No one knew how many miles from bustling London, the haze that had once hung over the city now clung to a filthy, winding river. Weeds ran wild along both banks, tangled with scattered rubbish. Not far away stood the remains of an abandoned mill: a tall, solitary chimney whose grim outline seemed to whisper of an ill-omened past.
The place was so quiet that only the low murmur of the river could be heard. Life itself seemed to have been swallowed by the wasteland. Only a fox, thin as a rake, slipped down the bank and nosed hungrily through the weeds for a discarded fish-and-chips wrapper.
Into that deathly stillness, a tall figure appeared without a sound, like a ghost in the night. The fox went rigid with alarm, its sharp eyes fixed on the sudden intruder.
"Is this the place? That old man Dumbledore didn't give me the wrong address, did he?" Jerry muttered. He glanced between the note in his hand and the wretched surroundings, frowning.
Jerry waved the fox away from the low bushes where it had been watching him. Better that than let some madwoman soon to escape Azkaban kill it.
He walked toward the riverbank, where a battered old railing separated the water from a narrow cobbled lane. Beyond it stood rows of shabby brick houses. Under the night sky, their windows looked like empty eyes.
Why does Professor Snape live in a place like this... this rubbish dump? Jerry picked his way around the litter, slipped through a gap in the rusted railing, and hurried down the lane. Moments later, he entered another maze-like street that looked much the same.
The farther Jerry went, the more he felt he had stepped into a forgotten world. Derelict brick houses stood all around in a