A old vinyl sign stood about the Victorian-looking shop.
"Borgan & Burkes' "
It proclaimed, snootily in calligraphic writing.
The windowless shop front shunned nosy onlookers, you had to go inside to view the goods it held, and the shop was far too warm. Dust was in the air and there was a faint musky aroma, mingled with sweat and mould, which produced a sickly smell in the humid room.
It was fairly large, but looked a great deal smaller due to the shelves, cabinets and display cases that surrounded every wall, leaving very little space to walk on the cluttered floor.
On and in the shelves and cabinets, was an array of different objects, small and large, dark and light, every colour in the rainbow, and without exception covered in dust. From simply thin layerings, to objects so covered they had become buried under huge grey piles and it was no longer apparent to what they had once been.
On the walls were thousands of small, yellowed labels, donning each object with a name and definition, yet most were too smudged, or dusty to read.
A couple books stacked carefully on the shelf. Each one a pale grey, they had originally been black. But they had been heavily sun bleached, long ago when sunlight had touched their dusty covers.
They were a mere shadow of the velvety raven colour they had once been.
If you lifted the smaller, topmost book, you would see a darker square on the second, where the sun hadn't managed reach, and fade. Not that anyone had, or would for quite a long time, as the caking of dust around the two books revealed.
On another shelf, a large rough stone, semi-transparent, thrown carelessly over some stained and tattered papers, looking as though, if someone had just cared enough to polish it, it could transform into a magnificent gem, and would be bought straight away.
Yet it too was covered in a thin layering of dust.
Underneath it, a small neglected perfume bottle that lay on its side on the floor. Evidently if had fallen over, and no one had bothered to pick it up again. It was made of delicate translucent crystal, tinted pale violet. Inside the bottle was an opaque, black liquid, already half-used, that was certainly something more sinister than perfume.
In the middle of the shop was a large, once muscular, but now rather bloated man. Caractacus Burke. He was in his mid forties, yet the tangle of bright white hair that fell messily over his eyes seemed to say otherwise. He put the fat cigarette to his fat, cracking lips and took a long drag, as he stared a small pile of dark orange powder, which he suspected had, at one point, been an object, but had long since disintegrated into a fine dust. He considered sweeping it into the bin, and was just deciding it was probably safer to leave it were it was, when a bell rang, alerting him to the fact that someone had entered the shop.
He raised his head and saw a woman who had evidently been homeless for some time. She was so covered in dirt, her hair, teeth, tattered clothes and face were all muddy brown, apart from her eyes which, although a very dull green, still stood out against the dirt.
This was a woman in trouble, Burke knew it from the minute she walked through the door.
Not because of the dirt, or the few, rotting teeth she had left, or the look of intense desperation on her face, indeed without these she would not be in trouble, but they were not the reason. It was the large bump underneath her ragged clothes. She was pregnant.
And Caractacus could see that, although that baby was the only thing keeping her alive, it was slowly sucking the life out of her.
His eyes flickered to a dark, yet surprisingly less dusty cabinet towards the back of the room and he wondered if she was here for drugs and, more importantly, if she had the money to pay for any of them.
But as she stumbled closer, he saw she was carrying a small cloth bag and realised, with a sinking feeling that she was here to sell, not buy.
"Perhaps you've come in here by accident?" He asked coldly,
Knowing perfectly well she was here to sell, as she pulled some bedraggled object out of her bag. The last of her worldly possessions, most likely. But he had to make it clear to her, he expected a little more quality in his shop. He had standards, after all.
But he wasn't throwing her out. Not because he felt sorry for her, he felt very little emotion to the filth. She and probably her child too, would die, and there was nothing he could, or cared to do.
But sometimes beggars had items worth more than they knew. Negligible worth, but worth none the less.
"No." she replied distantly to his earlier question, not noticing his hostility, or to weary to care. She pulled out a heavy gold locket, it was grimy and knotted, encrusted with dull green stones. Burke looked at her uncaringly, waiting for her story. There was always a story.
"It belonged to Salazar Slytherin." She mumbled calmly, as if this was enough or maybe because she was to exhausted to elaborate.
"Check it. If you don't believe me," she added, weakly.
He opened his mouth to tell her how doubtful that really was when she interrupted–
"Just. Check. It."
This unprecedented burst of passion seemed to be the end of her and as she swayed on her feet, Burke wondered if he would get the locket for free. Obediently, he took out his wand and performed the necessary spells,
And nearly fell over in shock.
She was telling the truth. Once he had steadied himself he hastily composed his features into an unimpressed look.
He looked at the woman. She would die. No matter how much he gave her, she would die. He could give her a million galleons (still a fraction of the lockets actual price) and she would still die. She knew this as much as he did.
"I can give you..." He paused, considering.
The buy was in the bargain,
"5 galleons for it. I wouldn't normally, but considering I feel sorry for you –"
"It's not me you have to feel sorry for," she breathed, indicating the bump.
"...10" He said, stoically.
And suddenly, something inside the tramp seemed to snap. She knew that the locket was worth more than that and she knew that Burke knew it too but she no longer seemed to care.
She nodded, weakly, but this alone seemed to have enough force to almost knock her over.
She exchanged the locket for her gainings – if you could call it that – and staggered out of the shop.
He smiled. Caractacus' face was rarely graced by a true smile, and this rare occurrence would only happen when there was money involved, but this was, undoubtably the longest, largest smile that had ever taken place in that small, miserable shop.
Author's Note: Why, Hello Thar! :D
Thanks for reading, and please review, even if you hated it. I hope this chapter isn't too long. This looks like it's going to be a rather long story I'm afraid. I'm not sure if I'm doing everything right, I'm new to this site, so I hope it's all ok, an that T is an appropriate rating and all the other important stuffs are good.
Also, I hope it's clear that this is Merope selling Burke the locket. And the whole story will not be told through Burke, but through different people. Ish. Cause I didn't exactly tell it through Burke. Is this second person?
Disclaimer: All the usuals, nothing here belongs to me, except for these particular words, in this particular order. Please don't steal those from me. Also, I made up the various objects in Borgan & Burkes', but if you want, you can borrow those.