Dumbledore's Grid
The coolness of the tunnel was a welcome change from the summer sun as Jordan ran down the escalator. It wasn't going fast enough for her today. She mentally blessed whoever thought to build these tunnels. The humidity and heat of a Houston summer was a double-whammy she was glad she didn't have to deal with underneath the streets.
She sprinted past people on her way, taking care not to knock into anyone. Only five years, and then I can Apparate, she consoled herself, as a stitch formed in her side. She skidded to a halt, briefly, next to a clothing store, examining the displays in the window. After a moment, though, she set off running again. Late again. What's new…
The McDonalds was a fair distance from the tunnel entrance she used, and she was thoroughly out of breath by the time she arrived. She figured she was late enough as it is; another few minutes couldn't hurt. She stepped in line and ordered a coke when her turn came around.
"Whoa. You a coin collector?" asked the boy behind the counter. She looked at him blankly, rummaging around her purse for a few dollars.
"Excuse me?" He pointed to her purse.
"Coins. Do you collect them? Those are awesome." She looked down and immediately hid the various Sickles and Knuts.
"Yes, sometimes. My Dr. Pepper?" He handed it to her, along with her change, and she walked away. She had forgotten to put the coins in a different purse; instead, she had just thrown them in while running out the door.
She walked into the restroom and found it blessedly empty of people loitering, waiting for their friends. She went to the very back, and found a dingy-looking stall door with a sloppy "Out of Order" sign hanging haphazardly off it. Looking around to make sure she was truly alone, she stepped in.
Once inside, Jordan felt safe enough to draw out her wand. She hastily tapped the flusher on the toilet, willing it to go as fast as it could. The toilet collapsed into the ground, and the wall opened out to reveal an almost painfully sunny open grassy square. She stepped through, and the wall closed up behind her, leaving a cheerful brick wall instead of the peeling plaster of the bathroom. She smiled, not minding the sun out here. Starway Park.
"Jordan! Jordan, what took you so long?" Jolie Edwards was waving frantically from the edge of the pristine square of grass, surrounded by shops that she was just itching to shop in.
"Sorry," she apologized, slurping some more of her soda. "I know, I'm late. But hey, I'm here, right? Where do you want to start?" Jolie bounced on the balls of her feet.
"Oh, I don't know. Wherever. What kind of coke?" she asked, gesturing to the McDonald's cup.
"Dr. Pepper."
"Can I have a sip?"
"Sure." She took a generous swallow and handed the cup back. "Let's go to Elymas's!" Remembering the pretty Muggle clothes in the store window she had stopped to look at, Jordan thought that browsing for robes at 'Mostly Magical Attire by Elymas' sounded like a great idea.
Excited as only two newly-teenaged girls can be, they walked down the cobblestone path and entered the graciously large, well-lit robe emporium.
"I wish this wasn't so expensive," Jordan muttered, discreetly checking the 42-Galleon price tag on a gorgeous velvet cloak. Jolie seemed extremely unperturbed by this, but then, she would be. She was the daughter of two considerably wealthy (though slightly unscrupulous) Muggles who did something on the stock market that, while causing the downfall of a major company and the unemployment of thousands, lined their pockets quite nicely.
Jordan herself was a half-blood. Her mother was a Muggle who had aspired to be the perfect housewife and succeeded admirably with Jordan and her two younger brothers, Glen and Bernard. Her father was a wizard who worked for the Supervision of Sorcery, Texas Division, in the Black Track, as it was commonly known. The Sirius Black Tracking Committee was its proper name, and her dad got to go to all sorts of interesting places on leads, like London and Nigeria. They all lived in a small apartment in downtown Houston, near the recently-abandoned Enron building, and Jordan and Jolie had just completed 8th grade at the Southern Day-School of Magical Instruction in the city.
"Oh, Jordan, look at this!" Jordan inspected the robes Jolie was pushing in her face: an imitation team jersey of Jolie's favorite Quidditch team: the Sweetwater All-Stars.
"That's pretty sweet," she said, not intending to make any sort of pun. "Are you going to get them?"
"Oh, I don't know, that's all of my allowance, and Mom and Dad have stopped giving me advances…" she chewed on her lip, but was only deterred for a moment. "I'll just bring them down here tomorrow and let them pay for it! I hope no one buys it, though…" Jordan highly doubted that possibility. Quidditch wasn't really that popular here, and no one wore team jerseys much, at any rate.
Jolie did end up spending a good deal of her allowance at Sorcerer's Sweets, nearly buying the entire stock of gummy slugs, her favorite. In a rare fit of generosity, she let Jordan share in the sugary bounty as they window-shopped for the rest of the day, where Jordan fell prey to a great deal on her favorite color of ink (Five bottles of Mystical Magenta, only three Sickles, for a limited time only).
In another strange bout of charity, Jolie also agreed to walk Jordan back to her apartment, though they took the tunnel at a slower pace, trying to make sure none of their day's buys looked out of the ordinary to the Muggle populace.
"Ma! I'm home, and Jolie's with me!" she yelled as she closed the apartment door and locked it behind her. Her mother rushed out of the kitchen, looking slightly flustered. Jordan frowned slightly. It wasn't like her mother to have so much as a hair out of place.
"Oh, so you did meet up with her, did you? Hello, Jolie, honey, did you girls buy anything nice?" Jordan proudly showed off the good deal she got on the ink as Jolie launched into a spirited recitation of the Sweetwater All-Stars jersey. Jordan suspected this was a futile effort; her mom still wasn't fully incorporated in the wizarding world yet; at least, not so much as to pay attention to Quidditch teams.
"You're a Sweetie, Jolie? I didn't know that," said her dad, coming out of his bedroom, with Glen and Bernard clinging to him, aged ten and six, respectively.
"Yeah, I am, Mr. Havers! Have you been following them at all? I just know they're going to smash the Warriors in the international league this year—"
"Sorry, Jolie, I really don't keep track of them that closely."
"Oh." Jolie's face fell. "I forgot. You're a Quodpot fan."
"Somewhat. I'm sorry, Jolie, but you've caught us at a bit of a bad time. How about Jordan gives you a call later this evening?"
"Oh." Jolie's spirits drooped even more. "Uh, sure, I could do that. Jor, last chance for some gummy slugs?" Jordan took a couple more before seeing her friend out the door. Then she turned to her parents.
"What's going on? Why did you send her off like that?"
"Listen, Jordan, you know I never tolerated that tone from you before, and I won't now," said her dad sternly, in a voice that clearly showed he meant business, "now, come sit on the couch, I'm going to tell you what's been going on. Glen, Bernie, you boys go join your sister." Puzzled, she sat on the banged-up sofa, wedged in between her little brothers. Her dad squeezed himself in between them and ended up sitting on the coffee table.
"Okay, so what's up, dad? What's going on?"
"Now, I want you to listen very carefully, you three, because this is very serious. I just got word this morning at work: Sirius Black has been killed." Jordan perked up.
"But that's good, isn't it, dad? Didn't he kill a whole bunch of people?"
"I said to listen! It might be good for all the innocent people he could have hurt, but something is just wrong. Last we heard, the man was in Tibet, but now he suddenly shows up, killed, in the British Ministry of Magic. Something isn't right, so we're going to London for the summer. I have an associate who's been nice enough to help us find a place to rent for a short time—"
"We're going to London?" cried Jordan, "As in, England?"
"Yes."
"But what about your job, daddy?" asked Bernie, his eyes wide. "What will you do now?"
"Well, I don't know. I'm sure they'll transfer me to a new department. But we'll be leaving fairly soon. All the arrangements are made, so I want you kids to start packing." Jordan was more than a little irate.
"We don't get a choice at all?" she asked, miffed.
"I'm afraid not. I'm not leaving you alone in this apartment for the entire summer, and at any rate, we're moving out for awhile."
"Moving?" This was the final straw. "We're moving to England? But what about school? And Jolie? And…and…" she couldn't think of anything else to add.
"Well, we're only staying for the summer, you'll be back in time for school. If you're not, I hear that they have an excellent boarding school there that Glen will be old enough to attend…" Things were just getting worse and worse.
"You're going to send me to boarding school?"
"It's one of the most renowned schools in the world, but calm down, Jordan. Nothing of that sort has been finalized, yet."
"Can I stay with Jolie?"
"No. I'm not dividing up my family."
"What about your job?"
"Well, right now, I don't have one. But your mother has agreed to help out a little by finding work." That was something new. Her mom had never shown any interest in finding a job before.
"What would you do, mommy?" asked Glen.
"Well, I'm sure I could help in…in a library, or a bookstore, or something like that," she said, smiling pleasantly. Glen and Bernie seemed to be happier with the idea than Jordan was, and Glen immediately hopped up.
"Can I go call Ben and tell him?"
"Of course you can. Bernie, why don't you go to your room and start packing?" Glen ran off and Bernie climbed down obediently. Her dad turned to her. "Now Jordan, I know this may be difficult for you, but think of it as an adventure! And I promise, we'll move right back to Houston when I sort this all out."
"You promise?"
"I promise."
"When are we leaving?"
"Next week."
"That soon?"
"I'd like to leave sooner, if I could, but that was as soon as I could manage. I want you to pack, and I want you to pack sensibly. You can't take every article of clothing and every item you own; some of it will have to go into storage. I want you to think about what you really can't live without. Understand?" She really didn't; why would he want to uproot and go to England, of all places? Why couldn't they at least go somewhere exciting, like Tibet?
"I think so."
"Good girl."
"Can I Floo over to Jolie's house?"
"No. You can tell her tomorrow. For now, I want you to get packing." Dejectedly, she slid off the couch and did as she was told.