𝐒𝐀𝐂𝐑𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐂𝐄 || Severus Snape x OC ||

23. NOCTURNAL ALLEYS

*.·:·.☽ ✧ ☾.·:·.*

Not too far from Diagon Alley lay a dark, twisting alleyway devoted to the Dark Arts: Knockturn Alley. Alice had never seen it firsthand until now, but she recalled the Weasley siblings mention it as they were not allowed to walk its cobblestone street.

It felt humid and gloomy. Alice found herself emerging from a nook into the brick wall, dusting off the greenish floo powder from her dark robes. The alleyway was narrow, hardly enough for two adults to cross paths without pressing their backs on either side of the walls. The dim light of the gas lamps hardly illuminated the nook in the wall where she was standing. A stone staircase led up to the main street of Knockturn Alley and the raven-haired witch reached for the hood of her robes, pulling it over her head. Her right hand's fingers curled around her wand as she kept it hidden like a dagger in her long sleeve, letting its handle nest in her palm, ready if need be. She glanced behind her and then, with her wandless hand barely touching the wall for balance, Alice climbed up the stone stairs to Knockturn Alley.

If during the day this place seemed dark and gloomy to those who wandered here, at night it was chillingly ominous. She kept her head low, knowing that the wizards and witches hanging around this street weren't the same as those who walked in Diagon Alley. And anyone, anyone she was crossing her paths with could be a follower of the Dark Lord.

At this time of the night, few shops remained open. She glanced at the dusty, eerie fronts of the shops where one could purchase, amongst other things, shrunken heads, poisonous candles, human-looking fingernails, and Flesh-Eating Slug Repellents. Her stomach churned at the sight of human bones and skulls for sixteen galleons, displayed in the front of a shop on 13B. This must be it... She hoisted her gaze up to the sign, reading the old inscription; Borgin & Burkes.

Alice neared the front of the shop a little further, peeking inside. Nothing in there was ever likely to be on a Hogwarts school list. A glass case held a withered hand on a cushion, a blood-stained pack of cards, and a staring glass eye. Evil-looking masks stared down from the walls, an assortment of human bones lay upon the counter, and rusty, spiked instruments hung from the ceiling. A necromancer's and a dark wizard's playground, the shop seemed to have all sorts of unusual and ancient wizarding artifacts, most with questionable origins. Its shady reputation was justified by its every product displayed, magnetizing those with sinister intents, luring them to buy all that was needed for anything dark and horrifying.

Her hands splayed upon the glass. How do I get inside?

She looked over her shoulder.

Wary of the shop owners likely using a defensive spell against intruders after locking up for the night, and not wanting to risk getting caught, Alice preferred a different path to using Alohomora.

Instead, she stepped back a bit, looked around in case there was anyone else, and pulled back the sleeves of her coat after securing her wand on the belt around her waist.

This better work... She thought. She was expecting Snape to come after her, but she was also hoping that when he would catch up with her, she wouldn't still be outside the shop.

*.·:·.☽ ✧ ☾.·:·.*

The whispering wizard, and a beggar a few meters away, flinched further pressing themselves against the brick walls when a flurry of fabric and black smoke swirled on the Alley before the Hogwarts Potion Master's figure emerged from it. The harsh lines of his face looked menacing and his onyx eyes, sharp as blades, pierced through the dim-lit street. He had more than enough reasons to be infuriated that night, and Alice's actions on a whim to just apparate to one of London's most ill-reputed places did little to soften his rigid form.