Hogwarts School: A Harry Potter RPG

---

---

→ CHARACTER INFORMATION.

Name: Clarence Daniel Letterman

Birthday: July 4, 1935

Hometown: London, England

Bloodline: Halfblood

Magical Strength (pick one): Charms

Magical Weakness (pick one): Conjuring & Summoning

Year (pick two): second, first

Biography:
Clarence Letterman was born, squealing and pink-faced, on the fourth of July. This day meant nothing to him, of course, because he was British, but whenever he met someone from the States, he always got a strange look when he mentioned his birthday. ("So how do you celebrate your birthday, then?" one little boy had asked at the park, and Clarence hadn't understood at all, but replied, "With cake, obviously.") He had been a fairly normal child; born to two parents, George and Alice, (though he wasn't allowed to call them that, or Father would get mad again) and he had no siblings. That was alright, because he had plenty of cousins - only on his mother's side, for his father was an only child. He had Yvette and Tony, Amelia and Joy. Not that any of the cousins were particularly close; especially not Joy or Yvette, who were both much older than him. (Joy by six years, Yvette by ten; on the flip side, Tony and Amelia were only one or two years older than him, but gravitated towards each other more than him.)

He was too caught up in his own life, most of the time: Father and his rages, Mother doing his very best to hide those bottles full of murky liquid (not that she was much good, because Father always found them, and was always the angrier for it), him just staying out of the way, lest he incensed his father even more with some clumsy accident or display of childish magic. Clarence learned quickly that he mustn't talk to anyone in the family about what happened within his home: his father was always remarkably composed outside of the home, but yelled and threw chairs and smashed bottles within.

He didn't remember a time before all this, although he had faint memories of things being happier when he was younger: two or three years old, maybe.

(A different man; hovering over him, smiling and laughing in the way that his Father never did.)

One day when he was ten, he stumbled upon a collection of his mother's letters while she was out grocery shopping and Father was at work. It was through flipping through the missives and photographs that he discovered the truth: his mother, Alice, had once upon a time been married to a man named William, a Muggle. Then, when he was two (he knew because his mother had written a journal entry down on a ripped piece of lined paper, and dated it), on New Year's, his father had died in some sort of accident. He didn't know the specifics, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know. But then his mother had married Father (and now that he knew the truth, he would forever refer to his birth father as William, and his stepfather as Father, because despite the lack of blood relation, that man ruled his life with a fist of steel), and things had taken a turn for the worse.

Now, he understood why Mother seemed so sad all the time. He had never thought about it before, but it made sense now that his hair was so light in comparison to Father's. His mother got home, groceries in hand, and found him sitting unnaturally still in her bedroom, letters and photographs and pieces of paper spread around him like an ancient circle of runes. She'd spent a good deal of time crying while he remained scarily emotionless. It was a usual coping strategy, for him; he had learned early on that freaking out when traumatized or surprised only meant that his Father would turn to him.

(Sometimes, he had nightmares about shards of broken glass and why his house was so well-stocked on bruise cream. Most nights, when he woke up, he realized the real nightmare was in his house.)

It was also when he was ten that the Hexenreich invaded the country: his uncle Samuel was discharged from the army that summer, he remembered, and his own Father had escalated his anger for a while, having been affected in his job as an Obliviator.

When he was eleven, he got his letter to Hogwarts - his way out of the hell that was his home. He had been elated; he knew, from watching Yvette and Joy and Tony and Amelia go off to school, that Hogwarts was a safe haven. So he went, and he was Sorted, and he was happy, for once in his life, because he was learning and making friends and having fun. And sure, his cousins all ignored him for the most part, but he was alright with that. He'd learned at a young age that being ignored was generally better than being noticed, especially by those in a position of authority. Here, he wasn't overshadowed by the knowledge of his Father's rage and his mother's protection of him.

Then he went back home again, and that high came crashing down, because all good things came to an end, and he was back in his house of horrors. He wasn't permitted to go to summer camp, and he wouldn't have wanted to, either; his mother surely hadn't fared well without him to distract Father from raging at Mother. So he returned and became his mother's human shield instead of her doing the same for him. One day during that summer, when the heat was wafting off the cobblestones in nearly visible waves, he'd taken the Knight Bus to the Ministry while his mother was taking a nap.

On July 4, 1947, Clarence Daniel Letterman walked into the Ministry of Magic, went up to the Department of Social Affairs and told them that he and his mother needed to leave their house.

On July 6, 1947, Clarence and his mother moved out of the house in Kensington and into a flat that his grandparents bought for them in Islington.

On July 7, 1947, Alice Letterman got a job at the Ministry of Magic as a secretary in the Department of International Magical Cooperation.

On July 10, 1947, Clarence Letterman went to summer camp, safe in the knowledge that he was free of his Father.

And he had never in his life been happier.


→ ADDITIONAL INFORMATION.
Note: This section is optional, and is up to you to complete.

House Request: Any!

Personality: If you look at just his background, you would assume that Clarence is a quiet, reclusive boy, made so by his horrible stepfather. In fact, the opposite is true. Clarence was beaten but not broken - perhaps his naturally contrary nature helped with this, but who knows? He understands that education will help him go places in life, and tries his hardest to be independent almost to the point of ridiculousness. He believes (not unreasonably) that only his mother and his maternal family will stand by him, and that friends might be alright, but there must be a degree of detachment. He has trust issues, clearly, mainly from seeing his mother have to live under his stepfather for so long. Despite that, he is generally friendly, as he does realize that good friends stay with you to a point.

Appearance: Deceivingly innocent, with sandy brown hair and matching brown eyes. He's a little short for his age.

→ SAMPLE ROLEPLAY.
Option One

His footsteps echoed off the walls as the twelve year old boy walked down the corridor. The dungeons weren't exactly a nice place for him to spend his time in, but he had a Potions class to get to, and Clarence refused to be late.

(This was his first year without Joy nagging him about being on time, and he was going to prove to himself that he didn't need his older cousin to be a guardian for him.)

Speeding up his pace a little, a faint whisper reached his ears, and Clarence furrowed his eyebrows, slowing to a stop. Ghosts weren't exactly out of the ordinary in a place like this, but he had never had the best of relationships with any of them, and he didn't fancy being caught here by one.

"Hello! Is Emma Birch here?"

It was a girl's voice, further ahead, he realized, and he walked over to the little blonde. Joy had told him snippets about Emma Birch (she had things she didn't like to talk about, he realized, and he did too, so they had a good understanding), just enough for him to know that the girl was being ridiculous.

"Emma Birch was a seventh year ages ago," he said, smiling at her in an attempt to make her look a little less frightened out of her wits.

(Although he knew very well that a smile didn't help when there was something truly horrible going on.)

"She wouldn't be down here."

→ ABOUT YOU.

Please list any characters you have on the site (current and previous): Joy Detora, et al.

How did you find us?: I followed a trail of unicorn hairs, of course. (Unicorn hairs being Google.)