Hogwarts School: A Harry Potter RPG

CHARACTER INFORMATION

Character Name: Solas Zaleos, also known as Sol
Gender: Male
Age: Old
Blood Status: Squib

Education:
Professor of Psychology, with published research papers as well as books in both the muggle- and wizarding world.

Residence:
Homeless, always on the move, but can often be found in Knockturn Alley

Occupation:
Beggar & Drunkard

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.

Requested Magic Levels:

• Charms: 0
• Divination: 0
• Transfiguration: 0
• Summoning: 0

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:
Geryon Crowley & co

Biography:
Solas Zaleos was the product of ..Well, no one really knows. Perhaps it was a passionate love story - a scandal, not unlike the ones from the great dramas, where a pureblood girl falls in love with a muggle boy, their child is born to their families’ despair and they are forced to give it up and move on with their predestined lives. Or perhaps it was an accident all together - a night of ill judgement, a mistake on their parts, with a result they could not face. The only thing known to Solas himself was that some rainy night he was brought into this world, at a Wizarding Hospital in New York, America, and the woman giving birth to him was a witch.

He was later also told, that quickly after birth, the woman was nowhere to be found - and never seen since. No note. No explanation. And the father? Never mentioned with a word.

It was decided that the child would be sent to the orphanage as soon as possible, but due to being born early, the small boy had to be cared for at the hospital a little longer. And it was in those weeks of helping the cast-away child pull through that mrs. Warmwood, a nurse intern from London, grew quite attached to the little man. After a nightmare of complicated paperwork, where far too many fields were left blank, Solas, as he was named, was adopted by the Warmwoods and travelled back with his new mother, home to England.

*

In the outskirts of Wizarding London, Solas grew up in the Warmwoods’ cottage, with the only parents he had ever known - Margareth and Edmund, and a couple of siblings being born shortly after his own arrival. Through his childhood both Margoe and Ed worked at St. Mungos - she as a nurse and he a potioneer, and it became one of Solas’ favorite places to visit. He knew his parents were doing good - treating and taking care of people.

Winters passed and then came the arrival of Solas’ eleventh. His parents did not expect a Hogwarts letter, as Solas’ was not born in Britain and they had not had him registered for school. We’ll wait, they thought, a year or so more. When his siblings’ letters are due, then we’ll have a word. Sort it out. They had not really seen much sign of his magic yet either, come to think of it, so there was no rush. A quiet boy, he was. Not one to make a fuss. A late bloomer, more likely than not.

*

And so his siblings’ letters came. One for them each. For Solas however, came another letter - one manifesting the beginning of hours upon hours of meetings, consultations and tests. His parents were confused. Bewildered. When facts are lacking there is much room free to build in our imagination, truths fitting to our own desires. But for every day it became more and more clear. Solas was a squib.

He took it well, the child himself. Frankly, were it not for the peaks of frustration that his parents sometimes failed to hide, Solas would have found the situation to be perfectly fine. There was still magic all around him - nothing in his world had changed. He had yet to develop any particular dreams or goals for himself - with or without magic playing a part, and he always knew he was adopted. Different. Seeing his brother and sister both leave without him made sense, in a way. It was okay.

But Margareth Warmwood could not cease to worry. What life would he have here, as a second degree citizen? How would he be treated, going into the sore teenage years? And what life had they perhaps robbed him from, back in America? It stole her sleep. Her calm. And Edmund could not bear it.

*

“It will be grand,” he’d said. A steady hand upon his son’s shoulder as they stood outside of the boys’ boarding school in New York. “This is where you’re from, you know. I mean - not here exactly, but-” Solas gave him a comforting smile. The one he’d always give, when their worries shone through. There was no doubt they had given him their all. More than he probably deserved. More than anyone else had.

And Solas thought about it a lot. Why he was left at birth. Why he was taken in. Why he was not accepted into Hogwarts. Why he was sent to the boarding school in America. Why the other boys there would mock his accent, beat him and pour water into his shorts. Why they stole and ate the chocolate mother would send, and why he could never seem to get the words out when the Headmaster asked about what was going on. All these questions. Human behaviour. The ways of the will and mind. It fascinated Solas to no end.

*

What was probably an instinct of survival became a path of passion. In his early twenties Solas gained his psychiatric degree and began practitioning, as well as continuing research in the field. He proved to be talented and clever, producing great results in both care of mental illnesses and disorders, as well as contributing to new knowledge in the field. He started his career in muggle New York, focusing particularly on the more extreme ends of the scales. Fractured personalities, the significantly traumatized, murderers.. Those not deemed fit to live among others - or lead regular lives. In his late-twenties Solas was a well recognized and praised psychiatrist in muggle America - having published papers and even a book. But a part of him longed for what he had once known as home..

And it brought him back to wizarding London, and the home of his parents, who welcomed him with open arms. There was no animosity to be found, on any end, and his relationship with his now grown siblings quickly slid back into the harmonious rhythm it once held long ago. With such good merits to show to, Solas was offered a position as psychiatrist at St. Mungos - to him a great honor, as a place he had always looked at with awe. A new fascination grew - about the differences and similarities of the muggle and magical mind. The psyche. It made Solas even more curious, more driven to continue his research.

*

By his late thirties he seemed to have it all. A wonderful wife, Ellie, that he met as she worked as a secretary at the hospital, a pair of delightful little twins - Tim and Tilly, and a respectable reputation as a published professor of psychiatry now also in the wizarding world. His eagerness with the pen had led to even more publications and books on the subject of magic and muggle minds - and he even dabbled into a little song writing and poetry in his free time.

In the beginning of his 40s he got the offer of a lifetime. A personal invitation to study, consult and evaluate prisoners at Azkaban. The most dangerous. The most deranged. There was no way he could say no, even when his Ellie begged him to think about the twins. With all his experience from muggle prisons and asylums, this would be imperatively useful for his research. The following years would prove to be the most intense of Solas’ life.

Every now and then he reached through, or so he thought, to an inmate or two. A human, or something close to it. But the surprises never stopped. The new depths, when one could not think it was possible to go any deeper. Darker. Colder. Few things had ever scared the man in his time, but at Azkaban he met, more than once, those who did. Those who would make you feel like a demon would be more reasonable. More compassionate. And it would turn out to be one of those who sent Solas’ whole world straight to the depths of Hell.

*

No one knew who did it. Who it was. Just like with his birth mother and father - like a loop starting over. All he knew was that one day as Solas returned home from being away at work - eager to kiss the three he most loved, he found his home, with all of his life within, burnt down to ashes. Nothing, or no one, was left. And whatever had been built inside of that man through the years - from love and laughter, study and passion, a person and a being.. It all burnt down as well.

*

Winters have passed, but brought no consolation. No answers. Only more questions, burning like melted steel dripping through his skin. Solas wanders the streets of Knockturn Alley with a new name, one he gave himself a dark hour one was needed. If one happened to see him, the sight would be one rather sad - a pale, broken man, drugged down and drunk most of the time in an effort to ease the ever present pain. The only thing left for him in this life is the black cat Marduke that always follows him around. If something can ever get him to sober up long enough to get clear he is a man on a mission. Passion has turned into obsession - a quest for answers. To find the ones responsible. To find out why. But it is a quest so painful, so dark, that it always brings him back down the road of destruction. A desperate search for peace, no matter the costs.

A hollow shell of the once great man, pictured on the back of his books.

---

Roleplay
Option Two -

Roleplay Response:
Another winter, another day. The snow was never a welcomed sight for Solas’ sore eyes, falling from the sky like a bad omen - frozen ashes. It matched his complexion as he slower than most made his way down the alley, heading back to Knockturn. These streets were always buzzing with life, and it drained the last of it from Solas’ soul - but people here could be rather generous, especially in the time leading up to Christman. Days, months.. Whatever it was left.

Marduke’s black fur warmed the man’s pale neck, sheltering it from the worst of the snow as he laid upon the slender shoulders. The cat always paid more attention than his owner - especially considering the man’s- well, state..

If it wasn’t for the fact that most people had their eyes about them and stayed clear of what looked like the walking corpse’s path, Solas would have wandered straight into someone numerous times already - the fact that he was still on his feet was nothing short of a-

With a swoosh Solas’ found himself on his scrawny bum in the middle of the street. It all went so fast that only Marduke had the time to react - quickly jumping down from his owners shoulders, now watching the circus from a comfortable distance.

"For Merlin's sake! I am so sorry! This blasted snow!"

The voice, it sounded so far away - like an echo. Solas remained seated, feeling the world spinning for a moment. “Yes, the snow,” he mumbled, blurred eyes finally searching for the voice addressing him. “Awful, isn’t it.” Words slurred. Looking down to either side Solas evaluated his situation. “I seem to have fallen down,” he established. “Could you perhaps lend me a hand?”

OTHER
How did you find us? The wind always brings me back ♡