VI
Knockturn Alley
Before the Dark Lord's victory, January 1995
The mist around Knockturn Alley was always slightly putrid, despite the general shadowy quality that the Alley displayed at all hours of the day, it was particularly sinister during the early morning light.
Poor wizards who lost their last Knut playing cards were begging on the streets, drunks... stumbling over last night's trash, prostitutes finishing their nights business and heading home and most dangerous of all, mercenaries for hire at every corner... their sharp, beady eyes studying the passers-by with a calculating look in their eyes.
They all shared the same small stretch of road, wary eyes, hands clutching the precious few things they owned or were going to sell, close and of course their often-stolen wands held at the ready; in case someone was to attack them, or if they saw something worth stealing.
Knockturn Alley was in stark contrast to its mate across the wall, here there were no happy children holding their parents hands, begging for an ice-cream from Fortescue's or admiring the latest Firebolt at the window of Quality Quidditch Supplies. Just hags and elves pretending they weren't trying to lure some unsuspecting fool into giving up his riches.
Severus Snape fit right in, even the smell was familiar to him. After all Spinner's End hardly smelt like a garden of roses, his long black cloak was hooded, giving the distinct impression of a walking shroud moving on silent footsteps. The shop he was heading for was known well for its dark artefacts, in fact the Dark Lord himself had worked at Borgin and Burke's after finishing his schooling at Hogwarts.
A lifelong friendship had been forged; one based on the mutual desire for power and worship.
But today Severus was here to collect a very special delivery from Mr. Borgin, something that would help the Dark Lord's campaign in the most effective manner.
He took note of the merchandise displayed in Mr. Mulpepper's Apothecary window. Certain potions ingredients disallowed due to either the rarity of their origins, the inhumane way they were extracted or their protection under wizarding law were available here.
The potion that Snape was attempting was unheard of before and certainly rather inhumane; he would require some rare ingredients for it but first Borgin's where a very special package awaited him.
He pushed open the door, the bell atop it echoing eerily. There appeared to nobody in the shop, but Snape was well aware of how they operated and simply waited for the owners to appear; studying the curios on display with a bored expression on his face.
Much like the rest of the alley this shop was dark too, it's air smelled like sulphur and limestone; two important ingredients in dark magic. Shelf upon shelf held cursed keys, hoodoo bags, shrunken skulls from cannibal tribes in the sub-Saharan desert and other items to bring misfortune and false luck. Severus studied a money's paw with a scowl of disgust, choosing... wisely not to touch it.
"Ahh, Snape." came the rusty voice of Mr. Borgin from the shadowy back area of the shop, "Come to pick up the Master's specially requested item, have you?"
He simply nodded shortly, walking up to the charred counter. Borgin was the bogeyman mother's used to scare their children; his stooped back and gnarled hands added to his rather ominous countenance along with his wildly frazzled white hair and yellow tobacco stained teeth. Yet the blue eyes under his bushy eyebrow's remained as sharp and as wicked as ever.
He pulled out a large chest; oak wood with gold filigree. One would never know from studying the exterior what it held inside, precious, exotic cargo that Severus planned to turn into a lethal weapon. Borgin ran his hand over the surface, mumbling in Latin. The runes that had kept the chest locked airtight began to loosen, the mechanisms groaning... as if alive.
"These..." pointed Borgin, "are the most precious, the core of magic from ten rare creatures."
The chest opened to reveal a box, equally divided into ten little pockets and each one holding a glass container.
"The heart of a Chimera." Borgin held up the first glass vessel inside which lay a large, bright red heart... still pumping.
"The Essence of the Lethifold, captured in the Bolivia." the dark cloud within the glass pulsed ominously as if just waiting to escape, "It took two months and five wizard's deaths to capture it, make sure you keep it surrounded by a Patronus before trying to steal its magic."
"The pelt of the Hidebehind." he continued, holding up the next vessel.
"What use is that?" snapped Severus, "It's just like a Demiguise pelt, won't do anything other than provide invisibility."
"Tut-tut-tut." Said Borgin, wagging a raggedy nailed finger right under Snape's nose, "The Hidebehind eats human, Severus. Their magical core is unstable, that's why it isn't used as an invisibility cloak and you only need a small bit of the pelt. But then again, you never were any good during care of magical creatures were you."
Snape just scowled, "Get on with it, old man. Time is precious and you're wasting mine."
Borgin simply gave Snape is signature smile... one that still caused a shiver to go down his back.
"The eggs and shavings of a Horned Serpent." The eggs were bright red and the shaved horn black like coal, "taken without permission, they produce unstable magic, perfect for your little potion."
"The tail of the Manticore." He continued showing Snape the bright red scorpion tail that could only have been obtained after the death of the highly dangerous beast.
"Ah one of my most precious ones." Borgin crooned softly, cradling the next little bottle like a child... his gaze adoring, "The blood of the Nandu. You must know Severus, I expended considerable resources in obtaining this."
"The Dark Lord repays his followers richly, Borgin. There is no requirement for you to worry."
The old man simply chuckled, his blue eyes dancing with the flame of madness. "Money isn't what I'm after, young man."
Severus made an impatient noise, tired of the old man's dramatics.
"The heartstrings of the Quintaped." Borgin said, showing him the seventh bottle, "All the way from the Isle of Drear."
"The gall bladder of a Mountain Troll." He said, holding up the eighth, "The eyes of the Wampus Cat and the bones of the Erkling."
Severus took mental inventory; with these ten cores, the Basilisk fang, the Werewolf's saliva and frozen Acromantula eggs, his task was half done.
He drew out a bag of galleons to pay Borgin who took them with a small satisfied smile.
"Remember to tell Riddle... he owes me a favour now." said the old man with a wink before leaving Severus to collect the precious chest and disappearing into the back.
...
Stormhaven Castle
A week after Hermione Granger's capture
Hermione stood in the greenhouse or as Ma'ati liked to call it the Herbal and took stock of all that was growing inside.
The last week had been strange to say the least, she had given in under intense pressure from Theo Nott to be his 'assistant' as he like to refer to her. It hadn't been painful pressure... just annoying, the man was relentless!
She hadn't thought he had been serious about actually making her do anything but last week after her and Teddy's first outing she had returned to her dungeon room to find a pile of papers dumped on her bed as he promised, when she had asked the house-elf if she knew what it was.
Betty simply sighed and replied, "Master Theo gets a bit enthusiastic and forgets that not everyone is as interested in his research as he is."
But she had decided to take him up on his request, after all it was probably the best way to gather information. Blaise had yet to return and 'Ti, as she preferred to be called, was taciturn bordering on mute and the house-elves, there were four as Hermione discovered, working in castle were bound to keep their master's secrecy by oath.
It was strange place... Hermione was given freedom in certain parts of the house during the day, totally unsupervised because as she later discovered 'Ti slept during the day but the magic around the house was unbelievably strong. There was no chance for her to escape.
She wasn't even able to get within five feet of the boarder wall, but the magic was also strange... dark and wild like it wasn't really human.
Her bedroom in dungeon was a luxurious prison cell and once the sun set the wards around it prevented her from leaving until daylight, the castle and it's surroundings also emptied of all living creatures during the night; no crickets chirped, there were no sounds of small, nocturnal animals hunting for food... just an eerie silence pregnant with oppressive fear.
Theo as she would later discover while highly intelligent and empathetic was at the end of the day a Slytherin and no amount of sly manoeuvring on Hermione's part would entice him to revel his secrets.
There were other strange things going on that Hermione couldn't quite put her finger on... currents of strange, powerful magic in the castle, the repeated mention of an unnamed Master, something she only caught when one of the elves would accidently slip up and 'Ti's nightly patrols. She also wasn't allowed at the back of the castle though she had tried to sneak back there and had been thrown back with a powerful wall of enchantment.
Another big question of hers was Theo's research; his work after she had organized it into piles by date was on a blood-sickness... or so he thought, going through the wizarding population. Besides the science and the processes of his research which were both highly detailed, the information in his research about the participants was vague. They were simply classified into three categories M, P and L and they all seemed to have this disorder.
Her paranoia often led her to feel like she was being watched.
Luckily today she was doing one of her favourite tasks; tending to the herbal and collecting plants for Theo's research. It allowed her time to ponder her various questions and also often spend time with Teddy, which she wasn't doing today unfortunately but mostly got to do in the greenhouse. It was a little green escape from reality.
The greenhouse was thick with untended plants, Theo who grew them was simply too impatient to tend to them all by himself and one of the tasks he had assigned her besides inscribing his notes into legible, readable research theory was collecting whatever he needed from the magical garden that day.
The greenhouse was split into a few different sections; the front part contained the common magical plants that they had studied in Herbology; dittany, angelica root, mandrake, calendula, moly, wolfsbane etc...
The back end held rare plants, ones that she had learned Theo's father had brought back from his travels, rare orchids, comfrey, mugwort and pipeweed. They needed special care to keep alive in the cold Scottish climate. And finally, in the very end, in a cool, shaded corner were the poisonous plants; belladonna, hemlock, castor and snakeroot. That was the only area of the greenhouse Theo tended himself and had a barrier she couldn't breach, around.
As if they were scared, she'd poison them... she thought with amusement, not dismissing the idea completely.
It had been a shock to her to discover he had a green thumb and how little she actually knew about Herbology. Of-course she had read One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi, but Theo grew and crossbred so many varieties of magical plants for his research it was fairly mind-boggling.
She put her sheers down and wiped the sweat from her brow, the greenhouse was magicked to stay the temperature of a tropical rainforest and she was sweating in her jeans and thick jumper. She had more work, Theo had requested she bring some herbs with her to his laboratory in the North Tower.
She picked up her basket and headed to the door, from the outside like everything else on the grounds of the castle, the greenhouse looked delipidated, but the inside didn't reflect that reality it was just another little thing that bothered her, like this castle hid something.
Stormhaven was much smaller than Hogwarts, it had only taken her three days to figure out how to get around the castle. The East Wing was forbidden to her, guarded with the same inhuman magic she had experienced around the parameter of the house and the around the rear end of the castle.
She entered through the same door as the first day she had arrived and took the old servants stairs up to the North Tower.
Theo's laboratory encompassed the entire tower room and as she was making her way in, she could already hear his muttering, something she had had to get used to. He swore, laughed and berated himself... holding entire conversations with himself while she sat in the same room looking at him like he was a bona-fide lunatic, which she wasn't yet convinced he wasn't.
He didn't even look up from what he was doing as she walked in, muttering to himself as he worked furiously on something, his floppy brown hair falling over his eyes.
She sighed, he was intelligent... a genius if 'Ti was to be believed but the more practical aspects of his personality were sorely lacking... if the elves didn't bring him food, he didn't eat, she had caught him using a Scourgify more than once on his clothing and two days ago she had forcibly washed his hair when he had protested that he had been too busy to do it for the last week and a half.
...
"That is disgusting Theo!" Hermione screamed, "Ugh... please just go shower. If you want me share your workspace, I can't live with you looking so messy."
"Busy." He mumbled, blatantly ignoring her.
"How did your parents allow you to grow up like this?" she lamented, tugging on one skinny arm to push him towards the small bathroom on his floor.
"Huh, what'd do you mean, the elves just washed me when I was asleep." He said, turning to her and looking at her as if SHE was crazy for demanding he shower.
No, Hermione thought to herself... just breathe, don't yell at him... remember you need him to be your friend, she took a deep breath as if to ground herself before turning to him with a stern glare.
"Theodore Nott, you will shower immediately, the house-elves aren't supposed to help bathe a grown man."
"You can't make me."
"On that, sir... you are sorely mistaken."
...
She shuddered at that memory before pushing it aside. There was a fresh batch of notes on his desk, which he allowed her to use to work. He scribbled ideas and complicated equations onto anything he found and then just dumped them on the desk for her to write into the large leather-bound book containing all his research on the blood-sickness.
"Master Theo?" the house-elf Benny poked his head into the room, "There's an owl with a package waiting for you downstairs."
Theo lifted his head from whatever he was doing and nodded to Benny, "I'll be right down. Ah Granger... when did you get here?"
Hermione sniffed, piqued that he hadn't even bothered to notice her arrival and seated herself at his desk primly, "You know if you bothered to pay attention to anything, you'd have noticed I arrived five minutes ago."
She should have been more fearful about talking to him this way but in the past week she had discovered that nothing offended Theo, he had little patience's and even fewer social skills so he didn't care what one said to him and added to that he was like an uncoordinated puppy... hardly dangerous, except to himself.
She had watched him stumble over his own feet, trip over something invisible and burn his hand because he wasn't paying attention to his cigarette going out; all within the hour. He was hardly a threat to her.
Once he was gone, she began to organise his notes, wishing she had more clarity about what she was working on but was soon deeply focused on her task.
Hermione's annoying leg swinging habit from school was back in full force and it wasn't long before she banged it against the side of the desk. She bent to massage the bruise and spotted something unusual at the side of the desk.
A notch, barely visible and tiny. A secret compartment? She ran her hand over the wood, feeling to see if it was protected by magic and strangely enough, it wasn't.
She pushed her nail under it and pulled open a small drawer, hidden on the inside of the desk and all it contained was a ledger, much like the one she was working on now.
Was Theo conducting other research? She hadn't noticed in his notes, clearly this was a secret.
She looked at the door carefully, keep one ear open before flipping the diary open.
Data provided by subject shows that the potency of the potion was not exaggerated, found trace materials of many magical beasts within the first few days of taking his blood sample. His human body is finding it hard to contain the potency of so much raw magical power.
I fear he will not survive the weeks end.
That's all she could read.
Startled but thankful that Theo's large feet made enough sound to wake an army of the dead and she was warned of his presence quickly. She hastily slipped the dairy into the waistband of her jeans... deciding that anything hidden like this was worth risking a read off.
After all it wasn't like they were telling her the whole truth.
...
Glossary
Wampus Cat (XXXXX)- Somewhat resembling the mundane mountain lion or cougar in size and appearance, the Wampus Cat is native to the Appalachian Mountains. It can walk on its hind legs, outrun arrows, and its yellow eyes are reputed to have the power of both hypnosis and Legilimency. The Wampus cat is fast, strong, and almost impossible to kill.
The Cherokee have most extensively studied the Wampus Cat, with whom they share their native region, and only they have ever succeeded in procuring Wampus Cat hair for use as a wand core.
Mountain Troll(XXXX)- They are the largest breed, weighing over a tonne, and the most vicious kind of their species. They are often bald beasts with thick, dark grey skin. They sometimes use Graphorns as mounts, which results in them being scared due to Graphorns heavily disliking such travel.
Erkling (XXXX)- Their high pitch cackles were particularly entrancing to children, and they used this to lure them away from their guardians to eat them. These creatures also enjoyed shooting darts at unsuspecting victims. Originating from the Black Forest in Germany, the difference between this creature and many others was that they can speak Human-language.
Strict control by the German Ministry of Magic, beginning in the centuries preceding 1991, had greatly reduced the number of Erkling attacks.
Quintaped (XXXXX)- The Quintaped, also known as the Hairy MacBoon, was a dangerous magical beast with five legs, each ending in a clubfoot, and was covered with thick, red-brown hair.
Hidebehind (XXXX)- The Hidebehind is a nocturnal, forest-dwelling spectre-like beast that preys on humanoid creatures. It can shift its shape, allowing it to hide behind almost any object. This hybrid is an accidentally created species. Although it has the power of Invisibility, those who have seen it describe it as tall with silver-hair, akin to a skinny bear. It can also contort itself to lurk behind any object.
Its prey of choice is humans, which Magizoologists speculate is the result of the cruelty shown by Phineas Fletcher to the creatures in his power. Only a witch or wizard would be likely to survive an attack by these creatures.
The Horned Snake (XXXXX)- The Horned Serpent was a magical snake found in several regions of the world, but was most common in North America.
Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry founder Isolt Sayre befriended one of these serpents and named one of the four school houses after it.
Chimera (XXXXX)- The Chimaera was a vicious, bloodthirsty beast with a lion's head, a goat's body and a dragon's tail.
Manticore (XXXXX)- A Manticore had a the head of a human, the body of a lion, and the tail of a scorpion that will kill anyone instantly. A Manticore's skin repelled all known charms, so it was extremely difficult to subdue a Manticore with magic. It was known to be capable of human speech and was considered a sentient beast. The Manticore sang softly as it ate its prey.
Basilisk (XXXXX)- The Basilisk is a giant serpent, also known as the King of Serpents. It is a magical beast that is bred by Dark Wizards. Herpo the Foul was the first to breed a Basilisk; he accomplished this by hatching a chicken egg beneath a toad which resulted in the creature known as a Basilisk. Basilisk breeding was banned in Medieval times. The practise can be hidden when the Department for Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures comes to check by simply removing the egg from the toad.
Looking a Basilisk directly in the eye will immediately kill the victim, but indirect look will merely render them Petrified. It is also the mortal enemy of spiders, who can intuitively sense them and flee whenever they do.
Acromantula (XXXXX)- An Acromantula was a giant magical species of spider, native to the rainforests of Southeast Asia, particularly Borneo where it inhabited dense jungles. Acromantulas were believed to be a wizard-bred species, designed to guard dwellings or treasure hoards, and were first created before the Ban on Experimental Breeding in 1965. These giant spiders with a taste for human flesh were first spotted in 1794.
(From Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them)
A/N- Full Dramione next chapter, leave a review if you enjoyed the story. I might be increasing the chapters, this story seems to have gotten much larger in plot than I ever intended it to lol.
