[center][b]1st December, 1999 – Aldenberg Manor Grounds
David Howell[/b][/center]

It was cold. It shouldn’t have been any great surprise, being December, but David’s teeth nonetheless chattered. It probably had something to do with the fact he was wearing shorts out, despite the light dusting of frost that had been greeting the English mornings for the whole of the past fortnight. He didn’t own any proper trousers - he found them repressive, and, frankly, had no idea where he might procure a pair nowadays anyway. It was cold, though. Perhaps next year, he would re-think the trousers thing: looking down, he noticed that his exposed ankles, clearly visible over the tops of his shoes, were tinged with a dull grey-blue.

The grounds of Aldenberg Manor were curiously still. There was something eerily impossible about the sterility of the environment. He wasn’t sure, but he suspected it had something to do with the magical protections on the manor and its grounds. It was just as well: it was very flat land, especially around the lake, and the sweeping winds one might expect would have driven anybody indoors, proper trousers or no. Even inside, the manor was oddly unnatural. David’s experience of magical manors was, naturally, rather limited, and he only had his time at Hogwarts with which to compare it. Even Hogwarts, for all its spires and dwarfing massiveness, had a quirky backward warmth to it. Aldenberg Manor, despite being smaller and theoretically cosier, felt devoid of something by comparison. It didn’t help that those things that make a house a home had been utterly removed for reasons of security, and the blank spots where portraits had resided up until the past few years gave the place a cold, empty air that couldn’t quite be remedied by a fireplace or people.

David preferred it in the grounds. Apart from anything else, he couldn’t be seen outside.

His target, or subject, was a tree. Every once in a while, if he could stomach it, he would face up to the old Sycamore, wand in hand. Everybody had to practice, and David was painfully aware that he had to practice more than most. He raised his wand, and muttered the incantation under his breath:

“[i]Diffindo.[/i]”

A pale red jet of light threw itself out of the tip of his wand and into one of the tree’s branches, with a distinct but unimpressive cracking sound. The branch fell from the tree with a crunch and a dull rustle in the frosted grass. Excited, he hopped over to it and rolled it over with his foot. It was a clean break, exactly as pla- oh. The bottom half was anything but a clean break: it looked like a bear had torn it off the tree directly. Presumably, he’d sliced through most of it, and gravity had done the rest. That wasn’t good enough. He couldn’t rely on gravity to keep him alive.

With a heavy heart, he stepped back to have another go, he raised his wand, and- a bell rung from the manor. Turning instantly, he began to trudge to the building, shivering slightly. It really was very cold.