Harry Potter and the Obscurus

Chapter 45 Spider Alley

A bar sits on a suburban street in Cockworth. Like the surrounding area, amidst rows of dilapidated brick houses, "dirty and messy" is the most fitting adjective to describe the place.

……

"Little brother, you don't seem to be from around here?"

A voice pulled Harry back from his curious thoughts as he looked around at the walls. He turned his head and found that the person who had spoken to him was an older woman.

"Yes, I'm waiting for someone, a friend."

Harry said.

"You should have a drink while waiting for someone; it's so boring just sitting there like this."

The woman pretended not to understand Harry's subtle implication and sat down opposite him. However, just as she was about to say something more, an invisible force suddenly emanated from Harry's emerald eyes. Immediately afterward, most of the patrons, including the woman, left the bar as if they had lost their souls.

A silent, wandless Muggle exorcism?!

The two men and one woman, who were unaffected by the magic, all shuddered involuntarily. After looking around, all three fixed their gazes on Harry.

In the dim light, Harry, dressed in black robes, completely ignored the other three wizards. To him, the graffiti on the surrounding walls and the dusty empty bottles seemed more interesting.

Over the past few months, besides studying the magical ancient books mentioned by Nicolas Flamel around the world, Harry has also successfully promoted Lily's Peanuts hair serum to the British wizarding market. Thanks to the high rate of baldness in Britain and England, Lily's Peanuts hair serum became an instant hit upon release. Lily's Healthcare has even become a more well-known company than the one Fremont Potter sold.

Nobody knew who Harry Evans, the owner of Lily Health Insurance, was. Just like nobody would recognize the famous savior Harry Potter without seeing his lightning bolt scar.

……

“You should choose a less conspicuous place to meet me, Mr. Evans.”

At one o'clock in the morning, a gloomy man, also dressed in a black robe, pushed open the wooden door of the bar. As he spoke, he quickly walked to the opposite side of Harry and pulled a piece of parchment from his pocket, handing it to him.

"Here are the two improvements you requested. The first is an enhanced formula based on salamander blood and pomegranate juice. This mixture will speed up the hair growth agent's effectiveness and retain its effect even after dilution. The downside is that it doesn't last long and must be used every few days to maintain its effectiveness. The other is the 'Sunlight Orchid' I mentioned before. It doesn't significantly affect the efficacy of the product itself, but it can make the hair growth tonic's effect more stable and lasting."

"How long can it last?"

Harry asked.

"Five or six months, and the dialogue may last even longer depending on the individual, but this requires a lot of experimental data to support it."

After listening to Professor Snape's explanation, Harry nodded in satisfaction. But just as he was putting the parchment into his pocket, he noticed that there was another small box on the table in front of him.

"Professor, what is this?"

“I told you, outside the castle you should call me Mr. Prince.”

"Okay, Mr. Prince, what is this?"

Snape's lips twitched twice, as if he had something very difficult to say. After struggling for a moment, he grunted as usual, then spread his "bat wings" and floated away.

Watching Snape's disappearing figure, Harry opened the box with a slightly bewildered expression. Inside lay a note that read "Happy Birthday" and an old-fashioned, exquisite pocket watch that was not yet wound and whose hands pointed to six o'clock.

"Why is Professor Snape always like this? He's an adult, yet he has to act so shy."

Mo Ran didn't say much in response to Harry's complaints. He would explain everything Harry needed to know when school started in a while, including the love and hate between the previous generation.

"Let me see the improved potion recipe."

Mo Ran said:

"I didn't have a chance to ask Professor Snape about the dilution ratio before he got away. Looks like we'll be busy again in a bit."

……

The rain and fog of Britain are not limited by time, occasion, or place. This is true whether in bustling London or in the overgrown, garbage-strewn town of Kirkworth.

A light drizzle swept across the muddy, winding path, and in the darkness, Harry could even hear the dark river sobbing in his ears.

With his current magical skill, he could completely ignore reconnaissance techniques like Tracks. But even so, he was still unwilling to use Apparition to traverse this path that his mother, Lily Evans, had once walked.

"A despicable place."

"The Muggle's garbage dump, there's nothing worth going there for."

For decades, Kirkworth has been a place collectively shunned by ordinary people and wizards alike. Its eerie, mysterious, and ominous nature has earned it a host of terrible reputations and spawned terrifying urban legends.

As a wizard, Harry naturally didn't believe in ghosts and monsters. The reason he set up his secret laboratory here was precisely because of the fact that the outskirts of Kirkworth were almost devoid of life.

Beneath the towering, massive chimney, the door to an abandoned mill slowly opened.

creak...

Accompanied by the ear-piercing noise of metal colliding and rubbing, Harry shot several "fluorescent" orbs into the air.

"Salamander blood, pomegranate juice... So it turns out he modified the principle of the enhancer and used it here. He even took into account the fact that the raw materials are simple and easy to obtain. Truly worthy of Professor Snape."

As Harry spoke, he rolled up his sleeves and began the brewing process.

As Snape's protégé, creating an enhanced version of the Lily Peanut Potion was hardly a challenge for Harry. What Harry truly cared about was how much of the potion's potency it would retain after being diluted and combined with the shampoo used by Muggles.

The Grub's Flame ignited out of thin air, and above the cauldron, test tubes and glass rods danced in Harry's hands as if by magic. Within just ten minutes, the scent of lilies wafted out.

"Why did that Muggle woman strike up a conversation with me at the bar?"

With his work nearing completion, Harry suddenly asked Mo Ran a question out of the blue.

"what?"

Mo Ran was a little taken aback and said:

"Oh, maybe it's because you're handsome."

"Then I can't possibly date someone who's more than ten years older than me. That woman looks about the same age as Aunt Penny."

Seeing Harry's intense reaction, Mo Ran finally realized what his host meant.

He comforted him:

"Hey, how many people living in this neighborhood are normal? She's probably just been single for too long and wanted to try her luck or something, not because you have Lockhart's kind of charm that attracts middle-aged women."

Harry felt a little relieved after receiving Mo Ran's affirmation. He let out a long sigh and his hands began to move again.

"Now that it's mixed, let's dilute it to one percent first. After all, this stuff is going to be sold to Muggles. If the concentration is too high, the hair will grow too fast, and they'll definitely notice something's wrong."

"it is good."

Mo Ran, who seemed to be intently accompanying Harry in the experiment, was actually still thinking about what Harry had just mentioned.

To some extent, it's perfectly normal for Harry to attract the attention of strange women. During their travels over the past few months, Moran had witnessed similar incidents on numerous occasions.

Young Harry might not yet understand love and flirting, but at 13, he had certainly reached the peak of his handsomeness. A striking face with rosy lips and white teeth, coupled with a height of nearly 180 cm after malnutrition, made him a "savior" of this caliber. Even Umbridge would be momentarily stunned if she saw him standing on the street.

Originally, this should have been a good thing, but the problem is, given Harry's current age, appearance, and various psychological changes, the seeds of love are probably about to sprout in his heart.

Mo Ran seemed indifferent to whether this "savior" would end up with Ginny Weasley as in the original story; he had never intentionally tried to bring Harry and Hermione together. But whatever Harry chose, Mo Ran didn't want to be a pervert spying on others' intimate moments in the live stream.

If Harry were to actually start dating, then when he hugs, kisses, and even takes things further with a girl…

"Cuckoo!"

The hooting of an owl interrupted Mo Ran's reverie.

Through Harry's eyes, a white figure flew across the starry sky above the open mill shed.

"Hedwig must have gone to catch mice again."

Harry said.

"Every time she catches something, she insists on bringing it back and asking me to praise her. If I don't, she gets angry. She's really hard to understand..."

Mo Ran chuckled lightly:

"Don't worry, she definitely didn't go to catch mice today."

"how do you know?"

"Have you forgotten what Professor Snape gave you? It's your birthday today, Harry."

Bathed in the cool moonlight, Hedwig fluttered her pristine white wings and flew towards Harry. As her figure grew larger, Harry began to notice that two unfamiliar owls were following behind the snowy owl.

Hedwig looked large and white, perhaps because she had been catching too many mice in Kirkworth recently; she seemed to be a head taller than the other two owls.

"Cuckoo~"

As the first owl to land and place the bundle on Harry's desk, Hedwig puffed out her chest with a smug look. She glanced at her two companions behind her, gave Harry's finger a light peck as if asserting her dominance, and then flew to her metal perch.

The second owl brought a stack of envelopes, which, unlike the letters bearing the Hogwarts crest brought by the third tawny owl, were signed by the Weasley family.

Seeing the two looking slightly tired, Harry reached out and summoned two large rats that Hedwig had caught from a glass case nearby, then gave them to them. This naturally drew Hedwig's displeasure.

"Goo!"

"Alright, alright, I'll get you something even tastier than a mouse tomorrow."

"Cuckoo!"

After casually reassuring his messenger, he stopped what he was doing, walked quickly to the bedside, and began to unpack the packages and envelopes one by one.

"Birthday cards? There are Dursley cards, Weasley cards, and Granger cards...wait, what's this?"

A Ministry of Magic employee has won a huge prize!

Arthur Weasley, head of the Office for Prohibiting the Misuse of Muggle Items at the Ministry of Magic, won the Daily Prophet's annual Galleon Prize.

Beneath the large text at the very top of the clipping was an ecstatic Mr. Weasley. Holding up the lottery ticket, he shouted to Harry:

“It’s decided! I’ll use this money to take my family on vacation to Egypt! My eldest son, Bill, happens to work there; he’s an unraveler at the Gringotts Wizarding Bank!”

The clipping also included a photo of the Weasley family of nine standing in front of the Great Pyramid of Giza, waving continuously.