November 23rd, 2009.

Andrew found himself in a bustling 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 bar stool.

Andrew wrinkled his nose against the smell of unclean wizards and witches, silently scanning 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 outsized 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 steps, looking idly up to where a chandelier cast light onto flights of steps, dozens of 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 taking 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 marching through cobwebs, 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 complex 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 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 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 love seat. He looked down to meet her gaze, when she spoke 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. Ickle, baby Andrew.” She crooned, goading him.

“I assure 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 toothless grin. “be sticking to the prescribed Hogwarts methods of discipline.”

November 28th, 2009.

Ellora jabbed her fat-webbed fingers into a small burlap sack resting atop the broad expanse of her lap, the motion unduly rough. Her hand latched on to something and she slowly drew it out of the bag. It was a ferret, small and unnaturally scrawny. It came out into the light squealing and squirming, beady eyes quickly assessing their surroundings.

“Do you know what this is?” She asked Andrew. She held the rodent by the scruff of its neck in one hand, her wand in the other, angled uncomfortably at Andrew’s chest.

“Some type of weasel?” Andrew sat still in his chair.

“Yes.” Ellora said. She nodded, the motion pressing the fat beneath her chin into a series of ridges, while shaking the ferret about. Then she tossed it into his lap. He grabbed the ferret before it managed to slip away. “Hate this weasel.”

Andrew looked down at it and a smirk quirked his upper lip. Hate a weasel? He looked down at it, into its panicked little eyes.

“Do you hate the weasel?” Ellora’s eyes were set on Andrew’s facial expression, judging his demeanor for any excuse to lash out. She took a moment or two, when he wasn’t looking, to glance at his crotch.

“Yes, I do.” Andrew sat in a lumpy arm chair, a fireplace crackling to his left, to his right were heaps of clothes and in front of his was one of the most detestable human beings he had ever met.

“Crucio!” She hissed, her wand trained on his chest. Andrew arched his back against the chair, squaring his jaw and grinding his teeth in order to prevent making all manner of undignified noises. His hands balled into fists until his knuckles were white with the strain. The unlucky ferret squeaked and jerked about. After a few seconds the pain stopped and Andrew’s posture slumped. “The things we hate are not permitted to live.”

With a twist of his wrist, Andrew snapped the ferret’s neck. His eyes met Ellora’s. He blinked.

“Are you a muggle?” Her eyes were dark with rage. “Use your wand, you stupid little whore.”

Andrew drew his wand out of his pocket and hoisted the ferret in the air. He leveled his wand at the twitching weasel and gave it an intricate flick. The ferret was quite dead by the time its spine had fully wrenched itself into of the weasel’s body cavity and out its mouth.

“Good.” The Toad whispered. She prodded the squeaking burlap sack with the tip of her wand. “Again.” Her jowls quivered with excitement of a criminally indecent variety.

The rest of Andrew’s Friday night was full of dead ferrets and verbal abuse.