The Other End of the Village
There was no Knockturn Alley.
It could have been a malfunction with his wand, but it wasn't. It could have been a problem with the spell, but he'd used it perfectly well before. It could have been a lapse in his magical powers, but he performed a series of complicated rearranging charms just as easily as he ever could. He could have been too far away, but after he found his way to a shop he knew was just a few hundred yards away, it still it didn't work.
None of the secret entrances worked. He tried apparating; he tried Floo; he tried a portkey.
There was no Knockturn Alley in this London.
*****
The third place he tried to find was what used to be his home. He apparated to Hambledon, a village in Hampshire not far from Wimbourne; far enough away so that there would be no possibility of a random encounter with one of his kind, close enough so that he would be there in half an hour or so if he hitched a lift from an unusually generous Muggle driver.
The road reminded him of the one in Dagenham, in that it was a grey road under a grey sky, full of obnoxious motorists in noxious vehicles, and he didn't like it. He wondered if all roads would remind him of that one.
The driver tried to make polite conversation, mostly about where he was from and what he did. He brushed these off with casual lies. He was a student. He studied philosophy. Where? Edinburgh. Where was he from? Derbyshire. Then the questions got more conversational and irritating. How about that Ian Botham, then? Who? Don't tell me you don't know who he is, where were you last summer? So what do you think of Thatcher, then? Don't really have an opinion about him. Eh?
At that point, he cast another mind-spell, and although it made the driver sing morale-boosting World War Two songs the rest of the way, it was worth it not to have to pretend to talk.
*****
Wimbourne was there; as was the house, exactly as he remembered it. The driver dropped him off at the other end of the village, happily humming The White Cliffs of Dover, and Barty walked the last half-mile. He was invisible, of course, and protected with several counter-security charms.
He didn't need them.
There were no security charms around the house. There was no magic at all around the house. There were two Muggle vehicles in the drive, and a woman he'd need seen before watching some tele-visual device in the living room.
The furniture was different. The carpets were different. The curtains were hideous. His bedroom was a study. His house had gone, like Knockturn Alley and the flat near Marylebone.
*****
Everywhere was gone. All the magical places he knew across the country were ordinary, Muggle places. He'd used every Revealing Charm in existence in every possible permutation; nothing. There was nothing. Even Hogwarts was a Muggle castle, dating from the fifteenth century and an excellent example of its type, the official at the ticket office assured him, but of very little use to Barty.
There was no magical society in this world.
He apparated back to London, and from there, he went nowhere.
It could have been a malfunction with his wand, but it wasn't. It could have been a problem with the spell, but he'd used it perfectly well before. It could have been a lapse in his magical powers, but he performed a series of complicated rearranging charms just as easily as he ever could. He could have been too far away, but after he found his way to a shop he knew was just a few hundred yards away, it still it didn't work.
None of the secret entrances worked. He tried apparating; he tried Floo; he tried a portkey.
There was no Knockturn Alley in this London.
*****
The third place he tried to find was what used to be his home. He apparated to Hambledon, a village in Hampshire not far from Wimbourne; far enough away so that there would be no possibility of a random encounter with one of his kind, close enough so that he would be there in half an hour or so if he hitched a lift from an unusually generous Muggle driver.
The road reminded him of the one in Dagenham, in that it was a grey road under a grey sky, full of obnoxious motorists in noxious vehicles, and he didn't like it. He wondered if all roads would remind him of that one.
The driver tried to make polite conversation, mostly about where he was from and what he did. He brushed these off with casual lies. He was a student. He studied philosophy. Where? Edinburgh. Where was he from? Derbyshire. Then the questions got more conversational and irritating. How about that Ian Botham, then? Who? Don't tell me you don't know who he is, where were you last summer? So what do you think of Thatcher, then? Don't really have an opinion about him. Eh?
At that point, he cast another mind-spell, and although it made the driver sing morale-boosting World War Two songs the rest of the way, it was worth it not to have to pretend to talk.
*****
Wimbourne was there; as was the house, exactly as he remembered it. The driver dropped him off at the other end of the village, happily humming The White Cliffs of Dover, and Barty walked the last half-mile. He was invisible, of course, and protected with several counter-security charms.
He didn't need them.
There were no security charms around the house. There was no magic at all around the house. There were two Muggle vehicles in the drive, and a woman he'd need seen before watching some tele-visual device in the living room.
The furniture was different. The carpets were different. The curtains were hideous. His bedroom was a study. His house had gone, like Knockturn Alley and the flat near Marylebone.
*****
Everywhere was gone. All the magical places he knew across the country were ordinary, Muggle places. He'd used every Revealing Charm in existence in every possible permutation; nothing. There was nothing. Even Hogwarts was a Muggle castle, dating from the fifteenth century and an excellent example of its type, the official at the ticket office assured him, but of very little use to Barty.
There was no magical society in this world.
He apparated back to London, and from there, he went nowhere.