CHARACTER INFORMATIONCharacter name: Cladis Perses Gallion.
Previous and/or Current Character(s) if applicable: Ignis Fides Rivers, Salazar Ricardus, Arcus Ricardus, Loxias Ricardus Junior, Waldo Woodrow Angerville.
Character age: 37.
Character education: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, 1922-29 (Slytherin).
Character resume: Unspeakable (1930-1935), Handyman (1935-July 1937), Beauxbatons Divination Professor (September 1937-1940) & Head of Studio Arts École (September 1938-1940), Hogwarts Divination Professor (1940-1941), Unemployed (1941-?)
Strength and weaknesses (details please): Cladis has a strong sense of compassion. First off, this shows in how he directs his energy to resolve human challenges and he aims to find the suited solution for everyone he cares about. This strength makes them excellent counselors and advisors - which is actually kind of hilarious considering that Cladis has actually been the one needing counseling and advice for the past eight years of his life.
He too can be described as decisive, meaning that he is creative and insightful. He follows through on on their ideas with conviction, willpower, and the planning necessary to see complex projects through to the end. This sets him apart from idealists: where other idealists will only focus on how it can be done better, Cladis will try and see to it that it will actually get better. This is reflected in the initial reason that he applied to teach at Beauxbatons Academy: he felt like there were a lot of students whose interest was not piqued by divination and it therefor has always been a niche subject in the magical world. Cladis himself believes this to be a waste, for this is the subject he himself treasures the most, and he wants students to see this as well. What better way to convince them than to actually teach them about the wonders and miracles of divination himself? In in all, Cladis has strong beliefs and takes the actions that he does not because he is trying to advance themselves, but because he is trying to advance an idea that he truly believes will make the world a better place. This however, also tends to backfire on him from time to time because he oftentimes fails to see that some people do not want to be helped and thus he too can be considered quite a nosy nuisance.
Cladis strength lays in dialogue. He has always valued the input of another, be it a student or another professor. He generally tends to avoid discussions because discussions tend to focus on mapping out the pros and cons of a certain case, whereas dialogue aims at mutual understanding and finding common grounds. Due to his innate wish to avoid conflict, he tries his best to empathize with his conversational partner instead of attacking him with logic.
But rather than only painting Cladis as an altruistic saint without flaws and faults, a knight in shining armor, there are so many flaws and faults in his code as well. Cladis is extremely sensitive and whenever he sees his principles or values attacked, he will react alarmingly strong in the sense that he completely shuts down. People with the INFJ personality type are highly vulnerable to criticism and conflict. This is most apparent considering his insanity. Cladis has found over time that society is not as accepting of everyone who diverts from the social norm, that they tend to avoid everything that is different and does not apply to the ideal of the white employed male. Whenever anyone openly questions his sanity, he becomes terribly insecure and tends to isolate himself immediately out of a strong and crooked self-defense mechanism: a private personality. He is extremely private when it comes down to everything that actually concerns him. This too reflects in the fact that although he he seeks help by other councilors and advisors for his insanity, he prefers to redirect the attention to his psychologist. He rather wants someone else to stand in the spotlight instead of him. This sort of altruism might even result in Cladis neglecting his own needs and prioritizing another one's needs. He is self-sacrificing to the core.
Last but not least, Cladis burns out easily. A long day working, a long day spent divining, a long social meeting with friends or Family and Cladis is metaphorically dead. His passion, poor patience for routine maintenance and extreme privacy tend to leave him with few options for letting off steam. He is in desperate need of balance so that his ideals and the realities of day-to-day living can exist alongside each other instead of one dominating the other.
Obviously, his academical strength lies in divination. The man himself practices a lot of divination methods in his free time, having become rather skilled and knowledgeable concerning this subject over time. His academical weakness lies in transfiguration, it being the subject he has never quite spend as much time and effort on as on other subjects.
Physical description: Cladis has dark brown eyes and an unruly mop of dark brown hair. He stands at 6’1. His body type is sinewy bordering on slightly muscular. Generally, he forgets to share himself so his three days worth of stubble is oftentimes present.
Personality (nice, rude, funny etc. Paragraph please.): Cladis identifies as an INFJ personality. One of the traits that is inherent to this personality type is his egalitarianism, a trend of thought that favors equality for all people no matter their socio-economical status. He cherishes the morals and values that are tied to this philosophy and will fight tirelessly to defend those, if not to try and accomplish them in reality. Although Cladis does not hail from a strong socio-economic status himself, he does not support this philosophy for his personal gain. He wholeheartedly believes that he could better spend his time and effort on helping others. Helping others immediately implies connecting with others and conversing with them. Although Cladis is fond of this, he does need his time alone to decompress and recharge. In Cladis’s specific case, this too means that he needs time to order the chaos in his head once more. He finds it tiresome to continuously connect with others for it wears down his self-defense mechanisms designed to keep his demons at bay. It is therefor that he truly enjoys time alone as well and needs it for the preservation of his own sanity.
Talking about his sanity, it might be well known that Cladis is not the most stable of characters when we consider his mental state. Cladis suffers from a couple of mental illnesses (— e.g. delusions, anxiety, paranoia) which at times render him a completely useless heap of human. Yet, after being treated for those at St Mungo’s for the past seven months, Cladis feels empowered and more in charge of his demons than he was last time he was employed at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Hopes and dreams. Why are you teaching at Hogwarts?: Instead of dreams, Cladis has goals. He has always tried to achieve things instead of only dreaming that up, which is an important difference. Right now (even though it sounds terribly pathetic) his only goal is to return to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and get back to teaching again. He has come to miss it terribly over the past couple of years and has realized that he is the happiest when he can help students. He too has come to realize that he can contribute best to society and put all his skills and knowledge to good use by helping the younger generation witches and wizards master magic.
Biography: Cladis was born on 18th August 1911 to his later to be identified pureblood Father William Stormheart and his halfblood Mother Lavender Gallion. As his Mother did not want anyone to know who the young babe’s Father was, she gave the newborn her own last name. His childhood was spent in relative tranquility on the borders of the Lake of Annecy.
Hogwarts (1922-1929)Cladis has always been a Hogwarts School student. Although his Mother could have sent him to the French Beauxbatons Academy, she preferred the prestige of Hogwarts School. Although Cladis too was impressed by the allure and rich history of the old educational institute, it was not always kind on him.
The very moment he was sorted into Slytherin, Cladis felt like the odd one out. This was because he could not identify with all of his other house mates, did not feel like he had much in common with them. Feeling severely misunderstood, a recurrent theme in the life of the Frenchman, he shut himself off from the rest of the house by focusing on study material and participating in dueling and Quidditch. Although proving himself to be average at sports, his talent for learning made sure for him to excel in his classes.
His knack for studying had not withered when he entered his second year. Rather, it only seemed to increase. The young Slytherin generally could be found in the library, reading weathered old books which showed signs of a tough history and previous owners who had not handled them with care before. His second year too was the year in which his interest in Divination was piqued, at first finding it an easy tool for him to avoid contact with all other students but soon growing into a somewhat unhealthy obsession. He singled himself off even more, oftentimes requesting extra homework from the professors.
As much as he tried to avoid any contact with any other students, he still felt in need of a companion to accompany him in the long dark hours of midnight studying. In order to expel his isolation, Cladis captured a young sable mask ferret in his third year at Hogwarts. After having named it Solomon, training it and looking after it by reading up on it and hitting up the Care of Magical Creatures professor more than the old greying professor liked.
His years of isolement had not done the social skills of the young Frenchman any good. Rather, he had become rather naive and gullible and it was soon that he found his trust and friendship betrayed. Imploding even more, he grew into a more paranoid young man suspicious of anyone who approached him. Closing himself off from the rest of the world, rather disappointed in humanity, he spent all of his hours alone — save for his ever entrusted pet ferret Solomon.
During his seventh year, Solomon died. Yet, Cladis has never accepted his little friend’s death and believed that his pet ferret was still by his side. Although he is aware of the fact that people never pay attention to, what he still believes to be a very alive and kicking, pet ferret, he still fervently believes in the pet’s presence.
Post Graduation & Ministry of Magic (1929-1935)After his Suma Cum Laude graduation of ’29, Cladis bought an Apartment in Wandsworth, London. It was only after a gap year of expanding his knowledge on various subjects, of wandering around the city like an aimless missile, lending himself as a handymen so that he could pay for his rend and groceries, of getting himself addicted to cigarettes and having started a rather impressive collection of books, Cladis then applied as an Unspeakable for the British Ministry of Magic. It was a job that came easy to him, but never a job that truly satisfied him. The pressure of the bureaucratic Ministry of Magic eventually broke him up and he resigned after five year’s worth of employment.
More Gap-years (1935-1937) and Beauxbatons Academy (1937-1940)Returning to Sevrier, the small French town in which he had been born, he eventually stumbled upon the job of a divination professor at Beauxbatons Academy. Although he had never considered teaching before, he applied for it without hoping for much, but eventually found himself employed as a rather clueless ‘professeur de divination’. He was young and inexperienced and most of all, had no idea what he had gotten himself into.
In hindsight, him having chosen to teach divination at Beauxbatons, is one of the best decisions he has ever made. It proved itself to be some sort of focal point which provided reassurance and balance in times of turmoil. Because there was turmoil enough. For one, Cladis met up with a man called Ronan C. Winter before the start of his first term of teaching, a man whom later that year proved himself to be his half brother as they shared the same Father when they both were reached out for by William Stormheart who was ardently looking for his rightful First Heir. Although Cladis was the eldest heir, being the oldest of Stormheart’s illegitimate children, he was despised for being a fourth generation halfblood. The Stormhearts proved themselves to be a Family thriving on pureblood elitism, internal rivalry and backstabbing, and destructive hatred amongst all of its Familymembers. Cladis has always tried to shield himself and Ronan off from this destructive Family the best he could, not wanting to be affiliated with a Family acting in contradiction of the morals and values Cladis himself cherished.
The second reason for turmoil was fact that Cladis took in a tenant. After the borders of the United Kingdom closed and shut itself off from the rest of the world in response to the German danger, Cladis happened to run into a British Magizoology student (Erathalia Gray). Learning that she had been shut off by her own homecountry, he offered her his couch for as long as she needed a place to stay. Although he himself was not used to having someone around all the time, he too was sure that he had to reach out and help her in this unfortunate situation in a fit of altruism. During her stay at his apartment, he has always kept his distance around her although he could not ignore how his platonic feelings towards her transitioned into something more romantically orientated. This has come to be one of the decisions in his life he regrets the most.
During his third term of teaching at Beauxbatons Academy, Cladis was honored with the position of Head of Renault - the communaté known for housing visionaries, underdogs and savants. This has always been the one communaté of Beauxbatons Academy Cladis himself had always felt the strongest connection with. This might as well be because the students belonging to this communcaté oftentimes reminded him of his younger student-self. They oftentimes proved themselves to be the ugly ducklings, the odd ones out, busying themselves with hobbies that were not considered conventional or popularity material. Those belonging to Renault were well known for being a bit cut-throat and could best be described by the motto ‘not seen and not heard’ as well as the ones who excel in all things they set their minds to.
Yet, just as Hogwarts School had not always been kind of him, Beauxbatons Academy too proved itself a source of torment. It was with the invasion of the Germans that Cladis’ beloved Beauxbatons Academy was destroyed, that the walls of the old institute crumbled under the spells and charms that were either meant for attack or defense. As Cladis was a professor, it was his job and shared responsibility with the rest of the staff, to protect all of the students against the foreign attackers. But the attackers were too strong, too well organized and they had had the advantage of having surprised both students and professors with their cowardly act. Beauxbatons withered and fell, and showed that it was not the safe harbor all had previously perceived it to be.
Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (1940-1941)With the destruction of Beauxbatons Academy, Cladis once again was at a complete loss. He was torn between staying in his beloved France, whilst watching how the Germans used the ruins of the antebellum French society as the foundation for their own totalitarian regime, watching how they would rebuild all ruins and make them institutions of indoctrination rather than education, or running away from the German regime. France had always been his home before, a safe haven he could always fall back on, yet now completely ruined and having lost all of its former glory and prestige. Reluctantly, Cladis packed his bags and departed for London to dwell in a safe sense of security.
Staying true to his profession and forced due the shrinking amount of money he could spend on his daily nutriments, he applied for the job of Divination professor at Hogwarts School. It was a new start after all he had been through at Beauxbatons, new students who needed to be taught about the wonders of divinations, new colleagues alongside whom he would work. Yet, his past slowly started to catch up with him, striking him down the moment he started to try and get a better and renewed grasp on his life.
Cladis had to quit his job at Hogwarts, since he could no longer keep his demons at bay, could no longer control them and suppress them. They would surface from the depths of his minds at the most inopportune time, would force him onto his knees to subject him to the terrors of his own mind. It would not have been responsible for him to carry on teaching whilst he himself was mentally in such a dark place.
Unemployed and insane (1941-1948)He probably should have gone to St Mungo’s earlier than he eventually did. He probably should not have allowed all of this to spiral as much out of control as it had. What it took for him to eventually sign up for psychological help at St Mungo’s was the unexpected departure with Thalia Gray. One day, she found Cladis in the corner of their apartment, caught up in one of his fits of insanity. It must have been something terrible he had said to her, something so horrid that it chased her away for her to never return. And it was her departure that was the last push he needed to find help.
He first found help with Damien Ander Champ, a psychologist at St Mungo’s who diagnosed him for the first time with some mental illnesses. Then, after the mysterious and sudden departure of Champ, he found help with Lucifer Morgenstern (— as devilish as his red hear and most certainly as horrid and sadistically as the devil himself) who has helped him for the past couple of years.
But no matter the amount of help he gets from the psychologists and no matter how much they help him, he feels trapped within the health care system. He has come to believe that its only constituted goal is to trap people and keep them in their sterile embrace for as long as possible. Misdiagnosing and prescribing medicines that will not work, trying their best to benefit from their patients like greedy parasites.
During his year of unemployment, Cladis did not have the most social of all lives. He mostly lived like a hermit for the entirety of the time, locking himself up and away in his apartment and only venturing outside when he was in need of divination supplies or groceries. The man has not met up with a lot of friends, and the amount of friends has dwindled so terribly that it might as well be argued that he is completely alone in this world.
This all contributes to him feeling useless, aimless and desperately looking for something in life that can give him back his sense of purpose.
SAMPLE ROLEPLAYIt was the largest office in Hogwarts and, perhaps to students and newcomers, the most intimidating. The shelves were filled with various odds and ends, with a place of honor for the Sorting Hat, and the walls held all the portraits of past Headmasters and Headmistresses.
In the middle of the room sat a large desk. Everything was in order, for the current occupant had always despised a messy desk. It was the sign of a messy mind, and she had always favored neatness.
A clock sat on the desk, which currently showed the time to be 2:05. The meeting was supposed to begin at 2:00 precisely.
Along with order, Anneka valued punctuality. She was a very busy woman these days. Even during the summer, she had a number of matters to attend to. Interviewing and hiring staff was only of those matters. The newest potential member of her staff wasn't making a good impression.
She paced the room, black heels clicking against the stone floor. When the door finally opened, Anneka turned, her expression reminiscent of a Russian winter. "You are
late."
Explain yourself was what her face said.
Roleplay Response:He had been here before.
Of course he had been here before.
He had been here when he had still been a meek Slytherin student who had not had the faintest idea of what a social life was and instead had spent all of his student-years in the library with all the books he could get his hands on. He had spent here seven years of his life here as a student, and even one more later on in his life after the destruction of Beauxbatons Academy and he got the opportunity to transfer to Hogwarts School to continue teaching. Yet, no matter how many memories he had attached to those hallways and those corridors, no matter how well he knew all the quirks of the staircases and was familiar with most faces on the portraits that adorned the walls, it still and once again felt like he had never been here before and he was just another new first year student who was about to pee himself due to the nerves of meeting up with the Headmistress.
And although he had been early, always early when it had come down to his appointments at St Mungo’s, he was now running late. Shamefully late, too, for he was sure this was not the kind of second impression he wanted to leave behind (— the impression of someone who did not care about punctuality, someone who did not care about appointments made). Maybe she remembered him from his first time teaching here though, maybe she knew that this was rather an exception instead of the rule he lived by.
At last, he pushed open the door of the Headmistress’ office, the office he had last been in when he had resigned from his position as divination professor and had sent himself into the world like an aimless projectile that was spinning out of control.
(— He hopes this was not all she remembered about him.)
Maybe she too remembered fact how driven he had been, maybe she too remembered the pleasure he had derived from teaching students about his subject. Maybe she too remembered that he could control himself when he put his mind to it, when he actually wanted to. Maybe she too believed in fact that people could better themselves, strengthen and empower himself to the extent that he was now a changed man (— one who knew how to control himself).
”You are late
.”“Excusez-moi,” Cladis immediately replied, brown eyes looking around the room he could remember but held an air of estranged familiarity nonetheless. “I didn’t mean to.”
The Frenchman closed the door behind him, his gaze now coming to rest on the facial features of the Headmistress. “I do hope my tardiness didn’t ruin all my chances of getting that job.”
(— He hoped not. He so ardently hoped not.)
Lesson plans are a wip and will be sent whenever i am back from summer holidays and have proper internet connections. (:
Update 14'08: PM sent!