Given that his trip to Azkaban had been quite profitable, Ares wasn't in any rush to open up shop.
As the crowd of gossiping wizards dispersed one by one, Ares remained seated at the bar, his thoughts drifting.
Ares wasn't surprised that Quirinus Quirrell had tried to rob Gringotts. Most wizards who knew Quirrell would have assumed he'd lost his mind upon hearing the news.
But failing to break into Gringotts, getting identified by the goblins, and ending up wanted by both the Ministry and the bank...
Ares swirled his glass gently. Catching a ray of sunlight, he studied the brown sediment drifting in the liquor, his gaze distant.
The possibility of this being a pure accident was about as likely as the Chudley Cannons winning the Quidditch World Cup this year. It was a theoretical probability, nothing more.
Thump, thump, thump!
A commotion in his pocket snapped Ares out of his daze. He pulled out the milk bottle.
Leaving Azkaban seemed to have given the carrion fly a new lease on life. Even though it was coated in the milky residue, it slammed against the glass walls with renewed vigor, buzzing angrily to express its indignation.
"You heard it all, didn't you?"
Ares stared into the fly's massive green compound eyes and spoke softly.
"He got away. He wasn't caught—I believe he is safe for now."
The fly refused to let it go, beating its wings into a high-pitched whine.
"Go find him? Oh, no. It's not the agreed-upon time yet... Though, that is a decent suggestion. It's not impossible..."
Ares blinked thoughtfully. He set down his glass, left a few Galleons on the counter, and stood up.
"You just got out of prison, Ares," Old Tom wheezed, his shoes practically smoking from running around serving customers. "Don't you want to take a couple of days to rest?"
"I'm going to try my luck in Knockturn Alley, Tom."
Ares waved a hand without looking back as he headed for the rear exit.
"It's a mixed bag down there. Maybe Quirrell is hiding out. You know the bounty the Ministry and the goblins put on his head isn't small... and it's 'Dead or Alive.'"
"Well, good luck then, Ares. If you do see him, don't forget to remind him he still owes me thirteen Sickles for drinks!"
Old Tom let out a raspy, pinched laugh before turning back to his work.
---
In British wizarding households, when a young witch or wizard mentions Knockturn Alley out of curiosity, they are usually met with the sternest of warnings from their parents.
However, while Knockturn Alley is indeed full of shady characters and shops selling dark, contraband items, the street level isn't purely evil. Most adult wizards visit occasionally for one reason or another. The only thing one really needs to watch out for is their money pouch, lest their wealth be "voluntarily" or "involuntarily" redistributed.
The true danger of Knockturn Alley—the place that earns it its dark reputation—lies elsewhere.
Underground.
Half an hour later, clad in a black cloak, Ares stood deep within Knockturn Alley, in front of a bizarre cathedral.
"Bizarre" was an understatement. The structure stood in an old square surrounded by broken bricks and rubble.
Eroded by wind and time, the dilapidated church didn't resemble the Gothic or Baroque styles common in the Muggle world. If anything, it looked more like a fragment of a castle as ancient as Hogwarts.
Ares strolled forward, stopping in front of the only part of the building above ground: the clock tower. The rest of the main body was buried deep within the earth.
Powered by magic, the green-rusted bronze hands continued to sweep rapidly around the massive clock face, as if they would never stop.
When the hour, minute, and second hands converged at twelve o'clock, Ares stepped forward and walked straight into the metal dial. With a ripple like disturbed water, he vanished from the sunlight.
In a world stripped of light, Ares felt himself falling rapidly... as if into a bottomless pit.
But in reality, only a second passed before his feet touched solid ground. The impact on his knees was no harder than jumping down two or three steps.
The vast, ruined hall was too dim to see much of anything. Ares followed a staircase along the wall, descending further until he passed through a damp corridor. Lining the corridor were morgue-like alcoves once used to store "sacred relics." The cold air was thick with a stench of decay and ignorance that hadn't dissipated in a thousand years.
Just like the architecture above, outside the "church" lay another version of Knockturn Alley.
This underground cavern saw no sunlight. The only illumination came from the withered, mummified corpses standing like sentries in front of the rotting buildings, green flames flickering in their hollow eye sockets.
The tattered monastic robes and rusty crucifixes on their chests explained exactly where the "sacred relics" from the corridor had gone.
Bloody mud seeped from the rock fissures overhead, falling like rain and forcing Ares to pause. When the shower passed, the stench of blood in the air became overpowering.
Multiple pairs of eyes watched from the shadows, but Ares ignored them. He paused at a crossroads, then headed toward a round hut built from gray cobblestones.
He pushed the door open. Bright light and noise instantly washed over him.
From the outside, it looked no bigger than a broom closet, but the interior was magically expanded to the size of two Quidditch pitches.
Bamboo fences divided the massive space into sections where slavers displayed their wares.
"Do you have any fresh dragon blood?"
A fully grown Norwegian Ridgeback was chained to a massive wooden cross—neck, limbs, and tail bound by iron chains as thick as a bowl. It looked like a suffering martyr.
Ares approached the dragon and asked quietly.
Hearing the voice, the dragon opened its eyes. Its vertical, blood-red pupils revealed a trace of pleading and familiarity.
The shop owner, wearing a linen shirt and hair matted into clumps with blood and filth, looked up. His cold gaze swept over Ares before turning to assess the dying dragon behind him.
"I can sell you a gallon, max. After that, I gotta let the beast catch its breath."
"That'll do." Ares nodded.
The owner waved a wand that looked more like a walking stick. A leather hose on the floor—stained brown with blood, one end connected to the dragon's heart and the other fitted with a gargoyle-shaped nozzle—reared up like a venomous snake.
The tap opened, spewing a thick stream of scalding, bright red dragon blood into an iron bucket. The bound dragon didn't even have the strength to open its eyes.
Transaction complete. Ares turned and left. He didn't care in the slightest about the greedy gaze that had been trailing him ever since he flashed his money.
But disrespect always comes with a price.
This was true whether in the sunlit world above or here in the underground Knockturn Alley, a place that mirrored hell on earth.
However, Ares wasn't the one who would be paying the price.
---
Ten minutes later, as Ares was getting his bearings amidst a pile of ruins—
Whoosh!
A sound like a jackdaw taking flight cut through the air. Two points of crimson light darted through the darkness, moving like a ghost. From within a billowing cloak, a hand—gray and lifeless—shot out, clawing for the back of Ares's neck!
Shing!
"Ahhh—!"
A bloodcurdling scream rang out for a split second before the owner forcibly stifled it, terrified of attracting more hunters in this dark forest.
Ares turned slowly. The indifferent gaze beneath his hood fell upon the attacker.
The assailant had collapsed to the ground. His hood had fallen back, revealing the face of a young man in his twenties.
His right hand had been severed at the wrist. The cut was perfectly smooth, as if caused by a spatial displacement.
The young attacker gasped for air. Blood sprayed from his wrist, and at this rate, he would be dead in half a minute.
But strangely, the bleeding stopped visibly. Then, as if time were reversing, the blood scattered on the rough stone floor flowed back into the young man's body. Finally, with a flash of red light, the severed hand reattached and healed.
"Newbie?" Ares asked softly, showing no surprise at the sight.
"For—Forgive me, my Lord..."
The young vampire groveled at Ares's feet, his face paler than an Inferius. He sobbed, trembling.
"I—I was just too hungry..."
"Let this be a lesson. Those without eyes don't live long down here."
Ares spoke calmly. having found his direction, he turned and walked away, leaving the vampire kneeling there, his scarlet eyes filled with lingering resentment.
---
For the next half hour, Ares continued to navigate the maze.
This place was huge—far larger than the surface Knockturn Alley. It was like a small medieval city forgotten by time. Without sunlight or landmarks, this underground district was as complex as a labyrinth. Even a "regular" like Ares couldn't pinpoint locations with perfect accuracy.
Fortunately, he finally found the hut where he had agreed to meet Quirrell.
Built of mud and brick with a thatched roof, it looked no different from its neighbors. The only unique feature was the "sentry" outside—a dried corpse with a look of horror frozen on its face, staring at the sky. Its left hand had six fingers.
Ares didn't barge in. He stood at the door, his black eyes flashing with penetrating insight as he scanned the interior through the mud walls.
One minute. Two minutes. Three minutes.
As time ticked by, the expression on Ares's face beneath the hood shifted subtly.
Sigh.
After a nearly inaudible sigh, Ares did something considered incredibly unwise in the underground: he voluntarily pulled back his hood, revealing his face.
Suddenly, a commotion erupted from the corner of the alley. The vampire who had just fled returned, leading a gang of equally filthy scum. They had caught his scent.
"I'm going to teach you a lesson, my Lord!"
Bolstered by his companions, the young vampire found his courage. His face twisted into a ferocious, mocking grin.
"Down here, those with soft hearts don't live long either!"
"Point taken."
Ares nodded calmly.
Snap!
In the void, the sound of shattering glass exploded!
Sixty feet away, the smile on the vampire's face froze. A thin line of blood appeared on his forehead, rapidly eroding his face and spreading down his entire body.
Splat.
Two suffocating seconds later, the young vampire split perfectly in half down the middle. Both sides collapsed and crumbled into ash.
The killing didn't incite fear; instead, it triggered the ferocity of the blood-drinking dark creatures!
In the gloom, pair after pair of crimson eyes lit up. They began to slowly close in on Ares. A massacre was imminent—
Creak.
Suddenly, the wooden door of the hut beside Ares opened. Someone stepped out.
It was an old man.
In the dim underground light, the old man's beard and hair glowed with a faint, star-like silver radiance. His tall, thin frame radiated an extraordinary aura that was completely out of place in this hellhole.
"Sor—Sorry, we—we took a wrong turn..."
The true leader of the vampire gang began to stammer in panic. He nodded frantically at the old man, then turned and bolted.
The vampires disappeared around the corner in seconds, but their hushed, terrified whispers drifted back—
"Bloody hell! What is Dumbledore doing down here?!"
"Maybe we stumbled onto something!"
"You mean—"
"Shut up!"
Hiss—!
The sound of the group collectively sucking in a cold breath.
"That young guy... wasn't that Ares Delfino from the Agency?"
"I don't care who he is. May Merlin save his ass... There was murder in the air back there! Run!"
In the dead silence that followed—
Albus Dumbledore: "..."
Ares Delfino: "..."