The Pureblood Prince
35
By Any Other Name
The Vipera Veneficus had a reputation for being the best Wizard's Clubs in all of Britain; at least it did nowadays since its renovation. After it has changed its name.
Located in a particularly seedy little corner of Knockturn Alley - it once drew all kinds of wizard-folk to its doors; poor, rich, drunkards, the most violent criminals who had so far managed to avoid Azkaban, fugitives and aristocrats… it did not matter. The dancing witches made no more than the barmaids next door and had to constantly look over their shoulders. After one of the witches was found dead just outside the backdoor, the manager decided it was time for a change.
And thus, Vipera was born. The entire street was cleaned of its homeless deviants and stray animals and painted jet-black with thousands of tiny flickering fairies lined up against the entrance (imprisoned against their will with rope tied around their delicate ankles... this was before the DWAWFTPOFAOHMC – Disgruntled Witches and Wizards for the Protection of Fairies and Other Humanoid Magical Creatures). Anyone with less than twenty Galleons to spare and no reputable references was turned away, and they soon began to earn enough revenue to hire Magical Law Enforcement officers to patrol the back alleys on the busier nights. The dancers were the richest in the country, and the rich and prosperous came from all around the watch them, and to meet with them.
It was during this time that an aspiring twenty-three year-old Sarah Padget turned up at its doors and began to enslave the entire affluent wizarding population. Years later she would take her place on a panel of the British wizarding worlds most powerful men and women - this night, as she had been for the past three years, she was dressed in red lingerie and straddling an official looking middle aged wizards lap, whirling a glass of elf-made wine around in her left hand.
"I had hoped you would be here tonight," the wizard whispered into her ear. "I've been carrying this around in my pocket for half the week now…"
Sarah gazed curiously, and cautiously, downward from her position behind his ear. She had been told that before and it had ended up with the patron's extraction from the establishment. Fortunately this time, the wizard pulled out a clinking velvet bag of what was obviously Galleons – well… they had definitely better not have been sickles and knuts. She smiled. Obviously not a man of breeding. She burned him from her list of prospects.
"My, my, what a lucky girl am I" Sarah quipped softly into his ear, she raised one of her legs from its crossed position and wrapped them around his waist for just a split torturous second before she pushed herself harshly up from him.
"Where are you going?" he asked, eyebrows raised in wild shock.
Sarah snapped around from her quick exit. To leave you to the cheap girls, my dear.
"Home," she said instead. "Time has gotten away from me. Au revoir, for now."
"… er…"
She made to turn back and continue her departure, but not before she made the quick decision to strut back to him and snatch the moneybag out of his hands with a saccharine smirk. If he was going to waste her entire night for a measly pittance she might as well take it.
"See you tomorrow?!" he called loudly over the jazz music that played around the half-naked bodies that surrounded them. Serafina waved him away behind her back and stomped beyond the velvet black curtains into the back.
"That one over there is giving it away," she told one of the other girls as she passed.
"By the way, Sarah, he's here" the girl replied with a grin, obviously repaying Sarah's favour of pointing her in the direction of a man with more money than sense. The girl gestured toward the back and Sarah glanced over her shoulder to see her ultimate forthcoming possession. She knew nothing about him apart from his name… and his name was enough. He had just entered the establishment, along with several other wizards pushing fifty and looking very official. They weren't sat up the front whooping and gawking like the others – they merely sat in the shadows, drank and talked. All worthy possessions, but only one was pure.
She hoped they wouldn't have moved on to better things by the time she had managed to powder her nose. Sarah's stare lingered for a while (to make sure he had settled down nicely) before she rushed into the bathroom. She set about correcting the hitches associated with dancing in a hot club full of hot bodies and added an extra layer of plum lipstick for good measure. After she was completely satisfied that she was indeed the top picking in the building tonight, she left the bathroom and made her way back toward the public, and to him.
"Enjoying your break?" one of the more malicious girls quipped to her from the shadows as she passed. Sarah pulled out a cigarette from a coat pocket that was hanging on a rack and lit it with her wand, which she pulled from her garter.
"I don't have to work as hard as you to pull money, darling" she spat back as she glided past on much higher ground. She looked back to give a freezing cold smirk but the pink-haired dancers eyes were no longer focused on her, they were perched somewhere over her shoulder. Sarah frowned, mid puff of the tobacco, and turned back just in time to be grabbed harshly by the wrists by a blurry vapor.
"What the-"
"Hello, sweetheart. Thought I'd just pay you a visit."
"Billy... how did you-"
"You can't be so stupid to believe that I wouldn't be on your case since you started working away every night and coming back every morning stinking of booze and fags and with piles of this ridiculous magic money spilling out of your pockets! Followed you here, didn't I? Shouldn't have let me in on all your little witch secrets now should you?"
Sarah didn't wait. There was an explosion of scorching ash as she spat out her cigarette; the man stumbled back, wailing and clutching at his eyes. "YOU – YOU –"
The pink haired girl, the only other being in the hall at that time, began to scream as the man caught himself from tumbling and launched himself at Sarah – shoving her into the wall.
"HELP!" the girl shrieked, pulling out her wand and sending a weak jet of red light tumbling toward the attacker before she turned to run away. The sparks merely scorched the hairs on the back of his head as he continued to spit insults into shrinking Sarah. It managed to break his attentions for a split second, however, and he turned to her to see her running down the corridor.
"I'LL SHOW YOU HOW REAL PEOPLE DO DAMAGE, SWEETHEART!"
Billy reached into his pocket, but before he could pull out the weapon that his threats pertained to, Sarah used his break in concentration to pull out her own weapon.
"OBLIVIATE!"
The running dancer fell to the ground with a thump before Billy could blink.
"Wha…" he mumbled and turned slowly to face her. "I think you missed, lovely."
But he was faced with the pointed end of a wand straight between his eyes.
"OBLIVIATE!" came the furious scream. He dropped in the very same fashion that the other unconscious party in the room did. But Sarah didn't just stop with the one this time.
"OBLIVIATE! OBLIVIATE! OBLIVIATE!" came the uncompromising screams of the now psychotic witch. "OBLIVATE!" The body twitched and contorted in front of her at the blue streams continued to slither their way around Billy's synapses.
"CRUCIO, you wretched son of a bitch!" the twitching then coupled with a face twisted with agony. She hoped he was suffering the worst kind of hell in his slumber. In the Muggle world she was a stranger, and he had once taken that to its full advantage… she only thought it fair that she return the favour when he so willingly had wandered into her world, her territory. "OBLIVATE! CRUCIO!"
"Woah, woah, woah!" a voice echoed down the corridor. Sarah slid down onto the floor with her arms wrapped around her face, saturated with tears. A middle aged man in an antique suit ran down toward the three traumatized bodies, were he slid and crouched next to the only one he could get answered from. "What the FUCK happened here?! S?"
Sarah looked up to see her manager glaring down above her, her eye make-up stained her cheeks inky black.
"Him," she croaked out. "It was him. He broke through that window…" Sarah gestured toward the other end of the passageway. "He attacked the both of us, Juven… he pulled out a gun. I… had to…"
"Gun?"
"A Muggle weapon… their version of Avada Kedavra…"
"Muggle?! How the fuck did a Muggle break their way into Knockturn Alley?! Could have been Half-Blood I s'pose but still!"
Juven stared at his employee, begging for more answers but none came. She had explained all she could. Her head dropped back between her knees and her back began to jolt rhythmically.
More footsteps radiated around her and panicked conversations echoed above her head but Sarah did not listen to them; she merely glared at the comatose monster from the top of her knees.
As the drowsy pink haired girl began to come to, she was quickly escorted away by the crowd of dancers and bar staff as to avoid any trauma caused the confusion of waking up to such a scene. And so for a few minutes, Sarah found herself alone with the still lifeless body of Billy Padget. She got up and with every ounce of strength left in her bruised, sore body she lifted her right leg up to the bottom of her breast and stamped straight down into his face; she could hear cartilage snap and it made her smile.
"I was going to tell you earlier, darling, but I want a divorce."
She remained standing as the Healers arrived and carted him off, followed very closely by three Magical Law Enforcement officers… to where she did not know, and what was going to happen to him remained, for now, a mystery - but she did not care. She knew the law would come for her eventually, and when they did she would be ready; but for now all she wanted to do was leave this place, her past, everything, for good.
She coolly pulled out another cigarette (as Billy had been so inconsiderate as to waste her first with his face), lit it up, closed her eyes and took one long drag before grabbing her coat off from the hanger and tying it around her body… a body she vowed would be the pleasure epicentre and pride and joy of a wizard, and not a common Muggle brute, from now on.
As she exited through one of the side doors, she made a side glance to ensure that she was not being followed by any official (or any patron) and flicked her still smoking cigarette onto the floor before the shutting the door upon it.
The dark dingy alleyways of Knockturn Alley was where the weak, naïve and insecure Sarah perished, exactly where she belonged.
Serafina had been freed.