"You dare—"
Many stories carry their endings from the first word.
A furious roar erupted in the gloomy underground cavern — sharp and guttural, like a werewolf greeting the full moon.
"—to toy with—"
Three seconds after gulping the laced Confusing Concoction, the old wizard slammed the table and surged upright. His bald scalp's pustules and sores flushed from red to violent purple, then blackened. They boiled like an overcooked potion, bubbling fiercely. The fleshy tendrils on half his face thrashed wildly, lengthening in frantic spurts as though desperate to rip free.
"—the great—"
Rage contorted his voice into dramatic, rising cadences. He thrust aloft a short, thick wand crowned with a blood-red gem, clearly intent on blasting his betrayer with a vicious curse.
But his control had already shattered. The deliberate casting only fed the chaos inside him — violent, evil magic spiraling out of restraint.
He began to melt.
From the crown downward, like wax thrust into flame, his body liquefied with horrifying speed. Skin sagged, bubbled, dripped. In a single blink the living man collapsed into a steaming black puddle of pus and corruption.
"Sorry… the great… what, exactly?"
The skinny bamboo-pole wizard gave a strange, mocking laugh. He snatched the mithril lump, stuffed it into his robes, then crouched beside the sludge. Reaching in, he tugged free the old man's wand and held the ruby tip to a floating green torch's light, inspecting it with smug satisfaction that radiated even through his concealing hood.
Alan felt the gaze shift toward him. The skinny wizard whipped around, eyes hostile.
"In a place like this, greed and curiosity both get you killed quick, mister. Don't think ripping apart a few big dogs makes everyone fear you—"
Alan chuckled softly, contemptuous. He stared down into the black puddle. After a long moment, a hoarse, old voice rasped from beneath his hood.
"Thanks for the warning, Mr. Swindler. But you forgot one thing. Besides greed and curiosity… carelessness kills fastest."
"What?"
The skinny wizard froze.
From the pus erupted a pitch-black phantom — scarlet eyes blazing. It rose like the Grim Reaper himself, hovering mid-air, and unleashed a shriek that chilled bone.
"Come embrace death with me, you shameless wretch!"
The apparition defied comprehension. No fight instinct — only flight. He spun to run.
Useless. Anti-Apparition wards bound every inch; the nearest Floo was half a mile distant.
He barely cleared the low granite wall before the reaper-shadow overtook him. It plunged from above, jaws gaping with razor teeth, and swallowed man and scream in one savage gulp.
Crunch. Crunch. Crunch—
Sickening chewing echoed. Blood laced with bone shards and gray matter pattered to stone in thick rivulets. The coppery, rotting stench made Alan's nose wrinkle beneath the hood.
The Death-form was only a dying man's final spasm — already fading fast.
Avenged, the phantom dimmed. Before vanishing entirely it wheeled, fixing Alan with eyes full of hate.
"You *knew* it was fake… yet said nothing!"
"Why blame me for your stupidity?" Alan replied icily. "Before I decide to study your new form in a specimen jar for decades, vanish. Or I'll send you to hell the slow way."
No rebuttal possible.
With a final, reluctant sigh and glance around, the shade dissolved completely, striding into oblivion.
Nearby figures noticed the commotion — but no one reacted with surprise, and no one approached. In this lawless place, curiosity was suicide.
A silver flash cut the dim air.
Alan summoned the tooth-scarred mithril from the gore, flicked it clean with silent magic, and tucked it away. His mood lifted noticeably.
A crisp finger-snap — golden flames erupted on the old wizard's puddle and the skinny man's shredded remains. In moments the fire scoured the filth spotless, erasing every trace.
Taking their goods meant handling their cleanup. Call it basic decency.
"Looks like I missed quite the performance, Mr. X?"
Alan turned.
A fair-haired, black-eyed middle-aged wizard stood smiling beneath the tall notice board.
"Or perhaps you were lucky enough to miss the trouble."
The newcomer — Carcus Fawley — was a known broker here, from one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight.
The Fawleys once stood at the pinnacle: a family head had even been Minister. But Hector Fawley ignored Albus Dumbledore's warnings about Grindelwald, misjudged the rising threat, and paid dearly. Ousted in disgrace, the family lost power and protection, fading from prominence.
For generations they hunted ways back to influence — all roads blocked by one unyielding figure.
Dumbledore never actively hunted them, but memory lingered. His warnings, ignored, had cost Britain dearly against Grindelwald.
Fifty years on, anger cooled — yet Dumbledore lived.
Modern Ministry leaders treated the Hogwarts headmaster with extreme caution. No point risking his ire to revive a faded name.
So the Fawleys turned to shadow.
They sent one presentable younger member — Carcus — to operate openly here, accepting retaliation risk while quietly building wealth and contacts, waiting for a path back to daylight.