The Heart of the Alley
Summary: Knockturn Alley was never changing. Its black heart beat a steady rhythm. It was a forgotten, hideous corner that was just a small bump in the rug it had been swept under.
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A/N-Written for the wonderful Maria of Ravenclaw for her winning oneshot written for the Mix it Up Competition on HPFC! Well done, and I hope you enjoy!
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The haze was suffocating, a conqueror of worlds.
It filled every corner of the lonely alley, leaving nothing untouched, nothing bare.
It's people, the beggars, the loners, the damned, they wandered its streets like rats, always there, always hungry.
The grime of the street smeared on their cloaks, on their faces, marking them as the alley's possessions, unintentionally making them as the outcasts of their world.
Their world.
A forgotten, hideous corner that was just a small bump in the rug it had been swept under.
The alley in itself was a soul.
Not a literal one, of course, but it was still alive, in its own way.
A bitter, torn, broken soul.
Its streets were the veins, its buildings the bones; the structure.
Its black heart beat a steady rhythm.
The rhythm, like the haze, reached to every corner, every nook, every cranny.
The drums were the sounds of the people upon the street, the harmony the weedy shopkeeper's wheeze.
It was a living, breathing rhythm.
Sinister, but never changing.
But, of course, you say, everything changes.
That's what makes us humans ugly. We change, we grow, we drift apart. We are never, ever done changing.
Even when we've changed all we can in the outside, the inside is still changing. The livers start to shrivel, the heart begins to slow.
But it never changed.
The people changed, the buildings crumbled, but the soul and heart and veins…they lived on with the rhythm .
But, to have a real rhythm, of course, you must have silence and solitude.
There was no such thing as solitude in Knockturn Alley.
A wise man once said that silence is golden. That solitude is sometimes needed in times of pain and suffering.
But there, even if you thought you were alone, you weren't. The darkness holds many secrets in its shadows, and most played there, in the hidden passages, the corner of your eye.
Always keep watching.
Because there, you are never alone.
A/N – I feel like this is an odd place to stop, but can't think of anyway to keep going with it. Maria, I hoped you enjoyed it, and if you didn't, rag on me a while dear. I think I need it. Thank you for reading, and please leave a review :)