Knockturn Alley
Diagon Alley is the most famous shopping street for magicians in whole England.
Nevertheless there still are people that really don’t know that lovely Diagon Alley has a secret sister: small, dirty, bad and depraved – Knockturn Alley.
Most of the people carelessly walk past the small stone arch at the upper end of Diagon Alley on the left side, between the “Golden Spinning Wheel” and “Weaslethorpe’s Parchment Shop”, from where you enter Knockturn Alley.
But whoever turns from the bright world of Diagon Alley into the darkness of Knockturn Alley does it covertly, turns up his collar and pulls down his hat; because whoever wants to shop here is likely to be called a Death-Eater. Rumour has it that the Ministry of Magic only tolerates Knockturn Alley to have an improved control over the activities of dark wizards.
Supposedly, you can find everything in here that is claimed to be non-existent in Diagon Alley; that is because Knockturn Alley is said to be the realm of the Dark Magic. Poison and potions of the worst kind; inside the few shabby bookstores there are folios about Conjuring the Dead; instead of owls and fluffy cats there are gigantic scorpions, flesh-eating harpies and tarantulas as big as plates inside “Wurleys’ Menagerie”; there are shops that have specialized on curses, while others sell eyes, dried brains and entrails that don’t look like they only come from animals.
One of the biggest shops in Knockturn Alley is the one of “Burgin and Burke’s”. Harry Potter once entered it unintentionally when he arrived at the wrong fireplace on an unsuccessful journey with Floo Powder.
Mr. Borgin and his partner Caractacus Burke sell everything a dark wizard desires; and if it doesn’t lie inside the dirty showcases or on the shelves, Borgin hoards it beneath the shop’s counter or brings it at someone’s whispered suggestion out of the dark back room.
“Borgin and Burke’s” was one of the first choices for Death-Eaters when the Dark Lord was in power; how could it not, since Tom Vorlost Riddle alias Lord Voldemort himself once had worked inside this depraved shop as a young man.
That is why it isn’t very remarkable that after Voldemort returned, Borgin and his partner immediately provided a base for the Death-Eaters inside their shop and repaired a Vanishing Cabinet together with the young Draco Malfoy to create a secret entrance to the putatively safe Hogwarts through their shop.
