Hogwarts School: A Harry Potter RPG

CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: Auberon Huxley
Gender: Transman
Age: 18
Blood Status: ??? Pureblood

Education:   Beauxbatons, class of 1960

Residences:  London, and Maddermoor, the Huxley estate in Devon

Occupation:  Count

Do you plan to have a connection to a particular existing place (for example: the Ministry, Shrieking Shack) or to take over an existing shop in need of new management?  n/a

Requested Magic Levels

• Charms: 6
• Divination: 7
• Transfiguration: 13
• Summoning: 6

—Request for unbalanced levels to be submitted separately

Do you wish to be approved as a group with any other characters? If so who and for what IC reason?   n/a

Please list any other characters you already have at the site:  Icarus, etc

Biography: (300 words minimum.)

Life began at the age of nine for Auberon Huxley, on a Christmas morning dusted finely in snow. He received a black Abraxan with a bow of blue silk, and named the creature Diavolo. It was a horribly apt name, and they were a horrible pair. For the family, the horse was barely sickles from the accounts. Despite its impressive pedigree and the overnight demand for the animal, its shelter and its tack, it was a paltry expense. After all, the boy had been free.

He was filthy when the kitchen elves caught him in the larder, in rags of a nightdress, they said, and scabbed at the elbows, the knees, and his palms, and all wet with December. They were exceptionally proud of him (of themselves, of their find) on that morning when he smiled. He’d been a brute to them hiding in the kitchens for days but their patience with the creature paid off. It paid to fill the master’s wish that Christmas Eve. And how proud they were to realize it was even a boy.

The old Count Huxley had only ever wanted an heir.

He didn’t know a thing about the rough hewn child who took to the beast like he’d been made alongside it, but he didn’t care. The truth was he’d be damned if he let his brother’s brood after the land. Damned in fire. He lit a cigar and thought about a smile. Instead, he doubled with a hacking cough.

It was a very happy Christmas.

They sent the child to Beauxbatons, clawing and biting, a week later.

---

Hux would do anything to stay out of closed rooms. Always oddly seated at windows or in doorways, long limbs in a tangle to perch just-so. He was unable to tolerate small spaces, or anywhere he could not see the sky, and refused the task of wearing shoes. Footprints tracked up the frames. He would stand upside down on the sill when it snowed, long hair hanging like a moth-eaten curtain, blue robes their ratted valance. He missed something.

The sensation of an oily fur nagged at his fingertips and smeared on the glass.

They didn’t bother to expel him when he put his fist through it. The Count did not pay them what he did to reward undesirable behavior with the boy’s desired outcomes. They were to teach him manners first and magic second. If he wanted to foster the boy’s savagery, he’d have sent him to Hogwarts.

Or perhaps he didn’t wish anyone to find out.

---

He couldn’t tell the difference between reward and a bribe, but when Father suggested he would buy Hux a dog if he were good, he kept most of the buttons on his shirt. For good manners, he could even come home to see his new crup.

It cost a month without a scolding letter from his professors for a terrarium of mokes.

The reward for resisting property damage was a pedigreed kneazle.

And if he graduated without being held back again, his very own baby hippogriff. Sure, it wasn’t a manticore, but who was Hux to refuse?

And although he had begun to excel unusually in the art of Transfiguration since the first blood of thirteen, it took until naming the bird-beast to show that Auberon Huxley could return to Maddermoor to see his menagerie at last.

---

The House Elves had fulfilled their promises to the father and the son. They made sure the boy wanted for nothing, and they got him to behave; they made good on every bribe. What they would not do was tame the beasts or the vines that devoured the estate.

The madder had been the strict duty of the old Count, and the man had been buried for seven years.

The creatures were the responsibility of the new Count, but they didn’t mind waiting for him to come home.

It would all be rather hard to explain anyway, and they were under no orders to try.


Roleplay Response, Option 1:
Auberon Huxley often wondered what it was about people that people seemed to like. He didn’t spend much time on it, of course, for his thoughts reprised quickly into what he did not like about them the moment someone reminded him. It never took too long.

He had determined today that they liked each other enough to always want to be in groups, but not enough to look out for one another. Where the drive to congregate seemed a matter of convenience, the gathering seemed to lack the altruism of lesser primates. How did they want to be near each other, knowing their presence was counted in only for exploitation?

(But was it really so terrible if everyone got what they wanted?)

He stroked the brilliant green crown of the fwooper for which he’d just anonymously exchanged an Acromantula egg pod with a gent around that dark corner. The creature fluffed its feathers merely a moment before a shout broke out from the crowd. The scene was so pathetic, even the blankness of his face broke its promises with a sneer.

“Oi,” he jerked an upward nod to the woman on the ground. “You don’t need the shoe, ma’m’selle.” The way he looked at her (he felt his own naked feet loudly, ready to be noticed) indicated she should just stand up already. It was clear that no one was coming to her rescue, if that’s what she expected.

There was no way he was letting go of the bird. He wasn’t being supervised or rewarded anymore.

You learn to help yourself.

(Was he the sort of human he loathed after all?)

OTHER
How did you find us? a crystal ball many years ago