Hogwarts School: A Harry Potter RPG

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→ CHARACTER INFORMATION.
Name: Juan Daniel "Nilo" Azuriah dela Torre Allares

Birthday: April 30, 1923

Hometown: Manila Iloilo, Philippines

Bloodline: Halfblood

Magical Strength (pick one): Transfiguration

Magical Weakness (pick one): Charms

Year (pick two): 6th (preferably) or 5th

Biography:

It had been a good day.

Such a good day, in fact, that he'd, on instinct, taken off from the ground right after exiting the Cake Shop - at the back of his mind, he made a mental note to pick up his clothes soon after, in case someone suddenly went off with them as a joke. Again. (Walang hiyang mga dayuhan.) But he refused to let even the thought of pesky clothes-stealing English foreigners ruin his good mood.

He'd gotten his salary that day, and he'd realized after some painstaking counting that he may have enough money already for school. It had brought a rare genuine bright-and-happy toothy smile stretching his usually-downturned lips. He'd probably shocked his boss and/or his co-workers into comatose or something.

Of course, he meant it in exaggeration; he didn't really want to make anybody ill or anything!

But anyway, back to his good mood, which he soaked up warily as he hadn't felt this good in... in... ages.

The money he'd earned from working at Sofia's might just be enough for his to restart his education, no matter that it was in a foreign land - foreigners' land. He tried not to let it bug him, since, well, this warm feeling in his chest that felt quite close to what one might felt like when you won a ridiculous amount of money (though the case isn't that far off, only with a lesser amount, in an odd currency, but anyway -) was, though foreign and rare and foreign and should therefore be treated with extreme caution and suspicion - it felt... it felt...

It felt quite nice, actually.

(His mother - Inay, he thought, a little sadly - would be proud of him, he was sure.)

He should have known his good mood wouldn't last long. God clearly still hated him, and Nilo wouldn't really put it against Him.

The skies broke overhead and spilled. Stupid rain.

He scowled, as much as he could while still in avian form anyway, and as he felt the familiar itch on his skin that warned him of CHANGE! CHANGE! CHANGE! he quickly hopped down from his perch on the Cake Shop's roof (thank God he managed to still have the mindset not to fly off far) and landed, back to his old human self, on his feet with a light thud, bending his knees as he did.

He picked his clothes off the ground, silently thanking God that no damn foreigners had made off with them this time, and put them on with the speediness of years of routine. (And years it was, indeed, he assumed; how many had passed already since he'd found out about his shapeshifting ability? Two? Maybe three? He'd always been terrible with maths anyway.)

Just as he was pulling on his shirt, though, he felt that itch on his skin again and sighed mournfully as he stripped off once more, this time carrying his clothes into a nearby darkened alleyway with him, and within seconds, he'd shifted into a small dog again. (He adamantly refused to call this form a puppy.)

The scowl on his face had managed to remain on his furry dog-face, and he shifted about with his one piece of his clothing in his teeth every few seconds until he'd stowed them away on a relatively dry patch of ground and proceeded to lie on top of the small pile with his head on his paws.

He sighed; though, since he was in dog-form, it came out more of a pathetic whine, and he grimaced and shifted a bit on his perch again before he was comfortable.

The rain seemed like it would take a while, which meant so would his sour mood, which in turn meant so would his canine form, and he almost sighed again. He suppressed it, though, in case he might get heard by some nosy but well-meaning dayuhan and get picked up and taken into a warm home. Not that the idea was particularly unpleasant; it was the idea of what would come afterwards, when he'd shifted back to his naked human form, that made him cringe.

So Nilo, after nosing his trousers' pockets and making sure that his money - his school money, his education, his future - was still there, settled down and waited for the damn rain to let up.

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

House Request: Dunno, but I think Hufflepuff, maybe.

Personality:

Mr Broody McBrood.

Well, outwardly, at least, along with being quite xenophobic, who refuses to learn proper English but does so anyway for adaptation's sake. (He tries very hard to learn very slowly though, and it's working quite well, so far.)

But one mustn't let this hard, cold, rough, scowling exterior of his judge his character so quickly. He's a big softie inside. No really; against his better judgment (at least, he likes to think so), he always offers a helping hand or a small word of caution or advice or suspicious theory to anyone who he thinks looks like they need it. Not to mention the fact that he really hates seeing someone hurt or sad; it makes him very uncomfortable and he would much rather not face that, thanks, but he'll still go and try to make that person feel better some way or another anyway. Especially if it's a (pretty) girl. (Or boy - but he doesn't know that himself yet.)

Though he does like taking care of people (unwillingly, he likes to think, since it was just bred into him since he was a kid to be nice to people even though people aren't always nice to him), he's not averse to people taking care of him in turn. He'll be suspicious, of course, but once he's comfortable with them, he'll let his guard down enough to take as much advantage over his carer as he could. Like, doing his homework for him and bringing him food and making sure nobody steals his clothes when he transforms. Basically be a servant. Well-treated of course, so said, er, 'servant' will stay long enough with him.

He's not a 'will do anything - anything at all! - for this-and-that' kind of person though, as he prefers to be sure that whatever-it-is is safe and secure and not at all deadly to wellbeing. If you're his friend, be ready to be coaxed/shoved into being the first person in line for testing the metaphorical waters.

(Yeah, he's a little paranoid.)

But he's loyal enough to his friends that he'll steer clear of anything life-threatening to test (them) on; he doesn't like having it on his conscience. Or, he just prefers not to think about it too much.

It doesn't take much to annoy or irritate him, though (he gets especially irritated of anything that makes him cold; he's just not used to it!), but it's advisable not to - he tends to turn into this big, scary, furry, black wolf when he's riled up. Proceed with caution.

At least he's already learned to take the 'I can transform into an animal, oh crap!' part of him in stride. Or just tolerate it, at least.

Appearance:
(He's only got/learnt three other 'forms' besides his normal human form, so far.)

Human. This kid's got pretty good genes. Tallish (5'9"), gangly, slightly curly black hair, dark brown eyes, and pink lips that are usually turned down in a scowl but can curve up into the sweetest of smiles.

Avian. Philippine monkey-eating eagle, since it's the only one he knows the appearance of: mostly white, with a gray face and beak, yellow eyes, dark-brown-but-white-on-the-inner-side wings, and its golden-brown head-feathers looking like he's startled or suspicious or wearing an Indian war bonnet.

Canine. A long-haired black puppy with brown underside, neck, paws, ears, and eyes. Cute and pathetic-looking, since he transforms into this form when he's any kind of sad, or when it's raining.

Lupine. Big and black and furry and snarling and mean. And deadly. With scary yellow eyes. Be wary.

→ SAMPLE ROLEPLAY.
Please reply to one of the Sample Roleplays below.

Nilo was starting to wonder whether there were any smaller wizard schools nearby that weren't actual huge bloody castles.

This was the fifth (maybe sixth, or tenth; he'd lost count, really) corridor he'd ventured down and he didn't really fancy (Diyos ko, he's really starting to sound like a foreigner!) getting any more lost than he was already. He was terribly late for class already, he might as well be marked absent!

He shuddered at the thought; no, he wouldn't let that happen. What would Inay say, if she were still alive?

“Hey!”

...Definitely not that.

His scowl deepened, and he grit his teeth, annoyance giving way to irritation, though he tried very hard not to let it get to him; he didn't want to change into a wolf in the middle of the school corridor all of a sudden!

He turned around, a sharp snappish rebuke already ready to spring forth from his tongue -

And he quickly snapped his mouth closed, and quickly, smoothly, shifted his features into a kind, flirtatious smile.

"Hullo," he greeted in a very bad imitation of smooth-and-suave, but he tried anyway, flashing the girl a broad grin. "What can I do for you?" he asked in a tone that clearly said there was a double meaning to it, and that he wasn't even the least bit sheepish about it at all.

“What do you think about serving frog legs at lunch? Some say it’s a delicacy, but others think it’s plain gross.”

He opened his mouth to respond with a great exclamation that frog's legs are delicious; he'd eaten some before, and it tasted like chicken! No, really, it did!

But what he wasn't even sure what this girl thought about said, er, what did she call it? - 'delicacy,' and he definitely didn't want to lose his chances with her (as if he had any in the first place, psh) by giving the wrong opinion, so what he said instead was:

"Hm, I don't know, what do you think about it?" with as much sweetness as he could muster.

→ ABOUT YOU.

Previous Characters (if applicable): Deidre & Wolfe Sable-Vaelbe (both will not be attending Hogwarts in the near future) and Crimson Stormheart, et al.

How did you find us?: My friend dangled a shiny link in my face.

CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: Juan Daniel "Nilo" Allares

Gender: Male

Age: Fourteen. He's supposed to be in school, as a third year because that's how the school system where he used to live works, but he's new, and he's poor, so he thinks he needs to work for money to pay for the school tuition.

Bloodline: Halfblood

Parents/Guardians (Are they currently played characters?): 
Uriel Azuraih – father, currently an NPC
Corazon dela Torre née Allares – mother, deceased
Juan dela Torre – stepfather, deceased
Samuel Alonzo – stepbrother, NPC

Residence: sleeps in Godric Park, but wanders around, looking for a job

Do you plan to have a connection to a particular existing place (for example: the daycare)? Godric Park, where he sleeps. Once I find him a suitable job, I'd like him to have a connection to that particular place.

Requested Magic Levels:
Requesting Fourth Year Levels

• Charms: 4
• Transfiguration: 5
• Divination: 4
• Summoning: 3

Do you wish to be approved as a group with any other characters? If so who and for what IC reason?
Caminus Azuraih (who I also play) – cousins. The rest of the Azuraih family, the Lhuiller family, the Rainiere family, and the Dechavez family – relatives.

Please list any other characters you already have at the site:
Caminus Azuraih, Yvonne Dechavez, Wolfe Sable, Relisasha Raviina Le Roi, Deidre Sable

Biography: (100 words minimum.)

I hate change.

It's been in my whole life, starting from when I was still a baby, but I hate it. Or maybe, that's the reason why I hate it.

I was only less than a month old when my father changed his mind and left my mother and I. Bastard. Walang kwenta.

He loved her. They both knew that. Even though she was Muggleborn. But one word of warning from my cruel grandfather ("If you don't break it off with that mudblood, you - will - be - disowned.") was enough for my fearful father to have a sudden change of heart... and leave us.

Walang kwenta.

Heartbroken, my Filipino-American mother went home to the Philippines. Staying in London after her graduation from Hogwarts to find a decent job was a mistake. She had gotten a job, but as a maid. Her Muggle boss was cruel to her, and my Pureblooded father was her last hope. He was kind. Had been, that is. He helped her find a waitress job for a while as she worked with her Muggle boss, and then he'd offered her a job in the Ministry of Magic, where he worked at. But he broke her heart. There was nothing left for her in that cold, rainy country anymore.

Another change... this time, of location... My mother was hopeful that she made the right decision.

(Thinking back on it, staying in London would not have been wise... but if she did, we wouldn't be in the state we were in.)

My mother found a decent enough husband a year later. At least, he seemed decent. His name was Jose dela Torre, a recovering alcoholic who worked as a kutsero -- a coachman. His pay was only enough to keep himself alive. Yet he was kind. And that was all it took for my foolish mother to fall for him. They married the month after I turned a year old.

(Another change. This time of a parent. I should've known from the start that it was a bad idea... but I was just a babe.)

Everyone who knew that Jose dela Torre had married Corazon Allares, the young woman with a bastard child, grimaced in distaste and avoided the couple and the child at all costs. But the couple didn't care; they were in love.

They had another child, another boy, another year later. My mother was a housewife, occupied with two babies, while my stepfather worked all day and came home to a warm meal and a warm bed, in the arms of a woman who loved him. I even got a guitar once; that seemed to be the happiest day of my life.

We lived in a bungalow with only three rooms. A kitchen/dining room, a bedroom, and a toilet room/bathroom. A living room separated the kitchen/dining and bedroom, if you could call a room with an altar and four chairs surrounded by a curtain parting the three rooms a living room. But it was comfortable. We were happy.

All was well.

Until my eleventh birthday, which changed my life.

I received two letters. One from a school named Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and another from a school named Salem Institute. Reading it, I went to my mother to ask what it meant. She was delighted. She explained. I was excited. My stepfather overheard. He was horrified.

Jose dela Torre had not wanted a witch for a wife, or a wizard for a stepson. He started to mutter to himself, "Hindi ako sanang nagpakasal sa isang may anak sa labas." I shouldn't have married someone with a bastard child.

Another change of heart.

My stepfather took up his beer bottles again. My step-brother, Samuel Alonzo, started to avoid me, in fear that wizard's blood could be contagious.

We had become a torn family.

Another change.

Our awful reputation just got bad.

Filipinos respected the sanctity of marriage, so a family with a rift between them was considered an outrage.

The gossipers were drinking it all up.

A lot of things changed even more from then on in the dela Torre household.

Jose started beating my mother up. He started to complain. His bed was too hard, his food was too cold, she was too damn slow, and she just didn't seem to care for him anymore.

He was wrong: My mother provided well for him, hoping he would change; she obeyed his commands, didn't question his requests, but it wasn't enough. It just wasn't.

I was lower than dirt to even be spared a glance. And yet I got some of his lovely attention, as well.

I can still feel the bruises he gave me in those days. I still have the scars to prove it. I still have the tears in my soul for it.

I still went to school, though, despite the bruises and the bleeding. I covered them up well enough. Thankfully, I was a good student, so I didn't get even more of a beating in school. Except in arithmetic. The teacher must have had a blast with whacking that designated stick against my behind every single damn day for being slow-minded.

School was terrible and so was my home.

(I wouldn't even call it a home anymore.)

On the day of my fifteenth birthday, I had had enough. It was a particularly cold night. The Amihan wind was particularly biting that night. It She must have reflected the mood of my stepfather.

He was running out of beer. He was downing his last bottle when he shouted at my mother to buy him more. For once, she refused. I was proud of her that night. I gave her my first smile in years.

But Jose wouldn't have any of it. My mother was firm, though. She didn't want him to drink anymore. She still cared for him. (She still cared for my real father, even though it's already been fifteen years. I could hear her whispering his name sometimes, when she was looking out the one window in our "living room" while tears streamed down her face.)

Jose didn't seem to hear her. He attacked, punching my mother in the face. He went to bed, the bottle still in his hand. I went over to my mother, who was crying and caressing the bruise on her face. I made a plan.

I wanted to change my life.

We sneaked out that night with one medium-sized rattan bag, which carried some of our clothing (enough to last us a week at least), and the money pouch that had all of my mother's wizard money she'd saved from when she was a waitress in London. All I carried was the clothes off my back, my guitar in its case (the only luxury I got myself from years of saving up from my baon, or pocket money, otherwise known as an "allowance"), and my determination to outrun the hell that had become my life.

Unfortunately for us, Jose heard us. Either he was still awake or he was a light-sleeper. Whichever the case, he ran after us, yelling bloody murder. My mother and I ran for it. But Jose stopped us before we could get too far; he threw the beer bottle in his hand at my mother, who was tailing me. She got hit in the head. The bottle smashed on impact.

His strategy worked.

I stopped, and ran back to see if my mother was okay.

She wasn't.

She wasn't even alive anymore...

Before I could even accept that fact, Jose had come and grabbed me by the back of my collar. He was cursing and threatening me, I knew, but I couldn't hear him. All I could see was the open eyes and slack mouth of my dead mother.

My dead mother.

Inay.

I couldn't exactly recall what happened next, but I do know this: I got angry. I looked Jose in the eye, and I could see he was suddenly becoming terrified. I was glad of that. I suddenly felt like I was getting bigger, hairier, heavier. I didn't care. I felt good. I felt angry. I felt powerful.

In the next instant, Jose was dead, claw marks scattered all over his chest and face as he lay in a bloody heap on the ground next to my mother.

I felt like I was back in my normal body without any evidence of what I had become to do what I had just done. Like I didn't just become a wolf or something.

I was horrified.

I ran for it.

I took the Knight Bus (my mother had told me about it) to Boston, where I was determined to start over.

Change filled my whole life.

Change was within me.

And by "within me," I don't mean the kind of change everyone else has. I had the rare ability to change my shape, my form. I was, apparently, a shape-shifter. That terrified me. It still does.

I was, and am, determined not to get my emotions overpower me, since that was what triggered my change of shape, which gave me the ability to hold power over my stepfather, the ability to kill him...

America will be a new start. I will be better there. I will be powerful there. Unlike my mother (my poor, poor mother)... And unlike my stupid stepfather... And my frightened father...

I changed myself. I hate change. But this change is for the better.

I'm not an Azuraih. (That was in the past, when I was born.)

I'm not a dela Torre. (I left my stepbrother an orphan. Hopefully, he'll die. He didn't give me the time of day, or help me with arithmetic, a subject he was most adept in. He had the chance to make my life a little better, but he didn't take it. I hate him for that.)

I am now an Allares.

I am an Allares.

Roleplay Response:

The sun was much too bright.

Nilo grumbled, scowling at the sunlight penetrating through his closed eyelids, and rolled from his back to his side, making sure to keep the "pillow"/rattan bag under his head to keep it from banging against the hard, cold metal of the bench.

The bench was cold. The sun was shining. But he didn't want to wake up.

He had to, though. He still hadn't been able to find a job. Honestly, why wouldn't anyone take him?! He was a decent enough guy and, okay, he was a kid, sure, but still!

...Maybe if he looked a bit more presentable, like with a suit and tie, he'd be accepted?

...Probably.

...Unfortunately, he didn't have that kind of money. Or that kind of attire.

The fourteen-year-old sighed and, feeling the harsh cold metal starting to bite at his skin, he grudgingly, slowly, sat up on the bench, straining his lead-like eyes to open.

He closed them immediately. He was used to sunlight in the Philippines, but he always hated that freaking sun. He didn't know why yet; he just did. He's going to find an answer, though. Soon.

Groaning, he rolled his head, hearing the satisfying crack and pop of his neck bones as he massaged his nape with a hand, trying to assuage the sore muscles. Sleeping on a bench wasn't too different from sleeping with only a thin rattan mat between your body and the ground. The only difference was that it was metal, and it was higher than a rattan mat.

He'd gotten used to the rattan mat, for sleeping on it his whole life. But he had yet to get used to the bench.

Stupid metallic bench.

"You!"

Another groan, this time of exasperation. It took all his willpower to open his eyes again. Pools of dark brown stared hazily at the world, before focusing, sharpening... and spotted a little girl just a few feet away.

He scowled at her. "What?" he snapped. He didn't like these Americans. They were taller than him. It was highly annoying.

"...Do you want to play?"

His scowl deepened and he dropped his hand to his rattan bag, making sure it was still there, as his other hand drifted over to his guitar case. ...It was still there. Thankfully.

Now. To the girl's question. He didn't know enough English yet, but he could understand the word "play" -- it meant something along the lines of a theater drama show thing -- a palabas. He was all for entertainment, but he disliked acting; he wasn't very good at it. "No." At least he knew that much English.

OTHER
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