I looked down at the remains sprawled across the warped floorboards with a clinical coldness that would have terrified the university student I once was. My hands didn't shake. There was no hollow ache of guilt or the frantic hammering of a heart in shock. Instead, there was only a flat, unwavering clarity. He had swung first; his talons had carved the air with lethal intent, and my stolen blade had simply provided the answer.
Silence reclaimed the room, heavy and suffocating. The lone oil lamp on the far wall guttered, casting long, skeletal shadows that danced over shelves of cracked vials and rusted cauldrons. The air was a thick soup of sulfur and bitterroot. I took a slow, steadying breath, feeling the unfamiliar, heavy pull between my shoulder blades.
My wings.
They arched high and elegant, feathers darker than spilled ink, seemingly designed to drink what little light remained in the room. I watched them for a moment, fascinated by the way they felt like a reclaimed instinct rather than an alien growth. With a flick of my will, the feathers dissolved into shadow, retracting into my skin with a seamless, practical grace.
Knockturn Alley treated death like London treated the rain—it was expected, ignored, and quickly washed away. One more corpse wouldn't trigger a panic, but carelessness was a luxury I couldn't afford. I dragged the body toward the back room, the wood groaning under the shifting weight. In death, he felt lighter, as if the madness that fueled him had been the only thing giving him mass. Once he was hidden, I washed my hands in a chipped basin, watching the pink ribbons of water spiral down the drain. My reflection in the warped mirror was a stranger: paler, sharper, and carrying an age that no seven-year-old should possess.
I turned my back on the mirror. I had survived the gutters, but survival was a pauper's goal. This house, with its crooked shadows and hidden cellars, was my stronghold. But to keep it, I needed the deed.
The man had been a paranoid recluse, a man who saw spies in the steam of his own cauldrons. He wouldn't have left his life's blood in plain sight. For seven days, I dismantled the house. I scrubbed brass cauldrons, sorted jars of fluxweed and lacewing flies, and tied bundles of his frantic, enciphered notes. I pried up floorboards and tapped against the soot-stained bricks of the chimney.
Irritation eventually turned to a bone-deep exhaustion. It was only on the seventh night, leaning against the worktable in a daze, that I saw it. Behind the heavy oak cabinet, a patch of mortar looked too clean, the brickwork too symmetrical. I shoved the furniture aside and went to work with a chisel. Minutes later, the wall gave way, revealing a small tin box wrapped in oilcloth. Inside, the parchment was pristine, bearing the official seals of ownership. A rare spark of satisfaction warmed my chest.
Gringotts rose out of the heart of Diagon Alley like a white marble middle finger to the rest of the world. Its towering columns radiated a quiet, financial threat. Crossing the threshold from Knockturn into Diagon felt like moving between dimensions; the air sharpened, and the grime of the slums was replaced by the polished gleam of self-stirring cauldrons and tailored robes. I walked through the cavernous hall, my chin level, ignored by the wizards but watched intently by the goblins behind their high desks.
I placed the deed before a goblin whose wire-rimmed spectacles caught the glitter of the chandeliers.
"Transfer of ownership," I said, my voice steady and devoid of a child's tremor. "The previous owner is deceased."
The goblin's dark eyes flicked to mine, searching for a crack in my composure. He found none. Goblins cared for the sanctity of a contract, not the morality of the transition. He worked with a clinical, brisk finality, stamping the documents and sliding the registered parchment back to me with a dismissive grunt. Knockturn Alley property clearly didn't impress him.
I didn't mind. Underestimation was the greatest weapon in my arsenal.
When I returned, the shop felt different. It was no longer a prison or a laboratory for another man's madness; it was mine. I stood in the center of the room, watching the dust motes dance in the gray light. The front would be my storefront—a place of discrete remedies and rare tinctures for a clientele that valued silence. The back would be my sanctuary, a place to refine the magic that now thrummed through my veins like a second pulse.
I rested my palms against the scarred wooden counter. Deep beneath my ribs, something dark and patient coiled, waiting for the next time I would need to fly. Let the Alley whisper. Soon enough, they would know that the crooked shop at the bend in the road belonged to someone new. And this time, I would be the one they feared to cross.