I woke up the next morning before Lissa, got dressed and went downstairs. To my surprise, Scabe was already awake and in the kitchen making himself some coffee. He had baggy tartan pyjamas on and, despite the cold winters morning, no shirt, a fact that I tried to ignore as he spoke to me.
"You still up for a proper tour of the Alley?" he asked, leaning against the counter, arms crossed over his (rather buff) chest, watching me make myself some tea (it was rather unsettling). I nodded. "Good. I'll get dressed and then we can go."
"What about Lissa?"
"Sky's still asleep too and Anna's coming over later, she'll be fine," he replied and then off he went to get dressed, taking his coffee with him and leaving me with little butterflies in my stomach.
When Scabe was ready to go, he apparated us to a quiet little park I knew was near Diagon Alley. We stopped in a shop and he bought us some pastries for breakfast and then we took a route I was very familiar with through the Leaky Cauldron and into Diagon Alley. We zig-zagged through the bustling people and eventually cut off into Knockturn Alley which was much quieter.
"That's the place Ian works," Scabe said, nodding to the tattoo parlour as we walked by. As we meandered down the dark alleyway he told me about each shop we came across and sometimes had little stories about the owners. When we reached a shop called Borgin and Burke's he took me inside to introduce me to the owner, a small, greasy old man who grasped my hand a little too enthusiastically. When we left, Scabe said: "'e's a slimy git, Borgin, but pay 'im enough and 'e'll do just about anything for you, which can come in 'andy."
The further down the Alley we went, the more normal the shops became as we reached a part where smaller alleyways that lead to people's houses split off the main. A little further down was the market and a little way down past that Scabe pointed out an unusual set of steps that led to nowhere carved into the wall.
"Me and Sky used to come and sit here all the time.. still do if we have nothing better to do." He climbed onto the steps and pulled me up after him to look over the wall. On the other side was what looked like a little square garden that had completely overgrown and was now covered in weeds. It was surrounded by walls on all sides. "Used to be a rose garden," Scabe said, jumping back down and continuing walking.
This side of the Alley was completely empty and there didn't seem to be any shops or anything but we kept walking. To tell the truth, I started to get a little bit scared as the Alley seemed to get even darker though it was the middle of the day. Eventually we came to a dead end. I stared in horrified fascination at this final wall of the Alley. It was entirely made up of skulls and other bones.
"Are they...?" I had a terrible urge to reach out and touch the wall.
"Real? Yeah.. The wall's made up of the bones of criminals. Sort of a statement, I suppose. It was originally put here by the Ministry, way, way back in the day, as a way to tell people if you do bad things, this is what it'll do to you.. Or summink like that. Anyway, it sort of backfired on them cos the people who lived and worked down here, the real criminals, took it on themselves to add to the wall any time any of them died, it became a real honour, something people wanted, to be part of the wall, part of the Alley, after they died. And then," I flinched as Scabe pricked himself on one of the sharper bones that jutted out and smeared his blood on one of the skulls, "they turned the wall into a gate." I watched as the wall, like the wall that led into Diagon Alley, shifted and folded back on itself to form a little archway. On the other side, a dog with two heads with piggish snouts and ferocious teeth, snapped and barked at us, pulling on the chain it was tied to. "Hush!" Scabe shouted back at it, throwing it the end of his pastry. "Dog's alright, sometimes," Scabe said, rolling his eyes as he looked back at the beast and it wagged its tail at him.
The Alley led us down a steep (and very long) flight of steps that went underground. As we descended, Scabe told me more: "So this part of the Alley is as old as London town itself. When the muggles built their port, the wizards built this place where their ships could dock."
"Underground?" I asked skeptically.
"Mm.. Gave them more room and it was easier to link up directly with Diagon Alley."
"But.. How did-?"
"The boats? Not hard to make a boat sail underwater, love, when you have magic." We reached the end of the steps which opened out onto a strip of water big enough to hold about four fullsized sailing ships. Some small boats were docked there now. It was like an oversized sewer, the air was damp and it smelled like seaweed. "There are storerooms down there and.. Well there should be port guards. 'ang on," Scabe said, pointing to the left. "Oi! Saul!" he shouted. We heard a crash coming from the storerooms and then out stumbled a tall man wearing a long coat and a fisherman's hat, doing up his belt in the process. He jogged up to us.
"Ah, Scabe! Wasn't expecting you! Heh..heh.." Scabe did not seem amused as he dodged a pat on the arm.
"Just showing Ricki here around." Saul's bearded face smiled at me and he waved. "Hey, Saul," Scabe said, getting Saul to stop staring at me.
"Yes, Scabe!"
"Get back to work."
"Ah, yes, indeed." And off he jogged back to the storerooms, waving goodbye at me. Again it struck me how easily Scabe managed to boss people around who could easily be twice his age, and they listened to him. He led me down to the right then and we came across a cluster of empty dungeon-like rooms. Here we stopped and sat down on a pair of barrels and Scabe continued with his history lesson (we certainly didn't learn all this in History of Magic in school!).
"So this place was really successful as a port until it started to get raided by pirates- yes wizards have pirates too- and they started to take over this whole Alley and it was decided that this place couldn't be used to supply Diagon Alley or anywhere else anymore. That's when Knockturn Alley started to become what it is today. I think when they put up that wall they thought it would stop people using this port, but obviously it didn't." Scabe paused for a second and looked at me with a frown, as if deciding whether he should continue.
"How come you're sort of in charge around here?" I asked and he smiled a little.
"Well I'll get to that. You see, eh.. In the.. Criminal, ahem, world.. Well, naturally there's a hierarchy. You can see it in the muggle world, you know like the mafia and stuff?" I nodded and he went on. "Well it's the same here.. All over the world, anywhere there's a magical community, more often than not they have their own version of a Knockturn Alley. And in these Knockturn Allies all over the world, well they all have someone who's in charge and runs the place and then they have their people and yeah.. So then between all of these people who, I guess, lead their own little communities, they themselves have a hierarchy, someone who's more powerful than all the others. It's very.. Political.. Anyway, then you have the other guys, mainly powerful dark wizards like You-Know-Who who may or may not be part of the Knockturn Alley of wherever they're from, but they rise up and take over everyone." We both sat quietly for a minute.
"So you.. You're.. Where do you fit in?"
"Well when I was younger, my uncle, before he turned into a sloppy alcoholic," Scabe's knuckles went white, I didn't expect him to start talking about this, "he was pretty well respected around here anyway, before he became a drunken arse, and then he started to bring me around here, people expected a lot of me. So as I was growing up it was easy for me to get jobs because of that. I travelled a lot with people through this port, I won a lot of card games and I always won any fight that I got in. Built up people's respect for me. I don't know. My uncle was actually in charge around here at one point, before he the pressure got to him and he started messing things up. After that nobody really took charge so it was sort of up for grabs and when my uncle died everyone just naturally turned to me."
"Even though you're so young?" Scabe let out a little laugh, not a happy one.
"Age doesn't matter around here." And with that he led me back out of the dungeons and the port, back up the mountain of stairs, past the dog with two heads, through the wall of bones and back to the market. He introduced me to everyone at the market and showed me The Club.
"And that's pretty much it," he said, leading me back out of the purple doors after introducing me to some of the burlesque dancers that were practicing inside. As we headed towards the pub with the idea of meeting Sky and the others to get lunch, Scabe was pulled aside by one of the people from the market. "You go ahead," he said, "I'll just be a minute."
As I walked towards the pub I was suddenly pushed against on of the pillars that held up the balcony, two hands held me there.
"And who do we have here? A new, young face.." A tall man, covered in hair who could only be a werewolf moved in closer to me, pushing his large body against mine and sniffing my neck."
"Greyback!" I heard Scabior roar from behind the wolfish man. He turned to sneer at Scabe, still pressing me to the pillar with a hand on my chest.
"Is this your new whore, Scabior? They're getting younger each day," he laughed. "I like that."
"Get your paws off her, Fen."
"It's ok, Scabe," I said calmly. I had heard stories about the monstrous Fenrir Greyback from my mother being an Auror and from other kids at Hogwarts. When Lissa and I were younger we found out that our parents' friend Remus Lupin had been turned into a werewolf by none other than Greyback, something they didn't plan on telling us til we were much older. I should have been terrified, the stories did scare me, but now that the man himself was practically on top of me, I was remarkably unafraid.
"Ah, Scabior, your whore likes me better," Greyback snorted, stroking my cheek with a claw.
"I'm not scared of you, you know," I said. Greyback stopped and came very close to my face, baring his pointed teeth.
"You should be, my dear." I just shrugged my shoulders and smiled. That is when my knee went between his legs, he let go of me with a curse, and I strutted off towards the pub again. I could tell there was a stunned silence behind me, people had stopped to watch what the wolf would do to the new girl.
"Not so sure about that, Fen," I could hear the smirk in Scabe's voice as he followed me. To my surprise, Greyback didn't run after me and kill me right there and then.
"I'll be seeing you around then, little girl," was all he called after us.
Author's note: Thanks to those who reviewed, keep them coming, they're what spur me on! I know Ricki is very young here, I had a bit of an issue with that when I started to think of this story, but I stuck with it because it is what makes all that happens next happen, and when I thought about it, I actually know people who started to drink and have sex etc when they were the same age as Rick. Thanks again and hope you enjoy :)