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E L S E W H E R E A D U L T
CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: Asher Nicholosi-Cadwallader
Gender: Male
Age: 19 (Born June 21st, 1923)
Education:
Muggle schooling in New York before moving to England, where he attended a Muggle school until he received his Hogwarts letter.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry, Ravenclaw, Year of 1941
Residence:
A studio apartment above his shop in Diagon Alley. Unlike many apartments that have been spelled to be larger on the inside, Asher's is as big as it looks from the outside. It is very easy to tell that he was initially raised by Muggles upon entering the small home; the decor is mundane, including paintings that do not move and a small, 1937 Cossor television, but is surprisingly classy. By all appearances, the apartment is out of place in Wizarding London because of how completely Muggle-inspired it is, and perhaps that is why he enjoys it this way.
Occupation:
Owner of The Silver Phoenix pawn shop
Occasional Grifter
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?
No, but I will be submitting an application for shop ownership of a fairly new shop shortly after character approval. <3
Requested Magic Levels:
(Starting levels already approved in Special Request)
- Charms: 10
- Divination: 13
- Transfiguration: 7
- Summoning: 7
Do you wish to be approved as a group with any other characters? If so who and for what IC reason?
No
Please list any other characters you already have at the site:
Ra'asiel Albear
Biography: (300 words minimum.)
Some children are born according to prophecies, their births surrounded by good omens and legends of future greatness. Others may be born under the opposite, their births unfortunate or even feared, perhaps doomed to die before they reach schooling, or simply existing as proof of their parents' disgracious dalliances. And still, others simply exist, their births lacking in auspicion, but not necessarily inauspicious, either; just another child born to another family.
Asher has never been able to determine which he was, much to his chagrin. To hear it from him (assuming he were to be honest), one might expect that perhaps Asher may have been cursed. And perhaps he was; the fact that he had been adopted was not made known to him until he discovered he could change his appearance - though it was rarely at will in the beginning - a discovery which was shortly followed by his mother finally telling him the truth. No one knew just who his birth parents were, for better or for worse, but his mother refused to abandon him or give up on him in spite of the family's beliefs. Widowed, he was all that she had for an immediate family, and she did not believe him to be anything more than an extremely unusual child.
He shouldn't have been surprised by the fact that he was adopted, really; Asher had always been different from his family, truth be told. They were boisterous, joyful, devout, and very Italian, which was especially impressive given that they'd relocated to America many years before this first change. Asher, on the other hand... was ginger. (The family photos never seemed to capture the exact hilarity of this comparison, unfortunately, as his family had never been so inclined as to try out colored photography.)
Of course, that only clued Asher in to the fact that he had been adopted. If he hadn't already been clued in to his magical nature by the time he was ten years old, the fire certainly did the trick. Asher had had a terrible nightmare, and was woken by his mother pulling him from his room to escape the fire that had slowly taken the house. No one knew how it had started, or why it was a strange shade of violet, of all colors, but it seemed to have started in Asher's room.
In a panic, his mother returned the two of them to the English countryside, hoping to escape the prying eyes of those around them. She'd spent her years protecting him, shielding him from others as he tried to suppress the abilities, always warning him to never tell anyone, never show anyone, never let it slip through the cracks of his awareness. It was her love for him and her desire for him to have a normal life that made her so overly protective, but which unfortunately made him extremely paranoid for much of his young life. (Where his eyes their usual blue, or had they change to gold, green, violet? Was his hair still red and short, or did he see blonde tickling his cheek from the corner of his eye?)
When he received his letter, everything suddenly became clearer. It was oddly never hard for him to accept that he was a wizard, though his mother had been worried at first, and he was excited to begin his schooling at Hogwarts. His first year, he was Sorted into Ravenclaw for his intelligence, despite his sometimes more Slytherin attitude. However, Asher lacked ambition just as he often lacked motivation. His school work was generally average in every subject but Divination, which he excelled at, and Transfiguration, which he was awful at for one simple reason: his abilities led him to believe that it was pointless.
The young man tended towards pranks and general troublemaking, always quick to talk his way out of punishment once he was caught. His silver tongue kept him out of trouble a surprising amount of time, and it was this ability paired with his patronus which later earned him the nickname, the Silver Phoenix. He could con nearly anyone if he were given enough time to plan the trick properly, and he enjoyed doing it.
The Time Warp hit in the middle of Asher's 3rd year at Hogwarts, and the then 13-year-old was mortified to learn of what happened, even without knowing the full story. He wrote home in a panic, but learned too late that his letter would go unanswered. It wasn't until then that Asher chose to give in and get his blood tested; he could live with being a registered Muggleborn when he had a family to go home to over the summers, spinning tales to his classmates about being a fallen Pureblood Prince whose true destiny would someday be revealed, but this... No. The orphanages terrified him. Relying on people who thought he was less than dirt was simply not acceptable to him, not when he had grander things in mind for himself. It was during his blood test that his classification as a metamorphmagus was registered as well, though he didn't give away the information freely (it came up in his testing, much to his consternation).
With the knowledge that he was actually a Half-blood, but no known remaining family, Asher started to consider his prospects for when the term ended. Having met Kelsey Cadwallader in Diagon Alley the previous summer, he sought her out once again, sneaking off during Hogsmeade weekends, originally setting out to con his way into a lavish lifestyle. When he did, it was the Anglesey branch of the Cadwalladers who took him in, sympathetic to his situation (which he initially assumed was assisted by Kelsey herself).
At first, Asher tried to keep his distance, still hurting with the loss of his family and afraid to instill his trust in anyone other than himself, but he was never ungrateful. He did his best to keep out of trouble even when he was grieving - though he still found his way into a few fist fights, the damage of which he often hid so as to not worry them - and did everything that was asked of him to the best of his abilities. His adjustment period was made easier by the family's open and caring nature, though; Asher strongly connected to Kelsey, who shared his abilities and was closest to his age, but gradually opened up more and became closer to everyone whom he trusted that would let him. When Gwythr and Aeronwy offered to adopt him into the family officially, Asher was stunned into rare silence for a long moment, not because he was surprised by their kindness, but because he was surprised by his own motives for accepting; they weren't self-serving, but pure. He genuinely wanted to be a part of their family. His family, now.
Asher was always something of a troublemaker, but under the influence of the Cadwalladers, his antics became less reckless, better thought out, and overall harmless. Rarely did he prank the adults of the family, having far too much respect for them. His pranks were all in good fun, and he was careful never to let them interfere in official business. He learned quickly, though, that pranking Kelsey was not an option; the girl was too sensitive for such jokes, and making her cry was pretty much the opposite of fun. Once Asher figured that out, he took to doting on her, playing games with her and practicing their abilities together in interesting ways (storytelling is so much more fun when you can do more than just alternate voices, after all).
When Asher graduated from Hogwarts, he stayed with his family for several months as he determined what he wanted to do with his life. He'd learned from them how to haggle, sell, trade, and buy responsibly, and paired with his own abilities - and his skill with Divination assisting him in reading people - he finally found his calling. It was with great joy that he set out to own and manage his own pawn shop, reaching back to his Hogwarts days when he named it: The Silver Phoenix.
Ever the troublesome young man he always has been, Asher lives to have fun and avoid boredom. Often this means finding people to rope into his antics or targets to con. While he is cautious not to risk the family name or reputation, he can't help but go with the flow of things and enjoy himself, even if it means waking up hung over or next to a stranger. He likes to flirt and charm those he meets, easily adapting to joking around when his affections are rebuffed. He never seems to take things seriously, letting them seemingly roll off of his back as he moves onto the next target. In these ways, he's still the wild young man he was in school, and certainly qualifies as 'rough around the edges' when he isn't making an effort to be charming. He may be best described as being an object in constant motion; he's always doing something, always working on something, coming up with some scheme or another. Slowing down simply isn't an option for him.
As for his cons, it doesn't hurt that he still has his old family photograph, which has given him a number of identities to 'borrow' as he sees fit simply by keeping their faces and personalities fresh in his memories, even if he no longer recalls why he isn't able to keep in touch with them.
Roleplay:
You come across one of these posts on the site. Please select one & reply as your character:
Option One -
Amelia Nixon was many things, but she was never a pushover reporter that people could just usher away with a busy shuffle past. She was dedicated and eager to cut to the very middle of the current political tensions because she was Amelia Nixon and her articles would most certainly become front page material.
“Sir, please! It’s for the Prophet, how do you feel-“
Another one brushed passed her, the shuffling busy masses making their way through Diagon Alley for the lunchtime rush. This had been the best possible time to get people, but none of them were giving her anything to go with.
Only momentarily discouraged, the short red headed lady took a seat on a nearby bench. Her quill resting in her left hand and her notepad ready in the opposite hand. Amelia pouted, tapping the quill against her leg as she scanned the waves of people for somebody - anybody - who looked like they had something to say.
She had been dreaming of her name in bold print, Amelia Nixon: The Source of Today’s Tomorrow. She had been dreaming of the larger office and the secretaries that would fetch her the morning coffee and fetch her anything she needed. The VIP interviews and the most exclusive press passes. But all Amelia had was a page seventeen piece on the rising number of frogs in London.
Hardened by a day of no success, the reporter stood up and started to trod off down the alley. A loose stone on the cobble path caught her heel, sending the distraught girl toppling down to the ground.
“Merlin’s fog watch, my heel is broken! Help!” she yelled as she tried desperately to recover her shoe frantically in the middle of the Diagon Alley moving crowds.
Roleplay Response:
Diagon Alley at lunchtime was always bustling, transforming figuratively into a living, breathing beast that had its own rules and intensity, waiting for none. If you couldn't move within the crowds, there was no point in bothering. The young shop owner knew how to move, how to tame the beast as though it were nothing more than a grumpy pussycat; but after a while, it wasn't the triumph that it once had been. It had become boring.
And yet, there was something different this beautiful lunch hour. He could feel it in the air today. Something... lucky.
“Merlin’s fog watch, my heel is broken! Help!”
The shout pulled the attention of keen blue eyes, perhaps one of the last pairs of eyes anyone should want to fall upon them, as they heralded a playful smirk and quirked ginger brow that promised nothing but trouble. Asher Nicolosi-Cadwallader was good at hiding his bad intentions (and sometimes worse decisions) behind a charming smile, which he put on as easily as any mask as he approached the woman quickly, already thinking of ways he might use this encounter to his advantage.
"Oh, my! Let me help you with that," he said ever so innocently. He knew his way around a crowd, and it showed as he scooped up her shoe and moved to help her stand all in one graceful movement. Arm around her to offer support while she went with only one shoe, he escorted her out of the crowd, before surrendering to her the temporarily lost heel. The poor woman. She really should be more careful.
Asher knew exactly who she was, and the opportunistic grifter of a young man was so thankful to get to see her in person; it made borrowing her appearance later so much easier on him. He could work from photographs sometimes, but even the Wizarding photos that moved they never truly captured a person's essence. No, his shifts to imitate someone always seemed to have something off unless he'd seen them in person first; maybe it was something about the way that they carried themselves, or a certain glitter in their eye, or perhaps their stride? Whatever it was, it made his little errors almost non-existent. He still hadn't quite mastered borrowing someone's appearance yet.
"Amelia Nixon, right?" he asked, that charming smile of his warm and inviting, though his eyes expertly feigned worry as he looked her over, making a note of her measurements and structure, the curve of her hips, the way her face pulled expressions. "You're not hurt, are you?"
He had what he needed now; everything from this point on was just icing on the cake.
