An American Wizard

Eight years later. Rocksworth School of Magic, The Wizard City of Lud.

The sun was little more than a dimly seen presence beyond the layers of fog that hung over the early morning city of Lud. Not much had changed during the eight years since the followers of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named had wrecked havoc in the city.

None of this held any interest for the Headless man as he walked toward the entrance of Rocksworth, the once magnificent school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and made his way up the front steps. The long, filthy robe hung loosely over his thin and scared body, crude sandles made scraping sounds as he climbed the stairs. The students moved to get out of his way. The Headless were directed only by their handler at the local Ministry of Magic, everyone knew that, and there would be trouble if one was delayed or threatened. That meant it was a good idea to leave the Headless alone in spite of the tattoo on their forearms, and the feelings that these provoked.

This Headless man, like all the others, had a chunk of a roughly hued wooden board atop his neck, seemingly held in place by a large rusty screw at its center. The only other thing apparent was a tarnished brass tag nailed on the front, reading; “Willam Ditz, Convicted Death Eater, 1981.” His slow and steady pace remained unchanged as he crossed the broad entryway of the school.
Like most of the buildings around it, the school still had marks from the fierce fighting that had taken place eight years before.

But this hardly mattered to the few students and teachers who remained here, or the Headless man as he climbed five flights of stairs, pulled open a door still showing signs of fire, and entered the Administration level of the school. Space was not a problem on this floor, which meant that many of the offices were empty, even many of the picture frames lining the walls were deserted.

So it wasn't surprising that only a few eyes tracked the ragged figure as it followed the seeming endless hallway, paused at one of the intersections, and took a judicious right. And since the Headless mans progress was unheralded, Alern Dyson and his assistant nearly jumped out of their seats as they looked up at the fore-shortened figure looming in the doorway.

Holey Sh,,, crap! Alern slapped his hand over his eyes for a moment, “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to those things skulking around!” He let his hand fall to the desk, rattling the ink-wells. “What is it now?!” he asked. The Headless man shuffled (loudly now) over to the desk and dropped an envelope in front of Alern, then turned and left without (of course) a word.

His assistant, a young wizard named Hule, was working hard to hide his amusement at Alerns discomfort, he nodded toward the envelope laying on the desk.

“What is it? Might be something important.” By this he meant “interesting”, Admissions was not the most exciting job at Rocksworth.

Alern gently probed the envelope with his wand, as if he thought it might bite him. It had happened before.

When the envelope showed no signs of bearing teeth and leaping at his face, he leaned forward and read the return address.
“It’s from Auror Rebo, I wonder what he wants, must have a kid turning eleven...”

“That nut? Why didn’t he just send it by owl?” Hule was leaning across his desk on his elbows. “I didn’t know he had a kid.”

Alern glanced sideways at his assistant, “He doesn’t trust Owls, he doesn’t trust the flu network, hel,, heck, he doesn’t trust anything that I can think of.

He was gingerly opening the heavy envelope, when suddenly a small glass eye with wings popped out of the opening and started flitting around the room.

HOLEY SHIT! Alren shouted as the flying eyeball made a pass around the room looking in corners and under the desks. No sooner had the words left his lips then a small dark cloud with bright red lips appeared over his head.

“THERE WILL BE NO USE OF CURSE WORDS OR CRUDE LANGUAGE IN THIS SCHOOL! That goes for the STAFF AS WELL!!”

The small dark cloud seemed on the verge of saying more, but instead a small flash of lightning burned part of Arlens’ right eyebrow off.