AN: Hello, AO3 and Harry Potter fans. I do not own Harry Potter, but feel free to enjoy this or hate it. If you enjoy it, please leave a lovely comment, if you hate it, then leave some constructive criticism, thanks!

Can You Take the Jump?

Warning: Sexual assault and misconduct may be a trigger in this chapter!

Chapter 60

…

Lily lay on the bed of St. Mungo's staring up at the ceiling in utter boredom. She was regretting her decision to take up Headmaster Dumbledore's offer to push back the start of her second semester.

At first, she couldn't bear the thought of going back to school. The news of her family's tragedy must've reached the ears of the general Hogwarts population. Once she stepped into school, everyone would stare, pity her, be unnecessarily extra nice, and then the dreaded words like 'are you okay' or 'is there anything I can do for you', and the worst 'I'm so sorry for your loss'. Because the truth was she didn't lose them, but she did, which made her emotions all the more jumbled. Just the thought of it made her stomach turn.

She thought she was making the smarter decision to stay at the hospital and focus on her recovery, but then a week passed. Then another. It was now the Wednesday of her 3rd week away with no one else but herself and the hospital staff, and she was starting to go spare staring at these white walls. Everyone had gone back to school, even Hermione. Her sister went back to school as soon as the new semester started. Yet another decision she made that Lily failed to understand until it was too late.

Over two weeks by herself to stew in her thoughts and feelings alone about everything that had transpired… This could be used as a form of torture and Lily was sure everyone would break.

"I guess we'll never know." Her words rang in her ear. Her cringy, bitchy, and horribly judgemental words. Lily folded her good arm over her eyes and let out a deep sigh.

"UGH!" She slammed her fist against the bed as the memory replayed itself. Again. Her voice had been so…haughty a-and ANNOYING. Merlin, she was such a child!

This was always the case with fights with Hermione. Lily was left embarrassed and regretful, even though at the moment she was so very sure her emotions were valid. Hermione was too smart. Her decisions, plans, and actions made no sense to any normal person or even someone above average. If their life was akin to a game of chess, Hermione played as if she could see the whole game play out before Lily had even made her first move. As her opponent, you were left impressed, baffled, and then embarrassed because the more you played, the more you realized you never stood a chance in the first place, falling right into her scheme without even noticing. The worst part of it was, once you lose, she soothed and comforted your loss in such a way that put your guard down, giving you hope that you might win the next round, only to lull you into playing the game again. Unsurprisingly, you'd lose once more. Hermione's opponents always end up feeling humiliated at their astounding defeat.

Recently, Lily felt like she'd been that humiliated opponent far too many times, but she could admit that she'd gone too far this time. Even James hadn't taken her side, and James took her side on everything. She could murder someone in cold blood and he'd still stand in front of a jury and say she was innocent without breaking a single sweat. For this though, his lips turned into a thin firm line when she turned to him after venting out her anger.

"You don't know how terrible the situation was when you came in here with the burns. I didn't get to see your parents and Petunia, but if they were anything like you and your sister…" James paused. He looked pale and even a little bit green. "You were told only the surface level of details about your injuries because everyone was worried that you'd go into shock, and on top of that, there was the situation with your parents and your older sister having to be placed under witness protection, but Lily…"

James let out a shuddering breath, the horrific memories visibly flashing through his eyes.

"Headmaster Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall had to move you two together because of how… melted you guys were onto each other. Because of how your sister held you to protect you from cursed fire. I came two hours after the who incident because that was when my father heard the news, but even then, they were still trying to split you two apart. Even in that unconscious state, your sister didn't let you go. Do you know what kind of desperation and love you need to feel to cover someone else's body with your own to protect them from a fire? A Fiendfyre, no less?" He let out a small laugh of disbelief.

"Let me be honest with you, I'm not always the biggest fan of your sister. I think she's too intense and severe in everything she does. The look she gets in her eyes truly scares me shitless. But on top of that, she's too independent. She sets plans into motion, using and moving people with ease, all without asking for a single opinion from everyone else. As if she doesn't think that anyone else could be smart or insightful enough to add to the situation, but this? This situation? She was right. While it may suck emotionally, and it hurts you… Lily, you know you couldn't have made the decision she made. You would have interfered with the process, prolonging their stay, and putting them at more risk and danger."

"You don't know that."

"I do," James caressed her face ever so gently despite the clear frustration on his face. "You are absolute shite at letting go. It doesn't matter if it's things, people, friends, relationships, a grudge, or love. You cannot let go. As if it's a symbol or sign of failure or imperfection, you just cannot give up."

She opened her mouth to deny it, but she closed it quickly after. No, she couldn't. She still had a Valentine's Day card from when she was in primary school. A flower crown her father made her when she was just 5. Her stuffed teddy bear from when she was an infant. She always contacted her muggle school friends during the summer even if she couldn't relate to them about anything. She knew her relationship with Amos was over long before it was actually over, but she just held on.

It killed Lily to be forced to let Lyana go. To leave her there. If Hermione hadn't ordered the Marauders to take her away, Lily would have stayed there pumping her dead friend's heart with manual CPR until her arms gave out or until she died herself.

No, she wasn't good at letting go.

Lily knew that Hermione's decision was the best choice, she should be glad that she was even given a chance to say goodbye. She also knew Hermione felt the pain of her own decisions but made them despite it all to protect their family. But when logic and heart collided, Lily could never defeat her heart. It was thunderous, bullying her meek logic to the back corner, the exact opposite of how Hermione worked.

"Your tenacity is not always a bad thing," he tucked a piece of her hair over her good ear. "It gives you ambition and drive. It's how you're able to love fiercely. You're sentimental and poetic. You appreciate the little things. You give second, third, eighth, and twentieth chances, even to those who don't deserve them. Your sister, on the other hand, anything and anyone can be picked up and let go depending on their usefulness as long as it serves her purpose. I could tell from the way she was training us, people are expendable to her. So based on that, and the situation you and your family were in, not a single person would have blamed her or judged her for escaping on her own. She had a portkey. She could have escaped on survived on her own, relatively unscathed."

Lily shook her head. "People aren't expendable to her! Hermione would have never left us to die."

James watched her eyes shift from sadness to anger at his words. "You're right, you will never be expendable to her. Never her family."

They had sat in silence after their conversation for a long time, James comforting her both physically and emotionally, even though she didn't deserve it. Never her family, he'd said, but not everyone else. Lily wasn't sure how she felt about that.

She thought back to the moment her family said goodbye, how Hermione hobbled on her leg because of the injury. She wondered how she was faring with the innumerable stairs in Hogwarts. Her leg was probably in enough pain to make a grown man weep in the corner, but she'd probably down some pain medication and go about her day like nothing was wrong. She was probably not eating enough. She was definitely not sleeping enough.

With a sigh, Lily got up from her bed with much more ease than she had two weeks ago. With the help of magic, she was healing at an incredible rate. She walked across the room to grab a piece of parchment and her quill.

"Dear Professor Dumbledore,"

…

Hogwarts was dark when Lily arrived through the Headmaster's office fireplace.

"Welcome Miss Evans," her professor reached her hand out to help her out of the fireplace like a gentleman. "It's good to have you back."

She gave him a pained smile, suddenly feeling self-conscious of the bandages around her body.

"As much as I dreaded this, it is good to be back. I was going crazy in the hospital."

"Makes you wonder how your sister managed to live there on her own for so many years."

Lily paused. Dumbledore was right. Now that she thought back to it, her previous memories of barren walls in her sister's hospital room started being replaced with walls filled to the brim with sketches, paintings, notes on books, idea maps, medical intrigues, or patient cases that she'd seen. Yes, that's right. Her sister always had different things on the wall. As a child, she used to think her sister had a short attention span, moving from one interest to another within days. Hermione also picked up a lot of hobbies during her stay at the hospital, including knitting, cross-stitching, puzzle games, maths, etc. Their parents thought it was her intelligence, but now Lily realized that it was more likely that Hermione was trying to prevent herself from going absolutely mad in that place. It was barely a place for adults to stay for a prolonged time, let alone a child.

"Yes, it is a wonder. Much of Hermione is."

Dumbledore chuckled in agreement.

"Well," she gave him a little nod. "Have a good night, Professor."

"Wait, Miss Evans."

"Professor?" Lily noted the rather uncomfortable look on Dumbledore's face.

"I want to be clear about something," the old wizard sighed, he even looked a little pained. "I want you to know that your sister was advocating for you, perhaps not as much as you'd like, but your sister did advocate for you that night."

Lily frowned in confusion.

"I…I was the one who suggested moving your parents and sister to America as soon as they were stable, but your sister refused. She was the one who insisted that they deserved the right to choose whether their memories got erased or not. Your sister made a lot of hard decisions that night, but she never took your parents' basic rights away."

"What?" She whispered.

"You accused your sister of manipulating their minds," Dumbledore gently added. "But she didn't. She protected them."

"Did you curse them? Violate minds and their basic human right as you did to me?!" Her echoing words felt like a punch in the gut. Lily looked up at the man she held with great respect with tears in her eyes.

"After they woke up and made their decision, I was eager to get them to America immediately for their safety, but your sister stopped me once again."

"So that I could say goodbye."

"…Yes. I'm very sorry. The only thing I had on my mind was ensuring their safety and survival. It left me very short-sighted, to say the least. I'm ashamed that my lack of familial attachment made me fail to see the importance of your sister's decision. She and I also got into a heated argument you see. I hope you can relay my sincere apologies to her."

Lily swallowed difficultly. Nausea overwhelmed her, couldn't think straight, and she couldn't see straight.

"You should—" her voice hitched. "Tell her yourself."

Dumbledore suddenly mirrored her confused expression.

"I truly wish I could, but I can't. She's refusing visitation from everyone."

"Visi—visitation? For what?"

"For St. Mungo's."

"St. Mungo's?!"

It was clear to Dumbledore that Lily had no idea what he was talking about, and it was clear to Lily that her Headmaster didn't know why she was confused. They locked eyes and gasped as they both came to the same conclusion.

Her legs collapsed beneath her. Dumbledore caught her as she dropped. "She wasn't…she wasn't w-with me at S-S-St. M-Mu-Mungo's." Lily clutched her Headmaster's expensive and luxurious wizarding robes, uncaring if she was wrinkling them. "She has to be here."

With a worried expression, Dumbledore's lips turned into a firm and thin line as he solemnly shook his head.

"Your sister never came back to Hogwarts."

…

She tugged her thin jacket closer to her body as she walked towards her small apartment in the cold. The winds were particularly biting tonight, and she was going home hungry again. Her stomach twisted painfully from its persistent emptiness.

The business hadn't been smooth since he left. He was a good one. He never stuck around afterwards telling her useless promises he'd never keep, always paid handsomely, and was nice to look at. She'd never seen a shade of blond like that before. At least not naturally, but even the hairs on his nether areas were the same silvery blond as his head and brows. He wasn't a generous lover, but that much was expected when one was a prostitute. His fucking was rough and aggressive, but it was still good and how she preferred it. Soft and gentle with sweet nothings whispered into her ears felt too intimate like they were something to each other.

She opened the door to her unlocked apartment. There was no reason to lock it. She wasn't smart enough to use a locking charm complicated enough to keep it closed against a simple Alohomora and she wasn't rich enough to buy a lock that prevented burglary. Besides, she had nothing of value to steal. Her mattress half-eaten by rats? Her skimpy and ratty clothes? The furniture she picked up for free on the sides of the street on Diagonalley? There wasn't even money hidden in the apartment, she lived from paycheck to paycheck.

"You should lock your doors."

"Ahhh!" She clutched her chest and fell to the floor in fear. "I don't have anything! I don't have any money, I swear!"

When the intruder didn't say anything for a while, she peeled her eyes open slowly. A girl sat on her bed. She sounded young, but her exact age couldn't be judged because of the hood hanging so low on her head that covered her face. Her clothes were clean. Her shoes were still white. There was a general sense of cleanliness about her. She was not from Knockturn Alley.

"W-who are you?"

The girl hesitated before replying with an even more befuddling answer. "I guess I'm you."

"What?"

"It's better for you to know less."

"Get out! Get out of here! Get out before I call for help!"

The girl gave her an exasperated look. "I think you and I both know you're not going to do that because we both know that no one will come. As long as all crime and misdeeds stay within Knockturn, no one cares what happens here. No one in the government wants to admit that this place even exists! A place where monsters and demons thrive, so long as they don't step out of bounds."

"What do you want?" Her voice sounded weak, even to her own ears. In the months she'd been living here, she'd come across many terrifying people, but this girl was the first one to send a chill down her spine.

She watched the girl nod with approval, her hood fluttering, giving her a glimpse of red wavy hair thanks to the shining moonlight streaming from a tiny window in her apartment. She touched her own red hair, noticing the similarities.

"You're a dirty fucking whore… You mean nothing. You are nothing!"

She gasped. "You're her!"

The corner of the girl's lips raised to a smirk. "And you're fast."

"You're young."

"I would think that prostitutes were the last type of people to judge someone purely based on their appearance."

"What are you talking about? We judge everything about someone from the first 3 seconds. Whether that person is trustworthy, whether she's competition, whether he's wealthy, whether he's worth it, whether she's gay, whether he'll raise his fist against you, etc."

"All of that in 3 seconds? That's…quite impressive and useful."

"When a skill is needed for your survival you either pick it up quick or you're found dead in some ditch."

"What do you think of me?"

Her eyes narrowed, "You're harder than most, I'll give you that, but one thing's for sure; not gay."

The girl let out a chuckle. "Very good…um, what should I call you?"

"They call me Angel. What about you, kid?" She sat on the cold floor of her apartment. This kid wasn't here to steal from her, rape her, or kill her, which begged the question, why was she here?

The girl gave her a coy smile, visible beneath the hood, but didn't respond.

"Could've given me a fake one."

"Like Angel? Or should I say, Miss Jordan Walsh? You took your mother's maiden name, correct? Emily Walsh. She worked the streets when she met a man named, Samwell Mulciber, no? He gave your mother money to get rid of you, but instead, your mother kept you and used the money to raise you. But she couldn't earn enough to send you to Hogwarts."

"Who are you," she snarled. "Why are you here? Is it because of that blond guy? He doesn't come here anymore. Whatever you did or said worked, okay? He's never come back after getting married."

"He hasn't?" She looked impressed. "Good for him, but no, he's not the reason I'm here."

"Then why are you here?!" She asked again. "What do you want?"

"Knowledge."

"What?"

"How did you never go berserk from uncontrolled magic? You never went to Hogwarts, but you learned to control your magic. How?"

"That's what you want to know?"

She nodded.

"What will you give me, if I tell you?"

The girl's lips twitched. Just when Angel thought the girl was about to pull her wand and curse her, she took out a large sack and dropped it to the floor.

Galleons had a distinct sound when they hit the ground.

"What is that?"

"Your freedom. From this hell. It's not much, I'll admit, but it's almost everything I've got. You'll have to get a job almost immediately after getting somewhere half decent to live, but it's enough to get you started on a new life."

"Wh-wha…I don't understand."

"Go to the muggle world. Keep a low profile. Learn a skill or a trade. Your hair always seems to be done very nicely. Try working at a salon, I think it would suit you. It won't be a life a luxury, but it'd be better than this."

Slowly, as though, if she moved too fast, the girl would snatch the bag of money back, she grabbed the considerably large bag and opened it. Inside was a pile of galleons, sickles, and knuts, even some muggle currency. It was a lot. More than she'd ever owned or even thought of owning.

"You're lying!" Angel threw the bag to the ground again as if it was cursed. "This is fake. Or a trick!"

"All very good assumptions, but no. Not a lie, not fake, and definitely not a trick," she grabbed the bag once more and took out a few galleons to show it was real. "This is real money. Don't be dumb with it. Spend it wisely. Knowing how to restrain yourself and be financially responsible is also a price of freedom. Work hard, save up, but most importantly, live your life, Jordan."

She trembled. There was an instinct to jump up and run out the door with the money.

"Vampires. Their saliva has a magical sedative. As long as they don't bite you, it's safe."

"How do you ensure they don't bite you?"

"You don't."

The girl let out a small whistle, realizing the risk it took to remain in the magical world with no magical education. Hogwarts was not free, but the population of Knockturn Alley couldn't afford it, leaving them stranded. The children of the underground society in Knockturn couldn't risk leaving the magical world at that age due to the fear of becoming what she was, an Obscurial. They needed vampires close by to suppress their magic, but a place like Knockturn didn't exactly supply children with many opportunities to fulfill much potential. Once they grew up and their magic settled and matured, it was possible—granted they had the money for it—for the children of Knockturn to leave, but people tended to remain where they knew and where they felt comfortable, even if it was in poverty and in the shadows.

"So I can go? That's it? That's all you want?" Angel, no, Jordan, shook her head. "There has to be a catch."

"You really are quick," the girl nodded in appreciation. "I need your hair."

"My hair? What kind of perverted—"

"Not all of it, but a good chunk. What do you say? I think you'd look good with a bob."

Jordan's eyes travelled back and forth between the large bag of money and the girl in front of her.

"That's it? All you want is my hair?"

"Yes, all I want is your hair, so stop trying to think and just decide, do you want this deal or not?"

She hesitated, it was just too good to be true.

"If you don't, there are other girls just down the door from you who would just at the chance to escape this."

"Fine!" She gasped, "I'll take it." She gathered her hair to one side of her shoulder and used her hand-me-down wand to cut off the chunk she held. "Here." She handed her the hair.

"Thank you very much, Jordan." The girl took her long red locks and placed them gently into a bag. "I'll give you until the end of the week to move out."

"No," she shook her head. "I want to leave now."

She raised her brow but asked no further questions. "Then I wish you the best of luck, Jordan Walsh."

Just like that, life as she knew it was over. She was no longer Angel the whore, whose mother was also a good-for-nothing whore. The life that she hated was done and she had the opportunity and the ability to start over and make better choices. She felt scared. What if she failed again? There would be no third chance.

"H-Hey," she turned around, just as she was about to leave. She wanted to ask so many questions, she was so unknowledgeable about the world. What if she fell back into her old habits?

The girl had her back to her, drinking something before clearing her throat, "Yes?"

"Can I please, at least know your name?"

The girl turned around, but Jordan instantly had the same chill she felt when she initially saw her. The girl pulled her hood off, revealing the face she'd been hiding the whole time.

Jordan took a step back. She had to grab the doorframe to prevent herself from falling. A doppelgänger stood before her, staring at her with her own icy blue eyes. The same nose, lips, and ears.

"You can call me Angel."

…

Hermione sighed when she lay on the rickety bed. This place had to be the worst establishment she's ever stayed in. There was no insulation, and the window was cracked and didn't close properly, letting in the winter wind. The room was about the size of the changing room for the Prefects' bath.

"Just to make sure we're all on the same page, we're all aware that we gave a very poor prostitute 95% of our money, plus all the money we borrowed from Regulus Black and Fredrick Avery, right?"

Draco stared at the doorway where Angel had left without taking a second to look back.

"Yup." Harry nodded, plopping himself onto the bed, only to severely regret his decision when the bed did not give at all.

"This is, by far, your worst idea."

Hermione couldn't help but agree with the blond who was ripping his hair out with frustration, but she agreed for a different reason. This girl had sex with Lucius Malfoy. Now she was going to impersonate her… She was lying to Jordan when she said she could approach any of the other girls that live down the hall.

"I didn't want to pick a girl who had completely different hair, what if the Polyjuice runs out before I get a chance to take another dose? I can't be someone too different looking. There is nothing more distinctive about redheads than being a redhead." She had desperately wanted someone else. Some other redhead that lived in Knockturn, but inconveniently enough, there were only 4 redheaded girls her age in Knockturn, 2 of them were with…clients…tonight, one of them worked at a shitty location, which left her with Angel. "As long as I still have my red hair, they won't notice the other changes as much, and it'll give me a window of time to take the potion before they notice."

"They could still notice."

"Don't start tempting fate with those words, Harry Potter."

Harry rolled his eyes but surrendered.

"Just to be clear," Ginny's strong and opinionated voice startled Hermione by appearing beside her. "You're not actually going to become a sex worker, are you? Hun, when I didn't want to study for my OWLs or when training with the Harpies got tough, I thought about this too, but this isn't a life that most people want. Especially not for this kind of scrap money and especially not you, Hermione."

"No, I'm not going to have sex with anyone, don't worry." Hermione smirked at Ginny's expression. "But Harry and I found out pretty early on during prisoner interviews that a lot of networking and information was traded in Knockturn Alley. It makes sense. There's no legal authority here or government presence. People here rule themselves, which means that a group of blood puritans can surely fester in the shadows of these streets. Deals, meetings, alliances are all happening here, under everyone's noses."

None of her hallucination friends looked very confident about this plan.

"Guys, two weeks. Max. Then we'll be out of here."

…

(AN: TW starts here!)

"Angel! Why're you behind the bar?!" Philip, the owner of one of the many seedy bars in Knockturn Alley yelled at the girl standing behind the bar.

"I thought I'd switch it up a bit, pour some drinks, lend an ear, y'know?"

"Why?" Philip chortled, "Got tired of serving up your cunt?" The few frequenting patrons laughed. It was still quite early in the day, but they'd been here drinking for hours.

Her smile remained unwavering at the crass comment, "Just expanding my services, Philip." She walked around the bar and trailed her finger up his arm and down his chest. "Don't worry, I'm still around if you ever need me."

He grinned, showing off his rotting mismatched teeth. He leaned down, licking her ear, and whispering filthy acts. She pushed down the bile that built up in the back of her throat and forced out a giggle. She glanced down at his hand at the simple wedding band around his finger probably made of simple steel, perhaps it was silver, but definitely not white gold. That was the tax bracket that lived and worked around this neighbourhood. Those who came to visit for some fun could be seen with gold, gems, clean clothes, and more, but those who lived here could barely afford silver.

Hermione felt sorry for the wife, whoever she was, on many different levels, but from what she gathered, women in these parts never expected much from their man, some didn't even know to ask for more. They married to avoid a life of whoring not for love, and while these bars never generated much money, it was a reliable income that provided some stability in the unstable neighbourhood.

"I'll give you 5% of any tip I earn," she bartered, pushing his disgusting mouth away from her violated ear.

Philip narrowed his eyes. "You're different lately, using that pretty little head of yours. I'm surprised that you've got anything in there other than hair potions."

Angel smiled sweetly, "Well? What do you think about my offer?"

"I heard you've been taking fewer clients," his Birmingham accent getting thicker as he became more suspicious. "It's that blond fellow, innit? You better not be stupid and think he'll bring you into his cushy perfect life. But, I guess he's taken a real liking to ya for a whore. I suppose red hair like that ain't easy to come by 'round here. Red hair like yours is for them righteous pure folk, like the Abbots and Weasleys."

"It's certainly one of my charms," she twirled her hair between her fingers in a way men thought ditzy and vain.

"Your main charm is this right here," he grabbed her by the waist, pressed himself up against her, pushed his semi-hard cock to her ass, and snaked his hand down between her legs, cupping her sex with a strong grip.

She bit her tongue to prevent a gasp.

"Let's kill him." Hermione Granger stood by the edge of the bar, nursing a drink one of the patrons had left behind to piss on the street corner in broad daylight. "I don't think he'll be very missed."

Angel discretely moved his hand away, "Phil, you know I don't give out freebies."

"You want the bar?" He moved his hand back. "You got it." He started lapping her neck like a dog.

She wanted to vomit.

"Comm'ere." He pulled to the back of the pub where they kept the alcohol. His hands were everywhere. It reminded her of the time she was captured by Snatchers. Greyback had taken his liberties with her when they'd been caught, but during that time, she didn't have any space in her mind to process the terrible things that were happening because she was pretty sure that she and her best friends were going to die horrible and painful deaths, and then there had been Bellatrix's Cruciatus that had quite literally taken her mind out via pain. No, in the grand scheme of things that happened to her that day, Greyback's filthy hands were the last thing on her mind.

It was different now. So very different.

She couldn't help but think of Sirius at that moment. How different he'd been, how kind and generous, and how amazing she felt when he touched her. How much she missed him.

Fear trembled within her, causing the cage that contained her Obscurus to shake violently.

She reached for her wand as his lips started trailing up to her chest.

"Sleep." She cast a charm, putting him into bewitched sleep.

The man slumped onto her, but she pushed him off in disgust. She ran out the back door, upchucking everything she had in her stomach on the cobblestone. She coughed, gagged, and heaved. Several passersby stared, but this wasn't such an uncommon occurrence in Knockturn Alley.

She sank to the floor, carefully avoiding her vomit. Tears welled in her eyes, not just for herself but all the women here who suffered from this type of treatment or worse on a daily basis. How was she going to withstand this for 2 weeks?

"Already had had enough of this life, imposter?"

Hermione jumped back. It was rare for people to be able to sneak up on her. She had enhanced hearing from her Animagus and had trained herself through years of paranoia.

The stranger was deathly pale with eyes as black as night. He wore long sleeves and a large hat to cover his face from even the bleakest sunlight that managed to hit Knockturn Alley through the narrow crevices between the buildings. His abnormally long and sharp canines glinted on their own.

"What are you talking about?"

"I should know the smell of the girl I've been drinking blood from since she was a child."

Hermione stood from her crouched corner. The change in her was impressive, to say the least.

"Hello, it's so very nice to meet you."

…