First Harry Potter fic ... constructive criticism appreciated.
Chapter One: The Stranger
Average name. Average looks. Average intelligence. Unfortunately, that's me. My name is Sarah Hatton, and everything about my existence is simply, and most frustratingly average. I live on the straightest and most boring, terraced street imaginable where my father runs Vogler & Hatton, a "specialist" rare book-shop, hidden from prying Muggle eyes (all they see is a burnt out chip-shop, no doubt the work of the many Muggle thugs lurking about.)
It was on a dull, grey Tuesday morning in August when the visitor came. Vogler, my father's old business partner snorted awake from the back-room when the bell tinkled.
"See who it is, Sarah," he grunted.
Sighing, I jumped down from the shelves I'd been stocking with Sparky Sparkinson's Stealthy Guide to Self Alteration, and entered the shop, thoroughly surprised to see a cloaked man standing behind the counter. His face was concealed beneath a long hood.
"Er, can I help you, sir?" I asked uncertainly, whilst feeling annoyed at Vogler for nodding off again in the backroom.
"Yes," said the cloaked man. He had a rasping, injured voice. "I'm looking for Raymond Hatton. He has something of mine."
I frowned. My father was out on business, delivering a load in Diagon Alley. No doubt he was in the Leaky Cauldron with his old clients, downing generous pints of oak-matured mead, but nothing we sold belonged to his customers.
"He's out I'm afraid, but he'll be back by the afternoon." Yeah right, I thought. My father would be lucky to be back by late evening. The cloaked man seemed to sense my scepticism; he delved into his cloak and retrieved a piece of parchment with a flourish. I noticed he wore gloves.
"Perhaps you can help me, then," he said. "Do you recognise this book?"
He slid the parchment towards me, and I saw a detailed drawing of a thickly-bound leather book with a strange coat-of-arms. I didn't know much about the Dark Arts, but the book in the picture certainly seemed to harbour sinister content. I had never seen such an item.
"I'm sorry, I don't," I replied.
The cloaked man drew back; I sensed a smirk beneath the folds of material. This stranger was beginning to unnerve me. How on earth was my father acquainted with this man?
"Er … my father's partner might be able to … er … help …" my words faded to nothingness as Vogler's snores drifted in from the back-room.
I flushed.
"No need," sneered the stranger. "You run quite an establishment. I must leave, but when your father returns from his pick-me-up in Diagon Alley, tell him … Viridius called."
I stood frozen to the spot as the stranger nodded, and for a brief second I glimpsed a stretch of charred skin beneath his hood. I watched him leave; completely unaware I'd been holding my breath for an entire minute.
"Who wuzzit?" Vogler called thickly from the back-room, dragging me from my thoughts. "What did they want?"
"Erm," I replied, still staring out the window. "Nothing. Just a browser."
As I predicted, my father returned at eleven o'clock that night, stumbling about in the hall and reeking of ale.
"Sar-uh!" he hollered. "Sar-ruh! Sar-ruh come 'ere and help your ol' man, will ya?"
I pursed my lips. Putting down Standard Book of Spells Grade 6 by Miranda Goshawk, I had forced myself to read, I stormed downstairs to a pitiful sight: somehow my father had managed to put on his coat back-to-front.
"Ah, there you are." He squinted at me from behind his thick, square glasses. "Can … can you help me?"
Choosing not to comment, I relieved him of his coat and followed him into the living-room where he sank into his favourite armchair.
"Ah, that's better!" he said happily. "How was your day?"
"Uneventful. Yours?"
"Divine. Simply Divine," he grinned up at me, but I didn't return it. Instead, my eyes roved over his crumpled shirt sagging off his thin frame. Black-bags hung beneath his eyes, giving him an almost skull-like appearance. Sadness filled me; three years ago, he was a canny businessman; neat, respected and professional but when my mother died of an illness that could not be cured by magic, he lost control and sought comfort in the bottle. Help arrived in the form of his old school-chum Borachio Vogler, but due to lack of business, the doddery old fool spent most days nodding off in the back-room, leaving me to stock the shelves with horrendously useless books about crimping armpit hair.
So why on earth would a hooded stranger claim my father owned the strangest of books?
"Is there something troubling you, Sarah?" my father asked me quietly.
I jumped, noticing he was watching me closely.
"No," I lied.
He sighed.
"I could always tell when something was on your mother's mind. She would go quiet and … defensive. You can tell me, you know."
"There's nothing to tell."
I hated lying, but my father was too inebriated. We weren't as close as we used to be.
"You're off to Hogwarts tomorrow," he mumbled sleepily. "Wake me up at nine, will you?"
"I will."
"With a cup of tea?"
"Of course."
My bedroom was blissfully quiet when I reached it. I rested my forehead for a moment against the cool glass of the window beside my bed. My mind was a riot of thoughts: what did my father know of Viridius? Did he really have that strange, sinister-looking book? What on earth did it all mean?
As if to tantalise my stream of worry, a shadowy figure materialised next to the streetlamp outside, bathed in its harsh, orange glow.
I felt a cold sweat on my forehead and found it hard to breathe. There was no mistaking the long cloak.
Viridius.