Before the Dawn | George Weasley

55

I accompanied Corban Yaxley and Amycus Carrow to Borgin and Burkes on Christmas Eve, having been told nothing except that my skills were needed.

The store owner greeted us coyly, stepping aside to allow us to enter, then pulling the curtains. I followed Yaxley to the back of the shop, where a tall cabinet stood off to the side. I eyed it uncertainly, taking a hit from my flask, then turned to Yaxley, awaiting instruction.

"Are you familiar?" he asked gruffly.

"I know what it is, if that's what you're asking." I took another look at the cabinet, craning my neck to see all the way to the top.

"Can you fix it?"

"Is it broken?" I ran my fingertips across its wooden surface.

"Dunno. Something's wrong. That's why we brought you here."

I cast him an incredulous glance, then pulled open the cabinet's door and glanced inside. It seemed alright to me. "It's hard to tell without testing it."

Truthfully, I wasn't fully knowledgeable about how vanishing cabinets worked. I knew they were designed as a transportation method, an escape route for sticky situations, but that was the depth of my knowledge. That, and I knew the one at Hogwarts was hopelessly broken.

"Then test it," said Yaxley simply.

I looked between him and Amycus, a bit hesitant. "Right."

Voices from the front of the store interrupted us—two more customers had just walked in.

"We're interested in a very specific piece of furniture that you have."

"We've seen it on your floors before and wanted to make an offer for it."

The store owner grumbled something about closing the store, but the customers didn't seem deterred.

"That one, there! The tall one."

They rounded the corner, then, and stopped dead at the sight of us. Two middle-aged men with black hair and thin, scruffy faces. I was certain I'd never met either of them, but for some reason they still seemed vaguely familiar.

"How much are you asking for it?" One of them asked, a little shaky now.

"The cabinet's not for sale," the store owner said gruffly.

"And why is that?" The other man asked. "It's on your sales floor, isn't it?"

"That's an awful way to run a business, if I may say so myself," said the first.

And then, suddenly, I just knew. It was Fred and George.

"These fine people have just purchased the cabinet, unfortunately." The store owner feigned disappointment. "Or else I would have happily sold it to you."

"What's your interest in the cabinet?" asked Yaxley with narrowed eyes.

"Oh, just shopping around for this one's new house." One of the men gestured to the other. "Reckoned we'd try for a vanishing cabinet—never know when you'll need one, in times like these."

The other one nodded absentmindedly, trying and failing to tear his eyes from me. "But we can keep looking."

Amycus looked between George and me suspiciously. "You two friends?"

"I've never seen this man before in my life," I said, sounding bored. "Now, may I get to work?"

I turned my back on the others, my heart pounding, and eyed the cabinet. I drew my wand and conjured a feather, setting it carefully in the cabinet, and closed the door.