A/N 1: This is my first submission to fan fiction. Of course I do not own Diagon Alley or any of the characters you know in that universe. They belong to J. with my deepest respect. All I own is my contribution to that universe, which I hope you will read, enjoy, and review. Let me know if I should continue this little adventure or not...

A/N2: Once upon a time, 4 years ago, I began this story here. Life interrupted a bit, and in the interim I lost track of my account password, and had to reconstruct the account. So... Mortuis 1 is REALLY Mortuis. This story is REALLY mine, and the restatement and continuation of the original one. Thank you to all who have reviewed and encouraged, and now, we shall proceed. Cheers! Mort!

Chapter One: A Quiet Cup of Tea

His name was Wilfred Phineas Muggworth and as far as anyone knew, he'd never in his life done a single thing to deserve it. Not that he particularly minded. It was just another item that blended seamlessly into the tranquil background of his life. It simply suited him.

He was currently the Proprietor of Muggworth's Apothecary and the Harvest Moon Tea Shoppe, Diagon Alley, London. He had taken the business over from his father, as had his father before him, and his grandfather, and great-grandfather, and so on. It was rumored that the first cup of tea ever served in England was by a Muggworth.

The Harvest Moon Tea Shoppe was a small, quiet, homey sort of place. It was the sort of place you took your gran for a cozy afternoon sit down. It was the sort of place you retreated to after a busy day's shopping, to recollect your wits and your strength. It was a place where young couples met for lunch to snatch a few minutes of peace away from the prying eyes of well-meaning parents. Everyone knew the Harvest Moon Tea Shoppe.

Equally well known was the attached Muggworth's Alchemical Apothecary. Separated from the Tea Shoppe by a clever arched doorway and two arched display windows of many small square panes, the illusion was created that from either side, the viewer was outdoors, looking into the front exterior of the other business. For diners at the Tea Shoppe, the impression was of sitting in a lovely outdoor bistro, while for the chemical shoppers, the view of the Tea Shoppe seemed cozy and inviting after this foray into a small outdoor marketplace.

Wilfred Muggworth sat at his accustomed table of the Tea Shoppe, towards the back, sipping his Darjeeling and smiling with a friendly nod at the many customers who glanced his way. Quietly dressed, for a wizard anyway, he sat in brown robes and forest green waistcoat, crisp white collar, and only the slightest smudges of chemical stains at the cuffs betraying his second greatest passion.

Because, for all of Wilfred's studied sang froid, he was after all a wizard of deep and abiding passion. Well, two passions really. The second was alchemy, research and development of potions and compounds of all sorts. His particular interest was in what had not been, or could not be, done. Since the Philosopher's Stone had been done, he had the notes and protocols for its manufacture. He'd even made and tested a small one once, but destroyed it upon successful completion of his research and journals. His interest lay only in alchemical incognita. Once known, his interest waned.

Yes, Wilfred was fascinated by the unknown. This led, logically enough, to his first passion which was – well, not to put too fine a point on it – Wilfred P. Muggworth was a spy.

Oh, he didn't get himself up in dress robes and go eavesdrop at gatherings of the mighty and mysterious. He really did not have to. Eventually, they all came to him. Whether for tea and a quiet meeting in an out of the way spot, or to acquire some critical reagent for a potion or powder, they all had to come to him. And he noticed. He noticed everything. That was perhaps Wilfred Muggworth's greatest personal gift – that he noticed everything, could remember it exactly if he chose to, and looked as if he were paying no attention at all. Like the old wizard wandmaker Ollivander, he or his father remembered every cauldron they had ever sold, from the standard Number one Pewter of the academic first year, to the finest crystal or platinum used only for the most arcane solutions.

His memory for transactions, conversations, voices, and faces, made him invaluable both as a research alchemist and as a spy. The Ministry of Magic knew him as the first, but had no idea of his true identity as the second. His career as a spy had begun about 20 years ago, with the beginnings of the rise of the Dark Lord Voldemort.

His father, Jason Muggworth, had still been proprietor of the family enterprise then. Wilfred had just finished at Hogwart's and was quietly working his way into his father's role. Not that it was a huge adjustment, as he'd been there every summer and holiday anyway, barring the month each summer he spent in the country with his grandparents.

His paternal grandparents, Phineas and Penelope ("Penny") Muggworth had a farm in the north country where they raised many of the herbs and stocks needed to supply the Apothecary. Holidays with them were not so dull as they sounded, however, as their house elves and brownies were quite capable of seeing to the chores, and left the family free to travel widely searching out some of the rarest of reagents on the globe. In fact, the word "farm" was quite misleading and reference to the Muggworth homestead was more like a park, with various buildings dedicated to different climates and conditions. Magic maintained a tropical rainforest, a small desert island, and arctic tundra, all housed within half a kilometer from one another.

Trekking was the best with them, however. "The Grans", as Wilfred called them, would plan his trips with far more care than they ever let on to him, letting him think he'd just happened there as they made a routine supply run. Grandmother and her household elves delighted in preparing all his favorite foods and preserving the piping hot meals compressed in tiny preserving cubes about the size of a sugar lump. Each was coded with a number and letter that determined what day and meal of the day it was for – whether breakfast, dinner, tea, or supper – but with no clue as to its contents. It was Wilfred's task to release each cube at mealtime, so it was rather a Christmas Morning each time as he was surprised.

Wilfred reflected on his career and smiled to himself as he sat at his quiet table and thought back. In a rather odd way, it was the "Grans'" fault that he had become a spy. When he was little, their Treks had been fairly tame – Alpine herbs, jungle flowers or snake venom, strange fungi – remote locations enough for some sense of adventure, but no real danger. But as he grew into his teens, the adventures became a bit more real.

How many wizards, he wondered, chuckling, ever reflected on precisely how one acquires the ingredient "dragon's heart string"? Or dragon's claw, belly scale, blood or fang, for that matter? Now that, he recalled, was a memorable trip. Nowadays, with the Ministry regulating dragons so closely, some acquisitions were a bit easier, but not all components could be recovered from a cadaver. The tricky bit was not so much getting the component, as it was getting the component without harming the dragon. Well, actually, the really tricky bit was surviving getting the component without harming the dragon. Unharmed dragons, on the whole, tended to resent your getting most components at all. No… Wizards never ask "how?" They just ask "how much?", and then they complain when you tell them.

Yes, some Treks had been most memorable. And he sipped his tea, beginning to recall his most harrowing...