The Daily Prophet, 10 September 1971
Ministry Promises to Tackle Surge in Dark Object Trade
Speaking today in London, Mr Bartemius Crouch, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, promised to crack down on a surge in the trade of Dark objects that has gathered momentum since January of this year. In addressing the surge, Mr Crouch acknowledged the growing unease that many have felt as news of this flourishing black market has come to the surface.
'There has rightly been some concern about the growing market for objects of a Dark magical nature,' Mr Crouch commented. 'As we know, there have been several unfortunate incidents this year that have been the result of Dark objects accidently entering mainstream society.'
This admission was a reference, no doubt, to the death of a child in London earlier this year and the permanent disablement of a Scottish wizard in July. Eugene Hallowell, 8, of Croydon, is believed to have been killed by a curse contained in a music box bought at a wizarding pawn shop in London. Meanwhile, Stewart Craeg,33, of Dumfries, remains in a vegetative state after the artist's new set of paintbrushes attempted to strangle him to death.
Mr Crouch remained adamant that the Ministry would do all in its power to prevent further such tragedies from occurring. 'We are deploying extra Hit Wizards into high-volume shopping areas and have assigned an entire Section of Aurors to root out and arrest the perpetrators of this trade. We will not let this continue.'
While Mr Crouch's reassurances have placated some, however, there remains some concern as to how firmly the Ministry stands behind this policy. Minister for Magic Uther Talley gave only a single comment to The Daily Prophet's reporter when asked about Mr Crouch's new measures: 'Yes, of course we support them. Can't have more children dying, can we?'
It remains to be seen whether Mr Talley is more concerned with clamping down on the Dark object trade or with the current Magical Office of Taxable Taxes investigation into his personal finances.
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In fact it was less than two weeks before Charlie found a Vanishing Cabinet that fitted Abraxas Malfoy’s specifications. Being as yet a business of questionable legality, the emerging market for Vanishing Cabinets was confined still to the shadowy back channels where only important connections and a rather large fortune could penetrate. It would be some years before the black market trade in magical transportation furniture truly took off, and as yet the makers of these most valuable objects had wisely avoided the heavy Ministry presence in London.
So it was just outside Clacton-on-Sea in Essex that Charlie found a wizened old magical furniture maker who offered a brand new pair of Vanishing Cabinets for a paltry 2,500 galleons. Charlie happily accepted the amount, narrowly avoided being swallowed by an endlessly-expanding armchair (“For the Witch or Wizard Who Finds Normal Armchairs a Squeeze!”), and arranged to have one of the cabinets delivered to Malfoy Manor immediately. Several days later, with Abraxas Malfoy’s approval, Charlie also personally delivered the second of the pair to an old farmhouse in Devon, near to a small community of magical folk, and wrapped the crumbling building in enough spells and enchantments to make it utterly beyond interest to the casual passerby.
By early September, Charlie was a thousand galleons the richer by the Malfoy family’s hand, despite having only asked a five hundred galleon fee for his services (there was no need, he reasoned, to inform Abraxas of the fact that the Vanishing Cabinet’s projected cost was five hundred galleons more than the actual cost). And then it was back to London. Charlie had meetings with Tobias Crankler, Wendell Gamp, Restebus Lestrange and Ernest Varney to discuss the sale of certain items that it was best the Ministry did not know about; he needed to restock his supply of asphodel and Black Sea sneezewort via his eastern European agent; and he had three complex potions (a Sight-Strengthening Solution, Fiedwallis Potion and Shrinking Draught) that would be maturing in the next fortnight, the latter two of which needed near constant attention. His was a busy and active life, but it was consistent, in its own way.
It was difficult just then to perceive the casual signs that pointed to the great upheaval that lingered barely over the horizon.
Although he did not know it at the time, the first truly noteworthy of these signs presented itself to him in the third week of September, as the grey, wet days of fall were finally beginning to eclipse the scorching heat of summer. With a fresh bag of galleons in his pocket, Charlie’s search for a biting travel trunk, on behalf of a client, took him to a little shop in his most favourite of haunts, Knockturn Alley.
The grubby shop front of Borgin & Burke’s appeared deceptively modest, but the Ministry avoided the place almost as a rule, as it did most of Knockturn Alley, and the assurances of Mr Bartemius Crouch made little difference. This made it thoroughly agreeable to Charlie’s type of business. Caractacus Burke was behind the counter when Charlie pushed into the shop, his travelling cloak slightly damp from a low morning fog outside.
“Charlie?” Burke said, glancing up from a ledger, mildly surprised. “Back so soon? Did Higgins not want the probe after all?”
“Morning, Burke,” Charlie greeted, smiling blandly. “No, no, he wanted it. I’m in pursuit of a biting travel trunk today, in fact.”
“Oh, well then,” Burke returned, warming now that it was clear he would not have to return money to a dissatisfied customer. Although exactly as old as Charlie (they were old Hogwarts mates), the years had aged Burke far less kindly than they had Charlie. He was a small old man with a wizened, wrinkled face and baggy eyes that stared out from under a thatch of white hair.
“Silas! Charlie’s here!” Burke barked towards the back of the shop. As Charlie approached the counter, Burke’s voice returned to a wheedling rasp, clearly much anticipating a sale. “Does your client have any particular specifications?”
Charlie propped an elbow up on the counter and unenthusiastically dug a hand into one of his pockets. He had to rustle around for some time before he extracted a small bag that rattled of coins. He threw it on the counter. “Nothing fancy. The woman only paid twenty galleons, so nothing top of the line, mind. I’m only doing the job because it’ll help her leave the country.”
“Oh?” Burke said, interest piqued. But before Charlie could answer, two men shuffled out of the back of the shop. They were so obviously father and son that the resemblance was almost laughable. Both had a distinctly greasy appearance, with sunken eyes and skin that was pallid and doughy. The father was balding, but what little hair remained was silver and oily. The son was already sporting a receding hairline, but his was a limp mass of light brown hair that had been so slicked back that the trails of the comb teeth still showed.
“Ah, Charlie,” said Silas Borgin, the older of the two. “Always a pleasure. Still looking for the cursed Tablet of Tovine?” His tone possessed a practised silkiness.
“Hm?” Charlie returned, as if distracted. “Oh, that? No, no, I found that weeks ago. I was right, in fact; it never left France. The vault was raided in the 1840s, but the Tablet was moved to a lockbox in Paris before the second Gouvernement républicain de la Magie could get a hold of it. Needless to say, the Lestranges were very grateful to have it back. Paid quite handsomely.”
The elder Borgin looked mildly put out, as if he felt cheated, but he recovered by pushing his son forward and introducing the young man. “My son, Jasper. He has finally returned from his time abroad and will be taking over some of the running of the shop now. Jasper, this is Charlie, one of our most frequent customers.”
“A pleasure,” said the younger Jasper, in fair, if less practised imitation of his father’s silky tone. “Charlie who?”
“Just Charlie,” Charlie quipped cheerfully, shaking the younger Borgin’s hand with a grin.
“He doesn’t need a proper name for what he does,” Burke interjected. “Charlie here is a go-between, young Jasper. When people with money want something or want to get rid of something, they go to him. So if you want some of the richest business in Britain, make sure you always have what Charlie is looking for. Which, fortunately, we do.” He smirked at Charlie when Jasper adopted a pleasing, simpering expression, as if this alone might be enough to earn a few coins by Charlie’s hand. Then Burke took the young man’s shoulder and steered him back towards the rear of the shop. “Bring up the black trunk by the stairs, the one with the broken clasp.”
When Jasper had disappeared, both Borgin and Burke leaned forward and Burke lifted his brows. “So who is the trunk for?”
“Wilhelmina Kresterbach,” Charlie answered, at which the other two men suddenly sneered. “I know, right? I wouldn’t normally even have consented to meet with her, save that I had heard the family was getting ready to remove themselves back to Germany and I thought, well, might as well catch a few extra galleons by helping them along.”
Borgin snorted, shaking his head in disgust. “Bad enough we have to live with our own Mudbloods without bringing in German ones too. About time that dirty little family pulled up and left. They had no right coming here in the first place. Do we know why they are finally leaving?”
“Does it matter?” Charlie smirked. “Financial, as I understand it. Old Sebastian Kresterbach’s attachable broom seats aren’t near as popular as they were forty years ago. No one buys them now that Nimbus has introduced optional built-in cushions.”
“More than that, I heard,” Burke wheezed mysteriously, causing the other two to glance at him with bemused expressions. He nodded knowingly. “Ran into Thaddeus Nott at the Hog’s Head last week. According to him, a couple of the Dark Lord’s supporters paid the Kresterbaches a visit to, ah, encourage them in their decision to remove themselves from Britain.”
“Ho ho,” Charlie said, clearly intrigued. “And Nott would know, the old schemer. Well now, that’s a bit of a leap from campaigning for wizard’s rights, isn’t it? Seems this Voldemort has higher aims than he lets on.”
“And why not?” Borgin sneered. “Mudbloods are just as great a threat to magical society as Muggles. One and the same.”
“True enough, true enough,” Charlie nodded. “Of course, if he’s interested in exiling Mudbloods, he might as well be open about it. All I've heard is that he's interested in repealing the Statute of Secrecy and he'll catch no end of trouble for that. But Uther Talley and the people he surrounds himself with are all Purebloods; I doubt he would put up such a fight against the purification of wizarding society.”
There was a thump from the back of the shop and a sudden scraping. A second later, Jasper reappeared dragging a bulky black trunk with pealing leather sides and one clasp hanging uselessly by a single nail. When he had deposited the thing at the foot of the shop’s counter, the trunk gave a shiver and rattled ominously.
“Anyhow,” Charlie said once the trunk had quieted. “Good riddance to the Kresterbaches, says I. Mayhap this Dark Lord is doing some good after all. No one else seems bold enough to step up. I wish him luck, I do.” And with that portentous wish hanging in the air, he shoved the little bag of coins across the counter.
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September crept sluggishly into October and the grey days became more frequent, brushed now with a touch of chill that promised a cold and wet winter. In London, of course, the magnificent colours of fall and the gentle kiss of morning dew were all but lost in the flurry of cars and buses and shoulder-to-shoulder buildings. Even in the magical parts of London, such as Diagon Alley, the many shops and other establishments had settled into the bored grey lull between the Hogwarts before-term rush and Christmas time shopping.
In the second week of October, Charlie found himself abroad in southern France, just east of Marseille, visiting a small wizarding community that was a favourite crossroads for many of the smugglers of magical items that came out of the east. Here Charlie found a number of useful things, including a sack of Jobberknoll feathers, a small box of Ramora scales, a tiny vial of extraordinarily rare Re’em blood, and more than a few illegal potions ingredients that were far cheaper in the Mediterranean than they were by the time they had been smuggled into Britain.
As a treat to himself, Charlie spent several days thereafter enjoying the relative warmth and comforts of the magical holiday resorts that were so popular around Marseille and Nice. By the time that he returned to Britain, the creeping chill of winter felt very bitter indeed, and in the village of Hogsmeade, the cold was positively piercing.
“Well, can you blame him though? I’d keep a low profile if I were challenging centuries of strict Ministry policy too,” Charlie heard a grey-haired witch murmur to her friend one day in November as he passed them on the High Street of the northern magical village.
“Fah,” her elderly friend replied, pursing her lips in disapproval. “He lurks about because he’s up to no good, Mathilda. ‘Dark Lord’? It’s nothing to do with shadows and keeping a low profile “ he’s after power, you mark my words.”
“Oh, Augusta,” Mathilda sighed, exasperated. Her friend shot Charlie a dirty look and adjusted the stuffed vulture that perched atop her hat as they swept by him.
Charlie merely beamed congenially at the two of them, but the snippet of conversation that he had overheard was, like so many other things, carefully filed away for future reference. In the past two months, the Dark Lord had quietly but cleverly entered the public eye, slotting nicely into the Mysterious Masked Hero role that newspapers, children, and pulp fiction-obsessed housewives so revered. There might come a time, Charlie knew, when his piecemeal knowledge of the Dark Lord could prove quite lucrative to the right people. He did not realise, of course, that this time was much closer at hand that he suspected.
He was slouching down the High Street of Hogsmeade at about dinnertime, keeping habitually close to the shadows of the buildings on either side, despite it being full dark. His steps carried him past the now darkened windows of Honeydukes and the Post Office, and brought him finally to the brightly glowing inn, The Three Broomsticks. Muted music could be heard through its closed windows, from which poured light that had no regard for the cold and muddy street on which Charlie now stood. Smiling to himself, Charlie gathered his robes about him and made for the cheery pub.
Inside, he found the place brimming with people and permeated by the warm, homely smell of good cooking and wood smoke. Before he had even removed his travelling cloak, a lilting voice called out his name over the heads of several wizards with knee-length grey beards.
“Charlie! Come in, come in!” Madam Esmeralda’s young assistant, Rosmerta, swept up to Charlie, beaming at him as her hair flew about her. Even with three Butterbeers in each hand, she managed to usher him in the direction of a tiny isolated table next to the stairs.
“Ah Rosmerta, you are too kind to an old man!” Charlie grinned. “Allow me to relieve you of some of your burden, my dear.” He snatched up one of the Butterbeers and Rosmerta gave him a chiding smirk. Several younger men in maroon-coloured robes seemed irked by the special attention lavished upon the short, old-fashioned looking wizard who brushed past them at Rosmerta’s shoulder, but Charlie appeared not to notice.
“Sit yourself down there, Charlie,” Rosmerta said, waving at the tiny table once they had weaved through the busy pub. “Now, is it the roast beef or the Sheppard's Pie tonight?”
Charlie plunked down into one of the table’s two chairs and threw his cloak over the second. “Roast beef, I think. And how about an extra yorkshire, if it’s not too much trouble?”
“None at all.” Smiling pleasantly, Rosmerta swiftly disappeared again.
Yawning pointedly until the jealous glares of the young, maroon-robed wizards retreated, Charlie dug a hand deep into one of his pockets and rustled around for a second, finally extracting a stubby brown pipe and pouch of tobacco. By the time he had touched his wand to the bowl and the pipe had begun to emit a purplish smoke, Charlie had already turned up a rumpled copy of The Daily Prophet from another pocket and opened the squashed paper in front of him.
The front page was taken up with a variety of articles that betrayed a slow day for news, such as the visit of the famous Russian alchemist Ivan Sorgoski (famous not for his alchemy, but for his illustrious affairs with three different members of the Russian wizarding royal family). By page three, Charlie was sifting through stories about new Ministry regulations on the enchantment of quills and the closing of Darwent’s Dodgy Draughts after only three months of business in central London. It was as he was starting into an article about the mixed reviews of a new Doxycide that Charlie felt a brief movement behind his paper and heard the scrape of a chair in front of him.
Frowning and narrowing his eyes, he dipped a corner of the paper and glanced over the top of it. His peppery brows lifted. A man sat opposite him; middle-aged, black-haired, and square-jawed. At first Charlie looked to either side of the table, as if expecting the man to realise he was sitting in the wrong place, but the man did not move. He sat staring at Charlie with a mildly interested expression.
Finally, Charlie set his paper down and gazed pointedly across the table. “Can I help you?” he said in a tone that suggested the man ought to leave.
The man cocked his head to the side, as if Charlie was an animal that had just reacted well to an experiment. After a moment, he spoke, his voice deep and confident. “I believe you can. Your name is Charlie?”
Charlie snorted, sending purple smoke dancing about his eyebrows. “Much as I despise clichés, I’m afraid I’ll have to respond with: it depends who’s asking.”
The black-haired man smiled indulgently and leaned forward with a business-like air. “Henry Marlow, Hit Wizard, Department of Magical Law Enforcement.”
“Henry Marlow, eh?” Charlie repeated sceptically. “Sounds Muggle-like to me.”
“My father was a Muggle. Henry Marlow, Senior.”
“Ah, that would explain it,” Charlie nodded, eyeing Marlow. “So, is it your intent to arrest me, Mr Marlow? I could save you the trouble and simply hex you now, if you like, so that your superiors can see you’ve made an effort.”
“As you did with young Wethers and Franklin a few months ago?” Marlow replied, then shook his head. “No, I don’t need to show the effort. I am not here to arrest you.”
“That’s refreshing.”
“Indeed. In fact, I would like some information from you, Charlie. For a price, of course,” he added when Charlie gave him a dry stare.
At that, Charlie straightened. “Oh? That's original. Expect me to believe that, eh? Mr Marlow, I know at least a dozen hexes that will shut down various internal organs and three different jinxes that would make your toes curl, literally. So go ahead and ask your questions, if you wish. But if you anticipate lulling me into a false sense of security with the promise of a few Ministry coins, I ought to warn you: I doubt Ministry pockets go deep enough to earn more than my passing attention, never mind my trust.”
Marlow's reaction was unreadable, save that he looked slightly thoughtful. Before either man spoke again, however, the humdrum of the pub was broken by Rosmerta’s return. Both leaned back as the inn assistant swept over them, delivering a plate of steaming roast beef buried beneath a mountain of potatoes, boiled vegetables, yorkshire puddings and thick gravy. When Rosmerta had gone again, Marlow leaned forward and muttered something under his breath. Charlie felt his ears pop and knew that a noise-muffling charm had been cast, for when Marlow raised his voice again, not a single eye turned in their direction, despite the subject that the Ministry wizard now broached.
“I wish to know what you know of the wizard known as the Dark Lord.”
Charlie whistled between his teeth, grinning. The last of the purplish smoke unravelled itself from his head and spun lazily towards the ceiling as he pocketed his pipe again. “Ooh, tall order, Mr Marlow. He’s a devious one, this Dark Lord of yours. Not sure how much I could say I know of him.”
Catching Charlie’s implication, Marlow reached into his robes and pulled out a small red bag. It jingled when he threw it on the table. Charlie did not touch it, but his expression grew thoughtful.
“What makes you so interested in the Dark Lord, might I ask?" he said sceptically, then began digging into his supper. "I was rather under the impression that the Ministry thought him a joke. Great flipping change of opinion, I should think, if you’re seeking out an old hand like me for information about him.”
Marlow threw Charlie what was likely meant to be a wry smirk, but it did not quite mask the revealing pinched quality that passed across the Hit Wizard’s face, as if Charlie’s assessment had struck a chord. “Yours is not the reason why, yours is but to do and die.”
“What’s that?”
“A Muggle saying,” Marlow returned. “I’m paying you for information, not prying questions.”
Charlie snorted and smiled. “I suppose you think him a smuggler then, if you're so bothered to find me. Crouch leaning on you to turn up something about this black market for Dark objects? That old berk. Well now, let me think what comes to mind. I know the Dark Lord has been hard at work for some time now. I know he has wealthy and influential friends. I know he is somewhere between 35 and 50 years of age. And I know he doesn't think too highly of your Ministry.”
The old wizard said no more as he hunched back over his meal. Marlow continued to stare at Charlie, evidently expecting more information. When none was forthcoming, he frowned and leaned forward again. “And?”
“And that’s it, about,” Charlie said, now using his potatoes to mop up pools of gravy.
Marlow was silent at first, glaring at Charlie as if he could pry information out of the old man with looks alone. Then he muttered, "I'd heard you were the wizard to go to for information."
"Mmhmm," Charlie replied with a sigh, leaning back from the remnants of his supper without warning. "And I'd heard that there was naught better than The Three Broomsticks for pleasant company. Suppose we're all disappointed sometimes."
Charlie pushed back from the table and stood, reaching behind Marlow to retrieve his travelling cloak. The Hit Wizard's hand instinctively twitched towards his robes when Charlie leaned towards him, but he covered this by standing as well, barring Charlie's exit. "I am not trying to upset your business," he said, clearly irritated but struggling to keep Charlie's attention. "All I want is information about the Dark Lord, who he is, where he operates out of. I'm not trying to attack your business, Charlie."
Much to Marlow's frustration, Charlie actually laughed at that as he dug in his pockets for the money to pay for his supper. "He's not a smuggler, Mr Marlow, if that's what you're so concerned about. He's not a smuggler." He reached out to take the red bag of coins that Marlow had offered, but the Ministry wizard snatched up the bag before the older man could touch them. Charlie frowned, shrugged, and proceeded to push past Marlow as if mildly disappointed. At first, Marlow did not attempt to stop him, but by the time that Charlie had reached the door of the inn and was about to set the payment for his food on the bar, the Hit Wizard had caught him up.
"I know you know more than that, Charlie."
"In fact, Mr Marlow, I don't. The Dark Lord lives up to his name very nicely and is quite good at keeping outside knowledge about himself to a minimum. He is murky, of the shadows, like unto smoke! What I know about him, I have told you....Now, had you asked me what I suspected about him," Charlie said, glorying in the sudden shock that fell across Marlow's face, as if he had been slapped, "my answer might have been very different. Very different indeed."
And before the coins that Charlie had thumped down on the bar top had even stopped rolling, he had plucked the red bag from Marlow's hand, swept out the door, and Disapparated with a crack from the muddy street beyond.