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What is on the other side of Diagon Alley?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Sesc, Nov 18, 2017.

  1. Sesc

    Sesc Slytherin at Heart Moderator

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    This question suddenly popped into my head, just now. In Canon, we always walk along the storefront of Diagon Alley. But we know it's A) hidden, you can only reach it from the Muggle-side via the Leaky Cauldron, B) in London, not some magical place elsewhere, C) buildings do have backsides. So what would be on the backside of the buildings? If you walk around a building, or right through it and to a window on the other side, what do you see?

    I don't know. Drives me nuts. Chip in your best ideas.
     
  2. ScottPress

    ScottPress The Horny Sovereign –§ Prestigious §– DLP Supporter

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    The backs of DA buildings hug the back of muggle London buildings, magic prevents muggles from messing with the border.

    I also always imagined DA as the main street of a magical district in London, not the entirety of the district. There's probably a few other streets. This of course breaks the "there are fewer than 10k wizards in UK", but JK sucks at math, I never took that figure seriously. If I had to throw out a number, I'd go for at least a 100k.
     
  3. Sesc

    Sesc Slytherin at Heart Moderator

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    So behind the buildings are Muggle buildings? With windows? So at least wizards can look into Muggle buildings, there? Or do you mean there is no space behind the shops, and there just aren't any windows, it's back-to-back?

    It's easy enough to imagine Muggles in buildings staring at Diagon Alley and seeing more Muggle buildings, perhaps on the far side. It's not so easy to imagine what wizards see, staring at the Muggle buildings (if they can).

    Edit: I love that drawing XD
     
  4. ScottPress

    ScottPress The Horny Sovereign –§ Prestigious §– DLP Supporter

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    [​IMG]
     
  5. Sorrows

    Sorrows Queen of the Flamingos Moderator

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    It probably is just back to back with the muggle shops on either side each side of outwardly facing shops asumes that they are backing the muggle shops on the far side of the alley. There are no overlooking windows on the muggle side. It is a fairly common architectural arrangement in London, especially the older parts. It does beg the question of what you can see from any high rises.

    There is a more interesting question: If you take it that Diagon/Knockturn Alley is not the extent to the magical district in London, and frankly it would be boring if it was, what would you imagine it would look like and what would would you include in it?

    I would definitely have a market for one thing, perhaps a street that deals with restaurants and other entertainment. Wizards must have some forms of culture beyond dinner at each others houses, a theater perhaps, or an opera. There could be artisan district and a few small magical neighborhoods. You could even have areas that are populated by humanoid creatures.

    Of course in a world were you can teleport there is no real need for these places to physically connected, but I think that there would be some kind of network that magical people move through, spread across London.

    What would the extent of Muggle London look like to you? How would it be organised and connected?
     
  6. Aekiel

    Aekiel Angle of Mispeling ~ Prestige ~ DLP Supporter

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    I could see some more of London being populated, if only because muggleborns in ages past would have wanted to stay close to their families after graduating from Hogwarts, and London had a higher likelihood of muggleborns than any other place in the country simply due to relative population. On top of that, there would have been a time when apparation had not been invented, so physical proximity would have played a role in how wizards travelled. If a settlement was developed before apparation then, barring destruction, it would likely keep going.

    I could also see smaller wizarding settlements throughout the UK, mostly attached to muggle towns like Godric's Hollow, but some exclusively wizarding ones like Hogsmeade. I wouldn't make them any bigger than that, though. No more than a village's worth.
     
  7. Sesc

    Sesc Slytherin at Heart Moderator

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    Hah, didn't know that. Thanks for the info.

    I added a very creative Magic Alley, which consisted of residential property and porches that were connected to wizarding homes across Britain. Because as you said, there was no reason for a physical connection, but I figured it would be nice to have a Diagon Alley entrance.

    The typical night entertainment I always pictured in Knockturn Alley. Some bars, a gambling parlour, varieties, that kind of stuff. And the upscale restaurants I placed in Diagon Alley, at its end, where Twilfit and Tattings is, the more posh dressmaker. A market, however, is a nice idea. It would need a larger space, some sort of square. We could call it Word Place XD

    Then again, don't discount Hogsmeade. Perhaps there is a Hogsmeade Green Market.
     
  8. ScottPress

    ScottPress The Horny Sovereign –§ Prestigious §– DLP Supporter

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    I also see random wizarding properties scattered in muggle cities/town/villages, like GP12. The precedent is in canon. Why does wizarding Britain have to be crammed into DA, Ministry, Azkaban, Hogsmeade and Hogwarts?

    Edit: I mean that I don't take Arthur Weasley to be the typical example of wizarding familiarity with muggles. It's just wizarding quirkiness that a guy who doesn't know what rubber ducks are for heads the department he does in the Ministry. I assume there are muggleborns living in muggle buildings but that doesn't stop them from being wizards.
     
  9. syed

    syed Supermod

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    London has been around for centuries, diagonal alley might be a market square or district originally. And they purposely had the muggles build up the shops around it, as a way to truly conceal it away. So it became an alley way over time.
     
  10. anvyl

    anvyl Third Year

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    it's worth mentioning that Ollivander's was established 382 B.C. according to book one.

    Interestingly, the shop was described as narrow and shabby with peeling gold letters over the door of the shop read: Ollivanders: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C.

    If we take that to mean that this shop, not just the brand "Ollivander's" has existed here since then, that's even before the roman occupation of Britain. Wiki says there is (sparse) evidence of settlement in the London area since even before then. Maybe there has been a magical settlement in the area since then as well?
     
  11. Skeletaure

    Skeletaure Magical Core Enthusiast ~ Prestige ~ DLP Supporter

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    This. The Leaky Cauldron is on Charing Cross road, within the West End. As Wikipedia says:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_End_of_London

    Since wizarding settlement of the area well predates the 1600s, Diagon Alley, or at least its historic predecessor, would not have been a part of a continuous high density urban area with Westminster or the City of London. Rather it would have more resembled a village which later became subsumed into Greater London as the various boroughs of London grew and merged into one continuous city.

    Which connects to the point about wizarding settlement of the area being pre-Roman. The Roman city of Londinium was/is further to the east of Diagon alley. In Roman times that area would have been empty marshland. It's entirely possible that Ollivander's shop was once just a house in the middle of a marsh with nothing around it. Wizards would come from far and wide to visit the wandmaker in his own house, where they would buy wands. Over time other wizarding tradespeople decided to set-up nearby, and Diagon Alley developed.

    Just one possibility.
     
    Last edited: Nov 19, 2017
  12. Sesc

    Sesc Slytherin at Heart Moderator

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    @Taure: So what's your take ... behind the shops are still the remains of the original marshland? And what happens at the seam, where marshland and Muggle London meet? You just have windowless backsides of houses, as if you had cut out a part of Muggle London?
     
  13. Skeletaure

    Skeletaure Magical Core Enthusiast ~ Prestige ~ DLP Supporter

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    There's all sorts of possibilities, depending on how much expansionary worldbuilding you feel like doing.

    The most conservative option, i.e. one that involves the fewest additions to canon, would simply be the "there's nothing there" option, in which the back of Diagon Alley meets Muggle London directly. You don't necessarily have to go the windowless route - equally you could go the enchantment route where Muggles see something different to what is actually there. As for what wizards see, that of course depends on what type of Muggle London is on the other side. It could be the service access to Muggle buildings (where deliveries are performed, waste is collected, etc.) it could be gardens, it could be courtyards... it could even just be a Muggle road.

    There are lots of places in Britain where you have a terrace of buildings with a road both sides of the terrace. Sometimes in this situation you have a front entrance on one street and a back entrance on the other. Given wizarding secrecy, it would seem likely that the wizards would have bricked up any entrance on the Muggle side. This would not make the Muggles blink - there are plenty of fake terraces around the country. Sometimes a factory was built to appear like a residential terrace from the outside but none of the doors to the "houses" would open. Other times they would build just a wall that looked like it was the front of a residential terrace to disguise train tracks.

    If you went this route it could even be that the wizarding side was actually the back entrance in the historic alley, pre-Statute. Then when the Statute of Secrecy was passed, the wizards boarded up the entrances to their shops on the Muggle side and started trading out of their back entrances.

    Of course there are plenty of alternative options for people who want to expand wizarding London. This is not my own preference for a canon-compliant fic as I feel that there's a strong culture of rural living among British wizards, and indeed a preference for remote locations within international wizarding culture. I don't think "urban wizardry" should be very big on that basis. However, even within those limits you can posit a few additional wizarding streets adjoining Diagon Alley.
     
  14. World

    World Oberstgruppenführer DLP Supporter Retired Staff

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    I agree that there would be more to the London wizarding community than just the two allies. The way I imagine the alley is that it is placed between the Muggle buildings and as such doesn't really take away any space, and is not visible from higher buildings in the area or when flying over it. Muggle maps don't take it into account because there's nothing there.

    That said, just because the Ollivanders have been making fine wands since 382 B.C. doesn't mean they've been in that one Diagon Alley shop since then. The alley doesn't look like it's more than 2,000 years old after all. (Except maybe Gringotts, but I'm sure it's not that old either)

    My belief is that the Alley had started forming before the statute of secrecy, because a place away from the filthy muggles is always appreciated. It simply expanded since then.
     
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