ENIGMA

Plot, new characters, new magical terms and abilities etc. are my intellectual property. If you want to borrow then please kindly ask. JK Rowling's characters and Wizarding Universe are all uniquely hers.

Summary: AU: What if everything we ever read in JK Rowling’s books was real – including the people characterised? What would you do if you found yourself caught up in that reality knowing what was to come? SS, RL, OC

Fantasy/Drama

This story is rated R/M.

ENIGMA

Chapter 005: A Muggle in Their Midst

“Good Morning to you – Miss Newkirk, is it?” Professor Dumbledore asked in a gravelly voice that betrayed his agedness.

Jessica nodded as she struggled to sit up in bed. Thank God she wasn’t looking for the twinkle he supposedly usually had in his eyes. There was none of that for her.

“Take care, Miss Newkirk; your wounds are still healing. It would be nothing short of disastrous were they to break open…” Snape advised as he crossed around the bed opposite to where the Headmaster and his Deputy stood. He eased her up slowly and then adjusted the pillows behind her, conjuring two more so that she could sit up reasonably comfortably.

McGonagall quirked an eyebrow while Dumbledore looked faintly amused. Snape ignored them both – erring on his side of caution and not revealing that Jessica’s life hung in the balance. His advisement about her wounds was a fact not to be taken lightly; the reasons why he kept to himself to protect her but also because it suited him to be needed. It suited him greatly that it was his expertise and not Pomfrey’s that once again saved the day even though he got nothing tangible from it. But there was something to be said for being in the dominant position of power; the power he had in this situation because of his formidable skills and knowledge.

“I have heard your story from Professor McGonagall; now I wish to hear it from you,” Dumbledore said taking a seat on one of two armchairs he summoned from his office. McGonagall took the other while Snape made do with the old hardwood cushionless chair next to Jessica’s bed.

Jessica looked at Snape fleetingly on one side of the bed and then rested her eyes on the Headmaster and his Deputy. There was something slightly comforting in seeing Snape seated as he was; she didn’t feel quite so ganged-up on.

“I live… I used to live…” Jessica began before stopping short. Tears began to roll down her cheeks and she struggled to get herself together.

“Miss Newkirk – do take care…” Snape said quietly as he eased her back into the pillows.

He looked in her eyes briefly and Jessica realised that despite everything she’d ever read and thought she believed about his abuse of power and his often ill-tempered, often cruel behaviour there was something in him that was good. If anyone could afford to not care and was usually inclined to not give a damn in fiction it was this man, according to the fictional Harry Potter and his friend in thick bullheadedness Ron Weasley. She had to be very careful, but for the moment he was being decent enough towards her and that spoke volumes to her. Of course, if she pandered to stereotypes then she could say being the Slytherin that he was he had an ulterior motive - but to do that he would have to know far more than he seemed to - and her instincts were telling her that Snape didn't.

Snape handed her a glass of a sweet-smelling purple potion and instructed her to drink it all down, but carefully, as she continued with her story.

“I had a home, Sir,” she said respectfully to Dumbledore. “I had a home, I had a life that was started to turn around but most important I had friends – really good friends that loved and cared about me and I did about them. I moved from London a while ago – things were turning around in important ways… My best friend and some of our other friends came up for a visit…”

Jessica took a draught of her healing potion and then licked her lips thoughtfully, thinking how nice it tasted – quite different to what she would have imagined based on some of the things detailed in the books.

“Anyway…my friends came up for a visit… and I had told them about the standing stones at Loch Looemond. My new house wasn’t far from the Loch or the Stones…” she continued slowly. Tears started rolling down her cheeks again and she drank from the glass once more, trying to shift the lump in her throat. She took a deep breath and soldiered on.

“It was late afternoon and we went up the hill to see the stones. But just as we reached the summit, we heard some people coming up from the opposite side… They were…well we thought they were wannabes – New Age dipshit Witch and Wiccan wannabe’s who didn’t have a clue just how sacred the knowledge is that they play with, they make me sick – they made all of us sick…” she said bitterly, looking down and missing the incredulous looks of the Headmaster and his Deputy. Snape, as always, was unreadable. What he thought was for Jessica and Jessica only. They would have their talk; this was for the Headmaster and McGonagall.

“I’m not English; I was raised in Philadelphia in the States, West Philly, not that it means anything. My family is mainly from Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and the DelMarVa Peninsula – we are Nanticoke and Lenni Lenape – we are Native Americans. We were there before you Yengese came. Our tribe – is the Grandfather Tribe: the one tribe from whence all others came…

My closest friends here were practicing Wiccans and Witches…their beliefs and rituals struck a cord with me. Even though I am far from my people and my traditions they embraced me as a Sister in faith. I celebrated with them and embraced them in the ways of my people when we could celebrate the old ways. We were one; like this (she clasped hands together) – understand?

Dumbledore nodded respectfully and sat up straight in his seat as did McGonagall. Snape didn’t have to reposition himself. He had already been straight as an arrow. Miss Newkirk was telling the truth – he’d already seen it for himself.

“Anway… these people were dressed like Satanists – black cloaks, long staffs and all that bull… They laid a Pentagram – and did it WRONG! They put up this bogus altar and set up things in the Pentagram. And then to top that off whipped out these mad, crazy knives. That was it for us – I didn’t want any of that negativity coming back on me and neither did my friends. They just couldn’t be up to anything that was good. We got the hell out of there – it scared the hell out of us. We were so spooked we couldn’t even look at each other or speak until we got near my house. It was just – really creepy…”

Jessica drank the last her potion and then yawned, excusing herself for being so rude. Dumbledore nodded and looked at Jessica appraisingly. Snape reached over and took the glass from her hands and set it on the table next to her bed. He looked at her – at best she would be awake for perhaps another half hour or so and he advised the Headmaster.

The stranger continued with her story. “We got home – and I did a cleansing, in the way of my people with Sage Smudge Sticks and a Blessed Eagle Feather… Trish had looked back God knows how many times and I said not to – but it was too late… So I did a cleansing and Angela had wanted one…”

At the thought her best friend Jessica trembled slightly and then blinked the tears back, though it was of no use. They flowed freely and she continued to talk through them. “We had just finished dinner when there was this knocking at the front door…”

“They knocked?” McGonagall said looking at Jessica as if she were some spectre come to life. The only reaction from Snape was a faint twitch of one hand. The Headmaster was nothing less than incredulous.

“Yes… they knocked. And we thought it was this person who used to be a friend of ours – nothing but trouble… she’d already been sniffing around that morning and I sent her packing. I pretended to call the police and she overheard (which of course is exactly what I wanted her to do) – and she took off…”

Jessica’s voice trailed off and her mouth opened slightly.

“The light…” she muttered. “She walked into the thicket… and then there was this green light…I saw it… it was a green light… and then I went back to bed thinking I just must be tired – I mean she woke me up at like five in the morning and I was really hacked off about it…”

Dumbledore’s eyebrows shot up into his wizard’s cap and one of McGonagall’s hands clawed the other. There was a slight twitch of Snape’s mouth, but other than that there was no other outward sign that anything was wrong on the part the Potions Master.

“The knocking happened again and Aimee said to just ignore it (because I got up from the table); that if it was Marilyn she would get the hint and leave and if it wasn’t then no harm done since I wasn’t expecting anyone… I wasn’t going to answer the door anyway. I went to the kitchen and had this dessert in the oven… I had just open the oven door when I head the noise… I don’t know if Angela went to the door – I think she did so she could just tell Marilyn off herself….

I opened the door to the hall and Ange… Angela was on the floor… and there was just so much blood… it was all over the walls and the floor… and I saw these… people… in hooded cloaks and these death masks… they were these horrible skull things… not even the cheap kind you get for Halloween in the shops… they had these… like vein-y things on them… I can’t explain it – but I can draw it… I’m a graphic designer… I’ve never seen anything like them before… They looked like real bone almost…”

“Almighty Bride…” McGonagall sputtered.

Snape grabbed impulsively at his left arm, the exact spot that Jessica knew had to be where the Dark Mark of Voldemort was branded. So that was just as much fact as it was fiction. Interesting.

“I heard this scream – it was Aimee… she was so beautiful… and she was expecting her first child… We were celebrating life… and that life was taken!”

Jessica started to cry and McGonagall moved from her chair to sit on the bed, albeit carefully after a glare from Snape.

“It was Aimee… and as quickly as she screamed it went quiet and then one of them screamed something about me and I threw the Crème Brûlée – I was still holding it in my hands – I threw it and ran… I ran and I ran and I ran and something pulled me forward and I couldn’t stop even though it hurt to breathe… I found myself going up and I think it registered in my mind that I was heading towards the Stones – I don’t even know why… But I ran up and up and up… And then the moon came out… it had been pitch black out once I was beyond the house. I knew where I was going but somehow they managed to follow me… and there was this green light that went past me… and the person who missed got yelled at I think…

And the moon came out from behind the clouds… and I saw that I had made it inside the circle and I head this… this… (Jessica gestured wildly and Snape hissed at her to calm down)

I saw the parallel stones and just lunged forward into the noise. And when I did there was all this blood on them that I hadn’t noticed before. The last thing I remember was one of those people screamed something about how they couldn’t be trapped there as I fell forward. The next thing I knew I came to in the circle… but everything was different… it was your world, not mine…”
”Oh my God,” McGonagall said clutching her chest.

Dumbledore took a deep breath, and despite how omnipotent he might have seemed to be to others, Jessica saw him as the very old man he really was; Old, but still very powerful in his own way.

“I am not a liar,” she said defensively. “I am a lot of things, some of them not very nice, but I am no liar!”

“No,” Dumbledore said nodding in agreement. “No, Miss Newkirk; you are not a liar. You truly believe the story you have told us – of that I have no doubt…”

“You… you…” Jessica snapped. “I AM NOT CRAZY AND YOU ARE NOT GOING TO PLAY ME LIKE YOU PLAY EVERYONE ELSE! YOU KNOW SOMETHING – I KNOW YOU DO!”

“You are sadly mistaken; I know nothing of the sort…”

“Liar!”

“Miss Newkirk – really you forget yourself. This is Albus Dumbledore…” McGonagall sputtered.

“I KNOW EXACTLY WHO HE IS AND YOU KNOW WHAT? I DON’T WANT TO BE HERE ANY MORE THAN YOU WANT ME TO BE!” Jessica said hoisting her legs over the side of the bed.

“You are not going anywhere,” Snape hissed as he grabbed her arms. “You are ill, gravely ill Miss Newkirk and you will die if you do not take heed!”

His black eyes met hers again, and Jessica understood implicitly that Snape wanted her to stay – why he could not express in that moment, but he wanted her to stay. She stumbled as if to fall and he reached out and grabbed her gently. “Trust me,” he whispered fast under his breath so that only she could hear.

‘No one else trusts you – although Dumbledore will say that he does and yet never explains why…’ she thought to herself.

‘OK’ she said softly so that only he could hear as he helped her back into bed.

…xxxXXXxxx…

“So do you think she is lying or that she has convinced herself of something that never really happened?” Lupin asked Dumbledore as he, the Headmaster, Snape and McGonagall sat in his office discussing the delicate situation with the stranger in their midst as she slept.

“On the contrary,” Dumbledore said popping a Sherbert Lemon into his mouth after cleaning fuzz off of it from his pocket. “I believe her wholeheartedly.”

“Then why the pretense, Headmaster?” Snape queried benignly. Had Jessica been there she would have said that he’d just out-Lupin-ed Lupin.

Dumbledore sat back and then peered at his Potions Master over his spectacles.

“I believe she is in danger, very grave danger.”

“Forgive me for overstating the obvious, Dumbledore,” McGonagall said crisply. “But I think we already know that to be the case do we not?”

“For everything she had told us there are some very important things she has not. And I believe those things perhaps are the missing pieces of this puzzle and may give insight into why she is hunted and whom might be behind it.”

“I’m not sure I understand…” McGonagall said with a slight frown.

“She is not from our world. You heard her yourself; she is not from our world…”

“Are you proposing that she has fallen into our laps from somewhere out there?” Lupin asked as he gestured abstractly.

“Of course not,” Dumbledore said with a smile. “But what I do propose is that she comes from a world parallel to this. She is a Muggle; uniquely Muggle and she is in our world…”

“A Muggle?” Lupin sputtered. “But Muggles can’t see our world! They can’t know of it or experience it!”

“The legends, Remus; did Binns never speak of the Stones in your History of Magic course?”

“Binns never set stock in anything approximating myth or fantasy. What little I know I heard from bedtime stories as a child, the same as anyone else that might be aware of them…”

“ Miss Newkirk can see us – and she is experiencing our world. She is the living reality of the myths surrounding the Stones and we are all witnesses,” Dumbledore said. “And the more she becomes known in our world the greater the danger will increase where she is concerned – should the truth ever become known… As it is the only others who know of her, though very little, are Hagrid, Rosmerta and Madame Pomfrey... a slight adjustment of memory should suffice all the way around and then Miss Newkirk must be sent on her way.”

“Headmaster – assuming that your theory is in deed fact; Is it not feasible that were Miss Newkirk sent back…wherever it is that she is from… that her life would still be forfeit in the eyes of her pursuers? She will die, and it is a given that the murders are from this world. She was hunted for a reason. They did not have to take the lives of her friends and yet they did… and we have no way as of yet of knowing who they are and the motive behind their actions – and it is important to find out,” Snape said calmly. “And she would likely come under fire from authorities in her world. Her friends were murdered and she disappeared. To suddenly return unharmed…”

Dumbledore looked thoughtful as he nodded his agreement.

“Whoever they are, they are in Voldemort’s service,” McGonagall said.

“Actually, we cannot be so certain of that,” Snape said firmly.

“Is that a fact? Black cloaks, Death Eater masks and Dark Magic – it seems straightforward enough,” said Lupin.

“Ah, yes. Far be it from me to have to point out the obvious to a Dark Arts expert such as yourself…”

“And that is?”

“When Death Eaters come to call they are not in the habit of knocking any more than they are capable of not leaving the Dark Mark as a sign of their passing…the casting of it in the sky would have prevented Miss Newkirk’s escape under the cover of darkness.”

…xxxXXXxxx…

The three Hogwarts staff members sat in silence, each locked in their own thoughts. It was Lupin who broke the silence.

“She is here and she will have to get used to this life for the foreseeable future… All anyone would need to know is that she is a Squib should it ever become apparent that she has no magical ability…”

“She certainly cannot be turned loose to sort out things on her own, Albus. You have always said that Hogwarts will always be here for those in need of it,” added McGonagall. “From the sounds of things even our world of Muggles isn’t quite the same as hers… my God this is all so…”

“And so it is,” Dumbledore said with a nod. “A grave injustice would be done and a life lost were we to turn her backs on her…”

Snape had a thought or two of his own that he would allow to surface in the privacy of his own rooms; for now he wisely kept his own counsel.

The Headmaster thought some more.

“Well – there are options. She could take on a position at one of the establishments in Hogsmeade – but that offers minimal protection if any. The best option would be for her to take on duties assisting Hagrid or Mr. Filch…”

McGonagall snorted loudly. “Now see here Dumbledore! The woman is educated and she has talents that served her well where she is from… Filch or Hagrid indeed!”

“But that is the whole point of it Minerva; she is no longer wherever it is that she is from…”

“She could assist with Muggle Studies…”

“The course is presented from a Wizarding point-of-view and the point is to minimise the attention that she could unintentionally draw to herself.”

McGonagall let out an exasperated sigh.

“Fine – then she could fill the post of Library Sciences Administrator. Pince isn’t up to the task and we’ve had to make due for too long without one. A bit of training and she’d do well enough…”

“And what of the more practical side of the work? And she would have contact with the students…”

“Headmaster – if I understand it correctly, so long as Miss Newkirk masters the theories of our world the practicalities are irrelevant. After all, even Miss Granger does not set much stock in anything she cannot read in a book – she whom is often claimed to be the cleverest witch of her age by some… If Miss Newkirk has any degree of intelligence and can memorise then she should do well enough,” Snape said idly. “We cannot wrap her in cotton wool; if we do that she will be an even bigger risk to herself…”

“We cannot hide her away, and it isn’t possible to keep people from finding out about her in some fashion. It wouldn’t work in the long-term,” Lupin added. “No one knows that more than I do…”

Snape visibly blanched and his eyes narrowed at the sight of the werewolf. He chose to ignore his enemy as McGonagall made her final move. “Miss Newkirk can read and she has plenty of time on her hands. She can undertake the training programme for the remainder of the school year with minimal interaction with the students,” she said firmly. “Some coaching from us and I am sure she will do just fine…”

“Then I leave her to you, Minerva,” Dumbledore said with a dismissive gesture. “After all, there are other matters which must occupy my time and interest.”

“Well – fine then…” McGonagall said with a huff as she rose to her feet. “I take it you will entrust her living arrangements, salary and the like to me as well?”

“Entirely…” Dumbledore said rifling through some papers he’d received from the Ministry of Magic.

…xxxXXXxxx…

Snape swept from the room after Lupin and McGonagall. Were he the pitying kind he could almost pity Jessica Newkirk. She was now indebted to the Headmaster just as the rest of them were. And there was no doubt that sooner or later the Headmaster would call in that debt.

But at least he could see her now, to talk with her without having any false pretenses about it or having to arrange it clandestinely. Dumbledore had never had any intention of letting her out of his sight if he could help it. Jessica Newkirk could be useful to him – how, given that she was likely as Muggle as he proposed she was, he could only guess. The old man had one or a few tricks up his formidable sleeves where she was concerned; he had no doubt about that.

‘Stranger things have happened,’ he’d said to her about the Headmaster letting her stay when she hadn’t believed it possible.

Being right did not feel comforting.

How could it?

It never did.