Andrew watched as light dipped beneath the mountainous horizon, basking an empty valley in the amber hues of a dying sun. The final rays of gold seemed caught in the depths of a quiet stream that carved a swirling line through acres of grassland which formed the secluded valley of Andrew's sanctuary. He watched the sky fade to darkness, the passing of time utterly irrelevant in the absolute solitude of his 'home'. Soon shadow took the valley and all sounds seemed deafened as if the approaching night smothered all traces of life.
There, wrapped in the silence of contented isolation, Andrew began to sing. He kept the music close at first, keeping a firm hand on the intonation and volume of his voice until he relaxed into the song of his musings. He lifted his voice to the heavens above, a polished ebony surface marred by hundreds of pinpoints of light that poked through the curtain of the night sky. He sang to the moon and the stars, the light of the silver orb passing in and out of sight by means of wind and cloud. He let the bittersweet solace of his music rise in volume, reveling in the peaceful oblivion that comprised the notes of his song.
And after he sang, he listened. He listened to the wind, the sound of tall grass swaying in tandem like a rippling sea of emerald. He heard the sounds of insects, of water and, most importantly, of life. He began to relax into the orchestra around him, let it lull him into sleep. He pulled his blanket about his shoulders, lying on his back in a cloth cocoon. Andrew felt the reality about him like a tangible force, oppressive and malignant. But even that was subject to the music and it faded as did his consciousness, pulling him into the pseudo-safety of sleep.

Shadows ghosted across the rippling reflection in the ocean, distorting the myriad of colors shining down from above. Clouds rolled across the horizon and the sun had recently dragged its blazing entirety into view. The surf continued to pound against the shore, calming in its unrelenting assault. The black sand baked in the light and a nearby crab scuttled into the safety of a tidal pool. A school of fish swam the corner of a coral wall visible through the clear waters and other aquamarine life flitted in and out of few.
Andrew tilted his sun glasses up to rest upon his head, hair cut semi-short in the Muggle fashion. He frowned as the combination of his glasses and the perpetual sea breeze ruined his hair, meticulously styled and combed to something along the lines of perfection. He put his hand back down by his side and continued to trace idle pattern in the sand to his side, turning the latest edition of Cosmopolitan with the other. His eyes scoured the last page and he closed the magazine, tossing it to the opposite end of his off white beach towel.
Life as a Muggle might not be so bad, he supposed while shifting his weight in order to lay on his side. But the sound of bare feet displacing sand roused him from his thoughts and he tilted his head to catch an glimpse of a man of his early twenties trotting over his way, smiling brightly.
"Ready to go back to the pool, Andrew?" Asked a handsome young man of apparent French decent. Andrew sighed and pulled his glasses back down over his eyes and stood, looking down to examine his clothing. Clad in a crimson speedo identical to his friend's, he shook his head and eyed his comfortable spot longingly before standing and walking back over to the patio where dozens men and women lounged about the pool.
"Why are we here?" Andrew asked, his frown deepening. "I feel like a hunk of meet that they slobber over . . . ."
"You get used to it eventually." Damien answered with an easy shrug. "Besides, that's precisely what they pay us to be."

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OOC:
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So, in case you haven't noticed, these are random snippits and clips of Andrew's life without Hogwarts and a wand. They're not too long and I'll try and add one each day as inspiration allows.

The sound of rain roused Andrew from comfortable sleep and he turned in his sheets, rising into a sitting position with all the grace of an inebriated polar bear. He looked around his apartment, adequately lit by fiber optic mood lights and candles. Andrew slipped into a bathrobe after hauling himself out of the king sized bed. Mod wasn't exactly his styled but he enjoyed the urban feeling of his loft on Canal Street, Manchester. It took getting used to but he made it his home, however, Gurp on the other hand had yet to warm up to the new settings.
"Maaaaster. This place reeks of bloodless filth." Whined the discontented house elf as he busied himself over cooking a low-carb breakfast. He moved a few of his long, shriveled fingers and the pot lifted itself off of the stove to pour morning tea into a waiting cup.
"Be kind to our Muggle friends, Gurp." Andrew intoned idly, accentuating the statement with a nod and nearly tripping over the step from his bedroom up into the kitchen/dining room.
The house elf scoffed and a sneer pulled at his long, yellowed lip. "Yes indeed, Master. You yourself are very kind to them indeed." He waved a hand at Andrew's cabana boy attire, the motion causing the loose appendages of flesh on his wrists to jiggle.
"Now, now Gurp. Don't get cheeky with me." He said, tilting his head to the side and flashing the elf a mock frown. "Besides, it pays riddiculously well and I even get benefits."
"I hate this place, Master . . . ." Gurp added with another dramatic sigh.
Andrew made his way to the kitchen island counter and sat down on an Ikea stool. "I wish we were back-" The house elf paused to sniffle back a string of mucus and discourage tears, separation from the old house was very taxing on the aged elf.
"Don't be so sad, Gurp. It's much homier than . . . home." Andrew realized the mistake of mentioning the old Amaner cottage right about when Gurp started wailing.

Hogwarts was once again the basis of Andrew’s life; it was where he slept, where he ate and, most importantly, where he learned. He was glad to be done living like a Muggle and time back in the Wizarding World only made him realize how much he disliked them. Though he tried not to show it, he realized he was an arrogant pureblood at heart. He didn’t mind, of course, Hogwarts was a cesspool for others of like mindset. Andrew, however, could not hide the fact that he was growing bored. There were no challenges in a place like Hogwarts, it was all so tiresome and bordered on monotonous. He could respect the work the Professors assigned, even if it was tedious but he feared there were no more academic milestones ahead of him. Just a grey period of negligence for the rest of his final term, full of moments where he was simply useless; a feeling Andrew despised above all others.

Now was a moment like one of those. Andrew was sitting cross-legged on his bed, half-sunken into the two-bit mattress that Hogwarts supplied him. He had his journal in one hand and a wand in the other, his Quick Notes Quill hovering faithfully above his shoulder. Just like always, he had nothing left to write about. He had nothing at all within the halls except a few particular students and the prospect of NEWTs. Andrew simply sat there, close to the point of drooling, as his mind wandered over trivial thoughts.

I wonder what I’ll have for homework tomorrow. Professor Snape said- His mental ramblings were cut short as the sound of students arguing permeated the well-layered charms he had placed on the threshold of his dorm. He flicked his wand lethargically at his door and there was a loud BANG followed by a few squeals and the sound of scampering feet as, he assumed, the students tried to de-root the purple fungi growing out of their nostrils.

I really do hate people, he thought while his Quick Notes Quill began to scribble enthusiastically on the easel in a corner of the room. Quite a bit, some days. The scratching of the Quill tore him away from private musings and he looked over at the midnight blue feather. He saw, to his amusement, it had sketched a distorted picture of a weeping Aerol Rano. Andrew smirked to himself and flicked his wand at the quill; it zoomed back over to him, floating in the air. It had been a hobby of his to create caricatures of his fellow students and, since he had enchanted it, his Quill had begun to sketch of its own accord. He had overheard Aerol and Eric’s ‘brief’ conversation in the Entrance Hall and his Quill had finally decided to add a sketch of the ‘Sorrowful Ravenclaw’ to his portfolio.

With a grin, Andrew waved his wand at the completed drawing and it tucked itself into a conjured dragon leather-backed binder which then vanished a moment later, a quiet ‘pop’ sounding as air rushed to fill the recently occupied space. He felt the portfolio as a light increase of weight in his junk-filled pocket and he turned his attention back to the notebook in his hand. He tapped it with his wand and the Quill zoomed over to write Andrew’s whispered words. He supposed he didn’t have to be so quiet, his dorm room was protected by a Silencing charm he had help anchoring to the threshold.


A few minutes passed and he nodded in approval at the letter and signed it, taking hold of the hovering quill to do so, and stuffed it into a cylindrical carrying case. After that he walked over to his caged owl, tossed it a treat, and unlocked its metal home. He offered it his arm which it took in a rather ‘dignified’ manner and he looped the case around the bird’s leg with a bit of magically reinforced string. “Miss Toad.” He commanded and the owl swooped out of his opened window and into the clear night sky. He made sure to hit it with a Disillusionment charm before it cleared the window and a satisfied grin quirked his upper lip.

“Finally,” He said to the emptiness of his room. “something to look forward to.”

Andrew ran as fast as he could through the shcool, to the general amusement of his peers. He plowed through groups of first years and wormed his way through clumps of other students, trying to make his way to the stairways. The archway to large 'elevator shaft'-like area that housed level upon level of shifting staircases loomed just past a group of Gryffindor seventh years. Andrew scowled, almost instinctually.

"Get out of the way!" He shouted at them, his voice nasally and somewhat annoying on the ears. They turned to him and laughed, gesturing at the swelling mound on Andrew's face that was his first attempt at self-transfiguration, at least on someone's nose. "Move!"

"'Ey, Andrew. Oi t'ink tha's about ter pop!" Commented Hagrid who walked through the sea of students in rear section of the corridor, apparently headed towards the gardens.

Spurred on by Hagrid's attempt at a friendly notification, the Gryffindors began to voice jeers of their own. Chorusing insults at Andrew as he fought to keep his head held high despite the increasing weight of his foot long (and slowly enlarging) nose.

Andrew ignored them, his eyes dark as he shoved one student down and stepped on his wrist in order to get past. To Andrew's disappointment there was nose squeal of pain or resounding crunch.

"Watch yerself, f----t!" Said the Gryffindor on the floor as he scrambled to his feet, hand inches away from his wand.

Andrew was nearing the first stair, it was angling itself down a few floors, Andrew's destination, when he felt the heat of a hex soar just past his shoulder and he turned just in time to see a Leg Locking Jinx soaring straight at his chest. He pulled out his own wand and made a lazy, sweeping gesture at the coming spell. He countered it, almost easily, and turned back on a heel to dart for the staircase which was slowly shifting away.

He tried to push himself to run faster than he ever had in his life and he got to the ledge but the stair had angled itself upward, right where he -didn't- want to go. He looked down and say a stair roughly twelve or fifteen feet below which had locked on to his intended ledge. He, despite all rational thought, jumped at the staircase. He forced his feet together and spread his arms out like a swan dive and his shoulders met with hard stone a moment later. He forced his momentum forward and tumbled down down the stair and out into the first floor corridor, a mass of limbs at the feet of a startled Professor McGonagall.

"Mister Amaner?! Is that you?" She asked, looking down at the seventh year Ravenclaw with a nose the size of a foot long loaf of bread.

"Yes, Professor." He replied, thankful to have run into the teacher he was looking for.

"And what do you think you are doing?" She asked, clearly annoyed but (despite her stoic demeanor) a hint of genuine concern shown in her eyes.

"Well, I was trying to run to your office." Andrew pushed himself off of the ground and onto his feet, looking down at McGonagall from his nose. The sheer weight of it threatened to pull his head down to look at his feet, but he tried his best and (with considerable effort) managed to look her respectfully in the eyes.

"Whatever for?" She asked, a deep frown forming lines about the corners of her lips. She pulled out her wand, her eyes wide as she realized his nose was still swelling.

"I needed your-"

"No!" She cut him off. "Just hold still." She flourished her wand, said a charm and there was a puff of smoke and a loud bang and Andrew was on the floor, again.

He groaned and reached up to touch his nose which, to his relief, no longer resembled a swollen salami. It was sore but he grinned up at the Professor, flashing her one of his copyrighted stunning smiles.

"Well, get back on your feet." She said after slipping away her wand, characteristic impatience returning to her momentarily concerned features. "And stop looking at me like that." She said with the hint of a smile, barely recognizable to those who aren't familiar with receiving one from McGonagall.

She turned around and began to walk back down one of the stationary staircases into the Entrance Hall. She looked back at Andrew and sighed. "You may come." She called over her shoulder and Andrew hurried towards the walking teacher, no longer looking at her with his usual 'rejected puppy' eyes.

"Thank you, Professor." He said and fell into step with her, their cloaks whispering along the stairs as they walked at a pace between steady and brisk.

"What did you do to yourself anyway, Andrew?" She asked, gesturing conversationally at his nose.

"Well, Professor, I tried a bit of self-transfiguration out from that book." He said amiably, smiling at being called 'Andrew' rather than his surname.

"Oh, really?" Asked the Professor, trying to sound noncommital but she was obviously interested. "And you managed to swell your nose to the size of a pregnant bubotuber?" She chuckled slightly at her own joke and Andrew laughed as well. "If you're going to keep making mistakes like that I'll have to stop allowing you to take out books from the Restricted Section."

"Well, the initial transfiguration went particularly well. When I tried to return it to normal the problems arose." He nodded as they broke into the vacant Entrance Hall, the majority of other students were in class.

"Hrm . . . ." She said as if taking that in. "And how did you try to undo the spell?"

"Well," He said with a sheepish grin. "it didn't cover reversals until volume two. So, I suppose I need a note saying I can take that one out as well."

"I see. I suppose I'll write you one as soon as I can." The Professor noted Andrew's smirk as they rounded a corner and then she checked her watch. "Shouldn't you be in class, Andrew?"

"Not right now, Professor. I've got a free period, thanks to being a NEWT student."

"One of the perks, though you deserve them with all the classes you're taking." She added as they neared the Staff Room. "Professor Flitwick tells me you never applied for a Time Turner."

"I figure I hastle all my teachers enough with questions, I shouldn't pester them by popping in randomly during classes."

"Kind of you, Andrew." She said and they stopped next to a suit of armor near the Staff Room. "Well, I shall being seeing you tonight, Mister Amaner."

"Yes, Professor. Oh, just so you know . . . . I wrote a bit extra on my report, not to be a bother but it was such an interesting topic and I-"

McGonagall waved him off with a hand. "I assumed as much, Andrew."

"See you later, Professor." He called as she stepped into the Staff Room.

"No yelling in the halls, Mister Amaner!" She shouted back before the door closed behind her.[/i]

Night had fallen over Knockturn Alley, plunging the network of shops and alleys into darkness. No one heard the quiet ‘pop’ as a black clad figure apparated into a side street and no one saw him step out from behind the piles of trash. He began to walk briskly down the main avenue, Knockturn itself, shoes clacking against the cobblestone. He was thrust into patches of light and shadow as he hurried down on the paved sidewalk, cloak bustling out behind him and lending him the appearance of a trailing black splotch amid a sea of shadows. He paused beneath a flickering streetlamp to check his watch and then resumed his clandestine journey.

After several long minutes he stopped outside a tavern which a decrepit sign heralded “The Cracked Flagon”. Firelight flickered out from beneath door but from the street the building looked rather dilapidated. Several shingles had fallen from the roof and lay cracked in the street. A few of the windows were boarded shut and the front door a couple sizes too large for its frame, giving it the appearance of an ill-fitting tooth jutting from a jaw.

The cloaked man stepped up to the door and knocked three times, his eyes dark and calculating beneath his hood. He shifted his weight from side to side anxiously during the silence that followed and was glad for the reprieve caused by the opening of the door. Or at least was, until he saw what waited behind it.

A mammoth sized man stood behind the threshold, leering down with one eye at Andrew. His physical dimensions rivaled Hagrid’s and his eyes shone with malice bred in the shunned minds of giant kin. His skin was tan and rough looking and his sleeveless shirt revealed bulging biceps and a collection of scars. The man’s lips were quirked in a disapproving frown, his evident dislike further conveyed by the crossing of his arms against his chest.

“Can oi help you?” His voice was raw and deep, like the sound one gets when rubbing two stones together. His tone was guttural and frightening though deadly quiet. It was enough to debase the confidence Andrew tried to build.

“Y-yes, you can.” Said Andrew and he blinked at how feeble his words sounded. After coughing he looked up at the one-eyed half-giant. “It’s me, Everett Gnob.” Andrew pulled out a small token emblazoned with a strange crest.

The man nodded slowly and gestured to Andrew’s hood. “Take off yer hood.” He commanded gruffly before pushing it down around Andrew’s neck with a banana slug-sized finger. Andrew glowered up at the half-breed and ran a finger through his coarse, straight gingery blond locks. “Go in.” The man stepped aside and ushered Andrew in and closed the door behind him.

Andrew found himself in a noise-filled tavern, the sheer enormity of the noise was startling in contrast to the quiet vacancy of the street. There was clinking glass and a roaring fire and a riot of other things. Several witches sat around the fire, singing loudly and out of key while a nearby goblin shielded his ears. There was a lanky wizard telling jokes, the current one prefixed by “So three mudbloods walk into a bar,” but he wound up cackling to himself before he could finish the joke; doubling over a moment later to wretch violently upon the floor. A rather run-down wizard sat in a corner while swaying to-and-fro, having trouble keeping the ale in his mug as he engaged in a rousing conversation with a barstool.

Andrew wrinkled his nose against the smell of unclean wizards and witches and scanned the room. Around twenty feet in the other direction there was a dimly-lit staircase, just as he was told there would be. Andrew walked over to it, past a few patrons whispering quietly and a woman whose nose rivaled Madam Pince’s. She tottered around the wooden floor, dancing quietly with herself.

He eventually reached the stairs, stalled once by a goblin rolling around in the middle of the floor. He began to the slow climb up the wooden stairs and he looked idly up where a chandelier cast light onto flights of steps, forty floors above where he stood. Andrew sighed to himself and kept on walking, after twenty or so steps there was a platform with to adjacent doors, each bearing a bronze plaque emblazoned with a last name and a number. He found himself take left, after left, after left and dizziness settled in the forefront of his mind as he wound his way up. On the twenty-seventh floor he eyed a door with ‘Room 107. Everett Gnob.’ but he passed it and continued up to the final tier, to room two hundred and seventy, marked ‘Ellora Toad’.

Content to be finished swatting cobwebs out of his eyes, Andrew pulled out his wand and waved it over his face several times. His hair darkened to its normal hue, his nose reverted itself and his jaw structure sunk back to normal. He was pleased with himself, the self-transfiguration went fine (albeit the fact that he had to try three times to return his ears to their regular size) and none in the tenement were any the wiser. Andrew smirked and tapped the point of his almost-crooked wand to the eyehole of the door and he muttered a few words beneath his breath, grinning as violet light flared around the sides of the mahogany; silhouetting him against the peeling wallpaper. The door swung inward and he stepped in, slipping off his shoes and traveling cloak.

The flat was dark and quiet save for the sound of a cast iron water heater in the corner. It was divided into three separate rooms, the living room the bathroom and the kitchen. The apartment smelt of mold and, strangely, of ammonia. The place was a veritable hovel, trash and clothes were strewn about the floor and draped over secondhand furniture and recent meals littered the floor. Andrew let his eyes adjust to the darkness and he stepped further into the apartment, waiting for Her.

“Sit down.” Said a voice to Andrew’s general left and he turned to blink at a sagging armchair. What he had assumed was another pile of clothing was actually a shabby looking woman. He wrinkled his nose, involuntarily, as he tried to push away the sudden surges of revulsion and pity.

Ellora Toad lived up to her namesake. She was a short, squat woman with a croaking voice and sharp eyes. Her head was bald except for a few stray strands of long, filthy hair and somewhat old age had loosened the skin beneath her chin. The armchair was low to the floor; so low that her knees, bent to achieve a sitting position, were above her chest and her copious amount of fat threatened to spill over the arms of the chair. Her stomach was large and round and her legs were almost spindly thin. Her wand was clutched in her left hand; the bones of her fingers were covered in flaps of skin like those of an emaciated House Elf.

“I told you to sit.” She said again and Andrew won the battle to tear his eyes away from her rotund hideousness. He shook his head to dismiss the lingering vertigo from his climb and took a seat on a tattered, over cushioned loveseat. He had to look down to watch her when she spoke and her puffy lips seemed to have difficulty forming words.

“Sorry, Miss Toad, it’s very late.” Andrew offered as an apology but the woman just shook her head, jowls quivering with the motion.

“Fatigued already?” She asked, her eyes shining maliciously. “You poor thing. Itty, baby Andrew.” She crooned, obviously testing him but she changed tactics a moment later.

“I ensure you, I’m ready for whatever lesson yo-“

“You’re late.” Ellora croaked. “You promised punctuality. I will not tolerate tardiness.”

“Sorry, Miss To-“

“All these apologies,” She cut him off. “they will get you nowhere with me. Amaner brat, I’ve heard of you silver tongue.” Ellora continued to look him over; sizing him up like a hungry animal might eye its first chance at a meal, like a toad watching a fly.

“I didn’t mean to suggest that I-“

“You will only speak when spoken to.” She interjected. Her demeanor was frigid and her wand was angled uncomfortably at Andrew’s chest.

“You did speak to me, Miss-“

“Silence!” She shrieked before coughing several times, each sounding like a distorted and frog-like ‘ribbit’. “See what happens when you distract me? Lead me off topic?” Ellora looked directly at him as if satisfied with his temperament. “We have –much- work to do.”

“Where shall we begin?” Andrew asked. He unclenched his fists and exhaled discretely, glad to be back on the scheduled subject of their meeting.

“We’ll be jumping right into it, Amaner. But you must realize, as I warned in my letter, I do not accept failure. Failure will be met with punishment and punishment will result in pain. And we will not,” She leered at him, her face contorting into a grin. “be sticking to the prescribed Hogwarts methods of discipline.”

The wind whispered between entwined branches of the evergreen trees, pulling with it a comfortable chill and the distant sound of rain. The fringe of a somber wizard's cloak whispered against fallen leaves, each moment of beautiful and simple silence followed the the heavy, crunching footfalls of someone unaccustomed to wearing shoes. The soft hiss of thin, expensive fabric and the echoing off fallen rain followed by CRUNCH-CRUNCH. It sounded strange, defying the silent and grim sanctity of the forbidden forest.

But if anything were to defile the forest it would be the wizard, not his uncomfortable shoes.

He continued his trudge through the shadows of the Forbidden Forest, using his wand to cut through particularly thick sections of woodland growth and using it again to send the split vines melding back together, leafy-green sinews springing from the plants.

He yawned, for trekking through the wild wasn’t wasn’t exactly his favorite pastime, and mused over his business in the dark recesses of the forest. He wasn’t quite sure how many he would have to kill to get the point across. Not to many, he hoped, though not that it mattered. It was all for the sake of ‘academic’ exploration, anyway. There wasn’t much to it. He only needed to answer one simple question:

Can bears scream?