Marcus had been awake for hours before breakfast. He sat at the top of the stairs, just beyond the third stair's habitual creak, listening.
Downstairs, his parents' voices were low but edged with tension, like a silencing charm cast too late.
"…Third one this week," Liora was saying. "Twelve years old. Muggle-born. They're getting closer."
"I know," Eustace replied. "Near Hogsmeade. The Aurors are stretched thin. Bagnold's denying it, but the files say otherwise. We're past coincidence."
There was the soft hiss of the Daily Prophet being folded — a gesture that in the Thark household often meant more than the article it contained.
Marcus crept down a few steps.
"He possesses significant power, undeniable," Eustace said, his tone measured, almost like he was giving a lecture. "But channels it towards a singularly… unimaginative goal: the purification of wizardkind through bloodline supremacy. A crude biological determinism, ignoring centuries of magical theory proving power manifests unpredictably."
Marcus stopped moving. His father's tone wasn't fearful — it was analytical, like he was cataloguing a magical anomaly instead of describing a rising war.
"His methods are brutal," Eustace continued, voice distant, as though he were seeing something no one else could. "Disappearances. Attacks on Muggles and Muggle-borns primarily, but also on any who oppose him openly. He calls his followers Death Eaters. The Ministry, under Bagnold, struggles to contain it. Denials are becoming less effective." He gestured at the paper, though Marcus couldn't see it from the stairs.
"Why doesn't someone stop him?" Marcus asked, stepping into the room.
Both parents turned, startled — not because he was listening, but because he'd interrupted. He rarely did.
"Because," Eustace said quietly, "the wizarding world is deeply fractured. And fear is a poor unifier."
Liora rose and smoothed a napkin beside Marcus's usual seat. Her expression softened, but her tone remained crisp.
"All right. That's enough dark theory over breakfast," she said, gently steering the conversation. "Eat. Then we're heading to Diagon Alley. You'll need proper supplies if you're going to outshine your classmates."
Marcus sat down, the question lingering in his mind like residue from an unfinished potion. Outside, the enchanted mirror flickered silently. The WWN visual channel displayed a golden Ministry crest and bold words beneath it:
REASSURANCE IS STRENGTH — ALL IS UNDER CONTROL
No one bothered to turn it off.
The familiar clang of the Leaky Cauldron's bell rang overhead as the Tharks stepped inside, but the warmth that once lived in the old pub had thinned. In its place lingered a low thrum of anxious murmurs, like wind threading through the bones of a house left too long unattended.
Tom the barman scrubbed glasses with almost aggressive focus, his eyes flicking to the door more often than the work in his hands. Conversations were hushed, clipped — the natural rise and fall of voices replaced by cautious glances and muttered reassurances. Even the smiles, when they came, were forced, stretched too tight across strained expressions.
"Third abduction this week," a man muttered at the bar, his voice little more than smoke. He didn't look up.
His companion gave a quiet grunt, swirling his firewhiskey in a slow, weary circle.
Liora's hand tightened on Marcus's arm without thinking as they crossed the room. It wasn't panic — not yet — but it was close.
At the rear of the pub, Eustace drew his wand and tapped the familiar bricks. One by one, they folded and shifted until the archway yawned open, revealing the ever-changing heart of wizarding London.
But the Diagon Alley that opened before them was a faded echo of the place Marcus had known — the same streets, the same signs, but the spirit beneath them felt altered.
"It was like stepping into a memory frayed at the edges by time."
Sunlight still glinted off shop windows, still caught on the edges of brass cauldrons and enchanted telescopes, but the colors were wrong — muted, hesitant. The usual current of magic that once hummed through the cobblestones and awnings now felt interrupted — a melody with a single, jarring note out of place.
The crowd moved with uneasy urgency. Faces turned quickly, laughter was conspicuously absent, and the occasional sharp crack of Apparition drew flinches from more than a few.
Every few feet, Ministry posters clung to the stone walls like fungus:
DARK MAGIC SIGHTINGS – STAY VIGILANT!
REPORT SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY IMMEDIATELY!
HAVE YOU SEEN THIS WIZARD?
Beneath the last, a shifting image showed a hooded figure who moved too erratically to be natural — twitching, distorted, as if even the enchantment didn't want to hold him still.
They passed Gambol and Japes, once a riot of color and laughter. Now its windows were darkening behind drawn curtains. Through the narrowing gap, Marcus caught a glimpse of the shopkeeper — pale, wide-eyed — fastening the final drape. Their eyes met for a second. Then he was gone. A flickering sign appeared in the glass:
Closed for Inventory. Apologies.
The words faltered, shadows of a truth they couldn't bear to bring into light.
Farther down, the entrance to Knockturn Alley had transformed. No longer just a shadowed curiosity, it stood now like a wound in the street — fortified and grim. Two Aurors in red robes flanked the archway, their stances relaxed only in the way predators appear still before they strike. Their eyes were sharp. Their wands were not holstered.
Just beyond them, waist-high black pillars thrummed faintly on either side of the main path — Ministry magical detectors, recently installed. The sound they made buzzed in Marcus's bones, a reminder that nothing here was untouched.
A small girl skipped past, hand-in-hand with her father. As she crossed between the detectors, one hissed suddenly, a flash of crimson lighting its smooth surface.
The father recoiled with a cry, pulling his daughter close. An Auror was there in an instant, wand raised. "False alarm," he muttered after a quick scan of her Pygmy Puff. "Carry on."
The detector fell silent. The fear did not.
The Tharks moved on, not as tourists, and not quite as locals — but as those who had known a place well enough to feel how far it had slipped from what it once was. Diagon Alley still stood, still traded, still shimmered faintly with magic.
But the shine had dulled. The joy had thinned.
And the shadow of something deeper had begun to settle into the cracks between the stones.
They were passing Flourish and Blotts, the scent of parchment a brief respite from the Alley's metallic fear, when Marcus felt it first— a prickle on the back of his neck—an electric warning in the air. He turned.
An Auror stood partially obscured in the recessed doorway of Slug & Jiggers Apothecary, scarlet robes blending with the shop's dark wood. He wasn't looking at them, not directly. His gaze swept the crowd with methodical precision—left, right, up—missing nothing. He was younger than Marcus expected, early thirties perhaps, but his face was etched with a weariness that aged him. A faint scar bisected one eyebrow. Auror Proudfoot (Marcus recognized the surname from Ministry directories).
Eustace saw him a half-second later. A subtle shift occurred—not tension, but a deliberate stillness. Liora's hand, resting lightly on Marcus's shoulder, didn't tighten, but her fingers went very still.
Proudfoot's scanning eyes passed over a group of arguing witches, skimmed a vendor's cart, and then, almost incidentally, landed on Eustace. There was no flicker of surprise, no greeting. Just… recognition. A fractional pause in the rhythm of his surveillance. His eyes held Eustace's for a single, taut heartbeat. It wasn't hostile. It was assessing. Calculating risk, association, potential threat. The look one gives a complex piece of machinery in a volatile environment.
His eyes landed on Marcus. No heat, no emotion—just calculation. Eleven. Lean. Sharp-eyed. Silent. With Thark. Expression: closed. No threat—yet. Watching everything. Marcus felt utterly transparent, dissected under that detached, professional scrutiny. His books, his beetles, his quiet room—none of it mattered here. He was a variable in an Auror's mental equation.
Proudfoot's eyes moved on, resuming their sweep. He didn't approach. He didn't speak. He didn't need to.
But as the Auror's focus shifted away, his head tilted almost imperceptibly towards Eustace—a movement so slight it could have been adjusting his neck. His lips didn't move, yet a low murmur, magically amplified just enough to reach their ears amidst the crowd's hum, brushed past them like cold breath:
"Keep the young mind out of deep waters, Thark. The currents are turning treacherous."
Then he was just… part of the scenery again. Another vigilant scarlet shape against the stone. Marcus didn't really understand what had just happened. The Auror hadn't been mean, or loud, or even angry. But somehow, Marcus felt smaller than he had before.
The family moved on, weaving through the thinning crowd. The echoes of Proudfoot's words lingered like a chill on Marcus's skin, though no one else seemed to notice.
As they turned a corner, the familiar crooked sign of Ollivander's wand shop appeared, its dusty windows faintly glowing with an inner light. The smell of polished wood and ancient magic drifted out, a brief comfort amid the alley's growing shadows.
Inside, the air was thick with the scent of old parchment and carved wood. Marcus's eyes darted among the rows of narrow boxes, each holding the potential of untold power. Mr. Ollivander himself appeared from the back room, his pale eyes shining with quiet intensity.
"Ah," the wandmaker breathed, his voice like dust settling. "The Tharks. A familial resonance precedes you." His moon-like eyes drifted to Eustace. "Ash and dragon heartstring. Eleven inches. Still serving you well amongst the Unspeakables, I trust? It always preferred... structured chaos."
Eustace gave a curt nod. "It tolerates the unpredictable remarkably well. Much like its owner."
Ollivander's gaze slid to Liora. "And the vine wand. Nine and three-quarters. I recall its initial reluctance. Vine is often stubborn with alchemists – too much change, too much becoming. Yet yours adapted beautifully. Found harmony in transformation." He tilted his head, studying a cobweb shimmering in a sunbeam near the ceiling. "Remarkable, how dust accumulates precisely where one intends to clean next. A minor magic of procrastination, perhaps?"
Liora smiled faintly. "Our lab has similar enchantments. Especially near unstable alembics."
Marcus shifted his weight, the worn floorboard creaking. Ollivander's luminous eyes snapped to him instantly. "And you. The seeker." He drifted closer, his worn robes whispering against the floor. "Tell me, young Thark – do you find Diagon Alley changed? The very stones seem to hold their breath lately, wouldn't you agree? "
Marcus considered this, his eyes scanning the towering shelves. "The magic's still here, but it's wearing a different skin. That's why the detectors stutter—it's familiar, but not right."
Ollivander hummed, a low, resonant sound. "Perceptive. An observant mind. Much like your father's, yet... differently focused. He peers into voids. You, I suspect, seek the patterns in the static." He gestured vaguely towards a pile of wand shavings in a corner. "Most come looking for power. Few appreciate the sheer history in these walls. The wood shavings alone could tell tales – ebony from the Black Forest grove felled in 1723, holly from a tree struck by lightning on Midsummer's Eve... useless trivia to most, but the wand remembers its origins. Every splinter holds an echo."
Marcus found himself intrigued despite the digression. "Does the origin wood affect the wand's... personality?"
"Deeply!" Ollivander exclaimed, his eyes brightening. "A wand carved from wood harvested under a waning moon behaves differently than one taken at dawn. The grain pattern, the year's rainfall, the creatures nesting in its branches... all imprinted. Take elm, for instance." He gestured towards a section of paler boxes. "Stubborn wood. Refuses to be harvested unless the tree consents. There's an elm grove in Cambridgeshire that hasn't yielded a single usable branch in forty years. Just stands there, judging." He sighed dramatically. "Trees can be remarkably petty."
Eustace raised an eyebrow. "I trust today's harvest is more cooperative?"
"One hopes," Ollivander murmured, his gaze returning to Marcus, sharpening. "Cooperation is a two-way street, Mr. Thark. The wand chooses, but the wizard must be... chooseable." He began to glide along the shelves, his long fingers brushing box edges. "Let us see what slumbering partner awaits. You seek patterns, order, the underlying architecture. Power is secondary to understanding. A rare hunger." He pulled down a long, slender box of dark wood. "Ebony and Veela hair. For passion and force." He offered it.
Marcus took it. The moment his fingers touched it, a stack of hatboxes in the corner burst into vivid, cerulean flames. Ollivander sighed and flicked his own wand, dousing them. "Overly dramatic. And messy. Passion without focus. Next." He whisked it away.
Another box: "Hazel and Kelpie hair. For adaptability and connection." Marcus lifted it. Ollivander's measuring tape shot from its hook like an angry viper, wrapping tightly around Marcus's wrist. "Hmm.." He gently unwound it.
Box after box followed. A walnut wand made the dust motes dance violently. A mahogany wand caused the cash register to ring incessantly. A yew wand made the temperature drop sharply. Ollivander grew more animated with each failure, muttering about "harmonic dissonance" and "seeking a stable frequency."
He vanished into the deepest shadows, returning with a single, unassuming box of pale, silvery wood. He opened it with reverence. Inside, nestled in faded blue velvet, lay a wand of smooth, pale elm, its grain straight and true. "Elm," Ollivander said, his voice hushed. "For the clear-sighted. The navigator of complexity. It values logic, stability... purpose." He lifted it carefully. "And phoenix feather. Rare. Loyal. Capable of profound renewal. It remembers everything. Eleven and a half inches. Resilient."
Marcus reached out. His fingers closed around the cool wood.
A soft, warm, golden light bloomed from the tip, steady and deep, illuminating the dusty air with the quiet brilliance of captured sunlight. At the same moment, a clear, pure hum resonated through the shop, vibrating up Marcus's arm and settling deep within his chest. A key had turned in a perfectly fitted lock; a complex equation had resolved into elegant simplicity. The wand felt right—not an explosion, but a completion. A partner in understanding.
Ollivander drew a sharp breath, his eyes wide with awe. "Yes… Elm and phoenix. A wand attuned to revealing unseen ways and guiding through profound depths. It remembers the owner, Mr. Thark. Be mindful of the journey you ask it to share."
Stepping back into Diagon Alley felt like leaving a sacred grove for a bustling, uncertain marketplace. The late afternoon sun cast long, golden shadows, gilding the anxious faces of the crowd. Marcus cradled the wand box, its solid weight comforting as the late sun warmed his face.
He turned to his parents. " What's next on the list?"
Liora consulted the list, her eyes lingering on the box with a mixture of pride and relief. "Books," she said, her voice softer. "Cauldron. Robes." A faint smile touched her lips. "And perhaps... a broomstick?"
Eustace snorted, a flicker of his familiar dry humour returning as he nudged Marcus. "A broomstick, huh? Well, let's see if you can fly half as well as this old man first."