case. I can feel it."

"You can feel it?" Foggy's words brimmed with skepticism and something else he couldn't identify. Matt frowned in confusion.

"All right, I'm just gonna say this once, and we can move on," Foggy said. "You don't necessarily show the best judgment when beautiful women are involved, Matt."

"How would I even know if she's a beautiful woman?" Matt immediately replied, though, of course, he knew Electra Black was beautiful.

Beautiful and dangerous, if the way she fought was any indication. But that didn't make her a killer.

He had recognized her immediately from the other night, the woman from the docks, though he had learnt her name only today. Her voice, her scent, – lemon and lily of the valley – the rhythm of her heartbeat and her breathing. All things he couldn't tell Foggy though.

"I don't know," Foggy answered his question, bringing Matt out of his thoughts. "It's kinda spooky, actually. But if there's a stunning woman with questionable character in the room, Matt Murdock's gonna find her and Foggy Nelson is gonna suffer."

Matt chuckled. "All right, I don't disagree with anything you're saying."

"Thank you," Foggy said.

"But I need you to back me, anyway," Matt continued, almost speaking over Foggy.

Foggy groaned, the sound muffled by his hands. "All right. Fine. Let's start with the obvious, then. If she didn't do it, who did? We're dead in the water if we don't give them an alternative."

"Agreed," Matt said, happy he had convinced Foggy to see it his way.

"We need to take another run at our client," Foggy continued. "She may not be guilty, Matt, but that doesn't mean Miss Black is telling the truth."

10th January, 2015, Jail Cell – Hell's Kitchen (NYC), USA

Electra was laying in her prison bed, feigning sleep. She heard the door of the cell opening. She remained immobile, on her side, her eyes closed, waiting.

A hand covered her mouth, to stop her from screaming, while a figure got on the bed, poised over her, attempting to strangle her with a knotted bed-sheet scrap. "I'm sorry," the man attacking her said.

Electra fought back, not wanting to reveal her abilities, but not willing to die either. She kicked her assailant in the ribs and poked him the eye. The man was startled enough to let her go.

"Help," Electra screamed. "Help me!"