Application for Hogwarts School
→ CHARACTER INFORMATION.Name: Lothar Pasternak Jr.
Birthday: December 29, 1939
Hometown: East End, London, England
Bloodline: Halfblood
Magical Strength (pick one): Divination
Magical Weakness (pick one): Conjuring and Summoning
Year: 4th, 5th
Biography: Lorraine Klein was sixteen when she met her husband, Lothar, a Jewish immigrant from Russia. She took his name: Pasternak. When the Blitz came, she was just twenty: a wide-eyed mother of two-year-old twin girls and a newborn baby boy. By 1941, her daughters and husband had all perished, her home demolished.
With no home and a newborn to raise, she was taken in by other Jewish families; Lot spent his first few years housed along with his mother, in crowded flats rented by members of their synagogue's congregation. Little Lot was almost five when they finally got their own home, the shadows of the Blitz still looming over them.
As he got older, Lot strayed from the safety of his religious community. He made friends with all sorts of people in the East End, and became something of an errand boy for local businesses, bringing home extra cash for his mother. She got a job with a Jewish trade union, and the two settled into a somewhat stable life in post-war London.
To most in the early 1950's, Lot Pasternak was just another one of the kids from the tenements. If placed on the street with a hundred other youths, he'd fade into the background: identical to all the others. And for everything he was, Lot was a lot like the other teens in London's East End.
But there was one thing that set Lot apart from other teenagers:
he could do magic. It began when he was nine.
Initially, Lot was frightened. As his mother began to notice, she divulged a family secret: her grandmother had been an apothecary who often claimed to have other magical abilities. She took him to a family friend, still practicing in Whitechapel, who agreed to train him in the evenings a few days a week.
His early magical education was primarily limited to herbology and divinations, though he longed to learn magic like the wizards in the books he read.
Besides, his mother had always stressed that she only wanted him doing "good" magic: nothing like the bad magic she claimed had plagued England for years. He was only to learn about "potions, plants, and stars", in her words.
For many years, they willfully kept Lot unaware of the magical world so near by, though eventually every lie is found out.
At fourteen, he continued to play in the streets of the tenements, but most of his friends were now leaving school and moving on to work. He was offered small positions on the docks and on factory lines, but as his magic grew, so did his disinterest in muggle society. He dreamed he might live as his apothecary, though far-off somewhere, in a small village surrounded by fields of plants.
One day, Lot arrived early to his lesson. He hadn't any errands to run, so he made his way slowly through the streets to the apothecary's house. In the doorway, he saw a carriage with a baby, something none too uncommon, especially in the doorways of herbalists and healers of all kinds-- magical and muggle alike.
But this baby was different. It's bonnet had fallen off, revealing the scantily-covered head underneath. While it didn't have much hair, every strand of it was the most vivid blue that Lot had ever seen. He was staring at the baby in amazement when the mother returned.
After quite a long conversation and not much of a lesson, Lot left the apothecary shop with a whole new world in his head. She'd explained that while most magical people are born to magical families, some are not, like him.
She also explained that while some people have exceptional abilities from birth, like the baby in the carriage, there were more ways to learn magic than from unqualified apothecarys; indeed, there were magical schools! Even an entire magical government to stop witches and wizards when they chose to use their magic for bad...
Having taken pity on him for some time already, the apothecary pulled a box from the wall and presented him with a hand-me-down wand. He was permitted to use it only in lessons, and never to tell his mother. It was no bother being found out, she assured, as the East End was often too crowded for the Ministry to figure out exactly who'd been using magic in the first place.
Upon discovering there was an actual school he could attend to learn magic, Lot confronted his mother. Still, she put her foot down. After everything she'd lost, she refused to send her son off to a society she knew nothing about. No, she insisted, he would finish his education in the East End, marry a girl in the East End, and live his life in the East End, just as she and his father had intended him to do.
He continued his evening lessons, but found his mind occupied more and more with the idea of a magical school. And so Lot took his life into his own hands and took a chance. What if that magical government saw him using his magic incorrectly? Would they take pity on his lack of education or lock him up completely?
A few weeks into his lessons with his new wand, Lot pocketed the wand and replaced the box, empty, to the shelf. Early that summer Sunday, he walked into the middle of High Street, raised the wand at a group of passerby, and shouted the only spell he'd learned: immobulus. It seemed like mere moments before he was surrounded by strange men in black dresses, scurrying about, casting spells and talking amongst themselves.
He was seized by two of them, and lead away to his home. They insisted the boy be properly trained, as he was clearly acting out and had a fundamental lack of understanding of his magic. Finally, his mother agreed, through sobs and pleas, to send him to Hogwarts.
When he left for Scotland, he'd never even left London. The world seemed to be opening up to him.
→ ADDITIONAL INFORMATION.House Request: Ravenclaw
→ SAMPLE ROLEPLAY.Option 2:
That rat of his was in for it now.
The gray little rascal had disappeared from his clutches at breakfast. Again.
Before Hugh even knew what was happening, Merlin had shot across the floor, somehow managing to avoid all the feet walking across the hall and had escaped through the open doors.
Which meant that Hugh was now stomping through rows of flowers and other various flora, searching for the small creature. It was like the rat knew Hugh was allergic to most flowers. Merlin always chose to run to the gardens whenever he got away from Hugh. It was as if the rat did not want to have him for an owner.
Hugh had named his pet Merlin because he had hoped the powerful name would give the rat more incentive to be more than a rat. Not that he expected Merlin to change into a wizard or anything, but rats were just so...useless, for the most part. With a name like Merlin, Hugh thought it might give the rat purpose.
The only purpose Merlin seemed to have was getting away from Hugh as often as possible.
As the fifth year trudged into the second row of flowers, not taking much care to avoid trampling the first row, he felt the first sneeze building up pressure in his nose and behind his eyes.
"You blasted rat! Where are you?"
He pulled apart a section of bright red flowers; he didn't know what they were called because he despised flowers, and ducked his head low to peer into the depths of the flowerbed. It was moving closer in proximity to the flowers that finally did it. Hugh took in three great breaths and then let out an almighty sneeze. It was strong enough to disturb some of the dirt on the ground before him.
Groaning, he stood up again and wiped his nose on his sleeve. It was as he was turning his head, his nose running up and down his arm, that movement in his peripheral vision caught his attention. Normally one who preferred to put his best face forward, Hugh was a bit embarrassed to be caught wiping his runny nose on his robes.
Nevertheless, Hugh put on his best haughty voice. albeit a bit thickly with his plugged nose and said, "Can I help you with something? It is not polite to stare."
Lot was never much of a bookish kid, but he'd been clever enough for fair marks in muggle school, and always took fast to his potions lessons back in London.
Still, he'd felt a tinge of surprise when he'd been sorted into Ravenclaw. It seemed there was so much he didn't know compared to many of his housemates.
When he first arrived at Hogwarts, the things that were new seemed exciting, now they just seemed to be holding him back. The apothecary taught him what she could with ingredients she could grow and buy, but Lot didn't have a lot of experience with living plants, having grown up in the city.
Now he was down to the wire. He had an herbology quiz coming up that counted for much of his grade. Never having been one for traditional studying techniques, he headed to the grounds with textbook in hand.
He made a game of it. He'd go through the rows of flowering plants, one-by-one, with aid from the textbook. Then, he'd slam the book shut and try to point them out from memory.
He was making rather good time with the scatter-brained study session when a boy suddenly burst onto the lawns. He trampled two whole rows of flowers before noticing Lot, sneezing and shouting the whole way.
"I wouldn't have stared normally," Lot replied, "Only you're tramping through sneezewort, mate."
He pointed to the first row of flowers, pale compared to the red the boy currently stood in.
"Those white ones, just there."
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