章 104: Secret shopping
// THIS IS AN OLD CHAPTER. THE NEW CHAPTERS ARE IN VOLUME 2. YOU CAN READ THESE CHAPTERS IF YOU WANT SOME INSIGHT ON WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN LATER BUT SOME EVENTS CAN BE DIFFERENT BETWEEN THE OLD AND NEW CHAPTERS.
When Saturday finally arrives, I am with Daphne in front of the room on request. Daphne is looking in all directions.
"Sean, what are we doing here? I thought we were going to Diagon Alley?"
"We're going but for that, I have to show you one of Hogwarts' secret rooms, the Room of Requirement."
"The Room of Requirement?"
"It is also called the Come and Go Room or the Room of Hidden Things. It's a magical room that only appears to a person who needs it. To make it appear you must walk past it three times while thinking about what you need, and the door will appear with what you need behind it. This is where I hid my secret entrance to come and go from Hogwarts as I want."
"It's amazing! Why aren't there more people who know about it?"
"Do you know a lot of people who pass through the same place three times, thinking about the same thing?"
"Well, I do not. But how did you find out then?" She looks at me suspiciously.
"With luck. I found an old plan of the castle and it mentioned a hidden room on the seventh floor." I don't like lying to Daphne, but I can't see myself explaining to her that I have already died once. "Look I'll show you." I take her hand and I walked past it three times, thinking of the room where I left the vanishing cabinets. The door appears and I open it letting us both enter the huge room filled with objects of all kinds.
"It's huge. What's this room?"
"Remember when I told you it was also called the Room of Hidden Things. Well, there you go. I thought I needed a place to hide my way out of the school and the room of requirement gave me this. " Daphne looks amazed and leans towards one of the piles of objects while trying to pick up something. I catch her hand before she grabs a small snow globe. "First rule here, we only touch what we left or what we are looking for. There are magical objects left here and some of them could be dangerous. Follow me."
I lead her through the maze, there were a lot of strange objects, half-burnt Lockhart books, wands snapped in half, and even a potted Devil's Snare that has dried up. After a few minutes, we arrive in front of my cabinet.
"What is that?" Daphne touches the ornate wood of the door.
"It's a vanishing cabinet, people used during Voldemort's time to get away quickly but most of them are now missing. They were memories of a much darker time. They work in pairs, if you go into one closet, you end up in the other one when you close the door. "
"And where does this one lead?"
"In my room at home. Come on, follow me." I take her hand before dragging her into the cabinet and closing the door behind me. A few seconds later, I reopen the door which reveals the interior of my room in the manor of London.
"So, this is your room?" I quickly put my hand against her mouth and motion for her to be silent.
"Shhh, my mom's here all day. If you talk too loudly, she might hear us!" I open the bedroom door as we tiptoe down the stairs to the fireplace. "Go first, I'll follow you." Daphne grabs a pinch of floo powder before throwing it into the fireplace.
"Diagon Alley" a noisy blaze engulfs Daphne who disappears in an instant.
"Is someone there?" I hear my mother's voice coming in my direction.
"Diagon Alley" The flames engulf me, and I find myself in the leaky cauldron where Daphne is waiting for me, sitting on a stool.
"Can we go now?" she gets up from her stool, waving the white dress she has put on for the occasion. I opted for my charcoal vest and pants with a white shirt and my black waxed shoes.
We start with the essentials, Twilfitt and Tatting's clothing store. When we get inside, a small bell rings and a young woman comes before us.
"Hello, welcome to Twilfitt and Tattings. What can I do for you?"
"Hello, we would like to have a dress and costume made for the winter ball at Hogwarts. I have to open the ball with my date here and I would like to show off to our foreign guests."
"Oh yeah, I recognize you, you are Sean Bones! The champion of Hogwarts! I saw your picture in the Daily Prophet. I had never read an article by Rita Skeeter where she was so laudatory. She must get tired with age I suppose. Do you have a theme? Some favorite colors maybe? "
"I would like a very light white and blue dress with little crystals reminiscent of snow. And a white fur scarf if you have one. And my date will take one suit in the same style." Daphne seems to have thought about what she wants, she starts to draw a small sketch of what she wants in front of the shopkeeper who begins to bring her comments and ideas. I spend the rest of the morning doing the model as the seamstress takes my measurements and starts having me try on several clothes close to what Daphne wants so she can get an idea of what the end result will look like.
When we leave the store, I am exhausted by all the fittings while Daphne looks delighted. She drags me to the ice cream shop to share a huge chocolate-pistachio ice cream. We settle inside to stay warm, although it is not particularly cold, a fairly strong wind is blowing through the streets of London. Daphne devours most of the ice cream on her own, which doesn't seem to bother her in the slightest.
"Wait, you got a little bit of it on your cheek." I scrape off the rest of the ice cream and just as I was about to wipe it back on my towel, I have a much better idea. I swallow the rest of the ice cream which makes her blush like a tomato. "So now that you've eaten well, what would you like to do?"
"Well, my father goes to a shop in the back alley from time to time, but he forbids me to go there. Do you mind if we go there?"
"Um, why not? What's the name of the store?"
" Borgin and Burkes I think."
"I think I know where it is." I'm not going to tell her that I'm a loyal customer of the store, it would be weird if people knew that a boy almost fourteen is an accomplished dark mage. I take her hand as we walk towards the black magic shop, I purposely lose us once in order to make her think I don't remember the way, but it does not take us more than fifteen minutes to cross the door of Borgin and Burkes.
"No kid here, go back to your parents' house. I only want serious customers here."
"But we are serious customers." I open my purse revealing glittering galleons. I know how to bait that old fox.
"Oh, excuse me sir, but I have so many young customers who mistake us for a harmless curiosity shop. I don't want to have any new incidents. Are you looking for something in particular? "
"Um yes, I would like to see what you have on curses. Particularly the ones that affect bloodlines!" Daphne walks over to Borgin, looking determined.
"Blood curses? I have kinda a lot of them actually! I must have about ten books dealing with the subject. Two hundred or three hundred years ago, it was the fashion to throw this kind of hexes but these days it is severely punished. Are you looking for a specific type of curse? "
"Very slow style, which weakens you and makes you very sick."
"The less common style then. In general, people preferred the slow transformations into animals, but I think I have one book left that talks about this type of curse." He goes into the back shop to pick up the book. Meanwhile, Daphne begins to examine the various objects. Her attention was eventually caught by an emerald set into a knife.
"A rare and unique piece." We both jump when we hear Mr. Burgin's voice just behind us. "This knife has the special property of attracting dark creatures when covered in blood, vampires, werewolves, dementor, and other creatures even more terrifying." Daphne seems captivated by the dagger, but she remembers what Burgin came back with. "I found this grimoire. A rare book who was written by Raczidian the mad, which deals with a curse he would have wanted to put on a village of wizards. It is not known if he succeeded in casting the spell in the end. but that's all I got on this type of curse. "
"How much do I owe you for the book and that dagger?"
"That will make 623 Galleons, payable in one go." Daphne seems panicked, few children our age have so much money. Lucky for her, I'm here.
"Put it on the account of a mutual friend, the quiet man who likes Kneazles. And at the same time add the rest of the books dealing with blood curses. My friend will pick them up early tomorrow." Mister Burgin's face lights up when he realizes who I'm talking about and that he's about to close a good deal. Daphne, on the other hand, looks at me in disbelief.
"But with pleasure, I look forward to meeting our mutual friend tomorrow. Please come back young people." I take Daphne to the exit to bring her back to the leaky cauldron.
"How come you know someone who frequents this store." I don't think I can keep the truth from her any longer. I'm afraid she's giving me a fit like when she saw the killing curse.
"Well, if I tell you, promise me you're not going to yell at me. "
"I promise, you can tell me anything."
"Well, from time to time I change my appearance in order to visit that shop in search of knowledge, ... less conventional." Daphne looks at me with round eyes.
"What?! Do you do black magic ?!"
"Shhh, you promised to not get upset." She looks at me and she takes a deep breath.
"How long have you been studying this kind of spell?"
"Pretty much since I arrived at Hogwarts." She frowns but doesn't say anything. Then suddenly her expression changes completely.
"Wait, if you've been studying this long you must have one hell of a collection of books. Can you show them to me please?"
"I thought you didn't like that kind of magic."
"I don't like it it's true, but I need it to help my sister."
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