A/N: Thanks for all the reviews guys; it definitely helps to have feedback. Also, a big thanks to my Betas Roonblah, Ethereal and FridayAngel.
Something tells me this fic is gonna be another long one.
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Chapter 2: Who You Are
'If I smile and don't believe
Soon I know I'll wake from this dream'
-Evanescence (Hello)
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"I've come home?" Jesse snorted, "I think not." Remembering she was barefoot, Jesse slowly walked towards Dumbledore and her trainers at the foot of the bed. "My home is in my flat, which is where I was kidnapped from. I'm assuming it was you or someone else from this place that brought me here?"
"It was Professor McGonagall and I. And we simply returned you to your natural environment. Our world. The world of magic and adventures."
"Uhuh," Jesse slipped on her trainers, "Save the poetry for demented people your own age- while I may have been considered crazy once or twice in my life, you aren't my type." Jesse wrinkled up her nose as she looked at him, "Too old, too wrinkly, and no fashion sense."
Again, Dumbledore chuckled. "Such fire. You are definitely like your mother."
"Quit it with the whole parents thing! As far as I'm concerned, they don't exist. I've never had any parents. I've never had any family!"
"You had them once," Dumbledore replied sadly, "But they were taken from you. I had to take you from this world to protect you from your enemies. I have kept an eye on you since. I know you've had a hard life, and I know, I am very much responsible for putting you in it, and all I can do is apologize."
Jesse laughed once- a short burst of sound that seemed harsh and too loud in the quiet room before she slipped on her trainers, spotted her jacket in another chair and put it on.
"How about you take me back home, or hell, even just show me the way back home, and I'll forget this ever happened, huh?"
"I'm afraid that is impossible," replied Dumbledore. "It took a lot of planning and magic to put you in that world."
Jesse narrowed her eyes and folded her arms, "Then how did you bring me here?"
"A Portkey" Dumbledore replied, his tone of voice suggesting that this should explain everything. Jesse however, just blinked at him. She knew what one was, she just wanted to know a little bit more information.
"It was specifically created to work only once, to bring you and whoever went to retrieve you, safely back" Dumbledore explained. "It took a lot of magic to give it enough power to reach your world."
"Riiight," Jesse replied slowly before edging towards the door, "I'll just leave you to your little fantasy land and be on my way now."
She turned around and began to walk towards the door, mumbling under her breath, "People should censor this guy's reading material…"
"Jesse!" Dumbledore called out and for some reason, it made her pause.
She spun around and looked at him through narrowed eyes "How the hell do you know my name?!" She realised that he'd been calling her it since she'd met him and she'd never told it to him in the first place.
"I told you," Dumbledore stood up smoothly, much too smoothly for his apparent age, "I was there at your naming."
"I was named at the place I was dumped," Jesse spat at him. She was sick of this situation already and was ready to leave now. "On the doorstep of an orphanage. A very bad orphanage, I might add."
She spun around again, only to stop when he called out, "Colloportus", and the door shut on its own.
Jesse froze, her eyes wide as she slowly turned around to face him again. He held a wand in his hand, and he was smiling at her.
Jesse shrugged her fear off. "Could've been a draft," she shrugged.
That was when the portraits began to talk.
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"Have you heard the rumours?" Draco Malfoy didn't look away from the copy of the Daily Prophet in front of him. He was sitting in a chair in front of the huge fireplace in the Slytherin common room, trying not to think about certain things in his life, namely, his father. He rarely listened to rumours in Hogwarts unless they were beneficial to him. Instead, he continued to read about the latest Voldemort sightings. Basically, there weren't any. However, the Dementors had been playing havoc with everyone's heads, making them scared to go out alone or in small groups. Now, whenever anyone went out, it was in fives or sixes, hoping that if a Dementor appeared in front of them, they'd have a chance at keeping it at bay instead of cowering in fear while it sucked their souls right out of their mouths. Not a good way to live that.
"It's Dumbledore." Pansy Parkinson continued like he wasn't openly ignoring her. Pansy had never been one to understand the basic things in life, one being that Draco Malfoy did not, in fact fancy the pants off her. "The rumour mill's saying that he went out last night with McGonagall."
"Really? Who'd have thought?" Draco added dryly without looking up from his paper, "and going at it at their age too." He shuddered.
"Eew!" Pansy wrinkled up her ugly nose, "and no, they brought back someone with them."
"Really?" Draco asked dryly, wondering when she was going to leave him alone and bug someone else.
Pansy nodded enthusiastically, hovering around Draco like an annoying insect. "Katie Bell apparently saw it out of the window in the Gryffindor common room. She says they used a Portkey and appeared a few minutes later with lots of bags and a girl."
Draco looked up sharply, his grey eyes pinning Pansy with a stare "A girl?"
"Yeah," Pansy preened under his gaze, happy that he was finally looking at her. "She was unconscious. Dressed like a muggle too. A load of teachers then came out and brought her and everything else in with them and they did it really quickly, they kept looking around like they were scared or something."
"A muggle?" Draco sneered, looking back down at his paper "Who cares about a muggle? Besides, this is from a Gryffindor. Who cares what a Gryffindor saw?"
Pansy's face dropped, "I just thought you'd want to know is all, besides, she must be important if Dumbledore went to fetch her himself. And why would she be unconscious?"
"I don't care, and I don't want to know," Draco muttered and went back to reading his paper. "Now why don't you stop fluttering about like an over-sized bug and bog off? I am trying to read, you know."
Pansy sulked and walked away, leaving Draco in front of the fire alone.
Only when she had gone, did Draco look up from the Daily Prophet. "Why indeed?" He murmured to himself as he stared into the flames, "Why indeed." This might be a good distraction after all.
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"A draft she says," a voice spoke from her left and Jesse spun around to see the pictures moving. Yes, moving. There were loads of them, mostly women and they were all looking at her.
"I thought witches of your line were meant to be highly intelligent," the portrait continued in a haughty tone as Jesse stared, her mouth open and her eyes wide.
The portrait was old, with a huge ornate gilt frame around it. The picture was that of a nurse from several hundred years ago. Jesse didn't know when exactly because she wasn't ever good at history. The only reason she knew that the woman in the portrait was a nurse, was because of the medical equipment beside her on a table. At least she thought it was medical equipment. It looked highly dangerous. The woman herself was young, maybe in her mid-twenties, with blonde hair tied back into a harsh bun that made her face seem older, and more bare. The other women in the portraits were similarly garbed, although it appeared from the differences in their style of dress that they were all from different eras.
"Hush, Vivian. Leave the child be. Can't you see you've scared her?" another portrait from beside the one who had spoken decided to intervene. This portrait was even older; the canvas browner than the first and the frame was simple plain wood. These paintings were hundreds of years old.
The woman within the painting was older than the first, wearing a long pale blue cloak, tied at the neck. She must've been a lot older than the first woman when her portrait was painted as she had grey hair and wrinkles while the other woman had none at all. She smiled down at Jesse. It was the one who had told her she wasn't dead.
"I am intelligent!" Jesse snapped at the first painting before slapping a hand over her mouth in horror. She turned around to face the room, not really seeing it as she stared at a spot on the stone floor. "I'm talking to pictures. I was right, I've gone insane!"
"No child, you're not insane." Dumbledore swept forward and looked up at the pictures, "If you'll excuse us ladies, we need to discuss this elsewhere."
The paintings nodded and some waved as others began to move about to other paintings to whisper behind their hands, their eyes still on Jesse as she allowed Dumbledore to take her by her arm and lead her of the room.
Jesse only realized she was moving about 5 minutes later, to find that she was in a corridor somewhere on a different floor.
"Where are we going?" Jesse stopped and looked around at more moving paintings and large windows. The corridor, like the room she'd been in, was made of stone. It looked like she was in a real castle.
She moved to peer out of a window but Dumbledore was leading her away again "I'm taking you to your room. You have everything you need- all of your belongings, your own bed, desk and bathroom. Sadly, no television or anything else run by muggle electricity works here due to magical interference. However, I think something battery operated like a CD player may work. You'll have to try it out."
Jesse said nothing; she was too busy looking around her. Dumbledore led her down many corridors; so many, Jesse lost count. The finally stopped in the middle of one corridor, in front of a huge tapestry depicting a forest with mountains looming in the background. On a hilltop in the distance, a wolf bayed at the moon. Dumbledore lifted the tapestry and disappeared behind it. Slowly, Jesse followed. Behind it was a single corridor lit with torches with a single door at the end of it. There were no pictures on these walls and the door was different from the one's she'd seen on the way there. This one was intricately carved with four symbols. Jesse squinted at them. One looked like a snake of some kind, and another looked a bit like a bird. Perhaps the four house symbols? Jesse looked at the rest of the door. There was a larger image looking down at them, the moon high in the sky behind it. It looked at bit like a dog. 'No,' Jesse realised, 'it's a wolf. It's watching over them, protecting them.'
There was something about the wolf that made Jesse examine it more closely. She noticed that its eyes consisted of two amber stones that seemed to glow in the torchlight. They seemed so real, so full of life, intelligence. Just then, the wolf moved. Jesse jumped back like she'd been burned.
"Jesse?" Dumbledore had been watching her closely, "Are you okay?"
Jesse looked at him sharply. "What do you think?" she replied sarcastically and Dumbledore turned back to the door. Jesse looked back at the wolf and it stared innocently back at her, just a piece of wood.
Dumbledore pulled out his wand and tapped it against the door softly three times, "Butter beer."
He looked at Jesse sideways, "The door only opens with the password. Only Professor McGonagall and I know the one for this door but it will open for you if you will it to. Just say "open" and it will obey."
The door swung open and they walked in.
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Jesse stopped two steps into the room, her mouth hanging open as she looked around her. The room was not a room. It was huge, bigger than any place Jesse had had to herself growing up in the other world. It consisted of two floors.
The first floor contained a huge desk and chair at one end of the room, a soft looking couch and two matching arm chairs situated in front of a huge fire with more house symbols and wolves on its surround. The floor also had a huge glass cabinet near the desk filled with moving photos. Jesse dragged her eyes away from them and looked up at the second floor. It wasn't really a floor, more like a loft, with a winding wooden staircase leading up to it. The floor looked down on the ground floor, with a balcony to stop anyone from accidentally falling off. From what she could tell from where they were standing, the floor contained a large ornate four-poster bed, a large wardrobe and a couple of bed side tables. On the wall opposite the four-poster was another door. Jesse assumed it let to the bathroom. The whole place was illuminated by wall sconces and the huge fire that gave everything a warm glow. On the ground floor there was also a huge window with a window seat covered by a heavy blue velvet curtain.
"Your things are all in their appropriate places," Dumbledore followed her gaze before moving away to sit at her desk that stood away from the wall. He sat behind it and Jesse sat in the chair in front of it. Jesse continued to look around her.
"This is all mine?" she asked, clearing her throat.
"It is." Dumbledore continued to look around him, "This is a very strange room, indeed. It belongs to your family and changes to fit its current owner's needs. Your parents and yourself lived here before they died, and your grandparents before them and so on. This room, this whole area has belonged to your family for thousands of years. Your family lived and protected this land before the school was even built."
"Yeah, this is all very fascinating," Jesse's tone contradicted her words and thoughts, "but I'm still having trouble with the whole magic thing. I mean, c'mon? Talking pictures? I've seen stuff like that at theme parks!" Only now did she seem to snap out of the half daze she'd been in. Up until now, Jesse was only reacting to the situation. Now, she wanted real proof and she didn't think he could give it to her. Her brain just refused to accept that she was in a different reality, not any reality but the one of Harry Potter. That would require breaking laws of physics, right? But then, she'd never been any good at physics either.
"I can give you a demonstration, if you'd like?" Dumbledore smiled that same kind smile at her, only this time, it was slightly mischievous.
Jesse nodded.
Dumbledore bobbed his head in reply, pulled his wand from his cloak and said loudly, "Accio broom!"
Jesse sat still and waited, looking around her.
She opened her mouth to say "I told you so" but the door banged open before she could utter a word.
In flew a broomstick, hovering about 5 feet off the ground as it came to a stop in front of Jesse's chair. Jesse stared at before standing up and waving her hands all around it. There wasn't any strings. She reached out slowly and touched it. It moved beneath her hand and She pulled her hand back sharply. It was solid. Not some kind of mirror or light trick. She looked at it's handle and read the words imprinted there in gold lettering. "Thunderbolt 6".
Jesse stared at it a few seconds more, her head so messed up she couldn't utter anything except to whisper, "It's real."
"It is," Dumbledore replied gently, "and you belong here, in this world. You always have."
The broomstick hovered there for another second before Dumbledore waved his wand and it zoomed back out the door again, the door closing behind it.
"I know this is difficult for you, it must come as an incredible shock to your system, but you must understand what you are."
"What I am?" Jesse asked dazedly, shaking herself visibly before her usual self seemed to snap back into place.
"You're a witch, Jesse, and a very powerful one at that." Dumbledore leant back in his chair and watched the expressions flash across her face. Shock. Fear. Disbelief.
"Really?" Jesse stated dryly, "Then how come, if I'm such a powerful witch, I haven't seen or done any magic in my entire life?"
"That's simple, my dear. You couldn't. Not in that world, anyway."
"Riiight." Jesse simply stared at him.
"Oh, it's true. We made sure you couldn't alert anyone to your true identity."
"How and why? And how come I haven't done any magic yet? Do I need to wish for it? Say, if I wanted to make you disappear, do I need to click my heels together or something?"
"You're powers and your emotions are linked. They weren't activated back in the other reality because the Order had put a blocking spell on you before I took you away. Your abilities would only be released when you returned to this world. As for how you control them, well, that can get awfully complicated."
"Great. So when I was getting my arse kicked by classmates who decided I wasn't 'in', forced to work ridiculous hours for measly pay, and had to do incredibly boring and tedious homework at school and college for teachers who failed me because they simply didn't like the look of me, I had no magic to help me out. Now I come back to an old stinking castle, I get the power of the universe at my fingertips. That's practical."
"There was also several other spells put on you," Dumbledore said slowly, ignoring her sarcasm.
"What?" Jesse narrowed her eyes at the way he didn't seem at all comfortable. He wouldn't look at her, instead his eyes searched the room or looked down at the desk.
"Let's just say, your lack of popularity wasn't your own doing." He replied looking down at his hands.
Jesse stared at him for a full minute. "Are you saying," she said, talking quietly. "Are you saying that you guys put a spell on me to make people hate me?"
"Not exactly," Dumbledore looked up at her now, "It was a spell to make you seem less approachable. We never thought it'd be so extreme. We didn't want you to get too attached to that world and its people."
"I think it was extreme alright!" Jesse suddenly yelled, standing up. "They hated my guts! I was lucky to even pass my education and get a job!! I had to put up with bullying for years! From everyone I met until I started hitting back! I had to make sure everything was perfect so the teachers had no excuse to fail me! I had to learn how to avoid people, to hide to keep myself from getting beaten up when I went to school! I had to get low paying jobs because employers didn't like the look of me and thought I'd steal from them! And you just wanted me to stay unattached?! You made my life hell!"
"I am truly sorry your life ended up that way, Jessica. I truly am, and you have every right to be angry, but I must ask you to calm down. Now you are back in this world, your emotions can be dangerous. You could activate your powers and seriously injure someone, or even yourself." Dumbledore replied softly.
Surprising him, she did as she was told and sat back down, closing her eyes and rubbing her temples.
"What else did you do to me?" she asked after taking a deep breath and visibly calming down.
"We put a spell on you to make you seem like a muggle. If Voldemort ever managed to locate the world you were in, he would not have been able to pick you out from the masses."
"Anything else?" Jesse opened her eyes and met his own.
"No. And now you have returned, the spells no longer work." Dumbledore replied before looking at her again. "I truly am sorry, Jessica."
Jesse sat forward "The first thing you can stop doing is calling me Jessica. I don't like it. I haven't answered to Jessica since I was a little kid."
Dumbledore flashed her a brief smile, "Very well… Jesse."
"Great. Now the next thing you can do is tell me exactly what it was you brought me here for." Jesse was still talking in that quiet, level voice, like she was holding back her anger carefully.
"I brought you back because of Voldemort. He is the reason why we had to hide you in the first place. He killed your parents when you were 6 months old. Luckily, you were in the care of some family friends right then, so he couldn't get to you too. Now, he has been creating an army, much stronger than before. People are afraid and they have every right to be. He will attack them as soon as he has achieved several objectives. One of which is the destruction of Hogwarts, Harry and the Order of the Phoenix." Dumbledore replied, his eyes never leaving her face.
"Why isn't he attacking now?"
"He is gathering his troops together, he's biding his time until he feels he is strong enough to cause some damage, or even destroy us all together."
"And what am I meant to do?" Jesse watched him, assessing his truthfulness.
Dumbledore met her gaze steadily. "You are here to protect Hogwarts from attack. To protect it's inhabitants from attack. You are a key player in this war, Jesse. You have been since you were born. Your parents were before you and now the role falls to you."
"Why? What am I exactly?"
Dumbledore smiled, obviously pleased at the questions she was asking.
"You are what is known as a Guardian." He said as if telling her something really huge and important.
"I'm a Guardian?" Jesse stated blankly. "A Guardian of what, exactly?"
"Hogwarts." He smiled and Jesse groaned.
"Great, of all the things I'm meant to protect, it had to be a SCHOOL!"
"You're mother was one before you, and her father before her. Every generation has a single child. And whoever the Guardian marries becomes a lesser Guardian also." The old man ignored her outburst.
"A lesser Guardian? What does that mean?"
"They are also given the task of protecting Hogwarts by their partner's side, but without the abilities the true Guardian possesses."
"Bummer for them." Jesse shrugged. "Good job I don't plan on getting involved with anyone let alone get married."
"Oh, I'm sure you will," Dumbledore smiled and Jesse rolled her eyes.
"So," Jesse thought about what he had said before folding her arms and sitting back. "You basically brought me back to fight in a war?" She couldn't believe she was even having this conversation. She was talking to Dumbledore about a wizard war! This was turning out to be the weirdest day she'd ever had.
"That is one of the reasons; it is also because it was time for you to come home. You have to think about this optimistically, Jesse."
"Optimism?! That's what sunk the Titanic.* " Jesse quipped "How can I be optimistic when you've brought me here to die?!" Though her voice sounded light and she was being sarcastic, it was obviously only a front to hide her anger as the inkpot on the desk began to rise into the air.
"Jesse, calm down." Dumbledore spoke soothingly as she stared at the inkpot with wide eyes.
"Please," Dumbledore reached out and plucked it from the air, "You don't have to think about this all now. I know this is a lot to take in, I just want you to think about it."
Jesse opened her mouth to reply, an angry look on her face but Dumbledore stood up and was moving towards the door before she could get a word out.
"Think about it Jesse, that is all I ask." He opened the door, "I will give you two days."
"I don't need two days! I've already thought about it and the answer's no." Jesse snapped back.
"Two days!" Dumbledore was already out the door and closing it behind him.
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"What d'you think she's like? This girl?" Ron asked as he sat in an armchair in front of the fire in the Gryffindor common room.
"Not interested in you, if that's what you're thinking" Hermione snorted as Ron scowled.
"You were!" Ron moved his castle to have it jump on Harry's knight and beat the crap out of it.
"Ron, we went out for a month!" Hermione looked at him incredulously, "I don't think that that could be called a fantastic relationship!"
"You enjoyed every minute of it," Ron grinned and winked at her.
Hermione, looked back down at the book she was reading as she lay on the rug in front of the fire. "Of course I did", she smirked. "That's why I dumped you. Your logic never ceases to astound me."
"Would you two get a room?!" Harry looked up from the wizards chess that he and Ron were playing, the board on a small table between their two chairs.
He made his move and his queen destroyed Ron's own queen to win the game.
"Check mate," he grinned at an open-mouthed Ron. "What? You'd thought I'd never be able to beat you?"
"I haven't been able to find out who she is," Hermione went back to talking about the girl Dumbledore and McGonagall had gone to fetch early that morning.
So far, when they'd spoken to McGonagall, all she'd said was that the retrieval had gone according to plan and that all would be revealed shortly.
None of the trio had seen the Headmaster.
"She must be important if she had to be hidden away from Voldemort" Harry absently rubbed his scar as he cleared away the chess board. "I wonder what abilities she has? I wonder what her name is? I wonder if she knows about all of this?"
"I guess all of our questions will be answered when the Headmaster deems it fit to present her to the school." Hermione closed her book with a loud snap. "All we have to do is wait."
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"Ever wondered what it'd be like if you were sucked into a different world to have adventures, to meet new people and see things that ordinary people never got to see? How about being a super hero with powers that people would envy? Powers that would be really cool, like the ability to fly, to fight, or maybe go invisible?
Of course, it would never happen, it couldn't, right? So, of course, I thought this guy was loony, totally off his rocker. That was until the picture thing, and the floating thing, and the broomstick thing. After that, I figured I'd finally lost it too. That or I was extremely high. Anyway, there was nothing I could do to prove that this wasn't real. To prove that I wasn't sane or had smoked a hell of a lot of something or another. So, 'cause I had no other choice, I had to believe that I, Jesse Hunter, was a witch, more than that, a super witch. Maybe I had eaten some gone off pizza and was now passed out delirious on my couch. Yeah, that would seem a lot more realistic. Too bad the old guy was right."
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A/N: Is it me, or are my chapters getting longer already?
Quote= *Ian Hall, BBC Radio Derby
VampireBunny1: See! *points* SOME questions have been answered. However, I'm one of those annoying authors that usually lets things get answered gradually. *grins* I can also assure you that there will be mentions of sex. I mean, Jesse's gotta have a guy, right? Only problem, as you can see, she has an attitude problem. I wonder who's gonna find THAT attractive? ^^
Flying monkeys? You have them too?!! Yay! *jumps up and down*
goldstranger: Thanks dude! That disbelief is gonna continue and then turn into outright rejection, sarcasm, stubbornness and all the other stuff my characters all seem to have. Hmm, I sense a pattern.
Proffessional scaterbrain: I think your questions have just been answered. I don't know when 'The Story Of Erin' will be back, but I've already started to rewrite the deleted chapters. It shouldn't be TOO long before it's posted, but if you're really desperate, there's a long spoiler at the Agora message board.
