Okay, this might be slightly gruesome at the beginning, but please, follow on with me. This is a what-if au of the murkybluematter's Harry Potter series. The what-if? What if Leo had taken a different route the day he met Harry and not been there to save Harry from the guy who might have only been trying for a kidney.

Disclaimer: Please be reminded that anything you recognise from either Violet's Series or the original series do not belong to me.


Harry made her way slowly down Knockturn Alley with her three crates balanced steadily before her. The extra crate made it a little hard for her to see ahead of her, but by walking slowly in the middle of the alley, she was visible enough that the other witches and wizards saw her coming and skirted around her. She was almost past Borgin and Burke's when trouble came, not from before her, but behind.

A dirty hand grasped her right bicep harshly and yanked her sideways into the shadow of a building's overhang. Harry gasped and hauled her weight against the movement, tilting the weight of the crates to the left as well to help counter-balance her accoster's pulling. The man who'd stopped her just pulled harder and brought another hand up to fist in her robe collar and keep her from twisting away. The potion crates were dislodged and fell to the alley floor with a dull thud that didn't stop anyone else in Knockturn from ignoring the situation that Harry was rapidly finding herself in. With her hands now free, she struck out at the man and tried to push him away from her. She could see him clearly now. His hair was as long as any pureblood's, but Ratty and crusted with something that flaked. He was broad-shouldered and slightly overweight, with hands like meat hammers and eyes half-lidded with a violent disorientation, making her think he'd been drinking. When his grip on her collar and arm proved too strong, Harry lashed out with her feet, using the guy's hold on her to keep her upright as she pushed of the ground and kicked him with both feet as hard as she could. Her right leg was a little high from being turned more towards her attacker, but her left foot got him square in the groin.

The man doubled over, clutching himself, his mangy hair falling into his face and his grip slackening instantly, releasing. Harry thrust herself away from him and backed quickly towards where the crates had fallen. She reached for them hurriedly, thanking Merlin for the foam packaging that would have, she hoped, prevented any breakage from occurring. She got the crates stacked, but before she could pick them up, a hand clawed at her nape, jerking her off her knees and up, until she was dangling with her toes just scraping the earth in front of her very pissed off attacker. His dark hair swung forward into her face and she could see every rip in his tattered black robes. His breath was foul with something sickly sweet and his teeth winked at her like yellow stars from behind the heavy, greying beard around his mouth.

"You'll pay for that one, brat," He wheezed into her face, "I'm gonna-"

But whatever he was going to do, Harry never found out. Reaching up, she clasped her hands around his exposed forearm and asked her magic to make the drunkard let her go. She'd felt the rush as her magic flowed out of her; had felt her palms tingle and then the man and screamed and dropped her, holding his arm to his chest and cursing in language that was, from what she could hear, rather foul. And she could see why, his arm was a blistered, bloody, mess where she'd grabbed him. It wasn't bleeding, because whatever her magic had done had cauterized the man's wound; but it still didn't look pretty. Feeling guilty despite herself, Harry was about to ask if he needed help, when he lashed out at her, eyes blown wide with pain and anger. He didn't get within another foot of her. Responding to her racing heart her magic lashed out at the cretin, sending him into the wall with a crack and cushioning the ground when she fell from the force of it leaving her.

Looking up, Harry went a little green at the sight of the man who quite clearly had some broken limbs, he was breathing though, so he probably wasn't too injured. Swallowing hard, Harry picked the crates up, about to continue towards Diagon Alley and stopped. She couldn't just leave him like that, no matter what he'd tried to do to her. Especially not if someone found out Harry Potter, the girl studying to be a Healer, had left an injured person on the street.

Setting the crates down once more, Harry pulled her emergency potions bag from her pocket and paused a moment, looking at it. She had the bag because you never knew when you might need a potion to be applied immediately, although most of the potions she had on hand weren't generally what you would use, for someone inflicted of a grievous injury, but a few of the things she had would definitely help. Rolling her sleeves up, Harry cast a stunning spell at the man for good measure and settled in to do what she could for him.


When Thomas Clunk woke from his magically induced unconsciousness, he took a moment to remember what, exactly, had happened to land him in his current position.

He had been drinking after a failed business deal, his client having said the supplied ingredients weren't fresh enough, and started staggering home after being evicted from the drinking establishment. He had been angry about it and while resting under the shadowed eaves of Knockturn Alley, had seen someone carrying an armload of crates. From the angle he saw them at as they passed him by, he had been utterly convinced that they were the rotten client that had cost him a payload; ignoring the fact that they were far too short and slight to be so.

And so he had grabbed at the passerby, hauling them out of the too-bright daylight, with the misguided intention of providing them with 'fresh ingredients', vision blurred by the alcohol within his system. They had immediately tried pulling away from him, but the angered man had just pulled harder, using his other hand to obtain an even tighter grip on them. And then the little shit had gotten his feet up and kicked him hard in the groin and hip bone. Thomas had doubled over; losing his grip and the kid had scrambled away from him, stacking the crates up.

But Thomas wasn't having that. Charging after him, he raked his hand over the brat's neck, clasping hair in his fist and yanking up, hoisting the stupid child high enough that their toes were barely on the ground. He was about to inform them of exactly what he was planning on doing to them when hands had reached up and brilliant green eyes had flared with power and searing, gut-wrenchingly terrible pain invaded him. He had pulled his arm to his chest in a futile bid to stop the burning and then he had just snapped, howling and going for the tiny figure. The last thing he remembered was hitting the wall and blacking out to the pain of his bones cracking.

Looking at his burnt arm, he blinked at finding linen bandages neatly wrapped around it and various other wounds neatly doctored. Even his robes were fixed, tattered tears smoothed away by careful magic. And he didn't know who had done it. Looking back, the person he had tried to kill was clearly not his reneging client, but rather a child, not much older than ten years of age. As he pushed himself to his feet, mindful of his broken bones and tender arm; whether it hurt at this moment or not, cracked ribs were no joke, he saw a piece of parchment stuck to the linen and a vial full of potion under an extra wrap.

This vial contains one dose of Pain Reliever to be taken at such a time as the previously administered dose wears off.

And trust me when I say you will know when it has.


When Harry finally reached Diagon Alley, she had looked at the entrance to Knockturn for a moment before going on to the Leaky Cauldron, stopping only once to obtain a certain item, before continuing onwards, with a dreadful, creeping feeling in her heart. If she was going to continue as a brewer in Knockturn, she would need to learn to better defend herself. On the plus side, though, she had come up with a way to make carrying all the crates easier.