A Child who Lived in Knockturn Alley
Some of Earl's earliest memories were of grass as tall as his knees, goats baying, and being left to wander under overcast skies. These memories were quick, more like magical pictures than those Muggle cinema shows he'd only heard of, but he cherished them all the same. It was the only taste of true freedom he ever knew and when he thought about it, he felt good. Like he was letting a sugar cube dissolve on the back of his tongue. Of course, that sweet taste was soon lost to the more familiar, perpetual, gritty, burnt taste of Magical England's slums.
His papa, Warner, had been the only son of a farmer and brother to four younger sisters. Too poor for actual magical schooling, he and all his sisters were taught at home by their mumma, who really didn't have much interest in children beyond making sure they stayed quiet when her radio soap opera was on. So, most of their knowledge came from books fifty years out of date and all their practicing was done on two wands that weren't suited for any of them.
Earl's mum, Talia, on the other hand, was a third daughter of Muggle (or maybe Squib) gypsies. When they figured out she was magic like her great-great-grandpapa had been, they'd sent her off to take schooling in Russia like her grandpapa had once done. The school there was a cold place; a brick fortress from long ago with little beyond the rudimentary knowledge of magic to offer their students. His mum might have hated it, she admitted to him once, if it weren't for how kind the Headmaster of the school had been. He'd taken pity on her and helped her adjust personally to the Russian winters and language. By the time she'd left school, she was fluent in Russian, knew how to tuck blankets just so to stave off the nip of freezing nights and had a lifelong friend in the headmaster whom she'd write often for the rest of their lives.
None of those things, however, were enough to keep Earl's mum away from the little island she'd called home during her childhood and, so, she returned to England and her family upon finishing school. It was there, while traveling the countryside with her parents, she met Earl's papa.
She thought him handsome despite his crooked grin and he'd loved the independent spirit she'd cultivated in Russia. It hadn't taken long for them to marry after that. She had been twenty-three and he just turned twenty.
They had their first child, Earl's brother, Boris, eight months into their marriage.
His sisters Tatyana and Ellen had followed about a year, and two years after Boris.
It was after Ellen showed her first signs of being a witch that Papa's father died and that he was made to take over the family farm.
The farm had been a failing thing even before Papa had married, but under his care, its decay only seemed to speed up. By the time Earl came into the picture, the family farm was on its last legs.
When Earl was five and his last, and youngest, sister, Irene, was just a week and a half old, Papa sold the farm and took a job as a sales associate at a place called Potage's Cauldron Shop. From there, he moved their family to a little three room flat across from the shop in a place called Knockturn Alley. It had been a rather cramped compared to the big house his family and one of his aunt's family had shared on his papa's farm, but they got used to it with time.
In fact, later in life, Irene would begin to call the little apartment "cozy" and "comfortable". Like that changed the fact that he and Boris had shared a bed and that, until she was two, Irene was made to sleep in a dresser's drawer.
But all of those things were small complaints compared to the bigger issues that came with living in a place like Knockturn Alley. Earl's mumma had seen one man assault another late at night outside their apartment's window when Irene had been a baby keeping her awake with her colic. She'd tried to call someone through the Floo to help him, but no one came that night. It was then that Mumma and Papa learned that no one cared about this corner of wizard Britain. They'd moved their young family to an all but lawless district and now they would have to fear for the safety of Boris, Tatyana, Ellen, Earl, and Irene.
After that, they weren't allowed to play anywhere but the balcony connected to their mumma and papa's bedroom for almost a month. It wasn't until Boris broke a lamp and an old family heirloom plate of Papa's on the same day that Mumma – at her wits end – sent them out to play on the street between the flat and the shop their papa worked at.
Things were better after that, Earl knew. He hadn't felt so squished in the smog air of the street and Ellen had danced one of the pretty Russian dances Mumma had taught them before they came to the Alley. They'd played on that small bit of cobbled rock well into the day and had only gone back to the apartment when their papa came out of Potage's and said they had to.
For the next year, the street beneath their flat window and their papa's work place became a fine playground. He and Boris kicked around the football their mumma had given them one Christmas, and the girls played jumprope, and all of them played Gobstones when the mood struck them. Sometimes, another child or two would come around and play with them – that is, until their mums or sometimes grandmummys came and dragged them away with a sharp swat to their rears.
Once, a particularly grouchy mum of one those other kids asked them why they didn't stay by their mother's side like good little boys and girls.
Boris, being the biggest at almost eleven at the time, had declared that he was watching them and that she should mind her own beeswax. But when they'd gone up that evening for dinner, Boris asked why their mumma let them play in the street when no one else let their sons and daughters.
Mumma had shaken her tired head and bounced Irene on her knee as she tried to get her to eat.
"You're old enough to remember running free, how can I tell you to stay in when you know there's life to be had?" she'd asked them.
Earl had thought hard about that and decided that his mumma was right, she couldn't ask them to stay inside when they knew there was air and freedom outside. It was the next dinner that Mumma and Papa announced that Boris would be going to Hogwarts.
It was like a dream come true. He'd get to go there 'cause Papa's job gave them enough money to send him along with the scholarship Mumma's old Russian headmaster had helped her procure.
Of course, Tatyana wanted to know if she'd go next year.
Mumma had said maybe.
And for then, that was more than enough for a gaggle of kids who had always dreamed of going to the big castle school other English wizards and witches spoke of with such reverence.
Boris got everything secondhand, but he hadn't cared and when he was sorted into Gryffindor, everyone had been proud. It was what their family talked about when Papa's sisters came visiting.
"Did you hear, Auntie? Boris is at Hogwarts and is in Gryffindor! Isn't that wicked?"
Their aunts were kind, generous woman and always agreed with them.
Without Boris, it became Tatyana's job to watch them when they played outside. His oldest sister and Ellen were close enough in age that playing together for them came easy, like letting Russian roll off their tongues. But Earl, almost five years younger than Tatyana, had gotten bored very quickly without Boris to keep him entertained.
And so, at six, he decided he was going to take himself on a little stroll and see more of Knockturn Alley. While walking, he strayed too close to an alleyway and a pair of arms shot out and grabbed him.
He kicked and bit the hand that covered his mouth, but Earl was only a child and wasn't near strong enough to get out of the hold. Instead, he'd been dragged back and pushed against the ground and touched.
He was touched in all the places a boy so small and so young just shouldn't be. More might have happened, he knew, if it hadn't been for another youth of about twelve or thirteen who'd been hiding in that same alley starving to death. That boy, who he'd bring home and introduce as Greg Whitehorn, jumped out and gave the sick man a fist to the face.
It'd stunned him long enough for Earl to get up. Greg had grabbed his hand then and they'd both ran far away from him and back to where his sisters were still playing gobstones without thought to where he had gone.
Looking up, his sister, Tatyana, ten and with pencil-line eyebrows, had given them an expression of pure surprise.
"Where did you come from?" she exclaimed at the sight of the older boy holding her baby brother's hand.
Greg shrugged his scrawny shoulders, showing off his mouth of ugly teeth as he smiled shyly.
Six, imperious and shaken, Earl had declared, "He saved me. He's going to come and eat lunch with me upstairs."
"Mumma's not going to let a stranger into the apartment!" Ellen yelled next.
Tears drying on his cheeks, he disagreed. "She will too!" And to prove it, he marched Greg all the way up the stairs and into their flat. There, baby Irene was chattering at the radiator in the corner by the door while Mumma was making borscht for lunch.
Pointing at what was Boris's spot when he was home, Earl said, "You sit there." And gone to his mumma and tugged at her plaid skirt.
"I brought home the big boy who rescued me today for lunch," he told her.
His mumma had turned then and screamed at the sight of the dirty boy at her table. The girls heard her from downstairs and ran to Papa. He ran home then and if Earl hadn't gone and wrapped himself around his new friend, his papa probably would have beat the snot out of Greg before he tossed him on the street again. But once everyone calmed down and the story got out, his mumma and papa had been so grateful they told Earl's savior he could live with them.
Greg, thirteen, starving and awed by their kindness accepted.
He turned out to be a pretty good replacement for Boris too. He didn't go to Hogwarts ever, but Mumma took to tutoring him in everything during the mornings and got him his own wand too when he was ready to start learning easy magic.
He absorbed it all with a gusto and, after a while, started nixing books from the bookshop on Knockturn when he had the chance so he could learn even more. Papa didn't approve of that, but he'd saved Earl from likely rape and murder, so his family overlooked it.
When Boris came home later that year, he was prideful and thought he was too big for games. Boris had only wanted to go back to Hogwarts. No one blamed him. In comparison, Knockturn Alley must have seemed very drab. But when he met Greg, unlike the rest of the family, who'd taken quite easily to teenager, Boris didn't like the older boy.
He thought he was stupid. Ugly. A cheat.
And Greg? He kept nixing books and did his best to ignore Boris as he continued his work as the family's guard dog. He and Ellen were also getting quite close those days, thanks to their mutual adoration of the stray cat population.
Boris, bigger than Greg, had called the older boy a perv and told him if he went anywhere alone with Ellen he'd kick him in the balls. Greg in turn, put a knife to his neck in the middle of the night, and told Boris if he ever thought he could tell him what to do he should be ready to lose his life.
None of the boys mentioned the incident to Earl's parents the next morning and Boris and Greg took to ignoring each other after that. It was kind of sad to see that his savior and best big brother were never going to get along, but Earl accepted it and took to hanging out with them at different times so they both knew he loved them equally.
When the school year came by again, Tatyana left with Boris and was sorted into Hufflepuff.
She wrote home all the time about how much she loved her house and a few years later they would get a letter from one the professors who said they wanted her to be prefect for Hufflepuff. It was such an honor that both Mumma and Papa bragged about it to everyone they could. But during that first year without Tatyana, Ellen took to moping without her sister and at times would play silly games with Irene when she wanted to do "girl" things.
She and Earl became closer that year also, but not as close as she and Greg became. Without Tatyana or Boris to get in the way, the two really fell in love. Earl's parent worried some, given that Greg was almost fourteen and Ellen barely eleven, but they didn't tell them they couldn't kiss or hug or hold hands so the two carried on. When Mumma announced that there would be no more Hogwarts scholarships for the rest of the children, Ellen wasn't disappointed.
Ellen was happy that she'd get to stay home with Greg and didn't mind learning at home like her papa had before her. Earl had cried about it for a while, but Greg had cheered him up by saying it was better he stay home because he'd become git like Boris if went to Hogwarts.
He didn't like listening to his savior talk about his brother like that, but he also kind of agreed. Boris was a prick. He'd refused to come home for Christmas that winter and was talking about going to stay at a mate's place over the summer instead of coming home to the Alley.
His mumma was upset, she wanted Boris home, but Papa told them to let their oldest do what he wanted. If he thought he was too good for them and their three-room apartment, then good riddance. Earl knew his papa was just mad and hurt, but… Part of Earl agreed.
Good riddance.
They didn't need an uppity little prick like Boris. When he voiced this late one night, Greg agreed with him, as had Ellen.
"We don't need him! If he thinks he's so much better he can stay away!" Ellen cried from her bed as she went through the nighttime ritual of combing Irene's hair for her.
Greg had grinned at Earl's sister. "That's right, love. We don't need no gits."
It had become a secret, the binding thing to equally disapprove and hate Boris after that night. When their oldest brother came home for the last week of summer, not one of them said a word to him the whole time. Even Tatyana had caught on by that time and kept her lips shut when they were all together in his presence.
During the next couple of years, Boris stopped writing home and Tatyana only mentioned him occasionally to let their parents know he was alive. Greg got a job as a cleaning man at Potage's and took to swiping cauldrons to sell cheaper in one of the back alleyways of Knockturn. Ellen was usually there to help him in his endeavors; hawking them herself, or stealing different things for Boris to give a hand at selling.
By the time Earl was nine, his sister and Greg had begun to sell drugs and were slowly building up a mob that was going to rule Knockturn Alleyway in the coming years. Seeing as he was doing so well in his business endeavors, Greg got his own one room place around the corner from where Earl and his family lived. It was about that time that Ellen's belly began to swell for the first time, also. Papa had been so angry with her he chased her out of the house and wouldn't let her come home for a whole week. It was only after Mumma threatened to leave with Earl and Irene that their papa relented and let their sister come home.
Ellen wasn't the same after that, she came home, had the baby (a boy she named Devlin) and then moved back in with Greg. Papa had hurt her deep down and while she still loved the rest of them, she couldn't stand to be around their papa anymore. So she became their surrogate brother's little wifey and kept the apartment, and began raising their first child on her own.
Greg still came around, never up to the apartment anymore, but he'd take an hour to play with Earl and Irene. Sometimes he'd give them candy or invite them to his apartment to have dinner with Ellen and him. Usually, Earl and Irene took up the offer, they missed Ellen, after all. By the time Tatyana came home from Hogwarts that summer, Ellen's tummy was already showing signs of another baby.
Their oldest sister didn't seem to quite know what to make of the fact that her little sister had a baby and husband all before her, but she loved little Devlin dearly. Tatyana took every chance she had to visit the baby that was rolling over all on his own those days and even promised that he would go to Hogwarts someday just like she.
Ellen had been grateful for the promise and even Greg grudgingly agreed they couldn't turn the offer down.
And one day, Earl's nephew did go to Hogwarts. He ended up being a Ravenclaw prefect and founder of the Nimbus Racing Broom Company.
That one was their success story. Little Devlin had been smart from the beginning and with his aunt and parents rooting for him, had gone to prove just what that could do for you.
His little brother, Emanuel, however, proved to be quite the opposite of his shining example. He'd been born with a club foot. Given that both his parents were hardly more than children themselves, there had been no seeking of treatment. Instead, the foot was left alone and by the time he was fourteen, Emanuel had a such a strong limp he had to use a crutch to get around. This, however, did little to deter him from picking fights at every turn with whoever he could. He liked using his crutch as a weapon and because no one expected a cripple to be so good at fighting, Emanuel's opponent usually walked away bleeding and in shock.
But, one day, an angry loser had come up behind Earl's nephew as he smoked outside his family's apartment building and killed him. No one in the family knew who'd done it. If not for a street brat who'd been watching from near enough, not a soul would have ever known who Emanuel's murderer was. Seeing as it was Knockturn Alley, though, no Aurors came to do anything about Emanuel's killer and so, it was left up to Greg to avenge his youngest son.
And because Greg knew more magic than that sore loser ever had, he used crucio before he landed a more killing blow with his knife. Aurors came and arrested him in front of his older son, wife, and Earl's own visiting children that night.
It seemed their family and every one of Knockturn had been mistaken, the aurors did care about what went down in the Alley. Especially if you used one of the unforgivables.
When Earl thought about it too deeply, it left him particularly bitter. Greg's youngest had been a bit of a thug, but he hadn't deserved to die. To punish Greg for what hundreds had done before him seemed so unfair. Especially since they walked free and unashamed because at least they hadn't used such an awful, illegal curse on another human.
Life was life and no man, woman, boy, or girl had the right to take it away from someone – no matter how they did it.
-v-v-v-v-v-
Much like his sister's son, his daughter's life was cut tragically short too.
Just as Tatyana was finishing her schooling, a new family moved into the flat beside his family's. They had two daughters, a little one who was the same age as Irene and another, Annie. Annie was fifteen to his fourteen and was already a decade more mature than he. She'd seen her mother die giving birth to her little sister nine years ago and since had lived with her almost perpetually drunk father and dour aunt.
And due to these troubles, her appearance was constantly marred by dark rings beneath her eyes and uncombed hair. Little Yvonne, on the other hand, was always fresh of face and neatly kept – thanks to her sister.
While she and Irene played happily between their apartments and his papa's workplace, Earl and Annie took to watching them together. Because of this, they were made to talk to each other for hours on end if they didn't fancy being bored.
Like him, her family was poor and didn't have money for elaborate schooling like Hogwarts. The best eduction she'd received was a couple years from a small, locally run French magic school she went to when her family had lived in France previously.
For being as small as the school was, the teachers had been exceptional because it seemed she knew more than he did about magic theory and practice. Or, maybe, it wasn't that they'd been better professors than his mother and sometimes his sister, but that Annie had been naturally talented. That was the admirable thing about her, Earl would tell people even after years and years of being married, she took to everything like a fish to water. She just seemed to instinctually understand, extrapolate, and use what was taught to her in the most efficient manner possible.
A couple of years later, just as Irene turned eleven, Boris returned home.
He was bigger than Earl remembered. His boyhood metabolism had slowed and now he was padded from face to calves. Another change was how Boris carried himself like he had come from money instead of a little apartment in the forgotten street of Knockturn Alley. It felt like he was a stranger rather than the brother he'd shared his bed with.
Grinning he'd greeted them with a man's voice, "Hullo, Mother, and Father."
"Bah!" Papa had spat as he got up and left the apartment. Mumma, though, had run to him and wrapped her sagging body around her oldest son and wept into his chest.
Face gentling, Boris hugged the aged woman back and let her calm down before he explained why he'd come home.
"I'm an owlet trainer now, and it pays well. So well, in fact, I'd like for Irene to go to Hogwarts," he explained to their mother.
Irene, who'd been so very small when their brother stopped being their brother had turned to Earl and cried, "Don't let him take me!"
"What?" he'd replied confounded by her reaction.
Mumma, dabbing at her eyes, declared, "No one's taking anyone Irene, your brother is simply offering to pay for your education."
Scowling, Earl's sister had said, "I'm not going anywhere."
"Yes, yes you are!" their mumma had argued back.
Irene dissolved into tears then, not that Earl really blamed her. She'd grown up in Knockturn, to leave your mother's side before a certain age meant certain pain or death. So she feared the thought of their home leaving her sight. In any other situation, it could very well mean she'd never see it again.
But not today. Instead, it meant that she would be the third of his family to have a proper Hogwarts education.
When Irene went to Hogwarts the next fall, she was sorted into Slytherin and became captain of the Gobstone team. She never quite grew to like it there, but she did well and made their parents proud because of it. Just as Tatyana and Boris had done before her.
Once she left for Hogwarts, at a loss of what to do, Earl took to minding his nephews instead during the day and spent his nights in the hallway between his and Annie's flats. There, they talked in the moonlight about nothing and everything all at once.
It was due to those nights spent huddle together in nothing but their pajamas that when Earl turned seventeen, he proposed to Annie.
Just as in love with him, she accepted the proposal, even though he had few skills, little education and no job. It was at this time Greg offered him a job in his business, but Earl had always had a bit too much integrity. He also disliked seeing the drunk and high people that wandered the streets of Knockturn more than most. So, he declined and did a bit of searching until he found a job at Madam Malkins. She needed a tailor and Earl knew a thing or two thanks to his mumma's teachings.
She paid much better than the owner of Potage's Cauldrons and soon enough, he was able to afford a nice two room flat in Diagon Alley. It was after he moved in that Annie and he got married. It was at that point she moved in with him and brought her little sister too.
Yvonne as sweet as ever and she enjoyed the change in location. Now free from the dangers of Knockturn, she happily got to know their neighbors as well as the women and men Earl worked with. She knew them so well that by the time she was fifteen, she was working along side him as Earl's assistant.
It was also around that time that Annie gave him his sons: Alex and Earl Junior. They were good boys through and through. Alex ever laughing and talking, Earl always smiling and lending a hand to those in need.
No one could deny that they'd be something upon growing up. The twins themselves often remarked on how much they wished to be a pair of musicians. Alex would sing the songs and Earl would play the guitar or trumpet in accompaniment. They both showed a talent for it too, so neither Earl or Annie doubted their sons.
Once in a while, they even held "concerts" for their family. They included everyone in the family, Earl, Annie, Yvonne, Irene, Tatyana, Greg, and Ellen along with his mumma and papa. Occasionally Boris would be available too.
Usually, though, he was more busy with his own gaggle of children. Four boys whose names all started with H and his two daughters whom he'd named for Mumma and his wife's mum.
It was nice having such a big family, Earl often told his wife. It meant there was always someone who could be there for the children.
During one of the times, when Ellen and Greg were keeping an eye on Alex and Earl, Annie and he had time to make another baby.
Nine months and a week later, his only daughter, Sascha, was born. She was a curiously sleepy baby that had remained just a bit too small all throughout her infant-hood. Once she began to talk and play, Earl realized she was a rather impish little girl. If it weren't for her pretty blue eyes and the curly blond hair she had, courtesy of her mother, he knew she wouldn't have been allowed to behave in such a naughty manner.
But being so adorable kept any punishment she may receive close to nonexistent. Or, at least, it made it short enough she never really learned what consequences were. By the time she was in school, she was too used to getting her way and made quick work of pushing herself through the social ranks and when she graduated from Hogwarts, she already had her eyes set on a particularly rich wizard.
Roland Nott.
He was more than a decade older than his daughter and Earl told her repeatedly that she was making a bad decision. But Sascha was much too stubborn and so, married the older wizard despite his refusal to give her his blessings.
Sascha's husband kept her away from Earl's family and he hated it, but there was little he could do, he knew. Nott had high standing in their society and he was just a tailor at Madam Malkins. So when he heard his daughter had died giving birth to Nott's heir, he'd grieved deeply and wondered if there hadn't been more to Sascha's death.
For years he was kept from his daughter's son and instead had to watch his son Alex's twin daughters, Maya and Marigold, grow up with the nagging thought that their cousin, Theodore, should be standing between them with a smile like Sascha's on his face.
In nineteen ninety-six he finally met his grandson. Theodore was a reedy teenager with a floppy brown fringe and he held himself tall despite the fact he always had his hands stuffed in his pants pockets.
With his father in jail, the sixteen-year-old had been sent to live with him and Annie in the small home they'd spent the better part of their lives saving up for. Earl wouldn't lie and say he hadn't been disappointed to see so little of his daughter in his grandson. But in the end, that would matter less than the fact Theodore kept asking for pictures and bobbles and letters that had belonged to his mother.
It seemed Roland Nott had not spoken much of Sascha to his son and the boy was more than happy to learn as much about her as he could. It was good for everyone in the end, because that was how they best bonded that summer. When the school year came rolling in again, he and Annie saw the boy off and after waving their last goodbye to him as he stepped on to the Hogwarts Express, Earl knew he could die happy.
"I'm not a Death Eater, Grandfather."
He felt tears in his eyes as he hugged his grandson close to him. "Thank Merlin! Oh, dear boy, I don't know what I'd have done if I'd known that your father had already had that madman etch his curse on your skin!"
"You'd probably be crying for a different reason," Theodore remarked with a smirk that was very much like his mother's on his lips.
Earl laughed. "I probably would be," he agreed as he wiped away the wetness from his eyes.
And that night, Earl passed into the next world with a glimpse of a smile on his face. His stomach was full of his wife's food and he was resting comfortably on his favorite couch as he listened to one of his son's ditties about a man going home on the radio.
Quite the chronicle for an OC, wouldn't you agree? I tried to blend him with a couple canon characters to make him and his family more believable. So, I hope you liked that.
Thank you for reading everybody!
If you liked this, you might also like the other two stories in this collection:
A Boy who Almost Made it and The Girl who Loved him: "He was just another urchin of Knockturn's streets, she the daughter of a working man. Her brother may have brought them together, but he played no part in how their love blossomed – or how it was picked apart petal by petal."
or
The Ones Who Got Away: " For children like them, Hogwarts was more a dream than a reality. But when Boris and Tatyana were given the chance to turn their fantasy into real life, they seized it. How that opportunity affected them, their relationships with their family and futures differed greatly. Despite everything, though, they managed to stay brother and sister through it all."
EDITED: 1/19/17