October 11, 1997

There was something to be said for how quiet the streets of Diagon Alley were. They were empty and there was a distinct lack of noise from even the No-Maj streets beyond the alley, as if the corruption within the magical world had affected the world beyond it in an unspoken manner, as if the suffering was leaking outwards in a manner not dissimilar to a dementor.

"Stay close!" Tavish said in a whisper as he closed the door to the Leaky Cauldron behind him. "I mean it. No wanderin' off. And keep yer wand in yer hand."

"Yes sir!" I gave a mock bow as my mouth pulled back in a stage show smile and my tongue formed around an accent that was not my own. "You can call me, Annie Briggs, the herbalist!"

Tavish raised an eyebrow, looking both horrified and offended. "Dun talk ta anyone."

Was it that bad? I thought it was quite good.

Tavish tapped the bricks rhythmically while I pondered where I had gone wrong with my accent.

I had asked to go with Tavish to collect supplies for the house while he checked on some rumor he heard, Lucinda did not know about this and I wanted to keep it that way. Besides, I had been restless and needed specific supplies for what I was planning to do with regards to the Department of Mysteries issue.

I was going to make a Polyjuice Potion.

While I worked on gaining trust in the lower sections of the Administrative Department, I was going to make a Polyjuice Potion that would, hopefully, be ready for the right opportunity to go down into this mysterious department. I needed the right target, someone who would not be regarded as suspicious but who could do menial tasks without being noticed. Also, with the cold season on the way, I could find an excuse to do very little talking, despite what I was told was a far less obnoxious American accent.

A Polyjuice Potion seemed more ethical than the option I had found in the Graves Family Grimoire, despite the longer time the potion would take. The grimoire contained a potion made of grave dirt that required dirt from the grave of an ancestor. This was something one of my ancestors had reportedly developed. I had elected not to think about the how's, why's or any of the other question words on the subject but I had read the topic with a morbid fascination.

To craft this potion, I required dirt from the grave of a direct ancestor, with the permission of the deceased.

Seven drops of my own blood.

The blessing of the graveyard Grimm.

Among a collection of more common ingredients that I knew I had in my own storage.

I had been reading this list to Tinsy as we were cleaning up after a charms lesson in disbelief, seeking the slightly deluded sense of the only other living being in the house who understood the peculiarities of Americans, their magic and the essential oddities of the Graves family.

"Audrey Graves should not use Dark Magic!" Was Tinsy's quick response, her voice unusually serious. "Bad road! Misfortune!" She shuddered, the blouse I had given her almost three years ago swishing around her knees as she turned to face me in a whirl of rage and terror too great from her tiny frame. "The Graves are cursed for keeping such things!"

There was this inclination inside of me to agree with Tinsy's assessment, but I could use this potion in half of the time it would take to make a Polyjuice Potion.

"If it was dark magic I'm not sure we would have kept it." I repaired a vase that an enthusiastic Gavin had broken with a levitation charm that had gone slightly off the mark. "Though, I don't really think we were very picky about what we kept from the raids or personal creations."

I reached up to fix a painting my grandfather Callum had been watching the charms class from, trying to point and give direction despite his silence. Callum was now looking at me and glancing at the book with a furrowed brow, strands of his red hair falling over his forehead as he pointed at it.

"Yes, your daughter married into a family of dark wizard hunters. It did make them very strange."

Callum rolled his eyes.

"Really, who would have the time to experiment like this?"

The creaking of the floor made me turn back to Tinsy, who was twisting the end of her blouse dress in her long fingers as she rocked back and forth.

"Don't worry, Tinsy," I laughed slightly, "I know none of my ancestors who became ghosts on this side of the pond or the other. Really, it was just a hypothetical idea."

Her large eyes peered at me with a level of unusual scrutiny, "Just like Master Alex."

Callum continued to point and gesture to the book and himself in turn as I placed it on a nearby table. I assumed he wanted the thing out of the house as soon as possible, which was a reasonable request to make as he fixed me with a hard, probing, stare.

I returned to the present as I stumbled over a cobblestone that was jutting outward for the aimless and easily distracted. Tavish grabbed my arm to steady me and I truly took in Diagon Alley for the first time since early summer.

These were empty streets. Windows were boarded up and even by the light of midday it left me unsettled. This was supposed to be the bustling shopping hub of wizarding London? A row of closed shops and people hiding in the shadows of the slim alleyways between blocks of buildings, wrapped in blankets and old newspaper to chase away the chill while people in nice clothes picked up items from the few open shops, which were day-to-day items like robes, apothecaries and needed things for wizards. Wait… These were shops who were expensive and catered to wealthy purebloods. These closed shops were their competition and sold at lower prices… The pro-pureblood laws had eliminated market competition and monopolized the local market. This was dystopian.

"Lots a shopkeeps 'ave been run off for their dirty blood." Tavish said softly as we stopped in front of Gringotts. "Da lucky ones have a home outside da alley, unattached ta da shop."

"Gringotts seems unchanged at least."

"Yeh, accountants never lose their jobs."

I almost mentioned Misty, but that was still a raw sort of wound.

A ragged wizard was tossed from the steps of the bank, missing Tavish and I by a few feet before he got back up and tried to climb the stairs again.

"I earned that money!" He shouted as a wizard guard stepped out the door and threw him further down the street. "Please! I have a child!"

"No wand, no papers, you have nothing!" The guard snapped as he returned inside and left the man weeping in the street.

"C'mon," Tavish led me away and I adjusted my cloak nervously.

"But that man-"

"I'll see what we can do later."

The two of us had a discussion before setting out, when I had begged and pleaded to be allowed to go with him. First, that Lucinda would never know about this. Second, Percy would never find out about this either. Third, I was to leave Tavish behind if anything happened. Which I privately elected to ignore as a condition unless he was dead and beyond my help.

I was not a monster.

The silence was the thing that bothered me the most. It was oppressive, broken only by the voices of those who still had the strength to try and ask us for help. Twisting my stomach in sympathetic pangs of sadness and longing to throw away money I needed myself. I had grown up in the cities of New York and was accustomed to beggars and the displaced, but this was different for the sheer vast reach of government policy that had left these people with nothing overnight for having nonmagical ancestry.

"Dun go through life thinkin' ya can save da world."

"The world is beyond my help." My voice was low as we turned a corner between two shops into the descending black mouth of Knockturn Alley. Which was still dark and damp, even in the light of day, as the cobblestones seemed to retain the water from the morning rain and I carefully placed my feet as we walked. "Individuals don't bring change, they need a group behind them and long term planning."

I sounded like Jack, but he was right on more than a few occasions.

Knockturn Alley seemed both worse than Diagon Alley and more lively for it. There was a shop with a window full of screaming books, a shop a few feet away with eclectic antiques that were most likely cursed with a stall of shrunken heads sitting on a stall outside the door who bounced and chatted at passersby. A few in the back bouncing contentedly as they peered over their fellows, their eyes on me as we walked past.

"Those are Spell Seekers," I muttered to Tavish. "They're enchanted to see through magical disguises and enchantments." Like those spells on my enchanted cloak that made me look like my cousin Audrina. While the world saw her, the Spell Seekers could see I was wearing a disguise. If I tried to enter the shop, they would set off an alarm for the owner in a chorus of screams, the screams ripping apart my spells like a knife through cloth.

"Aye, nasty things."

But they could not see through Polyjuice Potion, my enchantments were an illusion. The Polyjuice Potion would alter a person in a far more complex way that could get past the detections of a Spell Seeker.

The Department of Mysteries would be very well guarded in a multitude of ways.

I would have to prepare for multiple threats.

Tavish and I pushed our way through the groups crowding the narrow side alleys with no murmurs of apology, only quick nods to look like we belonged here and were also nefarious. I did my best to not wrinkle my nose at the smell and risked a glance towards the entrance to the Undercroft that I had visited with Thalia… how long ago had that been? A year? Maybe a bit less than that? It felt so much more like years. How easily the passage of time came over a person even in a fairly dull sort of life.

Tavish looked comfortable here, he knew exactly where to go and was walking down the alley with a confidence that told me how he spent his time away. We walked past a hag sitting on her doorstep chewing a piece of raw meat as she watched the world go by. I winced at both the smell and the sight of hard faced Snatchers grinning as they discussed their latest raid loudly to remind people they were dangerous in a display of bullying braggadocio that set my teeth on edge as I ran my fingers over the mother of pearl inlay on my wand handle.

There was a turn down a side alley and the men disappeared from sight, their voices being sucked up by the tall gloomy buildings before I did something stupid.

We stopped in front of a dark little shop (which seemed to be the flavor of the overall alley), that was covered in climbing vines and had a white vapor coming out of open windows where I could smell the distinctive aromas of an active potions shop.

"Try 'ere," Tavish said quietly as he glanced up and down the empty side alley. "I'll wait fer ya outside."

I nodded and opened the green shop door, mistaking for a moment it was also covered in vines before grabbing back a hold on my good sense. That would be ridiculous, even for this part of wizarding London.

I paused as the bell rang above me to signal the arrival of a customer. I spared a moment to look at the white sage, letting the small flow through my nose. It reminded me of my summer vacations to New Orleans to visit Uncle John and his family as a child. It smelled like Aunt Araminta's shop, would probably be more accurate, herbal with a prominent smell of sage of various kinds, some mint, and a soft smell of freshly turned earth and woodsy musk that was carried back from her shop and filled the house.

I breathed deeply, taking it all in, letting the familiarity wrap me in a warm blanket of memories before my gaze found the shopkeeper. A very old woman who was hunched over as if she were a question mark at the end of a sentence.

"Hello," I did my best impression of Percy's careful enunciation, not skipping my vowels and slowing my speech slightly from the New York general accent.

The old witch raised an eyebrow. "Merlin's beard! That was insultingly close."

I paused. Morganna's tits! I thought I had it too.

The shopkeeper rolled her eyes, "I know who you are. Does that mean Tavish is outside like a good guard dog?"

Wait, they knew each other?

"Um…"

"He's been scared of me for years. Since I made a poison that killed his herbology project when we were in school." She shrugged and raised her voice slightly. "I told him it was an accident."

There was a huff from one of the open windows.

"Sure, it killed the soil for three years, but it was mostly fine after that."

There was another huff from the open window and I was beginning to feel a bit afraid of this woman myself.

"Now," she turned her attention back to me with a smile that chilled my plant loving heart. "Tavish told me you have a request, but he was a bit vague on the details."

"Oh, yes!" I glanced around the room, taking in the combination of plants and other potion ingredients along with more common stock of various parts from magical creatures. I barely managed not to gag at the piece of Horned Serpent skin on the wall. I did not want to think about how she got that in her possession. "Do you have any of these for sale?"

I pulled the list of ingredients out of my pocket and gave it to the shopkeeper. Her sharp eyes scanning the list with a tightlipped frown.

"These are for a Polyjuice Potion. No, I'm not asking, I'm a potions master, I know these things." She looked at the list and shook her head. "Can't supply it- half-done or otherwise."

"What?"

The witch shrugged, "The Ministry or Death Eaters, I can't tell the difference anymore, came and confiscated it last month. Said they needed it for something, but they don't, they just don't want anyone to make it unsanctioned."

"That would be understandable."

I sighed heavily. I really needed a new career path when this political mess was cleaned up.

"Now, I know there are other ways to make similar potions in other parts of the world, but I don't know anything about those."

I maintained a neutral expression while my stomach churned in horror. I had something of that ilk in my hands and no way to use it. I was far from America and the Graves family were generally recalcitrant to return as ghosts, when cremation came into fashion it became preferred so there would continue to be space in the family graveyard.

"I do wish I could be of more help," she ambled slightly towards the window right behind Tavish, her footsteps quiet as the hem of her robes brushed against a vine plant that I was unfamiliar with that reached out to brush the buckles of her shoes. "But I am a poisoner!"

Tavish sprung forward with a muffled curse. "Dammit Mildred!"

The old woman laughed loudly before turning back to me.

"Best of luck dearie, don't get murdered in the meantime."

"I'll do my best, thank you ma'am."

I left the shop as suddenly as I had arrived, but slightly more depressed in the results of my secretive endeavors as Tavish led me back out of the small side alley we had found ourselves in. This part of the Knockturn Alley was a maze, meant only for people who had dark intentions or local connections.

We made it back to the main part of the alley, Tavish looking up and down the street, commenting on how empty it was compared to earlier.

He was right, it was empty. We had only been back in the side alley for maybe half an hour and the street had virtually cleared out in that short span of time.

"C'mon, let's get outta 'ere."

I nodded and stayed close to Tavish as we moved upwards through the dark, twisting path out of Knockturn Alley. My hand was resting on my wand and the hair on the back of my neck stood up as I glanced around, trying not to appear outwardly concerned and holding onto the idea of belonging to this dark, shady little community as I could manage.

As we arrived closer to the entrance there was noise up ahead, echoing off the building walls. The sounds of voices raised in violence and threat, an effort to scare before violence began. The air was thick with something preemptive that made everything seem prickly, causing a tight sense of anxiety in my chest as I continued to follow Tavish in the direction of the exit and the voices.

Tavish slowed in front of me, resting his hand on his wand as the Diagon Alley came into view just beyond the voices. There were two men we could see, average in height and dressed in worn coats. There was something predatory and domineering in the way they stood over someone small and mostly hidden by their overly large coats. I moved next to Tavish for a better look.

"C'mon old man," the man shoved the frail old man who gave a surprised cry as he hit the wall behind him with an audible thud, dropping his staff with a clatter to the stone below as he slid to the ground. "Where's yer papers?"

I felt Tavish tense next to me, I glanced over to see his shoulders hunch as he tightened his grip on his wand as his eyes moved to size up these aggressive punks. My wand whistled quietly, telling me to be on my guard. I adjusted my hood. We were not going to get past the men harassing the old man at the mouth of the alley without trouble.

Tavish seemed to understand this as well as I did. His voice was a harsh whisper, "Ya go, I'll handle this."

He stepped forward as I moved against the nearby wall, sheltering slightly next to a stall display of shrunken heads next to a shop door who were whispering in a low rumble about the disguising enchantment on my person.

"'hat's not very nice,'' Tavish stated in a voice that was both smooth as silk, but had an undercurrent of threat and menace to it. "Best let him be."

"Piss off, ya codger!" The first man moved towards Tavish, one hand on his wand and the other adjusting a dull pin that to an untrained or frightened eye, could look very much like a Ministry department symbol.

Snatchers were not Ministry officials, they were opportunists who liked the power and fear the Ministry supplied these days. They were thugs who used the chaos to earn money hunting for Muggle-borns and traitors to the Ministry's pureblood regime, but they had no real power or standing behind them. They were independent contractors who were paid for each capture, and fear and lies were how they got their money.

"Maybe I will if ya get outta my sigh'."

The elderly man on the cobblestones made a whimpering noise, he moved his hand awkwardly as he stared upwards at the darkening sky. He might have hit his head on the wall when he was shoved.

The second man pointed his wand at Tavish and I felt my stomach drop down to my ankles.

My wand moved, but Tavish was faster, blasting the man into the wall with a spell before engaging the second man with a shield charm, dodging a retaliatory curse that flew over his head before he put his shield up.

With a flick of my wand I conjured a slender throwing knife and flung it at the man who had tried to curse Tavish, making him flinch so Tavish could launch a spell into his shoulder, unbalancing his opponent for a moment.

A third man ran down from the mouth of Knockturn Alley. A guard of some sort for this pair of idiots and fired a spell which disarmed Tavish before another spell lifted him into the air, his arms tight at his sides as he levitated four feet upwards before being left to hang there.

'Obscuro!' A blindfold erupted from my wand and covered the man's eyes, breaking this concentration and dropping Tavish to the ground. Tavish rushed forward and punched the blindfolded man in the face, causing him to cry out in surprise.

I whipped around, blocking a spell that was coming for my back in an instantaneous response, sending the spell to a windowsill above causing it to crack and crumble as I retaliated. I threw myself down to the stone street, avoiding a blasting curse that was aimed at my head by mere inches.

'Accio!'

The loose cobblestone flew up from the street behind the man who tried to blow my head off and hit him in the center of his back, causing him to fall face first onto the street.

Simple, but effective.

A retaliatory hex hit me in the shoulder and sent me flying into Diagon Alley. The scrapes on my back and the ringing in my head told me it was a bad idea to go back to Knockturn Alley. I elected to ignore that out of a sudden, inexplicable need to go help finish the fight.

My feet carried me over the cobblestone streets and back into the fray as Tavish dueled the two men who were gaining their second wind.

'Impedimenta!'

The blond man dueling Tavish froze in place.

'Depulso!' The spell sent the man flying into a trash can several yards away, allowing Tavish to focus his full attention on the other man he was dueling.

The third man was bleeding from his mouth where Tavish had punched him earlier, knocking out one of his front teeth judging by his snarl as he staggered to his feet and pointed his wand at Tavish's back.

'Plantus Surgo!' The tip of my wand glowed brightly like the sun as the moss between the stone streets broke apart as vines shot upwards and grabbed the man, wrapping him tightly as he screamed and pinning him to the ground as more plants wrapped around him to keep him still as I removed his wand with a muttered Expelliarmus.

His screaming came to an end with a silencing charm from me before I turned away, leaving him to the mercy of the cold, wet stone and the vines that held him there while I rushed to the side of the old man who had been the catalyst for the last few minutes of terror.

"Sir?" I knelt next to him, taking in his long white hair and equally long, white beard, both of which kept all but his beaky nose hidden from me. He recoiled away from me in surprise and I moved back slightly out of his reach. I tapped my wand against my hand twice, wordlessly summoning his cane into my hands as Tavish finished off the final Snatcher with a satisfied noise as he crumpled against the wall of a shop that sold a matter of horrible, screaming books that I could see through the window. "Are you okay?"

He tilted his head slightly, reminding me of an owl.

"I have your staff," I held it out for him and he reached out, moving his hand awkwardly through the air before finally grasping it tightly.

The man looked at me with sightless eyes, with cataracts so severe his eyes seemed entirely white, his brow knit in confusion and wonder. I suddenly understood how he had been so surprised by the assault. He was blind.

Any regret I would have later at the efficient brutality of the duel suddenly faded into an abyss to never be thought of again. Those Snatchers deserved everything they had gotten today.

I got to my feet, touching his cold, skeletal hand with my own as I reached down to him. "Would you like some help?"

He nodded slightly, finding my hand and using it to balance himself as he adjusted his staff, fixing his grip on it as he ensured it was steady beneath him.

"Are sure you're alright?"

He stared silently through me with his white eyes, confusion blending with an expression of wonder and I felt a shiver go down my back. It was like he was seeing through me to something else entirely.

"Sir?"

"You should smell of grave dirt."

"I'm sorry?"

His voice dropped, "What you fear is a sin already forgiven."

I stepped back slowly as he regained himself, the top of the staff alighting with a red sensory charm.

"Get home, Bran." Tavish's voice cut through me like a knife, cutting away at the shroud the old man's words were beginning to wrap me in. "Yer daughter's probably lookin' for ya!"

"I felt a call." The old wizard smiled, revealing his pale teeth that were only a few shades darker than his glimmering white beard.

"Yeh, a call fer beer."

Bran chuckled, the ominousness of his person falling away into something closer to humanity before he turned towards the consuming darkness of Knockturn Alley where I could hear the skittering of rats, either animal or person, somewhere beyond my sight. I watched Bran step on the exposed hand of the Snatcher I had wrapped in vines, causing him to yelp before I the black shroud of Knockturn Alley blocked the old man and the red light of his staff faded quickly from my sight long before was the tapping of his cane left my hearing as Tavish and I exchanged a look that wordlessly spoke of a desire to leave this place behind.

We emerged from the darkness of the and into the gray sadness of Diagon Alley, with its rows of empty shops and people curled up on doorsteps and small alleyways between shops who could have been mistaken for dead if not for the occasional twitch of a foot and wheezing, muffled cry.

I was staring at a forlorn woman with a waxy complexion, her face sallow and made more intense by her large eyes until something slammed into my chest causing me to stop with a gasp. Tavish had thrown his arm out in front of me as if I was about to walk over a cliff.

"Hello Tavish, nice day for a walk."

Oh, Merlin's cradle!

This man was tall and imposing as he stared at Tavish and I with a hard expression. I recognized him in some way, despite never having seen him without the bandages on his face. The skin of which was pulled taut over deep, violent red scars that crossed his freckled face. The fang earring and the ponytail gave me a few moments of doubt that this was the recently married Weasley brother, neither of those things were features I associated with married men.

Arthur Weasley had probably mentioned me to his other children as an oddity of the day talking point over dinner, I did not need to be one again under these circumstances. I could feel the tingling of the enchantment on my cloak sending small electrical sparks of power up and down the hairs of my arms to remind me that I would not be recognized until it was removed.

Surviving a werewolf attack was always a tragedy of some sort, but I could see Bill had been alarmingly handsome under the scars, if one was into the rebel punk scene. His build and something in his mouth and skeptical expression under the scars reminded me of Percy.

"So, 'ow ya doin', Bill?"

"Well enough," Bill's answer was quick as he looked pointedly between Tavish and I, trying to place us as friend or foe. "How've you been, Thacker?"

Wait, they know each other?

I turned quickly to Tavish who glanced at me with a shrug. "Been better."

"Who's your friend?"

The look Tavish gave me told me that I did not need to speak.

"Some stray I picked up."

This disguising enchantment really was some of my best work.

"On dat note, I need ta get back home or Lucy'll worry. Stay outta trouble, Bill. C'mon Annie!"

Bill wished us a quick farewell, moving in the opposite direction to us as we went towards the Leaky Cauldron to go home after the events of the day. The streets were still mostly empty, filled only with a pervasive sadness that did not seem to come from dementors and I realized it was a real shame to know the difference between the grief of a place and the sadness caused by dementors.

"How in the world do you know that man?"

"Bill? Met'm at da bank las' year. Nice man. Got a real understandin' of goblins. 'Elped me get some things appraised fer Lucinda withou' haven' to wait too long."

"Okay, that makes sense. So who was that old man?"

"Bran?" Tavish raised an eyebrow, his expression uncomfortable as the brick wall that would take us back to the Leaky Cauldron came into view. "Pay 'im no mind. 'E's old, somethin' wrong with his mind, it 'appens sometimes when ya live a long life."

"Oh… That's really sad."

"He's 'ad a happy life, I dun think 'e really understands everythin' happenin' now," Tavish shrugged as he looked at the wall to double check the brick tap code, "but that's not my business." Tavish paused, he started again in a slightly scoffing tone. "I 'eard a rumor 'e was a Seer of some sort."

"What about his daughter?"

"Brianna? Tough old bird. Lives in da real world." He began to tap the bricks as he spoke. "She's 'bout a hundred, runs a little pub down in Knockturn Alley. Bran might've popped down from their flat fer a drink an' stepped out fer some air without 'er noticin'."

Wizards lived long lives compared to the nonmagical. It was easy to forget sometimes that the hundred year olds could still have living parents and all involved could still be unusually spry. There was a frailness around Bran, a kind of vacantness that reminded me of a child in some ways, but he spoke with the confidence and sincerity of someone who had seen much of the world, even if it was nonsense to my ears.

I was not one for prophecies, true Seers were rare and considered oddities in many ways, Americans generally believed that the future was always shifting and some people were lucky enough, or cursed enough, to have access to something beyond the veil of the present and the future, often beyond their own control. My father practiced bone reading, something more grounded than the airy nonsense of traditional seeing methods. He said that to see the future meant that one had to be close to the veil of death in a way, that bones were, for him, a way to peer beyond the veil because they were shrouded in death. Uncle John just said it was something weird my father did to relax and clear his mind. We all had our quirks apparently, my father's happened to be politics and dead animals.

Hm, maybe Annette was a natural phenomenon after all…

The wall before us opened and I could see the door to the Leaky Cauldron. "C'mon, let's get outta 'ere."

"Right," I shifted the weight of my bag and followed Tavish out of Knockturn Alley, stepping into the dim lights of the street beyond.

My mind went back to the Charms lesson at Thornell and the way Callum had gestured to the book and to himself in rapid succession, the way he looked at me with a furrowed, frustrated brow as I had put the family grimoire back into my bag.

I had no Polyjuice ingredients…

No social standing to ensure going to the Department of Mysteries myself…

And a short timeline…

I knew what I needed to do.

Oo0Oo0

Author's Note: Okay, so… I'm taking a short Hiatus… One of my professors told the class we could prewrite our exams- a two page short paper per covered lecture. He has not chosen the specific questions yet, but that means I can get large pieces of the exam done. I also have an accounting class where my exam is one hour for 60 questions. I also have 2-3 exams (I think) the first week of December.

I have also gotten a part time job, I intend to keep applying for full-time work, and need to start focusing on finding a place to live for January. There are just a lot of good things going on right now, but I have a time crunch for a bunch of things at the same time.

What that means, is this will be the only chapter this month as I go into an exam prep hiatus and normal posting will resume by the last week of January.