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October at Hogwarts brought rain that didn't just fall—it seemed to pour straight out of the sky in buckets.
Julien stood by a window in the third-floor corridor, looking out toward the Quidditch pitch.
Even from this distance, he could make out the blurry, struggling silhouettes fighting through the curtain of rain. Splashes of red and yellow mashed together like watercolors dissolving in a puddle.
Lee Jordan's commentary was continuously shredded by the howling wind. Only a few stray words managed to reach the castle: "Cedric... scores... Quaffle..."
The match had successfully drawn everyone's attention. That was exactly what he needed. He turned and walked toward the statue of the one-eyed witch.
Recently, while practicing alchemy, Julien had hit a roadblock. He was short on a very specific, rare ingredient: the sap of a Silenced Lotus.
Elizabeth had written to her grandmother, but even the Rosier matriarch didn't have any in stock. However, she did offer a lead: Diagon Alley might have some, though she wasn't sure exactly where. She suggested asking the owner of the Hog's Head Inn in Hogsmeade.
At the same time, Elizabeth had her family commission a specialized Portkey that would return them straight to Hogsmeade, allowing for a quick getaway after their mission.
Liriya, meanwhile, had once again asked her family for the "Tears of Eternity" crafted from the aurora borealis. The tears were essential for the purification process when repairing the Sundial of Eternal Darkness.
Julien had already arranged a meeting to pick up the Tears at the Leaky Cauldron.
Truthfully, Julien knew several secret passages leading out of the castle. But given the current high-security lockdown, the route through the one-eyed witch statue to Honeydukes cellar was by far the safest.
The statue stood in the corner of the corridor. Its face was heavily worn and ambiguous, and in the flashes of lightning, its single eye seemed to gleam with an eerie light. Julien tapped his wand lightly against the statue's hunched back and muttered the password he'd bought from the Weasley twins: "Dissendium."
Julien had also sought out the twins to iron out a few details and purchase some sweets that could slightly alter his appearance.
Of course, part of him had hoped to get his hands on the Marauder's Map. But clearly, he wasn't the 'Chosen One' Harry Potter, and the twins had absolutely no intention of handing it over to him.
The witch's hump cracked open, revealing a pitch-black passageway behind it. Julien slipped inside, instantly enveloped by the damp, musty smell of mildew.
The tunnel was narrow and low ceilinged. While a young wizard didn't have to hunch over completely, he figured Hagrid would never even fit through the entrance.
Beads of water seeped through the stone walls, reflecting his wand light like thousands of tiny, peering eyes.
After walking for nearly twenty minutes, he took a left turn for about a hundred paces, then a right for a few dozen yards. The distinct, sweet smell of Chocolate Frogs grew stronger with every step.
At the very end of the tunnel, a trapdoor sat above his head. Julien pushed it open and emerged into the Honeydukes cellar, surrounded by towering stacks of crates filled with Cockroach Clusters. Holding his breath, he slipped out the back door and stepped onto the streets of Hogsmeade.
The rain was coming down even harder now, turning the cobblestone streets into rushing streams.
Julien pulled his hood down low and hurried along the road. The windows of the Three Broomsticks were bright and inviting. Because so many people were dodging the rain, business was actually booming. Madam Rosmerta's laughter rang out clearly, easily cutting through the noise of the storm.
The Hog's Head Inn was tucked away at the very end of a narrow alley on the outskirts of the village. The alley was barely wide enough for two people to walk shoulder-to-shoulder, and the overhanging eaves of the buildings on either side nearly touched, filtering the sky into a single, gloomy gray line.
If Julien hadn't thoroughly pumped the Weasley twins for directions, he likely would have walked right past it.
He pushed open the heavy oak door. Immediately, a thick, overpowering stench of goat hit him in the face, mixing with the damp smell of rotting wood and an indescribable, sour-sweet tang of stale alcohol.
The smell was intensely aggressive. It felt like an invisible net wrapping tightly around your head. First-timers instinctively scrunched their noses, but the regulars were long used to it—or rather, they hadn't come here looking for a pleasant atmosphere anyway.
The inn consisted of a single, large room. The windows were caked in a layer of grime so thick and dark it looked like old curtains, filtering whatever little daylight remained outside into a murky, yellowish gloom.
The tables and chairs were old and arranged haphazardly; no two pieces of furniture looked alike. The bar was the sturdiest thing in the whole room—a thick, solid slab of dark oak, polished to a greasy shine by years of use.
Unlike the Three Broomsticks, the violent storm outside meant the Hog's Head was completely empty. The only person inside was a tall, thin old man standing behind the bar, slowly wiping a glass with a rag that was so dirty its original color was entirely lost.
The old man had long, tangled gray hair and a matching, unkempt beard. Even when the noise of Julien pushing the door open startled him, he merely threw a passing glance in Julien's direction. He clearly had no intention of speaking first.
"Hello. Are you the owner?" Julien asked, walking straight up to the bar.
The figure looked up. Julien noticed that one of his eyes was cloudy and white, while the other was as sharp and piercing as a hawk's. Because Julien knew the story, he knew this old man was Aberforth Dumbledore, Albus's younger brother. If he hadn't known, the man's appearance might have genuinely startled him.
"Underage. What do you want?" Aberforth's voice was raspy. "Here to buy a drink? Or here to buy passage?"
"Floo powder. I need to get to Diagon Alley." Julien paused, carefully choosing his words. "And I'm hoping to get some information..."
"A kid your age skipping school? What could you possibly be looking for? Information costs extra."
"Gold Galleons aren't an issue," Julien replied, mimicking his father's aristocratic drawl. "I'm looking for the sap of a Silenced Lotus. Where can I find it?"
Aberforth stopped wiping the glass. That single, sharp eye looked Julien up and down: from the rainwater dripping off his hood, to the faint outline of the wand concealed in his sleeve, and finally settling on his face—a face that still held the soft features of a young boy.
"Silenced Lotus?" Aberforth repeated. There was an emotion in his voice that Julien couldn't quite decipher.
He set the glass down and stared hard at Julien.
"Do you even know what that is, boy?" His voice dropped low, as if being squeezed out from deep within his throat.
"Three drops of Silenced Lotus sap will turn drinking water into a lethal poison. Seven drops will plunge a fully grown dragon into a deep sleep. And the dosage required for alchemy..." He held up a bony, withered finger. "You need at least fifteen drops just to brew a 'Conceptual Anchor.'"
Julien's heart skipped a beat. Aberforth had just explicitly named the recipe Grindelwald had taught him—the absolute crucial step for stabilizing the core runes of the Sundial of Eternal Darkness.
"How... how do you know that?"
"Me?" Aberforth's mouth twisted. It might have been a smile, or just a muscle spasm. "Don't go asking questions you shouldn't know the answers to."
He leaned forward over the bar. The cloudy eye suddenly cleared, like clouds parting to reveal the moon. "What surprises me is why someone your age needs it. A Conceptual Anchor is a highly specialized material used for repairing ancient seals. Usually, only—"
He cut himself off and didn't finish the sentence.
Julien's blood ran cold. Aberforth knew something. Maybe not everything, but definitely enough.
"I'm just studying," Julien said, keeping his voice perfectly level. "From a... private tutor."
"A private tutor?" Aberforth repeated, his voice returning to its lazy, raspy drawl. "Well, that definitely means it isn't Albus, then."
Julien's fingers tightened. His wand vibrated slightly in his sleeve.
"Relax, kid." Aberforth stepped back and picked up the perpetually dirty glass again. "I don't care what you're up to. If Albus doesn't care, why should I?"
"But unfortunately, you won't find Silenced Lotus sap in Diagon Alley." He turned to the liquor cabinet behind him and pulled a heavily dust-covered bottle from the very top shelf. "The goods in Diagon Alley are too clean, too legal, which means the supply is limited. What you're looking for is in Knockturn Alley. At the 'Seraphina Graves' apothecary."
Julien nodded in profound agreement. He remembered from the original story that Hagrid couldn't find the Flesh-Eating Slug Repellent he needed in Diagon Alley either; he'd had to go to Knockturn Alley for it.
The old man slid the bottle across the bar. It didn't contain liquid, but rather some sort of dried, petal-like fragments that were a color somewhere between purplish-black and deep blue.
"This is an introduction," Aberforth said. "Madam Graves will recognize it. She'll know you were... referred. It won't be cheap, but she at least won't scam you with fakes."
"Thank you. You're a good man," Julien said with genuine gratitude.
"Tch." The old man scoffed. "That'll be 20 Galleons. Oh, and whether or not you actually walk out of Knockturn Alley alive isn't my problem."
Julien nodded silently.
"The fireplace is in the back." Aberforth pointed deeper into the inn, toward a half-curtained doorway where a faint green light flickered. "The Floo powder for Diagon Alley is in the jar next to the hearth. But remember: use the back parlor at the Leaky Cauldron. Do not use the front door. It's being watched."
"And one more thing," he leaned forward again, dropping his voice to a whisper. "If you see someone wearing a pin shaped like a withered rose, that's the Rosier family contact."
This time, Julien was genuinely shocked. Aberforth knew far more than he had let on. He nodded again, slipping the "introduction" into the inner pocket of his robes. The gold coins clinked sharply against the bar top, but Aberforth didn't even glance at them.