WHO: @arpyrites & @pyritcs [CLOSED]
When Tom Riddle had graduated Hogwarts in a blaze of accolades and promise, he could have taken his pick of Ministry internships or entry-level codebreaking positions. His friends had encouraged him to do just that. But Tom, still thrumming with the aftermath of the Myrtle affair and the first and final Riddle family reunion and the casting off of mortality, wasn’t interested in desk jobs or climbing ladders. He wanted the world. He wanted to remake its every glaring flaw, and as someone uniquely positioned between the magical and the muggle, he could see them both clearly.
As it turned out, simply possessing political opinions and a talent for magic did not put a roof over one’s head. Dippett denied his application to stay on at Hogwarts, and he was too proud to ask his friends for something so mundane as money. So he got a job.
Borgin and Burkes was very nearly wonderful at first. The shop housed the kind of magic which could get you expelled at Hogwarts, and after years of coasting through basic transfiguration and charms, whole new avenues of spellwork unfolded themselves to him. For the first time in his life, he was answerable only to himself; his employers left him more or less to his own devices so long as he made them money and showed up at opening.
The problem was with the customers.
“How much for this one?” The question came from a rather frog-like warlock who fancied himself a connoisseur of dark artefacts. From behind the shop’s counter, Tom’s fingers flexed involuntarily as the man ran his greasy fingers across the surface of a 16th-century amulet.
The man made a phlegmy noise of disgust. “Highway robbery. What kind of an idiot do you take me for?”
This should have been Tom’s cue to turn on the charm: to smile his perfect smile, to point out the amulet’s intricate enchantment and goblin-made chain, to flatter. To sprinkle a bit of Legilimency on top if it were needed. He was good at this job. Today, however, he was not in a smiling mood, and it took a strength of practice cultivated over a lifetime of controlling his impulses to keep from cursing the man’s entire bloodline.
He was on the verge of answering the man’s question with uncharacteristic honesty when the bell on the door tinkled, heralding a new arrival. He pasted his patented Head Boy smile back on. “Good afternoon,” he greeted.
-
Aether was not a morning person — nor were they a noon person, or an afternoon person, or really much of a person at all these days while the sun was still in the sky — but business hours and Aether hours rarely coincided of late and thus, they were forced to make do. Knockturn Alley was the sort of place that was infinitely improved by nighttime, when all the grime and grit was absorbed into shadow and the constant murmur of danger had a chance to creep up on you — it was a shame, really, to visit by day.
In a sly twist of fate, Knockturn Alley was all but undisturbed by the rampaging paths of the acolytes, the intricate ecosystem of pickpockets and shadowy figures thriving as tentative business was forced to migrate from the heart of Diagon down the road into Knockturn’s snaggle-toothed maw. Even Argo’s presence had never succeeded in making the alley an unappealing location to be, though he’d certainly tried. If they heard one more tangent about apologising to Beryl they were going to Austria just to spite him.
With a cheerful chiming of bells over head and little care for where they’d lost Argo along the way, they pushed through the doors of 13B, inhaling the rich scent of dust and moths and magic and silver polish and grease — of a thick, musky scent tinged with the sour burst of sweat. Their nose wrinkled. Borgin and Burkes was a marvellous place, stocked high with curiosities and curses and mysteries, but while Aether always had time to admire the beguiling collections of medieval weaponry and deeply cursed artefacts, today they had slept late, again, and daylight errands waited for no one.
A polite Good Afternoon was met with an immediate sense of skepticism as Aether’s eyes darted from a particularly impressive (and weighty, no doubt) mace to fix upon Tom Riddle. For a moment they simply stared, with the same unblinking interest of a cat fixated upon potential prey, before their smile broke open, a hint of teeth catching at their lower lip as they reached up to tip their hat back with aplomb. “Riddle.”
There was another customer already in the store, pressed up against the counter and blinking dark amphibian eyes dully between them, as if he couldn’t decide what to be more offended by. “I didn’t know you worked here. What a coincidence.”
It was as much a coincidence as it had been any of the other times Aether had appeared in the past month, forever chasing another absurd errand disguised as a quest dictated by the Ferrymen. Another merry chime of bells heralded their brother’s breathing as he burst into the store behind them. Aether’s hands had somehow, curiously, inched their way to the mace’s handle without them noticing. “Argo — look, it’s Tom.”
Dragonfly thorax. The ingredient was spinning around his brain. The worrisome amount of dittany and dogweed clogging up their kitchen counters. Aether’s inability or, rather, chosen inability to listen when he spoke. Their petty threats towards Beryl’s livelihood only adding to the rain cloud Argo swore was personified above his head for all to see. Still he followed his twins down the narrow winding streets. Not uttering a word when they brushed past the street hawkers promoting their illegal fortune telling at length. What if he had wanted his leaves read? What if he wanted his palms examined? If he chose to stop, to dawdle and listen to them prattle, to pointedly ignore Aether until he realized his silence was what they were after, Argo would lose them somewhere in this maze of dark arts and shady characters. For the shadiest character was always Aether, regardless of the crowd or company.
The trouble with setting his sights on something without a compulsion or hyperfocus far behind his control was that it evidently failed. He was taken aback by a storefront, letting the people of the Alley rush by as his nose pressed into the glass of The Starry Prophesier. His vision wasn’t poor but Argo found himself squinting at the concealed interior, hardly able to make out a shape or outline of anything the mysterious store contained. Had someone spilled a sack of peruvian powder? More likely, this was an incredibly successful sales tactic that would eat away at his very own spirit of inquiry until he was able to peek inside.
“New or old?” He asked, not recalling this particular mystery before. A lack of answer wasn’t shocking. “Ancient or abandoned?” The sound of a door behind him closing and cutting off the jingling merchant’s bells was. Shoving his hands into his pockets, Argo hurried to catch up. The door had hardly settled into the frame before he was yanking it open, taking in his surroundings and clocking finally just where Aether had led them to. “Yes. He works here.”
With light steps he made his way to Aether’s side, the dubious weapon they seemed to be inching towards sent a sharp note through his being. He tapped their shoulder once. “Hello, Tom.” Speaking with his gaze on the mace that had captured his twin’s attention, he tapped them again. “Hello…” Now he had to look, pull his focus away, and turn. Only to be met with a sight of a rather stout sticky looking fellow. “You’re green.” Tap. Tap. Tap. “Green tinted. Did you know?”
It wasn’t the bells of the door opening once more that broke the spell over Argo’s obvious inspection of the stranger nor was it a shout of pain or a cry of surprise from Aether but the pull of possibility tugging hard at his sleeve. The next and last tap turned to a grip that tried to drag Aether a few steps back, leaving them both precariously close to stumbling into the shelves behind them. “We ask Tom if we want to inspect any wares. It’s polite.” Speaking of– “Tom! Do you have any dragonfly thorax? When did the shop across the street show up? Is that from the Safavid dynasty?” Fingers clutching Aether’s cloak, he gestured to the amulet the green-leaning man at the counter was sweating upon. “Does it heal Green Tree Frog bites?”
