Assassin
Chapter 6: You Remind Me
By Raquel
I can't seem to find myself again/My walls are closing in
- Linkin Park
Harry stalked out of Azkaban, his head reeling with conflicting interests. Jordan, who wanted him to talk to Snape, and Snape, who obviously didn't want to talk to Harry, and Harry, who didn't want to talk to Snape but would have liked to do what Jordan wished. But he didn't know if Jordan had been in her right mind when he'd been talking to her. She been so close to insanity it made his heart ache. To think that the real Jordan, the one he liked so much, was being sucked down the Azkaban drain, made him eager to do anything she'd want him to do.
Well, almost anything, he thought as he stood outside the door to Snape's office. All he had to do was knock, but that simple process seemed monumentally hard. It was if there was a force field in between Harry and the door, stopping him from hitting it. Harry didn't really want fifty points from Gryffindor or whatever Snape thought up, especially if he woke the Slytherin-head up.
"I don't think he hates you, Harry. Maybe you remind him of me. Before I screwed up. Or maybe of him. Before he screwed up." Jordan's brown eyes, long lashes fanning out from the dark pupil at the center, implored him. Maybe Snape liked her at one point in his life, though Harry found it hard to picture. Maybe, if he tried, he could talk to Snape for maybe five minutes. He had to try.
With an effort, he raised his hand to knock on the door.
"What do you want?" Snape asked, opening the door and dodging Harry's hand.
"Er…" Harry muttered. He felt like a bug, small and insignificant. "I've just been to see Jordan."
"So?" Snape said bitterly, trying to close the door. "Why should you bother me because of her?"
Harry put his foot in the door, preventing it from closing. "Maybe because she wanted me to. I wouldn't be doing this if she hadn't asked me to."
"Look, you saw me. What do you want to say? And can you say it so that I can go back to my work?" Snape glared at Harry, disdain and boredom liberally salted in his words.
"She's not doing well, if you care at all," Harry said angrily. "She seems to think you'd care enough to see her."
Snape's black eyes narrowed. "Did she?" He asked it cautiously, with as neutral a voice that Harry'd ever heard from Snape.
"Did she what?" Harry answered, completely stumped by the importance of the question.
"Kill Dumbledore, you foolish boy. The topic is in great debate at the Ministry of Magic. Minister Fudge is all for the worst death available, in the most public place possible." Snape cleared his throat rapidly. "I have been asked to witness for the prosecution. My answer is pending." He cleared his throat again and blinked several times, nearly losing control of his famous emotionless exterior.
Harry nodded. The silence lay thick on the air; it was hard to breathe. Finally the boy shifted. "Jordan really wants to see you."
"Is that all, Potter?" Snape asked coldly, beginning to retreat into his office once more.
"She still calls you Dui."
At this Snape gulped and ducked behind the door. "I'll think on it, Potter, but I still have work to do before it's a possibility. Go away." He slammed the door in Harry's face.
Harry smiled a little. He had a feeling that Jordan would be getting another visitor before long. While walking away, a thought struck him. Why, that was nearly a civil conversation between Severus Snape and the 'Famous Harry Potter, out new—celebrity'. Odd things were possible in this strange world.
****
"Hey you! Guard man person?"
Sam Cooler, one of the few humans who populated Azkaban of their own free will, drew a little closer to the prisoner behind the bars of Cell 89. It was a female, tall and very thin, with black hair that hung in her eyes.
"What's today?"
Sam checked his watch. "Christmas eve. The twenty-fourth of December, in the year 1996."
"Hello. My name's Jordan."
"Miss Jordan Marvolo aged seventeen, soon to be eighteen on the second of February. On trial for the murder of Albus Dumbledore, may he rest in peace, death penalty expected, prisoner number 19960089."
"How do you know all that about me?"
"Standard information."
"Do you know anything else?"
"You used to work for You-Know-Who."
Jordan laughed. "You know everything about me, and yet you know nothing at all. Merry Christmas." She walked back to her pallet in the back of the room, still talking. "It's not a very good Christmas present to find out that the lowliest guard of Azkaban believes I still work for Voldemort and that I killed Albus Dumbledore. Minister Fudge surely thinks I did. I'm the world's biggest scapegoat."
Sam snorted. "Now, I've heard that dirge before."
There was a rustle of straw. "Where?"
"From every lass and lackey that's ever graced the cells of Azkaban. You'll need a better defense than that if you want any chance at getting out with your life."
"The only witness I have is an ex-Death Eater widely loathed by all. Keep talking, Sam. My mind clears already."
"Who do you mean?"
"Severus Snape."
"Oh, him. Spent his share of time here. He was a decent man. Full of nightmares, and one of the best influential speakers I've ever seen pass through here. Could have been a lawyer if he'd not gone wrong somewhere along the line." Sam clucked his teeth and checked his watch. Ten minutes until Christmas.
Jordan was silent. "Isn't your name Sam?" she asked.
"Yep."
"Could you dispatch a letter for me?"
"Nope."
"Oh."
Just then, a Dementor glided down the hallway, sending its wave of cold before it. Jordan retreated into her cell, slowly lowering herself into an emotionless state, praying that the Dementor wouldn't linger. She sat in her corner, rocking back and forth, one finger tracing the round form of her eating bowl. Around and around it went, with no changes of direction or sudden surprises. Why couldn't life be like that?
Slowly, with great effort, Jordan filled her mind with a white fog devoid of any emotion—her only shield against the sucking powers of the demons.
It was many hours before she could pull herself back together. That was the danger of the white fog—the more she went into it, the harder it became to get out. Jordan took the food bowl and hit herself in the head with it. "Ouch!" she cried, her mind falling together like a vast puzzle suddenly completed. "Not completed, but almost. One piece is missing," she said aloud. She felt her forehead and winced. Hitting herself with a steel bowl might be a bad idea if the Dementors continued their bi-hourly schedule. She'd never be able to explain the bruises.
"You know, prisoners usually don't come back." Sam was outside, talking amiably to someone who was a little less comfortable with his or her settings.
"I've come to see a very close friend."
"How close?"
"Close like a daughter, you sick fool."
Jordan ran to the grate. "Dui?"
Snape pushed past Sam to stand closer to the door. "Still sane?"
"Barely so. I'm not like some people, Dui. I won't last much longer in here." She poked her fingers through the bars, her emaciated state allowing her to nearly get one whole arm through. "Is it really you?" she asked, plaintively; as innocent as she'd been fourteen years ago. Snape grasped her hand. It was cold and hard, the bones poking through her fingertips, her fingernails cracked to the wick and bitten off in nervous fits.
"It is you," she marveled softly to herself, running her bony hands over his, tracing the pattern of veins on the back of his hand. "I waited a long time, but whenever I heard your voice, I went to the door and I could never quite reach you." She shook her head. "You're here now, and I can be sane for five more minutes. I'm glad to see you again."
Snape paused, the silent anguish in his eyes speaking volumes. "I messed up, Jordan. I can try to fix that, if you're willing to try to stay sane."
"Deal. Ask Sam to let you in."