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Suppressing the urge to go back and hit Borgin & Burke with a Twilight Zonesee curse again, Ian quickened his pace and left. Lupin, who followed behind him, still wore a dazed and shell-shocked expression.
The two walked through Knockturn Alley.
They walked side by side through the narrow and winding alley, the cobbled street beneath their feet uneven and treacherous. On both sides stood run-down buildings and dimly lit shops, each exuding an inexplicable sense of eerie strangeness.
Ian, stifled and irritated, remained silent.
After several failed attempts to speak, Lupin finally couldn't hold back his curiosity.
"Your lineage is really… this incredible?" Lupin had used up all the tact he possessed in his entire life. He even looked as if he was treading on eggshells.
And who could blame him?
The news was absolutely explosive.
If it weren't for the fact that Lupin had repeatedly recalled the "gift" Ian had received from a Sacred House, he would never have believed such an absurd and outrageous piece of terrifying information.
However, as someone who had personally seen Ian acquire a large number of Diagon Alley shops from the Sacred House, Lupin quickly found himself connecting the dots; everything now seemed to make a twisted kind of sense.
If Ian, next to him, truly was Ian Grindelwald Dumbledore Ambrosius Prince, then it would be perfectly reasonable for Sacred Houses and even veteran dark wizards to take him seriously.
Faced with Lupin's increasingly peculiar stare—
Ian shot him a sideways glare.
"Only an idiot would believe something so ridiculous. Senior, are you an idiot?" he retorted flatly, leaving Lupin with an impossible choice, one he couldn't possibly agree to.
"But you said… people at school call you Ian Dumbledore…" Lupin's skeptical voice trailed off mid-sentence, as Ian had already moved his hand to his waist.
He wasn't really afraid that a first-year would draw a wand, but he was worried that a potions prodigy might pull out a strange concoction. In battle, alchemists and potioneers weren't judged just by their magic spells.
"That's just a title. Don't you understand what a title is?" Ian was already regretting having fooled Lupin earlier. He hadn't expected that even after going home, his classmates would still be spreading rumors about him.
"Alright, let's drop the topic," Lupin nodded in agreement, going along with Ian's suggestion. Still, his sidelong glances at Ian didn't go unnoticed.
There was no helping it. He really couldn't clear his name. And as a textbook Gryffindor with an adventurous spirit, Lupin was subconsciously more inclined to believe in bizarre possibilities.
"I swear, those big mouths! Turns out what people yearn for more than a mute bride is a mute classmate," Ian grumbled, venting his frustration on the street littered with trash. He kicked a small tin can, then gave a swift boot to a cat that was lurking with ill intent, likely an illegal Animagus or dark wizard in disguise.
As the lawless zone of Britain's wizarding world, Knockturn Alley was largely beyond the reach of the Ministry of Magic. Not only did no one bother cleaning the streets, but it also harbored the most ruthless dark wizards in all of Britain.
These people might be like rats in the daylight outside, but in Knockturn Alley, they strutted with pride. Ian could already feel more than a dozen malicious stares closing in around them.
Some were hidden inside buildings, others were out on the streets. Among the robed wizards passing by, faces hidden, there were always a few whose gazes lingered longer than necessary on small wizards who had perhaps lost their way here.
Because—
Young wizards were treasure troves. Heart, liver, spleen, lungs, kidneys, all highly sought-after ingredients in dark magic. Especially when thoroughly tortured first, they became essential components for many powerful dark magical materials.
According to incomplete statistics from the Ministry of Magic, several young wizards go missing from Diagon Alley every year, especially those raised with traditional home-schooling rather than Hogwarts' protection.
If Ian weren't accompanied by a mysterious adult wizard, the malice harbored by the dark wizards walking past would've been made plainly visible by now.
Of course—
That might just be what Ian was hoping for.
The dark wizards needed young wizards for experiments.
And who's to say Ian didn't want a few dark wizards to experiment on himself?
"We'd better get to Diagon Alley quickly. This place is far too foul and chaotic," Lupin suggested cautiously, keeping an eye on their surroundings while pointing the way toward Diagon Alley.
That was yet another strange marvel of the wizarding world:
The largest dark wizard gathering place in the country stood just a single wall away from the most bustling street of magical commerce in all of Britain, a fact that was deeply ironic.
"It's full of filth and chaos because no one bothers to manage it," Ian replied, not heading in the direction Lupin had pointed. Instead, he examined the surroundings, dilapidated buildings all around, with a few shop signs barely hanging on.
One look, and you could tell this wasn't a place for legitimate business. The last time Ian had seen stores like this was in his last life, those rundown but mysteriously pink-lit places that came alive precisely at night.
"Aurors conduct regular raids in Knockturn Alley, but after over a hundred years of such efforts, nothing's changed!" Lupin said, his tone showing clear frustration.
He might have been much older than Ian and had far more life experience, but even years of wandering hadn't taught him that the world was not just black or white.
That wasn't a flaw.
It was the unique "naivety" shared by Gryffindor students, or perhaps more accurately, their hope for the world. They weren't willing to accept that the true color of reality was a delicate shade of gray.
"Aurors are people, and the Ministry of Magic is a collection of people. Who can guarantee they'll never need to make use of Knockturn Alley?" Ian didn't believe the Ministry truly lacked the power to wipe out Knockturn Alley.
Sometimes—
It wasn't that the Ministry couldn't manage Knockturn Alley. It was that the wizarding world as a whole had tacitly accepted its existence, and so Knockturn Alley had rooted itself here for all these years.
After all, every household might have the need for something a little illegal.
Even the Weasley family wasn't completely exempt. Where there's light, there must be darkness, that truth holds in both the Muggle world and the wizarding one.
Although the Ministry openly prohibits the trade of dark magic and related items, for many wizards, those things were at times urgently necessary.
Knockturn Alley was the clearest manifestation of "existence as justification."
"Heh."
Lupin didn't really agree with Ian's view, but he wasn't in much of a position to argue. As a broke werewolf, the only place he could afford Wolfsbane Potion was in Knockturn Alley. With enough gold galleons, you could buy almost anything here. Whether what you bought was authentic or not? That depended entirely on luck and your own judgment.
"You're going deeper into Knockturn Alley? Looking for more dark magic items?" Lupin furrowed his brow as he saw Ian heading further into the alley. Still, he didn't mention reporting it to Albus Dumbledore, he was already recalling how none of his past reports had ever accomplished much.
And thinking back to what had just happened...
He felt like he was beginning to understand everything.
"I'm trying to see if there are any other werewolves hiding around here," Ian said. He had no interest in shoddy dark magic items. If he really wanted any dark magic artifacts, he could easily make them himself.
"What do you plan to do with them?"
Lupin followed close behind Ian, his face turning serious. Even if most werewolves weren't great people, he didn't want to see those already unfortunate souls suffer something even worse.
"I'm looking for ones willing to help me and who have the foresight to see the bigger picture. All of it is for my Ian-edition Wolfsbane Potion," Ian replied honestly.
"I'm not going to help you catch werewolves," Lupin warned him.
"Heh."
This time, it was Ian who gave a soft chuckle.
"Gold galleons can buy everything."
He stated the belief he'd always lived by.
"You really are naive. Gold galleons will only get little guys like you killed faster. Don't you know that around here, rich sheep often vanish along with their wallets?"
"Sure, you might have outstanding talent, and your bloodline may be noble, but potential doesn't guarantee achievement. If we run into real trouble, I might not even be able to protect myself," Lupin added seriously, feeling that this young wizard still didn't fully understand the harshness of the world.
To be honest...
He really did want to forcibly drag the reckless little wizard out of Knockturn Alley, but Ian was slipperier than a loach. Every time Lupin tried to grab him, the kid somehow predicted his move and slipped away just in time.
"We agreed not to bring up that rumor again," Ian rolled his eyes.
(To Be Continued…)