Just a dark wizard, doing some dark magic

NOTE: This is one of three ambiances to be listened to simultaneously. You may find the other two in my profile.

An evening of dark magic isn't always as glamorous as you imagined when you were at Durmstrang. Many a time you managed to sneak into the the areas of the library restricted even to the students at your school to spend the night reading the most forbidden, most arcane treatises on magic you could find. Those endless winter nights in the frozen north suited you. As did the solitude. Let those other wizards waste their time with silly tricks, you thought. The world had something different in store for you. You found that room no one else knew about. Opened the door by painted the Forgotten Sigil in rat's blood. You copied the forbidden texts and returned them before anyone was the wiser.

By your sixth year you'd read through them all and felt as if Durmstrang had nothing else to offer you. And so you left, not bothering to return for a sixth year. You were failing all of your classes save Dark Arts, anyway. Your first stop was Knockturn Alley, of course. You envisioned yourself finally meeting others of your kind. Powerful dark wizards, unashamed to practice true magic.

If only.

Instead you mostly found drunks and down-and-outs. Muttering, stuttering failures trying to turn a quick galleon on this or that forbidden potion or amulet. Some stinking little man in a long, patched, black coat waiting around the corner and opening his disgusting rags to show you the Lost Amulet of Alaxnos or something similarly ridiculous. How many hours did you spend at The White Wyvern, or at the golem fights in the Betting Shop?

Too many.

You despaired, certainly. Were there no great Dark Wizards left in the world? The Dark Lord slain, the Death Eaters scattered or in Azkaban or half drunk in the gutter outside of the White Wyvern. You almost went back to Durmstrang, admit it. Thought of the comfy couches in the common room, the roaring fire.

Almost. How fortunate that you walked by Cobb & Webb's not one hour after they put out a Help Wanted sign. How unfortunate for the young wizard who had already taken the job. Something nasty happened to him in an alley that very night, poor boy. Well, such things happen in Knockturn Alley.

You spent five years there. Learning, listening, collecting. Shaking down the stinking trinket merchants for whatever baubles they sold in case they actually had something useful. And, finally, one day, you found it. He thought it was just a basilisk fang. But you, you could sense something. Some research lead you to the truth. A portkey. But why hadn't it it taken you anywhere? You returned to the little man, found him stumbling down the alley, drunk on the galleons you'd paid him. He didn't know anything about it, he said. Bought it from a wizard who bought it from a wizard who brought it back from Romania. He grew violent and had the audacity to push you away from him. You buried that fang in his chest for his troubles.

And found yourself in your new home. Standing at the base of a black, ruined castle on the face of a cliff overlooking the Sea of Okhtosk. How? The portkey. Of course. The basilisk fang needed to kill to work. Well, that was easy enough.

So here you are. In this leaking, cold, ruin. Who built it? You still have no idea. Some ruined texts in the library, burned, sodden, provided nothing useful. Nor did the skeleton still clutching his wand, dead on a throne of skulls. How tacky.

And here you do your magic. You've raised the dead and bid them do your will. You've pulled spirits from the Other Side. You've harnessed forces undreamed of. The storms are apparently ceaseless. Night after night, cold and wet. For ten years now. The hills are full of wolves (and werewolves, you suspect), and who knows what else. The spirits of the victims of the castle's previous owner pay you a visit from time to time. It can actually be quite noisy. Being the only inhabitant of an abandoned castle, you'd think one could enjoy some peace and quiet, at least. Oh well. Being a Dark Wizard isn't as glamorous as you envisioned.

It's better.

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