I don't know what this is. I really don't. It was so hard to write a summary for this thing.

This is written for multiple challenges at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry.

Assignment #3: Photography: Images for Impact

Task #2: Lunch Atop a Skyscraper, 1932: Write about someone doing something dangerous.

Warnings: character death, murder

Word count: 1511 words

Summary: Lily Luna Potter is an assassin. That's it. That's all you need to know.


She looks up at her trespasser, huffs, and goes back to doing what she was doing until a certain familiar face popped his head in.

"Are you sure about this?" he asks her, sounding quite settled for someone trying to cast doubt upon her abilities.

"Are you sure you need coffee in the morning to function?" she shoots back, not looking up from the papers she rifles through in the drawer of her desk.

"Good enough," she sees him shrug through the corner of her gaze, and a smirk pulls at her lips when she notices him turn to walk away.

"Hey, Albus," she calls, and he freezes in place at her call, "I don't care when or why you got so easy, but stay that way."

Even without looking, she knows he wants to laugh. "I'm a Slytherin, I'm never easy. Maybe I just want something from you later." His next words of caution, however, bely his casual demeanor. "Don't get caught now; it's not going to look good if Dad's called to bring you in."

Finding the right map amongst all the stray notebooks strewn within her special drawer, she pushes it closed with her hip and straightens, hearing the soft click of the magical lock snapping back into place.

Picking up her favourite cotton candy shaded hair tie and kicking a stray sock out of the way, Lily Luna looks up and smiles—a soft, wicked thing. Albus is completely unfazed.

"I'm Harry Potter's daughter, Al. I know how not to get caught."

.oOo.

Her breath comes in soft pants, her bright auburn hair plastered to the back of her neck. In one hand she wields her dragon heartstring wand, in the other a pearl-handled knife.

It's been a while since she has had to give chase to her targets.

She cannot deny, however, that the chase is invigorating. The thrill of the run brings out a surge of adrenaline in her, a rush that had been getting less compelling as her targets got more complacent over time that went by—that is, until this eventful night. She is quite enjoying herself tonight.

The smell of wet bark from the recent rain permeates the air. Trees rush by her as she runs through the forest, keeping pace with the speeding silhouette not far ahead. She could use one of her handy spells to slow her target down, but where's the fun in that? She is finally, finally getting a good run for her money, and she's not about to waste it.

The frantic figure ahead trips over a conveniently jutting root, stumbling in his hastiness, and she uses the opportunity his clumsy feet have given her to close the distance between them and ready herself to tackle him. Before he stabilises himself enough to increase the pace of his running again, she is already on him and bringing him down.

The sound of his pants are loud in her ears as she flattens herself over him to keep him in place. Merlin, but she hates mouth breathers. He may have been running—quite swiftly too, if she is honest—but that does not excuse the habit. Unfortunately for her, however, mouth breathers are a frequent find in her line of business. They come with the territory.

And that territory is fear.

"Please," the older man warbles through his mouth-pants, "Please, don't. I'll do… I'll do anything…"

She waits patiently for him to plead more, then blinks when she is met with more mouth-breathing and lengthening seconds of silence. That's it. That's all he has to give. Pathetic.

Well, on the other hand, at least he knows who she is. Or rather, what she does. That is gratifying.

"And you were trained by the great Harry Potter?" she asks sceptically when he continues to lay motionless underneath her weight. "Did he not teach you to fight?"

"Harry… Potter…" The panting sounds shocked now, though why, she has no clue.

"Yes, Harry Potter," she elaborates dryly, shifting to sit on top of him. "Unless you know another in hiding, we have just the one. You were part of his Dumbledore's Army group, were you not? If you say no, I'd believe you. You certainly don't act like it."

More panting, more garbled words. Lily Luna believes she hears another "Harry… Potter…" thrown in, and she rolls her eyes at the lack of originality. She has done in a lot of lacklustre individuals that had left much to be desired, but Cormac McLaggen beats the lot. If it wasn't for the lovely entertainment he provided for her during their chase, she would have gotten the job done then and there.

Regardless, she's going to do the job here and now. She's just going to take a little more time to savour the deed, since McLaggen looks like he's going to make such a perfect victim. Irritating, yet competent. Competent, yet a fool. She's going to love to hate him.

"Where are the papers?" she pushes him onto his back and asks him—softly, deadly. She sticks her wand into the dip of his throat, and the point of pain drives the crown of his head harder against a few of the little pebbled rocks scattered about the forest floor. He blubbers in response, nonsensical little huffs and gasps, but she does not let the unpleasant sounds deter her from the task of searching his person one-handed.

When she finds a loose sheaf of papers in the third robe pocket she sticks her hand into, her brows raise.

"You're not very good at this, are you?" she turns to him to ask sympathetically, bringing the papers closer to inspect while she pushes her wand further into McLaggen's throat. She tuts when her eyes catch the bold stamp across the top leaf of parchment that spells out 'CLASSIFIED' in bright ochre. "Merlin, could you be any worse at this?"

Cormac McLaggen is a well-known figure among wizarding Britain. She has heard him referred to as 'the new Rita Skeeter' quite often, most notably by her father. More often than not, the words are accompanied by a tone of extreme frustration and muttered cursing about the reporter's tendency to embellish scandals. She doesn't see why the man's name bears such annoyance, however—he may be a journalist without scruples, but from what she sees, he is also a journalist with neither talent nor skill. Soon, at her hand, he won't be much of a journalist at all.

"You don't need to tell me who you were planning to meet with," she murmurs to him consolingly when she finds his dark blue eyes staring up at her with fear. Pulling back her wand from his throat to manoeuvre and hold the sheaf of papers as well, she reaches with her now-free hand for the knife she had set down beside her boot. "You don't need to say anything, really. I can find out all I need to know myself."

He surprises her, in the end. Right as she readies her knife to lay into him, he wiggles his fingers and murmurs an unintelligible word, and she feels the glamour she'd cast on herself pull away from her like stray threads unravelling off a messily rolled reel. Her eyes widen as she realises she's about to be recognised, but not nearly as much as his do when he gets a look at her face beneath the glamoured mask.

"Potter," he whispers absently with eyes still wide as he makes to sit up, and on reflex, she uses the knife in her hand to slash cleanly at his throat.

A spray of dark blood, and he falls back to the ground dead, his blue eyes holding fear in recognition of his killer.

Lily Luna stays frozen to the spot for but a second before rationality kicks back in and she heaves herself up to get to work, looking about quickly for a good place to hide the body. Cormac McLaggen may have been a journalist good enough to find out the identity of his assassin, but he wasn't good enough to prevent himself from being killed. And at the end of the story, that was what mattered.

Does she want anyone to know what Harry Potter's daughter is really capable of? No. Let them all see her as Lily Potter incarnate, bright and good and kind and forgiving. Let them see her as the Potter family's golden child. Albus knows her secret, and that's enough for her. She loves her dad, she really does, but he would never understand. He was destined to kill an unkillable man, she contracts herself to kill hundreds.

The bigwigs heading the Department of Mysteries will be pleased to know that she's had their leak taken care of. She has just one more job for the night—the man McLaggen was scheduled to meet with the papers—and she can go back to the apartment she shares with Albus and make peanut butter sandwiches while she jokes about her night.

She doesn't know which of the two she is looking forward to more.


Prompts:

[August] Writing Club:
Bromance to Romance: (genre) Crime

Written in the Stars: (relationship) self love

Book Club: Rebecca Firestone: (occupation) reporter, (word) embellish, (plot point) being kidnapped

Showtime: When He Sees Me - (emotion) Disappointed

Film Festival: Trope: Secret Identity

Lizzy's Loft: I Bet My Life - Remember when I broke you down to tears

Elizabeth's Empire: Green Goblin: (theme) betrayal

Angel's Archive: Cotton Candy

Amber's Anime Adventure: (word) permeate

Lyric Alley: Found all that I need

EnTitled: Day Trip - AU: Assassin

Artist Appreciation: Seeing Blind (with Marren Morris): Prompt - (emotion) surprise

Resolution Evolution!: 8. Write a fic with a word count between 1,005 - 2,100 words

Buttons: (action) Falling over; (emotion) Understanding

[Summer] Seasonal Challenges:

Days Of The Year: 15th August - The Assumption of Mary (Christian): Write about someone's final moments on earth

National Picnic Month: Beethoven - Bounty Hunter!AU

Anti-Boredom Month: No reason you should just be bored

Indoor Plant Week: Ornamental Pepper Plant - (action) preparing food

International Body Piercing Day: Vertical helix piercing - (word) Shock

International Beers Day: Hitachino - (AU) Hitman

Book Lovers Day: Hoax and Dreams by Laura Thorn - "Merlin, could you be any worse at this?"

Colours: Ochre

Tarot Reading: Page of Pentacles, Reversed - Write about something standing in the way of someone's goal

Gryffindor Characters: Lily Luna Potter

[Summer Quarterly] Southern Cookout:

Drinks: Southern Iced Tea Cocktail - (action) jogging

[August] Auction:

Day 9, Auction 2: Assassin AU

[August] Gobstones:

Stone - (theme) Brown Stone- Crime

Accuracy - (object) socks

Power - (color) pastel pink

Technique - (weather) windy