The Secrets of Slytherin

Chapter 3: The Dubiously Sane Dobby

Knockturn Alley was not at all like Diagon. It was all sudden twists and tight turns, buildings jutting out at odd angles and unpleasantly close together, with sudden dead ends that weren't really dead, simply required the right passcode or sacrifice to get through, and above all, it was dark. A gloomy place, the buildings tilted to block out the sun, siding painted dark colors or else made of glum stone, signs faded, the cobblestones cracked and broken up.

It probably wasn't a good idea for an almost twelve year old girl to be wandering around it alone. Already, I could hear Snape's voice hissing at me for carelessness.

However, I needed information. More than what I could find in a common bookstore, what with the bans on "propaganda" that I had very recently found myself investigating. Unfortunately, there were a great many DADA – and history – books that counted there, at utter odds with my newfound interest.

So that's how I found myself on the illicit side of the Diagon District. Not that most people truly realized how dark it was, with the truly illegal hidden behind a web of secret doors and hidden areas – something even I only knew due to the quiet words of Azarius Shafiq.

Not very far along the alley, there was a dead end, wedged between Borgin & Burke's and a dingy potions shop. The brick decayed, cracked badly, bricks missing in places.

I placed a hand against the scarred wall, murmuring, " Secreta nocturni ." Brick turned soft, indistinct, as intangible as air, and I slipped right through.

The other side was nothing like the dingy alley behind me. It was... not bright , no, everything still had that darkness to it, but not gritty and dirty. Cobblestones were pristine, shop fronts neat and sparkling, a scattered series of customers moving in and out.

I wandered along it, searching for the shop Azarius had told me about when I'd come asking about defensive magic – for, as great as the Shafiq family was, they'd never bothered much with it. Ancient Runes, arithmancy, astronomy, enchantments, yes, but curses and countercurses? They'd stuck to the basics, the legal things.

And if they hadn't, then those were family secrets.

So I pushed open the door of Obscurus Books, bell jingling merrily.

The bookshop was a musty place. Rows and rows of closely packed shelves stretched into the back of the shop, dimly lit by the occasional pendant light fixture, more than one of which flickered erratically. It was the kind of place one would find exactly what one was searching for, be it a book that came out last month or one that dated to the 20s, possibly even rarer tomes in the glass cases on the second floor, and more often than not said find would be buried in a decade's worth of dust.

The bell's jingling had hardly stopped when bright, bright eyes appeared from the gloom, and a man stepped out.

He was very skinny, bones jutting out awkwardly underneath his worn tweed suit, and his eyes this odd, odd color, an amber that dulled in the light. The most interesting thing about him, however, were the scars across his face, as if some great animal had swiped its claws over his cheek.

"Hello," I said as he looked me over with those odd eyes, "are you Mr. Lupin?"

He stiffened, then, his gaze locking with mine, and there was this odd fuzziness to his head, like with Hedwig's, an indistinct quality to his thoughts. How... interesting.

"Azarius Shafiq recommended your establishment," I told him.

He nodded. "I see. I am, indeed, Remus Lupin."