Shopping in Knockturn Alley

Having spent three months at Hogwarts, Will, who had just returned, was still somewhat unaccustomed to things, as after all, everything had to be done by himself at home.

The upside, however, was that he could do as he pleased. He went to sleep very early at night and did not even read books, since he still had things to do the next day.

Early the next morning, Will changed into a baggy and tattered black robe, stuffed his shoes with his specially crafted insoles, put on a mask, and pulled up his hood. The clothes inside the black robe formed a bizarre outfit with a pillow sewn onto the back.

Will stood before the mirror. In the reflection, he looked like a bizarre, gloomy, shriveled dwarf.

The hands extending from the sleeves of the robe were withered and rough, and his twisted, sharp long fingernails were caked with grime.

It really has been a long time since I wore this outfit, Will thought in a raspy voice. This was merely the result of a few minor applications of Potions.

Today he was heading to Knockturn Alley, and this attire was precisely what he had worn when he visited Knockturn Alley two years ago; otherwise, he would never have managed to get his hands on those Dark Magic books.

Naturally, there was also the battered wand he had scavenged in the past.

One of the entrances to Knockturn Alley was hidden in a certain gloomy alleyway off Diagon Alley.

Surprisingly, Knockturn Alley was actually a place permitted by the Ministry of Magic. After all, Dark Magic was an inseparable major category of magic; in fact, several centuries ago, the classification of Dark Magic did not exist at all, because the overwhelming majority of wizards studied Dark Magic, and it was only in recent centuries, due to the standardization of the Wizarding World, that Dark Magic was segregated into its own category.

Even now, the vast majority of formidable wizards possessed profound knowledge of Dark Magic, and not even the greatest wizard of the modern age-Dumbledore-was an exception.

Knockturn Alley was a dark, filthy alleyway teeming with shops dealing in Dark Magic.

The Cursed House, the Toad House, and the Poison Candle Workshop were common establishments, and there were even shops within that specialized in selling corpses or human-related materials.

A short, limping, hunchbacked dwarf walked into Knockturn Alley, his withered palm leaning on a dirty cane. This getup drew no attention whatsoever and even blended in seamlessly with the gloomy alley.

Compared to the bizarre wizards roaming the roadside with deformed bodies and foul-smelling rags wrapped all over themselves, this outfit could even be considered neatly dressed.

He navigated Knockturn Alley with practiced ease, passing shops that sold poisons and voodoo dolls, passing the ratty sheds teeming with croaking toads and overwhelming stenches, and passing Borgin and Burkes—the largest, most luxurious, and neatest shop in all of Knockturn Alley-before finally stopping in front of a dim bookstore crammed with books of every description.

Crack. Will crushed a fist-sized, slimy, spider-like creature underfoot. He lifted his foot, leaving sticky, pulverized insect tissue clinging to his sole.

Then a dark shadow burst out from inside the shop, dropping to its knees and wailing loudly.

"Dillma! What's wrong with you, Dillma? You can't die on me, Dillma! We've depended on each other for so many years, you have to pay! Dillma is an African Himalayan crab spider..."

"Shut up, Lodals." The raspy voice put a stop to the woman's weeping. This one's scam hadn't changed in years.

Besides, the Himalayas were not in Africa.

Only then did the woman named Lodals look up and hastily wipe away her tears. "Oh, it's you, Vincent. Buying books again?"

"What else? Buying your bugs?"

Lodals spread her hands and led Will into the bookstore. "Find whatever you want yourself, and don't steal anything. I've got my eyes on you."

When Will first came here to buy books three years ago, he had almost fallen for Lodals's trick. Fortunately, his powers of observation were sharp, and he quickly discovered that this creature was actually an African Stone Spider-cheap and fiercely resilient.

The price was a mere five Knuts each.

In fact, such shakedowns were extremely common in Knockturn Alley. Merely extorting money was still relatively mild; some of the more malicious ones even sought to take lives, to the point that Will had spent a full two months making preparations back then just to enter Knockturn Alley.

Lodals's bookstore was very dim, and a vast quantity of books was piled crookedly and disorderly on the bookshelves. Will had to cast Lumos just to see clearly what those books actually were.

Clearly, the shopkeeper was not someone who cared for books. If Madam Pince were to see a young wizard treating books this way, she would undoubtedly fly into a rage.

These books had no classification or organization; some were even piled on the floor, covered in mud and dust. Will could only search bit by bit for the books he needed. The reason it was done this way was because the books here at Lodals's were sold by weight-one Galleon per pound.

Aside from these, there were Lodals's "private collections," which were the ones sold by the copy.

Will searched for quite a while, even enduring another attempted scam by Lodals along the way.

Finally, Will hauled a few books over and dumped them onto Lodals's dirty scales.

"Seven and three-quarter pounds. Eight Galleons will do," Lodals said with a grin, holding out her hand.

"Don't play games with me, Lodals. Your scales have been tampered with again." Will spoke in a raspy voice, pulling out five Galleons, then fumbling through his pockets to fish out a pile of small coins-thirty-three Silver Sickles.

"That's all of it."

Grimacing in distaste as she collected the coins stained with strange slime and grime, Lodals said, "You have no idea how much it cost me to collect these things. These are all advanced books on Dark Magic. But since you're a regular customer, I'll take a loss."

Yet how could the uncontainable joy on her face resemble someone taking a loss?

"Don't think I don't know how much you're making; those ratty books of yours aren't worth this much." Will thrust his hand into the broken crate containing the stone spiders, hauled out two stone spiders to shove into his pockets, and, muttering curses, shoved the few books into his robes, slouching away from Lodals's bookstore.

"Old cockroach, you're shoplifting again!" Lodals cursed at his back, but took no actual action. She had made a tidy profit anyway, and those stone spiders were cheap-let him have them.

"Super Wand! Lets your Squib friends and family cast charms!"

"Werewolf Potion! Completely cures werewolf venom!"

"Philosopher's Stone! Genuine Philosopher's Stone fragments! Only 80 pieces left, first come, first served!"

Quite a few swindlers were making a public spectacle of themselves in Knockturn Alley, and their methods grew shoddier by the day. Yet on occasion, some fool would fall for it, which was why these swindlers remained here year after year.

Knockturn Alley was just like this-countless Dark Wizards passing to and fro amidst gloom, eeriness, filth, squalor, violence, and chaos.