Humphrey Dinklehuegen and the Talking Horses

by Unwhole Hole

Chapter 5: Knockturn Alley

The broom sputtered and dropped. It was losing altitude, and there was not much Humph could do to slow it. He was not a mechanic by any means and had more comprehension of how air conditioners worked than how brooms operate, and trying to charge it with his wand had only resulted in uneven idling.

Fortunately, he was already overhead of his destination and began to lower the broom into a side alley, striking several trashcans as he landed before the broom’s braking mechanism kicked in and threw him over the front and into a puddle.

“Smooth,” said Sweetie Belle.

“Thanks. I practice. Why, if I had actually been rich enough to attend Hogwarts, I’d probably have been a seeker. Because I’m that good. And now quite damp as well.”

Sweetie Belle and Trixie got off the broom. Sweetie Belle nearly collapsed, and Trixie began to stagger across the wet cobblestones.

“Whoa…Trixie feels like her parts are misaligned…”

“The last time I’ve been vibrated that much was…I’ve never been vibrated that much!” said Sweetie Belle. “How do you not get saddle sores from that?”

“Buns of steel,” said Humph, still lying in a puddle. “Only way to ride a broom.”

Fluttershy had not left the broom. She was still clinging to it, hanging beneath it and trembling as she cried quietly.

“Fluttershy,” said Sweetie Belle. “You can get off now.”

“Too…high…” she squeaked. “To high!”

“You do realize you’re a Pegasus, right?” said Trixie. “I mean, didn’t you grow up in Cloudsdale or something? In the SKY?”

Fluttershy opened her eyes and looked at her wings. “Oh. Yeah.”

She slowly got off, and Humph pulled himself out of the puddle.

“Aren’t you going to lock it up or something?” asked Sweetie Belle.

“No,” said Humph, as though he had never considered that. “I’ve never had to before. Nobody’s ever tried to steal it.”

“I wonder why,” muttered Trixie.

Humph just shrugged and walked to the end of the alley. The ponies followed, having a minor amount of trouble walking across the cobblestones without slipping. Not much in the human world seemed to be designed for hooves.

“And there we have it!” said Humph, emerging from the minor alley into what could only be described as yet another alley.

Sweetie Belle looked up at it, and was astounded that the world could get any drearier than it already was. It was late in the afternoon, but here it seemed to be almost night. Uneven, dark, stained buildings stretched up and out over the street, blocking out the dingy gray sky overhead. Most of them seemed ominous and threatening just by virtue of their imposing structure. On the street below, a number of hooded and cloaked figures limped and stumbled about the uneven streets.

“What. The. Literal. Hay,” said Trixie. “This place is a dump!”

“A dump? This is Knockturn Alley! The greatest congregation of wizarding shops in all of Britain!”

“Well,” said Fluttershy, “I’m going back on the broom…”

Sweetie Belle grabbed her tail with magic, preventing her from leaving. “And why exactly are we here?” she asked, pulling Fluttershy along with her.

“You’ll see,” said Humph, stepping out into the alleyway proper.

“Is it safe?”

“Safe? Of course it’s safe! Nobody here would ever even try to hurt you!”

A hulking cloaked mass shambled by, its body completely concealed but releasing a number of groans and clicks that made it sound like some kind of massive insect.

“Except him,” said Humph, pulling Trixie out of the way. “Or…them. Don’t mess with them.”

Completely ignoring the question of what exactly had just passed them- -or why it seemed to be trailing a viscous fluid- -Humph strode down the street. Trixie followed, and then Sweetie Belle did. As soon as Fluttershy realized that she was alone, she burst into tears and chased after them.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie actually has a great deal of experience in places like this,” said Trixie, falling in step with Humph.

“We all know your track record with magical artifacts,” said Sweetie Belle.

“And I apologized for that!”

“You enslaved two children and forced them to pull a cart with no wheels.”

“They enjoyed it! And wheels cannot be trusted!”

“It’s true,” said Humph. “I once knew a guy. He was a wheel, he could roll and could feel, but no one could stop him turning.” Humph stopped and looked around. “Now…where am I?”

“You don’t know?” Trixie did not seem happy about that fact.

“I know generally, but this place tends to shift slightly. Sometimes stores get misplaced. Oh, hey! There’s Borgin and Burkes!”

Sweetie Belle looked over her shoulder at a shady door with thick, dark-brown windows and a molding sign. “Is that where we’re going?”

“Oh no, that’s just a store. But they always have the coolest stuff. I can’t afford any of it. Actually, Ivan did want me to get him a Toe of Glory. Maybe just a…” he stopped himself. “No. Not right now. Busy.”

He turned on his heal and walked past a witch who was looking up at what appeared to be nothing in particular, mumbling to herself. Sweetie Belle backed away from the strange woman, wondering how Humph did not at all seem to notice the intrinsic threatening nature of this place. She supposed he was either extremely brave, extremely jaded, or extremely thick. By this point, she was leaning toward the third option.

Eventually, Humph led them to another dingy, narrow building. This one was set slightly off from the path and was decorated by a number of vases or urns set just outside it. The sign said “Moribund’s”. Sweetie Belle watched as a young wizard with a dark cloak and a green scarf approached, turned the handle, and, upon finding it locked, left.

“I think it’s locked,” said Trixie, looking through one of its thick windows at an orange light far back in the shop as Humph walked up the steps toward the door.

“Of course it’s locked,” said Humph. “Almost everything here is locked, even when its open.”

“That’s kind of stupid. No. That is actually fully stupid.”

“No it isn’t,” said Humph. “A lot of these places sell some pretty heavy-duty stuff. If just anyone could walk in, well…in the hands of a competent wizard, half this stuff could be used to take over the world.”

“So…” said Sweetie Belle. “You can open the door because you’re not a competent wizard?”

“Of course!” Humph grasped the door handle and pushed the door open. “Hey, wait a minute- -”

Trixie pushed past him. “She’s right, you know. The only competent wizard here is Trixie!”

The inside of the shop was not much different from the outside- -gloomy and vaguely sinister. The door led into a hallway that had apparently once belonged to a house, with a set of stairs leading up into the darkness overhead right next to it. Humph ignored those- -and considering that there were a pair of luminescent eyes standing at the top of the stairs, that was an acceptable course.

Instead, he led them through the narrow and creaky hallway to a large open and windowless room. It was filled with vases and urns, all of various colors but indeterminate purpose. On the far end, behind a desk, stood a shopkeeper. He was not at all pleasant looking. His skin was jaundiced and his eyes cloudy. His jaw was partially open and drooling. Even his clothing seemed to be suffering from whatever sickness was afflicting him, and his suit was worn and dirty. He did not seem to notice their entry, but instead continued to repeatedly gouge a line in his desk with a knife.

“Oh,” said Sweetie Belle, grabbing her nose as a wall of smell hit her. “It stinks in here!”

“It smells worse than Fluttershy in here!” gasped Trixie.

“I don’t smell that bad,” said Fluttershy. Then, with eyes downcast. “No…I do. I’m sorry.”

Humph approached the shopkeeper. The man’s cloudy eyes looked up at him and he stopped gouging.

“I’m here to see the brown pottery,” he said.

The shopkeeper stared at him, drooling. Then he pointed with one long, bony finger at a door to the back room.

“Thanks,” said Humph, putting a coin down on the table. He started toward the door, and Sweetie Belle saw the shopkeeper stare at the coin, pick it up, and eat it.

“And what exactly are pots going to do to help us get back home?” asked Trixie.

“Pots help with everything. After all, one of the most famous wizards of all time was a potter.”

Humph pushed through the door and into a narrow hallway. On one side, it did, in fact, lead to a room filled with a great number of pots and urns of every shape and size. Humph ignored those, though, and approached a heavy iron door in the back. As he did, he pulled out his wand. When he was close enough, he shoved it into a hole in the center of the door.

“It’s wandlocked,” he explained. “Whatever you do, don’t stick your finger in there. Tried that. Oooh boy, they were angry with me.”

The mechanism in the door clicked and rotated around the wand, and there were several loud clinking sounds from inside. Then it opened, and Humph pulled his smoking wand free.

“There we go,” he said, entering the darkness on the other side and descending a spiraling, damp stone staircase. He stopped. “Oh yeah. Almost forgot.” He pointed his wand at his head and flicked it. There was a flash of light, and a brown fez appeared.

“A fez? Seriously?” said Trixie. “The worst possible hat?”

“But I thought fezes were cool,” said Sweetie Belle.

“They are,” said Humph. “But unfortunately it isn’t really optional. The Brotherhood has a pretty strict dress code. Gotta wear a fez.”

“Brotherhood?” said Fluttershy. “What kind of brotherhood?”

“Do I get power armor?” said Sweetie Belle, excited.

Humph smiled, but did not answer either question. He led them deeper down the staircase, descending what seemed like hundreds of feet around and around the sturdy but well-weathered brick of the stairs. Eventually they reached the bottom, and the hallway expanded into a system of darkened stone tunnels, like the remnants of some forgotten castle- -or a long-buried crypt.

“Lumos!” said Humph. A beam of fire shot from his wand. “Oh butt nuggets!” he said, shaking his wand. “Why does that always happen?”

“What were you trying to do?” said Sweetie Belle.

“Lumos is supposed to make light.”

“Really? Lumos.” Sweetie Belle’s horn suddenly ignited with much brighter light than normal, and it concentrated into a small white sphere of light at the tip.

“Hey! That’s not fair!” said Humph. “You don’t even have a wand!”

“You barely even have a horn,” said Trixie. “Lumos!”

Instead of igniting with bright light, Trixie’s horn sparked and fizzled with its normal blue light. “What? Why didn’t that work?”

“I keep asking myself the same thing,” said Humph. “At least it wasn’t the Fiendfyre this time…”

“Why do I smell dead things?” said Fluttershy suddenly.

The answer was revealed quickly. Two figures emerged from the darkness and into Sweetie Belle’s light charm. Both of them looked somewhat similar to the shopkeeper on the upper level, with pale, yellowed skin and dead eyes- -except they were dressed in rags and profoundly thin. One of them appeared to have been stitched together from parts with several different skin tones.

“What- -what are those?” cried Trixie.

“The undead,” said Fluttershy, oddly not concerned at all.

“Inferi,” said Humph. “They’re inferi.”

From between the two reanimated bodies, a wizard stepped through. He was slightly shorter than Humph, and dressed in flowing black robes. He too wore a brown fez.

“We- -we don’t want any trouble,” said Sweetie Belle. “We’ll just be going now- -”

Humph stepped forward and without warning punched the other wizard squarely in the nose. The wizard was knocked backward and caught by his reanimated assistants. He then steadied himself and punched Humph in the nose equally hard.

“What- -what are you doing?!”

Both the wizards raised their arms, their index fingers extended. “Long live the Brotherhood!” They both said in unison.

“What- -what just happened?” said Trixie, noticing that both wizards were now smiling.

“Humph,” said the other wizard, pulling out a pair of glasses from his pocket and placing them on his nose. “It’s good to see you. Even if you are only barely a brown-hat.”

“Hey, I resurrected that one owl that one time.”

“Yeah, I know. One owl. One time. Frankly, Humph, you’re not much of a necromancer.”

“Necromancy?” said Sweetie Belle, now extremely interested.

The wizard bowed ornately. “Vincent Rosenblatt, Chief Operations Supervisor of the Brotherhood of the Brown Finger, at your service.”

“The…brown finger?”

“Well, we were going to call it the ‘Black Hand’, but that was taken. By the Serbians.”

“You’re actual necromancers? Really?” said Sweetie Belle, almost jumping with anticipation.

“And you’re a talking unicorn,” said Vincent. “That’s new.”

“I’ve never met a real necromancer before! I mean, of course I’ve snuck a few looks at Twilight’s books on the subject, but most of the tomes are locked up tight!”

“Same here. Which is the purpose of the Brotherhood, after all. To experiment and perfect the forms of magic that the Ministry of the Fun Police and Hogwash deem too ‘uncouth’ to be performed.” He squatted so that he was close to eye level with Sweetie Belle. “You seem really interested in this sort of stuff. I think you’re an okay candidate. Tell you what. We’re having a seminar downstairs on incorporating muggle neuroscience toward the end of resurrecting a functioning body without a soul. Do you want to go?”

“I- -I can? Really?”

“Sure.” Vincent produced his wand and tapped Sweetie Belle’s head. A green fez appeared. “There you go. And feel free to check out our library.”

Sweetie Belle adjusted her fez, and then looked up at Humph, as if asking for permission.

“I’m not your dad,” he said. “I hope. Go ahead.”

Sweetie Belle smiled and ran off, giggling. “Necromancy!”

“Does that stuff actually work?” asked Humph. “The reanimated brain stuff?”

“You mean a biologically functional body without a soul? Yes, actually. We’ve had a success recently. It lasted a full fourth seven seconds before it tore itself apart. The problem is the motivator spells. Or that they’re smart enough to know what they are. Eh.” He shrugged. “But that’s how it goes.”

“And your work on that horcrux?”

Vincent sighed. “I tried to split my soul, but…” He lifted his fez, revealing a plume of bright red hair.

“Ah. I see. Say, I’ve always wondered. You aren’t a Weasely, are you?”

“Only tangentially. But half of England is at this point. I think I went to a family reunion, like, once. Potter was there. I recall him being a huge square.”

“I hear his wife is hot, though.”

“Considering that she would be some kind of distant cousin, I don’t feel comfortable commenting on that.”

“Why?” asked Trixie.

“Yeah,” said Humph. “I mean, you are English. As in Wuthering Heights- -”

The inferi recoiled in fright. “Don’t speak that name here!” hissed Vincent.

“I’m just saying. Isn’t that how you purebloods keep the blood, you know, pure?”

“Was there something you wanted, Humph?”

“Yes,” said Fluttershy, stepping forward. Her presence caused the undead to recoil even farther. They started moaning as if they were on the verge of sprinting away.

“Whoa,” said Vincent, turning around. “I’ve never seen them do that around anything.”

“These weird little horses are interdimensional travelers. I was wondering if you might- -”

Vincent’s expression hardened. “Interdimensional travel? Did you seriously just say that?”

“Um…yes?”

Vincent stared at Humph, and then at Fluttershy and Trixie. “Right. Follow me.”

He led them through what was now quite apparently a long-buried castle toward one of the large and drafty back rooms. It was only slightly modernized, with lanterns hung from the ceiling and several tables placed around with various equipment and books scattered about.

The inferi waited outside as Vincent entered, and he flicked his wand at the lantern, causing it to grow brighter. “Right,” he said, turning around and putting his focus on Trixie. “Let’s check out the metadata.”

“Wait,” said Trixie. “Trixie did not give you permission to- -” Vincent flicked his wand at Trixie, and she started to glow with a dim golden color. “Ack!” She cried. “Tingly! TINGLY!”

The glow concentrated and jumped off of Trixie’s body, assembling into text that hovered over her. Vincent pulled up a chair and sat down, adjusting his glasses and reading the information. “Try to move less,” he said.

“Do you have any idea how weird this feels?! It’s like- -like- -”

“Yup,” said Vincent, flicking his wand again and terminating the spell. He pointed at Trixie with his free hand. “That unicorn is not from this reality. Not even from a reality anywhere near here. If you envision parallel realities as having physical location, which they don’t but- -approximation. Timey wimey. Blah blah blah.”

“Can you get us home?” asked Fluttershy.

Vincent leaned back and took off his glasses. “Alright. Listen. Transdimensional travel is big bokum bad.”

“I thought you were supposed to be experts in forbidden magic.”

“Yes. In magic that’s forbidden because of societal prejudice. Reality magic is…it’s just on a different level. Literally no one specializes in it, because you can’t. It’s not that somebody locked it away, it’s that it so frigging dangerous that nobody has survived it long enough to write it down.”

“We managed it,” said Trixie.

“You were lucky. Wizards have tried to cross dimensions, but…” Vincent paused. “Okay. I’ve actually looked into this a little. As it turns out, almost every reality you can reach? They’re all uninhabitable. Or hostile in ways you can’t even comprehend. Have you ever heard of the Veil?”

Fluttershy’s expression sharpened to an extent that caused Trixie to actually take a step back. “What do you mean ‘Veil’?”

“It’s a portal. Nobody knows who made it, or how long ago. The Ministry of Magic was literally built on top of it to keep it contained. It’s the only known portal left…and it doesn’t go anywhere good.”

“So…so we’re trapped here?” said Trixie.

“No,” said Fluttershy. She looked up at Vincent. “Can you get me a copy of that metadata?”

“Sure, but I don’t know what you want with it.”

“I know how to build a portal.”

The room went silent.

“Um, since when?” asked Humph.

“That literally does not make any sense,” said Trixie. “You’re a…veterinarian? Crazy cat lady? What even is your job, actually?”

“Trust me,” said Fluttershy. “I can do it. My father taught me how. I think maybe he knew that something like this would happen. But I’m going to need parts, and it will take me some time.”

Vincent leaned forward. “You mean you actually know how to make a version of the Veil?”

“In a sense.”

Vincent smiled. “Well, if there’s anything the Brotherhood of the Brown Finger can do to help, I’m more than willing to devote resources to this. We’ll even let you build it here.”

“Wait a minute,” said Trixie. “Didn’t you just say this stuff was really, really, really dangerous? That you didn’t want to research it?”

“I only said that because we don’t have someone who actually knows what she’s doing. If we had a Veil, just think of all the stuff we could do! I mean, send a robot through it, poke it with a stick- -oh, the possibilities!”

“Good thing we’re in the shopping capital of Britain, too,” said Humph. “If you need something capable of opening an interdimensional doorway into a realm of talking horses, you can probably find the pieces in Knockturn alley.”

“Great,” said Vincent, standing. “Now who wants lunch? I have soooooo much blood pudding! And everybody loves blood pudding!”

Comments

[Snow]

This is not a story meant to be taken any level of seriously. And yet, if you can accept that, it's funny as hell.