The Jordan Quartet: Book 1

The Assassin, Part 3

Harry walked leisurely to Potions. He didn't really care if he was late—what would Snape do, poison him? Possible, but probably against the rules. Harry knew perfectly well that Snape would love nothing more than to slip a little bit of the Draught of Living Death into his evening pumpkin juice.

Sincerely hoping Parvati hadn't had time to take revenge on him by spreading rumors, he opened the door. A hush fell as every head swiveled towards Harry, some wearing nasty smiles, others looks of curiosity. Snape's however, was a look of unmistakable anger.

"So, Potter, just thought you'd drop in, eh? Finally done up there?" Snape's glittering black eyes haled him from across the room.

Harry stood, frozen. What was he talking about?

"Don't look so surprised. We all know what you were doing up there, Potter," sneered Pansy Parkinson, a look of glee upon her dog-like features.

"I wasn't doing anything—" he protested, but was cut off as Draco Malfoy stood up, barely ten feet away from him.

"Aw, come on, Potter, we all know you went up there to screw that Marvolo girl," he drawled, smiling wickedly. "Nobody in our year good enough for you, Famous Harry Potter? First Chang, now Marvolo."

Harry's emerald eyes spat sparks as he glared at Draco. He clenched and unclenched his fists, imagining that each one held the sneering face that mocked him. Ten feet away.

"Was it good, Potter?" Malfoy asked in a stage whisper, making sure that everyone in the dungeon caught every word. "Compared to you're—past experiences?"

Ten feet took three steps to cover, and three steps later Harry and Draco were rolling about on the dungeon floor. Harry had Draco by the neck, Draco had Harry by the hair, and they both tumbled around the dungeon in a spitting, cursing, tangle. It took Snape five minute to pry them apart, and by this time Harry had a black eye and a swelling lip, and Draco was nursing his temple and neck, which Harry had wrung quite thoroughly.

"Mister Malfoy, Potter, can we stop this little love fest?" Harry chanced one more swing at Malfoy, but Snape caught his hand and squeezed it tightly. "I said—"

Just then Draco's misplaced punch caught Snape in the side of the head, slamming his lower jaw into his tongue. He roared in pain, then flicked his wand at each of them in turn and muttered "Enclose them who fights". A red line circled around Harry's feet, growing into a glowing cylinder that flared as it sealed him off, then vanished. Hesitantly, he reached out, but received a nasty sting as his palm hit the invisible barricade.

"Class, I will be back," Snape snapped, poking his wand at them. "Hospital wing, then the Headmaster's office. Well, what're you gawking at me for? March!"

~

Jordan ran into them about half-way to the hospital wing, took one look at Snape, and continued walking. Snape caught her by the arm, saying "Marvolo, we have a few things to discuss."

"What?" Jordan asked grumpily, allowing herself to be dragged.

"Many things," Snape muttered, coming to the hospital wing door. Dumbledore looked up from the discussion he was having with the very irate Madam Pomfrey.

"Oh, hello Severus," he said brightly. "Having some problems?"

"Only a few," Snape said tersely, gripping Jordan's arm a little harder. "Potter and Draco will tell you all about their little grapple—won't you boys?" He smiled sweetly, kneed Harry in the back and shoved Draco towards the office in one fluid movement without letting go of his hold on Jordan's arm.

"Coordination is obviously your specialty," Jordan said, trying to wrench her arm away. "Will you let go of me?"

"Of course not, Marvolo. Do I look stupid?" Jordan opened her mouth to answer, but he cut her off. "You shouldn't answer that."

He walked her down a few flights of stairs, then he came to a painting of a fairy, who was blowing her nose and wiping tears off her fat face. She was fat and particularly ugly, with a set of ridiculously small wings on her broad back. "Let me in, you cow," Snape ordered. Jordan thought this was a rather nasty thing to say to someone who is crying, but to her shock, the fairy grinned happily and slid upward to reveal a door, which Snape kicked open. He stomped down a flight of stairs, dragging Jordan as easily as if she weighed nothing, which may or may not have been odd (though she was five foot ten inches tall, she only weighed about one hundred and twenty pounds).

After sitting her roughly in a chair, he conjured another, slammed it down across from her, and then sat down. He leaned forward, so that his nose was an inch away from hers.

"Jordan, what happened in that hospital wing?"

Jordan had been expecting something different and was taken aback. "What?"

"You heard me."

"Nothing!" Jordan said.

"I've heard rumors you two were having sex up there."

Jordan looked at him, then began to laugh. The very idea of her and Harry, well, doing stuff, was so ridiculous it was funny. "Of course not!"

Snape didn't look convinced. "Rumor says otherwise."

"Rumor isn't always true," she said, smiling sweetly. "I've heard rumors you were seen wearing a dress in the halls in the dead of night," she lied confidently. It wasn't as though Snape could prove otherwise.

To her great surprise, he looked stung. "That isn't true."

Jordan pasted a skeptical look on her face. "Rumor says otherwise."

Snape rolled his eyes, the shook his head. "You're right. I would prefer, however, if you were truthful."

"Of course you would," Jordan said sweetly, "but what you prefer is of no concern to me."

The man across from her made a face at Jordan. "You are infuriating, Jordan Marvolo."

"Thank you, Professor." Jordan rose and made to leave the room.

Snape caught her by the arm and pulled her back down. "A few more questions, Jordan."

"Whatever."

He bit his lip, as though to bite back a retort. "First question: who do you live with now?"

Jordan cast about for an answer, quickly searching her brain. "My—Uncle Tom." She prayed that he wouldn't ask anything else along those lines. What would he ask next?

"Your Uncle Tom. Is he married?" Jordan shook her head. Snape watched her face. She lied very well, but the faint note of panic in her chocolate eyes betrayed her. "Why do you live with your uncle?"

"Because my parents are dead, Professor."

"How did they die?"

Jordan suddenly found herself wondering the same thing. In all her years she couldn't remember anyone ever telling her about her real parents—she had had many caretakers throughout her life, and whenever she had asked them anything about her real mother and father, they changed the subject. "I don't know."

"You don't know?"

She felt hurt. All this time, doing whatever the Master told her, and she had never asked for anything. He hadn't even bothered to tell her who she was. What a rip-off. "That's right," she said absent mindedly. What she really was thinking about was her long line of caretakers.

First there was a man. A tall man, who usually wore a hood. He had left when she was four. Then there was Goyle, a horribly stupid man who had been replaced by another stupid man, Crabbe, who was replaced by the Malfoys (for two days!) who were replaced by Avery, then the Lestranges, then lastly, Wormtail.

"What?" she asked. Snape had said something, which she had missed in her intense contemplation.

"I said, who takes care of you?"

Jordan went back to her thinking. Who was her first caretaker? She remembered little about him, except that he had been dark. And he had been called away suddenly. And she had called him Dui. Realizing Snape was still waiting for an answer, she said "Wormtail."

"What?"

Her eyes grew large in shock; she clamped a hand over her mouth as though she did not trust it. Before Snape had half-risen from his seat, Jordan was gone, her feet pounding on the floor stones. He didn't mind. He had many things to think about—and many to tell the Headmaster.

~

Albus Dumbledore stared out his window, across the grounds. From this height he could almost see Hogsmeade. He was now well over a hundred years old—though how many years over one hundred he did not remember.

Why didn't he remember? Because Albus Dumbledore was now an old man, not only in body, but also in mind. The sparkle in his blue eyes wasn't as bright as it used to be; the bounce in his step had gone, traded for a cane. He was going deaf. He didn't care to be seen at social events, instead he kept to himself inside his private rooms. In fact, a small part of Albus Dumbledore was very ashamed of what he had become.

Old.

Yes, he had known he would get old, but knowing it and having it happen to him were two very different things. Albus Dumbledore knew he was old, and after he became old he would die. Of course, he didn't know when he would die. This was partly maddening and partly a relief.

For instance, if he died during the night, then what would happen to Hogwarts? Would anyone need his help? Would his death cause more deaths? And if he knew when he would die, he would try to do everything before he died, which would cause him to go stark raving mad. It was a lose-lose situation. Albus Dumbledore hated lose-lose situations. They undermined one of his oldest beliefs: you can always make something better.

There was no bettering his situation now, for Severus Snape had just rushed in, a panicked look on his face. "Headmaster Dumbledore, sir, it's about Jordan."

Dumbledore didn't look away from his panoramic view out the window. "What has that child done now?" he asked, more to himself than to Snape. "That girl…" he shook his head, smiling. "What a regular idiot."

Snape rolled his eyes. "Dumbledore, I have proof she works for Voldemort."

"Voldemort?" Dumbledore asked softly, still not turning away from the view. "I remember the man…poor soul." He clucked his tongue in sympathy.

"Listen," Snape grabbed him gently by the shoulders and turned the old man so he could see his face. "Voldemort has one of his servants planted here, perfectly positioned to attack you or the students should he give the word. It is urgent we watch her."

"Servants? Voldemort? Severus, I can take care of myself. You go teach Potions." Dumbledore pulled himself from the chair and grabbed his cane. "I can take care of myself," he repeated, then strode off.

Snape sighed and rubbed his temples, more sad than anything else. Where had Albus Dumbledore gone, and who was this fuddy-duddy old man that was here in his office?

~

Jordan slumped down at the dinner table later that day, staring at her mashed potatoes with no appetite. She was certain that at any moment, men would come in and arrest her, take her to trial, then put her to death. They'd probably torture her to death using one of the Unforgivable Curses. Ugh.

A shadow fell over the mashed potatoes just as a hush spread over the Slytherin table. She wheeled, half rising in case she needed to run. Instead, she locked eyes with Harry Potter, who smiled at her. Just at her, and no one else. She didn't smile back, but she allowed a slightly pleased look to spread over her face. "Hello."

"Hey. Can I talk to you for a minute?" He glanced at the eagerly listening Slytherins and said pointedly "Alone."

What could she say? "Sure." Jordan found herself thinking that she wouldn't know herself if she met herself on the street. Who was this girl who talked so easily to an enemy, who allowed him to know she was pleased to see him? Certainly not the same Jordan who had fled from him on the train a few month ago.

She got up and followed him a short distance away from the table. "What is it?"

"Oh—yes, Jordan…I was…wondering if you might want to—take a walk after dinner. Around the grounds." Harry was staring at his feet.

Jordan opened her mouth, closed it, and felt the blood start to rise to her cheeks. Why, oh why did she have to blush now? "Um…" She stood there, thoughts racing through her head. It would be nice to go walking with Harry—but if the Master got the faintest inkling of an idea that she liked him, it would be bye-bye to Harry and Jordan—they'd probably both end up dead. She did not want to die. She didn't want anyone to die because of her, come to think of it.

"Uh…I'm sorry, but I have to study for a test. Ask me again later." Seeing the look on his face, she apologized again. "Sorry." It didn't help.

"Poor Potter," drawled a mocking voice from behind her. "To think, after one encounter with Marvolo, she never wants to have you again. Are you really that bad, Potter?"

Jordan spun on her heel, marched up to Draco Malfoy, leaned in close to him, and whispered "Draco Malfoy, is it? No relation to Lucius Malfoy? The Death Eater? I know him well."

Draco smirked at her. "You can't. He isn't a Death—"

"Bull shit he isn't. Tell you what, Draco Malfoy? Next time I catch you making fun of anyone—anyone at all—I tell the whole school about your dad. I have proof." And with that, she punched him in the nose, sending him flying head over heels backward. Jordan Marvolo completed this stunning act by marching smartly out of the Great Hall.

Once she was safely up in her dormitory, she pulled the curtains around her bed and began to cry. Poor Harry. The look on his face when she had said no…she snuffled and conjured up a box of tissues, blew her nose loudly, and flopped back on the bed, feeling like the biggest monster in the world. More monstrous than…than…Voldemort himself.

That was how Elia found her.

"Okay, spill it," she said, jumping onto the end of the bed. "Why are you crying, eh?"

Jordan glared at her. "I don't want to talk about it."

Elia glared right back, her eye-browless face contorting oddly. "You don't talk, you have bad dreams. Bad dreams mean me and Aubrey lose sleep. Tell me everything."

The dark haired girl bit her lip. "I like Harry." Saying it made it seem even stranger than it was, but at least it seemed more real to her. "And—today he asked me to go walking with him."

"A good thing, yes?"

"No!" she cried. "I said no, because—because—I just can't hurt him. If I get too close, he'll get hurt." Jordan whimpered, pulling her long legs into her chest. "But I hurt him anyway…"

Elia sighed. "Jordan, how could you hurt Harry by getting close to him?"

Jordan shook her head and snuffled into her knees. Elia drew a hand-kerchief out of thin air and handed it to her. "Jordan, Harry is one boy out of the many in this world. If he does not chase you further, he doesn't think you are worth chasing, and you should not think more of him. If he does… you're a lucky girl, Miss Marvolo."

A lucky girl? If only she knew.. Jordan thought.

"Change of subject: Are you planning on going to the Yule Ball?"

Jordan sat up straight. "What?" Panic bells were going off inside her head. Ball? Voldemort hadn't mentioned a ball.

"The Yule Ball, silly. It was a huge hit two years ago, so the school decided to continue it year after year."

"Uh…I don't really have anything to wear to a ball." Jordan mutter this quietly, hoping Elia would not make her go. The last thing she needed was to worry about was some type of social occasion.

"That's okay, I don't either. We can go shopping next trip to Hogsmeade! You have some gold, yes?" Jordan nodded dumbly. "Excellent. We'll need to get something nice for you…brown to match your eyes, maybe with some gold on it…maybe red or green…" Elia gushed on happily. Jordan let her ramble. She didn't dare protest.

~

The day of the trip to get Jordan fitted for dress robes started with disaster: Jordan clotheslining herself on the low doorway of 'Damsels in this Dress'. As Elia and Aubrey (who was as unwilling as Jordan to enter this world of pins and paisley) picked her up, the woman behind the counter took one look at Jordan's lanky body and announced "We'll need a bigger measuring tape." Everyone in the shop (twenty or so women and girls) turned to stare.

Jordan was then forced to go into the next room, strip down to her underwear, and let some woman she had never seen before in her life measure her. It was humiliating.

"Jordan Marvolo…bust: thirty-five, waist: twenty-seven, hips: twenty-nine."

"Did you have to shout?" Jordan hissed, hearing laughter outside the room. "What are you doing?" The woman slipped the tape between Jordan's legs and pulled it up to the limits so it would reach over her shoulder.

"Girth: sixty-seven."

Jordan squeaked in indignation. "Excuse me!" she exploded, pulling the tape measure out from in-between her legs. "I supposed you'd love it if someone tried to yank a tape measure up your butt!" The woman obviously didn't really care and placed the long strip of numbers against the floor and held it there with her foot as she pulled it to shoulder height.

"Shoulder to floor: sixty-one."

"Look, I just want robes," Jordan attempted to reason. "Can't you take my old pair and change the color?"

"No. Hip to floor, forty."

When it was done, Jordan stumbled out in her jeans and tank sweater, still yanking her robes over her head. The woman followed, shaking her head. "I can have your things ready in two hours," she said to Jordan. "Please don't ask for anything else."

"Nothing that requires that tape," Jordan muttered and stormed out, ignoring laugher following from the other patrons.

Two hours later, however, Jordan was staring at a neatly folded pair of chocolate brown robes with little gold vines trimming the neckline (which was a little bit too low for Jordan's taste) and the hem and sleeves. It looked really good on her, making her practically non-existent curves fan out and her height a little less foreboding. The brown color brought out her eyes, and the gold picked up more matching shades in her mangled hair.

She paid the woman, thanking her, then left. It was still fallish weather—crisp, with a chill to the air—despite the fact that it was early December. Elia's suggestion that they visit the Three Broomsticks was the first welcome idea of the day.

Jordan was halfway through her first butterbeer when a hand tapped her lightly on the shoulder. She didn't turn around, she already knew who it was. "Hi." She waited for Harry's voice.

"Marvolo, we need to talk." Jordan spun in her stool and tilted her head back so she could see into Ron Weasley's taffy-colored eyes. "About Harry."

"What is there to say?" Jordan did not like Ron, and the feeling was shared by Ron. "Leave me alone."

"No. What do you want with Harry?" The chocolate eyes blinked. Ron was serious. She'd thought this was some monstrous joke.

Jordan ran a hand through her chin-length hair, unsnagging knots. "What do I want? I just don't want him to hate me. You could ask him the same about me."

Ron frowned. "Why'd you say no?"

"I needed to study," she said shortly, praying somebody would deliver her from this dork.

"Do you like him? Truth."

"Yes," she snapped. "What is this, twenty questions?"

The red-haired boy ignored her. " I just want you to know that if you want to start going with Harry, I'm not going to like it, but I'm not going to stop you. I just want you to know he really likes you—only God knows why—and you'll be the envy of many girls if you hook up with famous Harry Potter." Jordan was at a loss for words. Ron smirked at her. "Just don't mess with his brain too much. And if you hurt him, Hermione will hunt you down." He slipped away to another table with the know-it-all girl.

Elia peered over at them, adjusting her head-scarf—maroon today—and blinked. "He is such an idiot."

Jordan rolled her eyes, but didn't say anything. Something new had just occurred to her. Voldemort probably knew about everything she did. He wasn't stupid, and any idiot could see that she cared about Harry and Elia. That meant if she displeased him they would be the first to go. Would she be able to live with herself if she knew she was the cause of their deaths?

No. Jordan Marvolo's soul might have been shut in a box long ago, but her conscience roamed free.

~

Jordan's dreams that night were full of horrible images; things she had never seen before. She saw a ruined house with four bodies in it, she saw Voldemort standing over her, and she saw the hooded man. Dui. A mystery to her. Who was he? A tall man with glittering eyes and a large nose; unfortunately, this did nothing to lift the veil of mystery.

Suddenly she found herself in the Speaking Chamber of the Underground castle, where she had lived barely a month ago. Habit took over, and she gazed above the spinning circle on the wall, standing stiffly at attention. "You called, Master?"

JORDAN. I am most displeased with you and your petty emotional life. How DARE you. I should gut you where you stand. WHY IS ALBUS DUMBLEDORE STILL ALIVE? WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TRYING TO DO? I WILL SEE HIM DEAD BY CHRISTMAS OR I'LL HANG YOU WITH YOUR OWN INTESTINES!

"Yes, Master." A tiny voice in the back of her head was protesting she didn't really need to kill Dumbledore, as he was bound to drop dead any minute from old age. "Albus Dumbledore is a very old man, Master."

I KNOW that, you blithering idiot. I just won't wait another fifteen years for him to die. He must die now!

Jordan bowed. "I will go."

You will not leave this chamber until I'm through with you. I will be obeyed, Jordan, and not when you feel like it—when I feel like it. YOU WILL KILL ALBUS DUMBLEDORE. YOU will NOT love Harry Potter.

"No." Jordan clapped a hand over her mouth. On reflection, she realized she had been doing that a lot lately. Her mouth obviously was not going to stay silent any longer.

What?

"It was a slip, just a slip…" she whispered, her horrified stare directed at the ground; feeling the blood drain from her face, leaving it a ghostly white. An invisible hand grabbed her hair and jerked upward, pulling out a large clump. It held her there for a minute, as though contemplating her, then threw her against the back wall of the room. As she cowered, she felt something pound her head, followed by a prickling pain. When the raps stopped, she grabbed a handful of her hair and pulled it towards her face. Sure enough, many more thin golden streaks punctuated her black hair. There was also some blood from the pounding.

Christmas. You have to choose, Jordan. You or an old man. BY CHRISTMAS!

Jordan sat up in the Slytherin Dormitories, staring around at the green velvet curtains around her as though they were closing in on her like a cage. Her hand went to her scalp and encountered something sticky. Pulling her hand down, she saw her fingertips were caked with half-dried blood. She stared at it with mixed horror and curiosity, noticing for the first time how red it was. Red meant many things to her.

Red was the color of Voldemort's eyes. Red was blood. Red was the Gryffindor color. Harry's house. Voldemort, blood, Gryffindor, and Harry. Obviously all four would come into play in this dangerous game she was trapped in. "Absolutely not." Harry stared at his reflection with horror. His robes had a tear (too small), his hair looked like a bowling ball from his attempts to tame it, and he was having something along the lines of a panic attack. Tonight was the ball. Not in two weeks, not in one, but today. In one hour. Sixty minutes until he saw Jordan again.

Fifty-nine.

Hermione looked at him. "You look like an idiot," she announced. "What did you do with your hair?"

"Killed it," Harry muttered. "Is there any way you could fix me?" he asked, ignoring Ron's muffled giggles with annoyance.

Hermione sighed, waved her wand at his hair, then at his robes. "Be careful," she warned, "I stretched the fabric to fit. It's really thin." Harry could have kissed her, but instead he ran to the mirror. His hair was still a mess—but not so bad as before. He was ready to see Jordan.

But there were still forty-eight minutes to go.

He sighed and slumped on a chair, thinking that being early could be just as much of a curse as being late. Ron sat down next to him. "Thinking about Marvolo?"

"Yes. And her name is Jordan."

"Sure. Okay, I talked with her when me and Hermione were at the Three Broomsticks together. She really does like you, y'know." Ron watched Harry with amusement as he jerked upright.

"She does? Really? How do—how—" Harry sputtered. Nearby, Parvati tilted an ear towards them while reapplying her mascara.

"I asked, stupid. I also told her your feelings." Ron sighed and fluttered his eyelashes ridiculously. "Ah…young love!" Harry snorted and punched Ron in the arm. What a first-class-idiot. Unseen by either of them, Parvati crept away to have a whispered conference with Lavender.

~

"Absolutely not." Jordan stared at her reflection with something between disbelief and embarrassment. "I can't possibly go anywhere like this."

She was wearing the brown gown and her hair was neatly combed and twisted up with a golden hair-clip. Elia had put shimmer eye shadow on her eyelids and lipgloss on her lips, which suddenly seemed fuller. The gold in her hair perfectly matched the embroidery on the dress; the brown made her eyes look huge. She looked (in her personal opinion) better than she'd ever looked before.

"Wow, Jordan," Aubrey murmured, "You look great."

"You don't look so bad yourself," Jordan said to her. For once, Aubrey was wide awake and looking very pretty in petal-pink robes. Nothing could be done for her uncontrollably curly brown hair except try to tie it back with ribbons, however, so she still looked like herself.

"Oh my god!" Elia shrieked from inside the bathroom. "Jordan, Aubrey, get yourselves in here!" Jordan dashed to the door to see Elia standing in front of a mirror in her acid green robes, examining her bald scalp. "Look what that"—Elia said something that made Aubrey sigh in disbelief—"wig did to my head! It hurts!"

"You could just wear a scarf," Jordan suggested. "You could wear that green one. It would go with your dress…I think."

"Don't be an ass, it wouldn't. Maybe if I tinted it a different color…" Elia dashed around the bathroom, screaming and swearing at the top of her lungs. Aubrey and Jordan exchanged glances, then bolted for the door.

"Sometimes I wonder if she kept her brains in her hair," Aubrey muttered. "And when it fell out she went crazy."

"It fell out?" Jordan said in a puzzled sort of voice. "I thought she was born that way."

"Nah," Aubrey said, glancing back up the stairs where they could see Elia running around, still swearing. "It started falling out when she was in her second year. Everyone made fun of her for awhile, then she filled out and all the boys were too busy ogling her to care she was as bald as an egg and just as scrambled."

"Scrambled Egghead," they said together, then smiled and continued down the stairs.

~

Jordan realized something was wrong as soon as she entered the Great Hall. Nothing moved. Everyone was frozen in the acts of talking and laughing. She stole a sidelong glance at Aubrey and realized that she too had stopped, a confused look on her face.

"Jordan." The girl trembled, but held firm as the tall man approached her. "Tonight is the night before Christmas, and all through this house, not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse. Do what you came here to do. The spells will deactivate in ten minutes." He vanished in a puff of acid green smoke. The people in the Hall remained frozen.

Mindlessly she ran from the room, grasping for her wand. Shit. She didn't have it. That meant she would have to run upstairs and get it, losing more time before the others unfroze. She tore down the halls, feet somehow missing all the obstacles. She pounded the wall, whispered "Panpipes" and dashed up the dormitory stairs. There she hit Elia.

Elia stood in front of the mirror, using a Kleenex to wipe off her brown lipstick. She was frozen, and fell to the ground with a heavy thud. Jordan stared at her, then backed away slowly, as though the slightest movement might wake her up. Oddly, Elia's large hazel eyes were fixed on Jordan, staring at her as though accusing her of what she had not yet done.

She rummaged through her bed sheets. Her wand was wrapped in an old bit of parchment, and beneath her pillow.

Five minutes! Jordan winced as his crazed scream shook the building. HURRY!

Jordan pulled her wand out of the sheet of parchment, then did a double take. It was a finely draw map of Hogwarts, down to ever cupboard and bed sheet. She hurriedly found the Slytherin Dormitories (occupied by two dots labeled Evelia Peterson and Annalise Prewett—who was that?) and raced down the stairs toward the small box labeled Dumbledore's Office.

She was halfway there when she simply had to stop, a horrible stitch eating away at her lungs and stomach. Jordan clung to the wall, gasping for breath. Her beautiful hair was a mess and she had collected a number of small smudges on her lovely brown dress. A tear ran down her cheek. Even if she did manage to pull this off, what would be next? She was supposed to graduate from Hogwarts this year—but it wasn't like she could go find a job. Actually, she would probably just be sent to murder someone else.

"Is that all I ever will amount to?" she whispered to the thin air around her. "An assassin? A killing puppet to be moved by Him?" No answer from the still castle. "I just have to be something more…something…me." Me. Strange word. What did it mean to Jordan? It meant a Jordan untainted by anyone else… someone—purer.

And invisible hand pinched the back of her neck. Jordan's head snapped back, and she gasped out "Okay, I'm going to do it…" The hand squeezed, then let go to shove her forward.

A stone gargoyle lay smashed on the stone floor, its small, beady stone eyes glaring up at her from within the constellation of rock fragments that scattered the hallway. A gaping hole where it had once stood revealed steps spiraling upward into eternity.

Jordan saw her foot step onto those stairs and found herself traveling upwards faster than any elevator could take her. Along with this bodily rising came a sense of her soul being left behind, somewhere among the shattered gargoyle, watching her body obey. What was wrong?

She was thrown off the steps as they abruptly ended. Another door stood, like a faithful sentry. Jordan whispered something, then stepped aside as the door swung off it's hinges. She overdid the charm out of nerves, and the door slammed against the floor with a flat boom that sounded like the very knell of death to the frightened seventeen-year-old that stood in the empty doorway.

Her foot reached forward, then retracted. She began to shake uncontrollably, her wand slipping from her grasp to clatter to the floor. Jordan fell to her knees and began to sob without restraint, crying to the unforgiving stones and blood-red rug. "What am I doing?" she whispered. "Why? Why?" she asked the world. "Why me?" Three tears dripped to the floor, followed by the strangled sob of someone who wishes to keep her misery to herself. Hugging her knees to her chest, she rocked back and forth on the floor, praying for some miracle.

Slowly her tears stopped. She patted her face dry with the hem of her robes, then stood. Her hand grabbed her wand, and she stepped over the door with new resolution. She would kill him, then…she would—leave. Yes, she would leave England and take up work somewhere else. In Africa, or maybe Australia. Yes, that was what she would do. Leave Jordan Marvolo behind in the room and become someone new. Someone pure.

The Headmaster was slumped at his desk, his foamy beard trailing over the desk, nearly touching the floor. He was asleep. Jordan said a silent prayer of thanksgiving. He wouldn't know it was she who betrayed his trust. She raised her wand.

All time stood still, perfectly capturing the old man, the young woman, and the dusty room. Jordan's lips were pressed so tightly together they were turning white; her eyes were huge against her porcelain skin. Dumbledore didn't stir, but his beard moved in a small draft as someone approached the door.

Snape entered the room and saw Jordan, wand upraised, facing a limp Dumbledore. He ran to the other side of the room and felt for the bony wrist. No pulse, no beat of life. Albus's face was weary and shocked in the same mold, the blue eyes glazed over in his ultimate defeat. Not Voldemort, nor Grindewald, no assassin or poisoner or spy could take the life of Albus Dumbledore. He had lost his final battle with Age.

Of course, Snape did not realize this.

"You," the man hissed. "You've killed him!"

Jordan stiffened, her large brown eyes fixed on the tall man as he advanced towards her. Her lips moved, forming a small purse. Reality had caught up with her. Albus Dumbledore was dead, and she hadn't done it. Sweet relief crept into her brain, and she relaxed.

Snape seized her arm, jolting her away from her dream-world. "How could you?" he shouted. "Why did you?" She felt nothing except coldness. Her hand swung around, connecting with the side of his head with a crack. Snape cried out and released her in shock. Jordan threw a curse at him as she ran down the moving stairs.

Gone was her relief, it was replaced by the panic of the here and the now. Feet pounded after her, she could hear movement in the castle: the spells had worn off. Down the stairs, through a passageway, up, down. Jordan's breath rasped in her chest as she ran on, searching for the main door out of the accursed castle. She was a rat in a maze, waiting for the mad scientist to pluck her away from this confusion and put her back in her cage until another run.

Run Jordan! Flee this mess, never to return! Run!

A slap of feet behind her, then the roar of "Stupefy!" sent a jet of light into her back. She collapsed. Her last thought was of how cold stone was. Cold and so unforgiving, so unyielding.

Glitter's Authors note: At the end of this part, I would like to thank Megan for the ending, many of my friends for Jordan's character, and Ever After for the idea for a romance between Harry and Jordan. What else is there to be said but Thank you for reading. Now review so I know whether you like it or not.