A young woman knocked at the front door of the Commons, as they called the building where the reservation people usually ate, socialized and discussed work that needed to be done, an hour before the dinner was to be served.
A little while later the door was answered by Emilyn, her face flushed from stove's heat and her apron covered in fresh oil smudges.
"Hello, can I help you?" she smiled at the girl.
She guessed her to be only a little older than twenty. Her hair was reddish brown and slightly misplaced from the wind, her eyes were a cheerful, dark blue-green colour. She was rather short and very lean. Emilyn liked her immediately.
"Good afternoon, my name is Annick. I sent an owl yesterday."
"Annick! Welcome, I'm pleased to finally meet you. We were expecting you."
She shook her small hand enthusiastically and opened the door further, to let her in.
"Dinner will be ready in an hour, hour and half at most. We will prepare a room for you afterwards if it's alright with you. Others are in the living room. Will you join them or would you rather rest? There are a couple guest rooms upstairs that are free for use for now."
"I'll just go meet everyone. Elwin's there I hope? I have a surprise for him."
"Yes, he is there. We have a visit for the next few days – Headmaster of Hogwarts, Dumbledore, came yesterday along with three members of his staff. Will I introduce you?"
"Not necessary, thank you. I want to shock Elwin a little, you see. Look," she showed Emilyn a moving wizard photograph of a huge pearly dragon with long claws and horns on its tail.
Emilyn gasped.
"Three-species hybrid! That's beautiful!"
"Indeed," chuckled Annick. "It's my average shot from vacation based on importance. I wouldn't want to cause poor Elwin a heart attack immediately after arriving. Where is the living room, please?"
"That open door at the end of this corridor. All the noise is coming from there."
"Thanks. See you later."
Annick walked over to the opened door silently and peeked inside. No one noticed her, their attention was either on discussion or a game. She smirked when she saw Elwin's white head. He was sitting with his back to her, talking to another white-headed wizard. Three other people at the table were probably the school staff Emilyn was talking about.
Annick entered the room slowly and inconspicuously, and started sneaking towards Elwin. Nobody noticed her, except for a wizard with slightly longer curly brown hair, who just stepped away from the window and turned to join the others in a game. His eyes fell straight at her when he turned.
She quickly glanced at him and put one finger across her smirking lips – a sign to keep quiet.
As soon as she was directly behind Elwin, she stuck the photograph right before his nose. The old man gasped, snatched the picture from the hand holding it and jumped to his feet.
"Gods above!" he exclaimed, staring at the picture. Then he realised the picture came to him from some hand and he whirled around to look at the person.
"Annick!" he practically squealed with a wide smile on his face and hugged her. "Long time no see, little girl. How are you?"
"Quite well, thanks. I take it you like my holiday shot, then?" she inclined her head towards the picture.
"Of course! Beautiful specimen, pity it's not a live experience. You absolutely have to tell me how you manage to find them all," he stared at the photograph with a love-struck expression.
It took him a while to register the room's silence. If they didn't notice Annick before, they definitely noticed the squealing Elwin and heard their little talk.
He turned to the room and stated loudly: "Here we have a three-species hybrid, ladies and gentlemen! An Antipodean Opaleye, Ukrainian Iron-Belly and Hungarian Horntail."
The first wizards to make it to Elwin after that statement were the curly-haired one who noticed her earlier and a red-headed man with pimples and bright-blue eyes.
"Oh my God, look at that a beautiful little dragon!" gushed the red-head. The curly haired one at his side snorted. "Yeah, little. I guess you'd be complimenting it halfway into its stomach, too."
He then looked at the smirking woman in front of him. She wore a very self-satisfied expression as she looked at the ruckus she caused. He outstretched his hand towards her.
"Hello, I'm Matt Rovens."
She smiled and her eyes got a sudden gleam to them when she looked at him closely. She shook his hand. "Annick."
"Is that a first name or a surname?" the red-haired wizard inquired, as he looked up from the photograph. "Oh, sorry, hi, I'm Charlie Weasley," he shook her hand.
"Nice to meet you. It's both actually, a mixed nickname."
The next five minutes were spent in introductions. When she ceased to be the centre of attention, she turned to Matt who was still standing next to her, and stepped closer to him.
"Want to see something?"
He looked at her questioningly and nodded. She pulled out another picture and showed him. Matt could only stare. It was a picture of a five-species hybrid.
"Do you think it's safe enough to show to Elwin? With his age…" she joked. Then she grew cheerfully serious again. "This is the most valuable one I managed to take a picture of. I have one other picture – hybrid of a Welsh Green and Hebridean Black, but that's all. Quite enough for a week I think."
"It's wonderful!" blurted Matt. The picture was marvellous.
Another five minutes later the excited dragon-tamers were all seated in their chairs and armchairs again, having snatched the pictures from Elwin to pass along their group a few more times. Annick got seated with the now zoned off Elwin and his friends.
"Elwin, wake up," called Albus Dumbledore amusedly. His friend was apparently in some other world, probably studying the hybrids whose pictures he saw.
"I'm here, but…" Elwin said, distracted. "How is it that you always find so many of them, Annick? I was searching the world for almost sixty years and three hybrids are all I found."
"I've my ways."
"Are you ever going to tell me?" he was scolding her now, in a teasing, grandfatherly act.
"Of course I will. When I get sufficient shocking ground," she smirked.
Elwin shook his head, letting go of a huge, long-suffering sigh. This was a source of jokes from the first time he met her. She just had to shock people.
"Shocking ground?" inquired Dumbledore politely. He smiled at the lively young woman. "You seem to have a thing for shocking people, don't you?"
"You see!" exclaimed Elwin, pointing at Albus. "Even he knows it already and this is the very first time you met. Why not be unpredictable for once and tell me straight away? You might not have noticed, with my charming young appearance, but I do have my years. Shocking me isn't the best thing to do to me. Do you want to kill me?"
"Dear Elwin, we know each other for a little over two years and even with you knowing of my shock-addiction I never was predictable. Trust me; you could never guess that way of mine." Annick stuck her nose high into the air.
"Why are you such a shock-addict, anyway?" complained Elwin desperately.
"Found out it was the best way to live," Annick said, her eyes strangely intense for a change. Elwin opened his mouth, but then he closed it again, with an interesting expression on his face.
"And when you do something a little bit too often, it becomes your second nature," Annick's voice was cheerfully mischievous again. "Like caution and watching for Mr Snape here, or patience and tenderness for you, Mrs Sprout."
Pomona Sprout smiled and nodded. Working with herbs and plants required those two traits. Snape watched Annick carefully. He had yet to say anything to her, except the usual 'Severus Snape, nice to meet you.'
"What would you say is a second nature to me?" asked Dumbledore with an amused twinkle in his eyes.
"Well, not that I know you much, but I heard of you knowing everything there is to know. So I'd guess it's just knowing. Closely followed by that maddening twinkle in your eyes. I think you have it because you know it's driving people insane and you don't have many things to amuse yourself with anymore. Being the greatest wizard in history besides Merlin himself must be bloody annoying. So why not annoy us, too?"
Snape snorted and turned to Dumbledore. "And you thought you were being so inconspicuous," he turned back to Annick, away from chuckling Dumbledore.
"You are quite observant," he told her. "You could have done a great job at spying on the Death-Eaters, too, if you put your mind to it."
"No, I wouldn't. I'd kill them all off before I could find out anything even remotely interesting," Annick shook her head.
She got surprised and wondering looks from everyone in their little group, apart from Elwin.
"I don't like Death-Eaters. Though I rather like you, Mr Snape. Those pathetic little mongrels never knew what hit them when they found out where your true loyalties lay. Quite an adept for a shock-career I'd say," she said casually and with an air of inner satisfaction. Then she glanced sideways at Elwin. He was smirking in amusement, no suspicion whatsoever.
"I'll show you that three-species hybrid of mine tomorrow if you are up to some terrain work, Elwin. She nests near the waterfalls at the northern boundary of the reservation."
Elwin's eyes tried valiantly to pop out of their sockets. "She… you… here? I thought you were on vacation!" he exclaimed.
"I was. For one week. In the reservation," she grinned at him. "Where else did you think I found those hybrids? You have all the dragon species here, they live here and are being studied here. Bigger possibilities of finding consequences of off-line mating."
"Wonderful!" Elwin squealed happily.
"You'll have your hands full with this one, Elwin. She'll shock you all to death and back," chuckled Albus. "Annick, you have told us the second nature of me, Mrs Sprout and Mr Snape. In the interest of having a complete package, what do you think is the second nature for Minerva here?" he pointed at the stern-looking witch.
Annick looked at her and tipped her head in thought. Then she frowned a little.
"Well, this is a bit confusing. You are quite hard to read. It definitely is being stern – what with dealing with senseless teenagers the whole year long at daily basis. You remind me of a cat, though, they have the same mysterious look to them as I see in you, and they are just as hard to read."
At that comment Snape snorted and Dumbledore chuckled. Minerva McGonagall looked surprised.
"Well, Annick, you sure are a gifted young woman," chuckled the Hogwarts Headmaster.
Annick frowned.
"I am an animagus, Annick. My form is a cat," said the Professor in question.
Annick's eyebrows raised and she laughed. "If this isn't funny… Lucky guess I think. Mrs Sprout, Mr Snape, could you perhaps show me the lists of herbs you are hoping to find here? I was out there for quite a long time, I might be able to localise some of them."
They went over the lists of herbs and other ingredients. Eventually, Annick nodded.
"All right, I'll go get you some of them tomorrow. I know where to find at least one half of those things in the reservation mountains. Even your rock gillyflower and green liliaceous dandelion, Mr Snape. Though the dandelion will have to be a priority, I saw a herd of those pesky Romanian magical cows nearby, if they get to that slope before us, the whole growth will be lost."
Snape nodded.
"Thank you, that will help a lot. The gillyflower is going to have to lay unused for a while, though. I can't use it until I have a horn of a graphorn."
"They are possible to get."
"Yes, but there has been nothing on the market for the last six months. I just heard a dragon burned one graphorn down yesterday and took its head. Pity. Those beasts are difficult enough to get by, even without them being transformed into piles of ash."
Annick's eyes flashed cheerfully. "Indeed. That hide of theirs is an effective protection."
"One would think I'd have the possibility to further my research without a madman I have to pretend to respect. But no, one bloody animal just has to stop me," he complained grumpily.
"Do you respect anyone, now that you are free of it all?" inquired Annick carefully.
"Well, yes. You have to respect someone, it comes from fighting side-by-side with people in the war. I know most of the people I respect."
This confused Annick. What could he mean by that?
"You know most of the people you respect?" she frowned. "You can't respect someone you don't know."
"Sometimes actions speak louder than words. You respect me for my place in the war and you haven't met me before today, have you?"
"Well, yes. But I'm not an ex-spy, who spent most of his life in danger and secrecy. Who could a person like you possibly respect this way?" she shook her head.
"The daughter of Marlen and Artur Kinnon."
Annick seemed to lose her ability to speak and she didn't look any more understanding.
"But…" she said after a while. "If I remember correctly, they died four years ago. Their daughter was the only one who was not found dead, and she disappeared. I don't understand," she shrugged helplessly.
"That's just it. She wasn't killed that night and disappeared. The Dark Lord sent four of his stronger Death-Eaters to take care of them that night, because they opposed him and Marlen was a muggleborn. He wanted the whole family dead. Marlen, Artur and their son and older daughter died, but the Death-Eaters never returned to report to the Dark Lord. They were found in the lounge area of the Kinnon house, lying close to their victims. They were bitten by something poisonous and the venom killed them almost instantly. When the Dark Lord found out, he ordered us to find the younger daughter and kill her. We got a message from hunting Death-Eaters that she was found two more times, but the Death-Eaters who attacked her were found dead shortly after sending the message. They'd fallen victim to a poisonous animal bite and the daughter disappeared again. It was driving the Dark Lord crazy," he chuckled. "I'm sure it was her who killed them, even if there is nothing to prove it. She probably had some crazy dangerous pet, but it was her. All the Death-Eaters who were after her family and then her were intelligent and talented wizards, difficult to overpower. Yet it took just one witch to kill them, probably quite easily I might add, and she's still somewhere out there. No one knows where she is, or if she's even alive. If someone knows, they are keeping quiet. Staying alive and under radar when against the Dark Lord himself and all his Death-Eaters, that certainly is worth my respect."
Annick stared at him unreadably for a little while longer, and then she smiled at him.
"Well, that was a very illuminating answer. Thank you. Don't you know the girl's name, incidentally?"
"I think it was Anna, but I'm not sure."
Annick nodded. "Very well, Mr Snape. My full name is Anna Isabella Crista Kinnon."
AN: Edited chapter three, for your pleasure :) One side note - I am aware that there was a Marlene McKinnon in the Order of the Phoenix, she was killed off during the first war against You-Know-Who along with her family. In this story, the Kinnons I mention are not the same family. The Kinnons in this story are an English branch of the Irish McKinnon family, who were a distant relation. Use of name Marlen compared to Marlene if coincidental (or rather an unintentional mistake on my part, which I am not going to change, because I can't think of name that fits the mother :) I didn't mean to use a name that was so similar, but well, that happens, right?)