- Text Size +
Capture from Diagon Alley


Charlus Potter was at Diagon Alley, selling crates of his Sleekeazy potion to various shops about the little wizarding district. The streets were lined by vendors selling amulets and spells to ward off evil, each claiming that their product was better than the others around them, that their product truly worked. Charlus did not spare so much as a glance at the wares they tried peddling to him as he carried his briefcase from store to store. None of their supposed fail-safe ways of avoiding the Dark Lord truly worked. Too many witches and wizards who had purchased these safety wares had already died horrible deaths.

“Aren’t you the wizard that’s been in the news helpin’ that muggle family?” asked one shop owner, squinting at Charlus in vague recognition.

Charlus nodded, “I was, they were my neighbors and the --”

The shopkeeper shook his head and waved his palms, “I don’t want any of that stuff you’ve got there. I can’t be minglin’ with folks what’s got the Dark Mark in their future! Helpin’ muggles and muggle-lovers in this day’n age is dangerous business.”

Charlus frowned as he stepped back out onto the street, frustrated. That had been the typical response to the offer of shops stocking the Sleekeazy potion. Nobody dared to be associated, however remotely, to the man labelled as a muggle-lover. He sat down outside an ice cream shop, having bought a cup, and watched the crowds pass by him as he thought about how terrible it was that fear was beginning to control people and sway their choices. He hated it, hated the fear in people’s eyes. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair. All this over one evil man and his horrid ideas of what the world should look like. All this over prejudice. What a wonderful world we might live in if there was no more of it, no more hatred. It was a shame that his boy had to grow and live in a world as broken as this, he lamented, and he hoped against all hope that one day James would live to see peace in the world.

“Mr. Potter!”

Charlus looked up to see a fiery haired wizard coming through the crowded streets toward him. He stood up as the young man approached. “Hello Arthur, how are you?” he asked, smiling.

“I’m very well!” Arthur answered eagerly. Arthur Weasley was one of several new employees at the Ministry and he had been in a group of several wizards that Charlus had been in charge of showing around before they had received their assignment to departments. “I ended up in the misuse of muggle artifacts department!”

“Very good!” Charlus replied. “Congratulations.” Honestly, he was wondering what Arthur had done wrong to end up in such a department - especially at this time. Nobody wanted a job like that at the ministry, looking into backfiring teapots and mailboxes that ate the mailman’s arms and that sort of thing. But Arthur seemed positively elated over the prospect of getting to inspect magically enhanced muggle stuff.

Arthur clearly liked muggles and muggle things, he’d talked profusely about a collection of spark plugs that he had at home, organized by the funny little numbers and letters on the sides. He’d become attached to Charlus once he’d learned that he was one and the same as the Charlus Potter who’d ended up in the papers for saving his muggle neighbors. Arthur Weasley it seemed was the only one that didn’t see Charlus Potter a stigma these days.

“Did you hear about the giant in Ottery St.Catchpole?” he asked eagerly, “It was in the Prophet!”

Charlus nodded, “I saw.”

“I live in Ottery St. Catchpole!” said Arthur, though he sounded a bit more excited than frightened. “Molly and I have a house just over the hill from where the giant was spotted, you know. Just a little cottage, but one day I plan to add on. What do you s’pose the giant was doing that far from the mountains?”

Charlus shook his head, “Dunno,” he lied. The truth of it was, being in the Resistance, he knew all too well about the giant. Several of his friends had gone out searching for signs of where the giant had gone and discovered it seemed to have been on it’s way to some sort of meeting, where it was spotted talking to some of the known sympathizers of Voldemort. It wasn’t a good sign that the giants, a notorious unfriendly group, were willing to send a liaison to the south. This, Charlus had pointed out to his fellow Resistance members, was the first step of an uprising of the giants. The last thing they needed, in the midst of a war against Voldemort, was a war against the giants as well.

“Just imagine,” muttered Arthur, “Giants in the south! What’s next? Dragons?”

Charlus cringed, “I certainly hope not.”

“I know it’s silly,” Arthur said, “And probably doesn’t work, but… just the same… I bought a bottle of dragon fire for a nightlight for my sons’ room. Youngest nearly has the same name as you,” he chuckled, “Charlie. Just about six months now. The other’s Bill, he’s two. They say the dragon fire will ward off people with evil intent. It’s superstition, I know, but… I mean, even if it only helps a bit...”

“Sometimes we need something to believe in,” Charlus said, though he very much doubted the dragonfire could do a thing against Voldemort’s evil intentions.

Arthur smiled.

Charlus stood up, “Arthur, it was nice seeing you. But I’ve got to run, my break’s ended. Stay safe - with or without the help of the dragonfire.”

“Thanks, Mr. Potter!” said Arthur eagerly, waving as Charlus bowed himself away.

Charlus walked through the crowd again, ducking ‘round the vendors holding out the protective agents in his face, asking if he had children who might be protected by a dragon tooth necklace (“stops even the killing curse!” they claimed). He was just passing Knockturn Alley when a hand closed ‘round his right elbow. He was about to pull away when a second closed about his left and he looked up and found he was in the grip of two hooded figures. He felt himself turned down Knockturn and he stumbled on a narrow stone stairway as he grappled to get out of their grasp.

“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded. He dropped his briefcase, finding it cumbersome, and struggled harder, “Who are you? What do you want?” But the figures didn’t reply, they simply walked him stonily deeper into the alley until they’d reached the dark storefront of Borgin and Burkes.

A rusty old bell rang as they stepped through the doorway and he heard the door lock behind him and shades were drawn, the shop was dark, a place of shadows of horrible stuff - shrunken heads and taxidermy creatures and poisons lining a high shelf. He shivered as the two hands that had held him all the way from Diagon Alley released him, propelling him forward as they did so, so that he ended up in the middle of the room.

Not good, not good at all, he thought, panic rising up in his chest. He looked around in the dark, the shadows around him seeming to grow and he realized there were more hooded figures, streaming out of the back room of the little shop. Death Eaters, he realized and a sweat broke out across his brow.

“You’re in the Resistance,” said a low voice. One of the hooded figures was speaking, but he wasn’t sure which one. It was certainly not the Dark Lord, whose voice was much higher than the speaker’s, that much he knew. This was one of the followers.

“What do you want from me?” he stammered, looking about at the various figures in the direction the voice had come from, unsure which to focus on.

There were still no tell-tale movements from any of the figures, but the voice continued, “Who else is in the Resistance with you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” lied Charlus. “I don’t know anything about the Resistance.”

Several of the hooded figures chuckled. Charlus turned around a full circle as their laughter seemed to echo off one another. The sound was positively bone chilling. If only one of them had their faces showing, he would feel so much better, but this element of the unknown was raising panic up into his throat. He could feel his wand, tucked up his sleeve against his forearm, but he didn’t yet dare to draw it, afraid to have them all draw their wands and he was sorely outnumbered.

“Come now,” said the low voice, “Don’t lie to us, muggle-lover.”

Charlus didn’t know what to do.

“Just give us some names and we’ll let you go,” the voice said. “We don’t intend to spill any blood today if we don’t have to. We’d rather not mess up Mr. Borgin’s shop.”

A general titter of laughter echoed about the figures again and Charlus closed his eyes.

“We haven’t got all day, Potter,” sneered the voice, becoming impatient by Charlus’s silence. “Just give us the names of a couple of your friends and you’ll be on your way - back to your lovely wife and that adorable son of yours. I hear he’s got a quite a mouth on him, that one does.”

“What do you know about my son?” demanded Charlus, the hairs on the back of his neck standing to attention at the mention of his family.

“Quite a lot,” the voice replied. “I know he’s a bully. Nasty little thing; cruel, even.”

“James would never --”

“Do you call me a liar, Potter?”

Charlus swallowed back the anxiety that the ice-cold edge to the voice’s tone had risen up in him.

“The Resistance will fail,” said the voice, and one of the hooded figures stepped forward, pacing through the circle, and Charlus realized that this was the one speaking to him, this was the leader of this particular group, at least. His spot in the circle was filled as the other figures shuffled slightly to open up the gaps between them to fill in that large spot. What they didn’t realize, though, was the movement had allowed Charlus to reorient himself, to see the doorway and to know which way he would need to try to go to escape. He kept himself facing that way, even as the hooded figure circled around him. “The Dark Lord will win this war, regardless of whatever you and your friends do - and, one by one, we will kill each and every one of you until there is nothing left to the Resistance against the Dark Lord.”

“There will be others,” said Charlus, emboldened by the knowledge of the escape route. Now if only he could figure out a way through the wall of hooded figures and back to the street… “As quickly as you kill us, others will rise up to take our place. The thing about goodness is that it wins. It always wins. The universe is on the side of good. Evil may win the battles, but Good will always win the war.”

The hooded figure laughed, “You keep on telling yourself that, Potter, if that’s what helps you to sleep at night… But one day, we will kill you, and we will kill your son, and we will kill everyone that you love, and we will see how well Good has won then.”

“You can only kill our bodies,” Charlus answered, “You cannot kill our love.”

The figure shook his head. “Love will do you no good in death.”

“Then you clearly do not understand the power of it,” replied Charlus, and with a bravery he had welled up from the depths of him, he lunged forward, directly toward the hooded figure who was speaking with him, drawing his wand as he moved. “Stupefy!” he shouted, sparks flying before him as he charged the door. He turned his wand over his shoulder, “Expelliarmus, Stupefy, Stupefy! He reached the door and grabbed the handle and suddenly recalled it had been locked behind them as they entered. “Alohamora!” he cried desperately as green streaks of light - the killing curse - flew past his ear, only very narrowly missing him. He ducked and the curse struck the door, exploding the wood from it’s impact. He quickly ducked through into the street. Knockturn Alley was only sparsely crowded, no peddlers or families ventured this way, only wizards seeking Dark Magic and the more grotesque potion ingredients came down here. There was no hope of help here, he had to get to Diagon Alley.

The door of Borgin & Burkes flooded with Death Eaters trailing after him and a murder of crows shrieked as they took off from a perch outside of a small, dingy apothecary’s shop and a witch ducked out of the way. They were trying to stun him now, though he was certain the stun would be just as bad as a killing curse if they caught him - and Charlus tripped over a loose cobblestone in the roadway. The narrow stair that led up to Diagon Alley was before him, the light of the sun and the shadow of Gringott’s Bank clearly visible. Charlus scrabbled as quickly as he could up the steps, ducking to avoid a stunner that flew over him so close he felt the air of it’s motion on the back of his neck. He broke into the light of Diagon Alley and didn’t slow, even as he immersed himself among the other witches and wizards.

“Watch where you’re going!” shouted a witch.

“Bloody hell, where’s the fire, man?” called a wizard.

Charlus slowed for none of them, his sole focus on getting far enough separated that he could disapparate without worry of being caught or followed. He reached the square in front of Gringott’s and looked back and he could see the commotion as people spotted the hooded Death Eaters and the reacting began. Screams rose up over the crowd and birds flew up into the air, escaped owls and more crows. Charlus realized he was quite away from them and he spun on the spot and disappeared.