"Looks like today's the day."
Dawn stood up.
He cast a Transfiguration spell on himself, altering his appearance into that of a gaunt wizard around fifty years old. A burst of fire flared—and he vanished from the room.
Pop!
The view shifted.
Dawn reappeared from the Leaky Cauldron's guest room into a dim, narrow alley.
He shook his head lightly. Thanks to repeated use, Apparition had long since lost its nauseating effect on him, and he recovered almost instantly.
Dawn glanced around.
On both sides, dilapidated shops lined the alley. Several shrunken human heads lay in display windows, staring at him with blank expressions.
From the shadows between buildings came rustling sounds and faint, distant screams.
Dawn's face remained impassive. He was already used to scenes like this.
Noticing that his landing point was slightly off from his destination, he followed the foul, waterlogged path a little farther ahead.
The sign of Borgin and Burkes came into view.
Dawn reached out and pushed open the glass door, thick with cobwebs and dust.
Jingle.
The hanging bell rang once.
This was Dawn's third visit here.
"You've arrived, sir."
Borgin rose from behind the counter. When he saw the visitor, he lowered his head, hiding the resentment in his eyes, and said hoarsely:
"All the Dark Magic items Malfoy sold are here. Please take a look. Is there anything you need?"
He had every reason to resent him.
About a month ago, this gray-haired, gaunt wizard had come into the shop, wandered around, and selected a large pile of items, placing them neatly on the counter.
Borgin had thought he'd landed a big client and was already planning how to fleece him.
But after Borgin quoted the price, the strange man had fallen silent for a long time—then suddenly pulled out his wand and beat him mercilessly.
After that, he had forced Borgin to swear an Unbreakable Vow and taken a huge pile of goods without paying a single Galleon.
Borgin glanced at the flame-shaped marks on his wrist, his eyes dark with hatred, yet he didn't dare show even a trace of it.
There was no choice.
He was at another man's mercy.
And this wizard who had appeared out of nowhere was genuinely terrifying.
That day, Borgin had been carrying numerous protective alchemical items, and the shop itself was filled with lethal traps.
Yet because the man could Apparate inside a shop that was clearly warded against it, Borgin had been utterly defeated.
Pulling himself back to the present, Borgin took a deep breath and pushed the items on the counter slightly forward, signaling his compliance.
Dawn narrowed his eyes and swept a casual glance over the neatly arranged Dark Magic artifacts. He didn't see anything resembling a diary.
That was normal.
According to what he remembered from the dreamlike original story, Malfoy hadn't sold the Horcrux here. Instead, he had slipped it into Ginny Weasley's textbook after leaving.
He'd only asked Borgin to notify him because he didn't have the time to linger in Diagon Alley all day waiting for events to unfold.
Still.
Dawn wasn't in a hurry to track down the diary. First, he wanted to see what sort of treasures the Malfoy family had been hoarding.
Before that, however, he cast a glance toward a cabinet not far away.
The silver mist inside it was particularly noticeable. Based on the original story, Dawn immediately guessed that Harry was still hiding there.
Even though he'd changed his appearance, he was about to take several items from this place—items that might later appear in the hands of "Leia Hickman."
He had no desire to be seen by the suspicious, overly imaginative savior.
With that in mind, the magic within Dawn surged briefly. Under Borgin's wary gaze, he cast spells to distort vision and block sound.
"Huh? Why can't I hear anything?" Harry muttered to himself inside the cabinet.
He widened the crack slightly and strained his ears, but the voices that had been so clear moments ago were completely gone.
When he tried peeking out, the area where the two men stood was blurred beyond recognition.
The curious boy felt a bit disappointed.
Dawn, however, didn't care in the slightest.
He put on dragon-hide gloves—his phoenix-like immortality wasn't an excuse to be careless—then picked up a desk lamp.
Click.
As the switch was flipped, a beam of pale black light with remarkable transparency shone out from the bulb.
"What's this?" Dawn asked.
"A nightmare lamp," Borgin replied unwillingly. "Anyone illuminated by its light will see the scene they least want to see."
"Similar to a Boggart?"
"More or less," Borgin nodded, then added after a moment's thought, "But sometimes, what a person least wants to see isn't the same as what they fear the most."
Dawn nodded. He turned the light toward Borgin.
Nothing visibly changed within the beam, yet Borgin frowned and instinctively stumbled several steps backward.
So unlike a Boggart, whose transformation everyone could see, the nightmare lamp created hallucinations visible only to the target?
Dawn pondered this, then looked up again. "If someone stays under the light too long, what kind of harm does it cause?"
Borgin stepped fully out of the beam, his expression unpleasant. "Other than fright, none."
"None?" Dawn raised an eyebrow, surprised. "Really? Then isn't this just a prank item? And it's still considered Dark Magic?"
"Who knows how the Ministry defines things?" Borgin shrugged. "In their eyes, even a Boggart hiding in a wardrobe counts as a Dark creature."
"Lucius probably thought this thing was useless at home and brought it along while selling the rest," he added, pointing at the other items. "Those are what he really wanted to get rid of."
Dawn inclined his head, signaling Borgin to explain the rest.
Borgin's jaw twitched as he spoke reluctantly. "For example, that crown. It has a powerful corrupting influence on the soul.
Anyone who wears it becomes increasingly cruel, until all positive emotions are stripped away."
Dawn followed his finger.
It was an ancient-looking crown made of gold, faint feather-like patterns carved along its surface.
Borgin continued describing the other objects, but after listening, Dawn found none of them particularly interesting.
Even the item that best fit the definition of a Dark artifact—a headpiece that caused instant death when worn—proved disappointing.
Dawn had initially thought it was curse-related, but after examining it, he realized it merely contained a potent poison.
It was worthless to him. He couldn't even see any runic circuits.
After Borgin finished, Dawn's attention returned to the lamp in his hands. Lost in thought, he stared at it absentmindedly.
At that moment, an idea struck him.
Trait patterns.
Dawn knew very well that these patterns weren't exclusive to wizards. Every creature, every substance, had its own trait pattern—even the world itself, despite having no physical form.
He had long wanted to see what kind of trait patterns existed in the environment outside his body. He suspected they might reveal the relationship between a wizard and the world.
Back in Egypt, the curse of Anubis had always made him suspicious.
Its phantom-like manifestation suggested it altered the environmental traits around his body.
The problem was that the ambient magical density was usually too low, and any magic he tried to attach externally dispersed too quickly for observation.
But—
This lamp gave him an idea.
If light could make people see what they least wanted to see, that meant the light itself carried magic.
If he could increase the magical density of that light, could he create a lamp that revealed changes in the surrounding trait patterns?
Thoughts tumbled endlessly through Dawn's mind. His gaze locked onto the runic circuits etched into the nightmare lamp.
He needed to study this thing properly.
The more he looked, the more curious he became. Suddenly, Dawn turned the lamp around and shone it on himself.
Since Borgin, bound by the vow, had said it was harmless, Dawn had no reason not to trust it.
Under the dim glow, he suddenly saw two blood-smeared, crimson wheel tracks on the floor, stretching toward a motionless human figure.
Click.
Dawn frowned and switched the lamp off.
After a moment of silence, he expressionlessly picked up the lamp and the crown, placed them into a box, and stuffed it into his wallet.
"I'll take these two."
Borgin had expected this, yet seeing the man take things again without payment still made his face darken. "Y… yes, sir."
Dawn noticed the resentment Borgin couldn't fully conceal and chuckled softly, unconcerned.
Originally, he hadn't planned to do this.
At first, he'd intended to buy the items normally and pay Borgin extra for information.
Now that he had a proper identity and plenty of money, there was no need to risk leaving traces by forcing an Unbreakable Vow.
But—
When Borgin had named a price of tens of thousands of Galleons for the selected items, Dawn had imagined pulling out coin after coin and felt an intense wave of discomfort.
He hadn't been like this before.
Back when he ordered Felix Felicis, even though he was short on funds, he'd planned to earn the money through alchemy.
However— An entire year of taking things without paying had pushed him in a very bad direction.
Now, even paying normally felt like a loss.
He was becoming more and more like a mythical beast that only took in wealth and never let it go.
Even though he clearly recognized this as a personality flaw, it didn't make paying any less painful.
So that day, standing in a shop with only Borgin present, Dawn had struggled—and then robbed him again.
Sighing inwardly, Dawn returned to himself and wandered the shop once more.
On a shelf, he spotted an exquisitely crafted necklace.
"This is an opal necklace," Borgin explained, a sense of dread rising in his chest. "It's cursed. At least nineteen Muggles have already died because of it."
"A curse, huh."
Dawn stroked his chin.
This was different from the earlier headpiece. The runes and magical pathways were clearly visible.
Curses were related to rituals and natural magic, and runes also worked by drawing on natural magic.
So, at its core, wasn't a curse essentially a kind of ritual?
The thought intrigued him.
After examining the necklace with interest, he put it away and asked casually, "Do you have any other curse-related items? Bring them out for me to see."
"There really aren't any more, sir," Borgin said through clenched teeth. "You've already taken the previous ones. This opal necklace only came in a few days ago."
"Is that so? Then forget it."
Dawn didn't mind. He returned to the counter, extended his open palm toward Borgin.
Borgin was confused. "Sir, what is this?"
"Give me the two-way mirror," Dawn said calmly. "I'll contact you by owl from now on."
There was no way he was leaving an item outside that could potentially reveal his surroundings at any time.
Borgin's eyelid twitched.
He assumed it was just another display of the man's greed. Looking at Dawn's expressionless face, he could already foresee his own bleak future.
Damn it. I have to find a way to break that curse.
Roaring in his heart, Borgin respectfully handed over the mirror.
Dawn took it, waved a hand in farewell, and left the shop under Borgin's gaze of desperate relief.
Jingle.
The door swung shut behind him.
Borgin finally cursed out loud and stormed off to the back room.
Dawn didn't leave Knockturn Alley immediately.
Under an invisibility charm, he waited outside Borgin and Burkes.
A short while later, he saw Harry rush out and followed him at a distance.
Dawn knew Malfoy would get rid of the diary in Flourish and Blotts, but to guard against any butterfly effect, he decided to follow the savior first and reunite him with the Weasley family.
So he silently watched as Harry was stopped by a witch, unexpectedly met Hagrid, safely left Knockturn Alley, reunited with the Weasleys at Gringotts, and ran into Hermione, who had come to withdraw money.
After that, the group split up.
The twins and Percy went off to pursue their own interests, while Mr. and Mrs. Weasley led the trio of Harry, Ron, and Hermione—along with Ginny—toward Flourish and Blotts to buy books.
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