OUT OF THE NIGHT

Information: Out of the Night was a Harry Potter fan fiction written by Raining Ink. This fic has been officially abandoned by its author. Obviously, Raining Ink claims no right to characters, settings, concepts, etc… recognizable as belonging to J.K. Rowling or anyone else even vaguely connected with the Harry Potter franchise. However, many other aspects of the story are original to this fic. Fellow fan fiction authors who wish to make use of these concepts/world building/story details/etc… are welcome to do so, provided that they DO NOT in any way profit financially from the use of said ideas. Fan fiction authors wishing to write a continuation of the story are welcome to do so, provided that they DO NOT in any way profit financially from said continuation. Basically, don't use anything that might belong to Raining Ink to make yourself money, mmmkay?

Credit: All credit goes to Raining Ink for about 30 chapters or so, I will be making some minor changes until I reach my chapters.

Disclaimer: not anything that JK Rowling thought up in books 1-7 (or Warner Bros. for the movies) is mine. The rest of it is, but I will admit to being influenced by the large amounts of fan fiction I have read. If you think I have stolen something from another story, let me know. Plagiarizing is NOT my intention.

Chapter Five - In The Doxy Closet

Harry would have gladly slept through his first day of freedom if he hadn't been awakened by a knock on his door just before six o'clock in the morning. Groaning as he rolled out of bed, he threw the robes he had worn yesterday on over his nightshirt and grabbed his wand from the nightstand. He opened the door half way through an impatient second knocking, and was momentarily disoriented to see a petite blonde girl wearing a wispy purple something that looked to him like a belly dancer's outfit with a cape. She could not have been more than a few years older than Harry. And he couldn't help but notice, even in his sleep-deprived state, that the girl resembled Fleur Delacour…just with more risqué clothing than the French witch would ever wear.

"Like what you see?" asked the girl, raising an eyebrow.

"It's really early," Harry said stupidly. He could already feel a blush coming on.

The girl giggled. "Cora's right. You are somewhat cute. You wanna come downstairs for breakfast? Cora reckoned you looked like you could use a bite to eat."

As if in answer to the question, Harry stomach gurgled loudly. The girl laughed again and said, "I guess that means yes. I'm Bette, by the way. Bette Simon."

Harry opened his mouth to introduce himself, then stopped, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. He had not recastinmemoressince last night. It only had a two-hour spell life…which meant he was standing here in his regular face. Before he could even make up his mind about what to do, his wand seemed to rise of its own accord, and he heard himself saying "Stupefy."

Bette collapsed to the floor like a marionette with cut strings, and Harry dragged her into the room and shut the door behind him. His heart was trying to leap out of his chest as he ran into the bathroom to look in the mirror. He fully expected to see himself, green eyed and scarred, but a stranger was staring back at him. Harry poked gently at his face, and cast afinitejust to be sure; it was not some effect of last night's spellwork. Nothing happened. The stranger's face continued to blink at him from the glass.

It was very similar to his own face in some ways. The hair was the same colour and length, but it had lost all of its wildness. His cheekbones were more defined, and his jaw seemed more delicately shaped. His eyes were not green at all, but an icy blue that was just as noticeable. His skin was a different tone, less golden and paler. His nose was longer as well. Harry lifted his bangs and gasped. There wasno scar.Dumbledore had said nothing would ever remove it. How was this possible?

Harry felt like crying. There was an unconscious prostitute in his room, and he looked like a completely different person than he had when he woke up yesterday morning. What had happened? Where was his face? His mother's eyes, his father's hair, the lightning bolt scar…these had always been essential parts of Harry Potter. He wanted them back! And just as he thought it, Harry felt what could only be described as an internal snap, and suddenly he was looking at his usual face.

The heritage,he realized suddenly. He had gone to bed last night feeling comfortable as Hephaestus Peverell, so he had woken up this morning looking like him. This was so much more than he had expected from the goblins' explanations last night. It took him a full minute to calm down enough to regain the sense of comfortable anonymity and freedom he had felt last night, but when he managed it, the stranger's face was back in the mirror. Not a stranger, thought Harry. This was Hephaestus. The Peverell heritage had given this face to one of its own. He smiled. It was a perfect disguise.

With the problem of being recognized solved, Harry was not sure what to do. Poor Bette was lying stunned in the floor, and she was surely already a little late for breakfast. Grimacing, Harry realized that he could not in good conscience Obliviate her, because he did not know how to do it well enough. She might end up a gibbering idiot for the rest of her life.

Realizing that he was running out of time, he acted on the first idea that popped into his head. He hated it, but Bette was stunned. It wasn't as if she would feel anything, and this could be a life or death situation for him. He grabbed his History of Magic textbook out of his trunk, and closing his eyes, he smacked it rather hard against Bette's creamy forehead. Looking critically at the large pink mark this made, Harry added a very slight stinging hex for good measure. An angry red lump appeared, and Harry decided that it would have to do. He could not stand to hit the girl again.

After dragging her back out into the hall, Harry knelt down beside her and cast anennervatebefore discretely slipping his wand back into his robes. The girl's eyes fluttered open. She looked understandably disoriented.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" said Harry in a panicky voice that was not entirely feigned. "I can't believe I did that! I am such a klutz! Please say you're alright."

Bette propped herself up on her elbow, and then reached up to touch her forehead. She winced. "What happened?" she asked.

"I'm sorry," Harry moaned. "You came to invite me to breakfast, and I bashed you in the head with the door accidentally. Are you okay?"

"I remember I think…Am I bleeding?" she asked. "It really hurts."

Harry had never felt like such a jerk in his life. "No, there's no blood," he told her. "Do you think you can stand up?"

He helped her to her feet and into the bathroom so that she could look at herself in the mirror. Bette winced when she saw the large goose egg developing on her forehead. "It's going to bruise something awful, but maybe Maia can fix it. She's good with things like that."

She sounded annoyed, and Harry couldn't blame her. "Is there any way that I can make it up to you?" he asked.

"Yeah," said Bette. "Come down to breakfast with me and tell Cora why I'm late. She usually won't give latecomers so much as a cuppa, even if we work here."

"Okay," said Harry, enthusiastically. "Just let me get my shoes on, and we'll go down."

Bette laughed. "It's not exactly a formal establishment. No one's going to care if you've got shoes on."

As they started down the stairs, Bette asked, "Hey, did you ever tell me your name or did I just forget it when you conked me one?"

"I don't think I ever mentioned it," said Harry. "I'm Hephaestus. It's nice to meet you."

"Well, I can't say meeting you has been much fun so far, Hephaestus, but I'm sure you're a lovely person all the same."

"I really am sorry," said Harry.

"Just convince Cora to give us breakfast, and I'll consider forgiving you."

Cora, it transpired, was the owner of the Doxy Closet, and she was not nearly as difficult to persuade as Bette had implied. She took one look at the girl's head, which was already turning purple, and immediately ran to fetch some bruise salve. She was ready to toss Harry out on his ear for "brutalizing one of my ladies!" until Bette convinced her that it really had been an accident. Mollified, she dished them both up plates of eggs, bacon, and toast.

"Well, Hephaestus, what brings you to Knockturn Alley?" she asked as she watched them eat. She thought that Bette might have a concussion, so she was not going to let her out of sight until Maia had looked at her. "You're a little young to be traveling alone aren't you?"

Harry hesitated for a moment. He knew he could pass for younger than his true age even as Hephaestus. Apparently, the Peverell heritage couldn't make up for years of malnourishment at the Dursleys'. Claiming to be a different age than Harry Potter could only help him out in the long run.

"I'm fourteen, ma'am," he said. "My parents died when I was a baby, and I had been living with relations until recently."

"Why are you on your own now, then?" she asked curiously.

"My relatives and I didn't get along," said Harry. "They decided that it was time for me to make my own way. I can't say I'm unhappy with the situation."

The madam nodded. "Sounds like you're better off on your own, lad. Besides, fourteen is not too young. Old enough to get a job and the like around here. How long will you be staying with us?"

"I was hoping to stay the rest of the summer if you don't mind," said Harry. "I've got enough pocket money saved up to pay for the room while I try to decide what to do with myself."

Cora shrugged. "You can stay as long as you want if you can pay for it. No one comes down here checking for underage wizards, so it's no trouble on my end of things."

After breakfast, Cora and Bette headed upstairs to bed, leaving the woman called Maia to watch the bar. They slept until the early afternoon, Bette had explained, then worked all night. "You might want to get the hang of doing it this way yourself," she added. "Most of the shops in the alley are only open through the night hours because the aurors know better than to bother us when the watch is out in force. There's nothing going on during the day."

Maia was a middle-aged woman going grey at the temples. Harry did not think she was much to look at, especially compared to the nymph-like Bette, but she was eager to have his company to help keep her awake. "I hate it when it's my turn to work day shift," she complained. "I'm run off my feet from all the night work. Can't seem to keep from drowsing where I stand."

Harry quickly realized that Maia was a willing source of information, so he spent the majority of the morning at the bar, drinking tea and pelting her with questions. He learned that the last time the Ministry aurors had invaded Knockturn at night-time had been twenty years previously. "Still licking their wounds from that disaster they are…. Not smart to go up against Knockturners on our own turf. And it was a Wednesday, so the Dark wizards were all over the place," she laughed heartily. "Those aurors didn't know what hit 'em."

Harry didn't understand why it being Wednesday would make a difference, and he said as much. "Oh, Wednesday and Friday, those are their nights for visiting the alley," Maia explained patiently. "The Dark ones that is. The rest of the time it's mostly just the regulars: dark users, criminals, ordinary folk who are down on their luck, and all the other people who like to live on the edge of proper society."

His confusion must have shown on his face because Maia leaned down and spoke in a kindly voice. "Not the Knockturn sort, were they? Your relatives?"

Harry nodded in agreement. "Well," said Maia, "don't let the Dark wizards catch you glomming them together with the rest of the Knockturn crowd. They'd be dead offended about it. Just because somebody uses dark magic doesn't mean they're up to snuff on all the traditions and history of it."

"What do you mean?"

Maia seemed to find his ignorance endearing rather than annoying, so Harry got more information than he could handle all at one time. Knockturn Alley wasn't devoted primarily to the Dark side of magic, just to the illegal side of it. But the Dark tended to be a part of that, and since many of the Dark families were "well-off on the galleon end of things" the Knockturners made sure to set aside their best wares for the two nights a week that most Dark wizards chose to visit. "Not that they come here," said Maia. "Whoring goes against their beliefs, so they stay at the Magna instead."

Harry didn't see any reason to point out that prostitution wasn't something he thought very highly of either. Maia and the other ladies seemed sweet enough. "So it's their family and their history that makes them Dark?" he asked. "What about people who use dark magic but don't have anything to do with the traditions?"

"Oh, there's a lot like that. Most of us in Knockturn as a matter of fact. The Dark wizards don't have much respect for that kind, but they've got a sort of don't-ask-don't-tell policy with everyone down here. After all, there is only maybe two or three hundred true Dark wizards left in all of Britain, and the Ministry's been out for their blood for millennia. They can't be choosy when it comes to acquaintances."

At lunchtime, Harry wandered down Daemon Lane to a pub that, according to Maia, served "the best steak and stilton pie this side of the afterlife." The dingy little pub was uninspiringly named The Pub, and it looked like it had not seen life in about a hundred years. There were only three shady-looking customers inside apart from Harry himself. It went up a long ways in his estimation when the crusty barkeep delivered a chunk of steaming pie to him. It was the best thing Harry had ever put in his mouth.

He was just reaching for the last crumb of his crust when a small brown owl landed next to his plate and snatched it up. "Hey!" he said with a laugh. "Get your own lunch."

The owl hooted cheekily and held out its leg. A card-sized square of brown parchment was attached. Harry took the letter, wondering whom in the world was writing to him, and unrolled it.

Mr. Potter,

I work for the Owl Office. We have never met before, but I have on occasion dealt with your owl, Hedwig. (Such a charming creature.) There has been a severe problem with her latest delivery. Please stop by my office post-haste, so that we can discuss the matter of illegal owl post tampering.

Respectfully,

Ivan Eeylop

Owl Office–Department of VIO's

PS–Your lovely owls says to tell you that it is about the rude people at the peculiar house with the screaming woman stuck in the wall.

PPS–The owl that is delivering this letter is named Aphrodite. Isn't she a dear? She will show you how to get to the office if you have never been here before. It is such a shame that Hogwarts no longer brings first years here for field trips. Remember to compliment her on her appearance.