Hogwarts School: A Harry Potter RPG

CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character Name: Naoise Rion Galloway
Gender: Male
Age: 32
Blood Status: Muggle born

Education:
the mean streets of Ireland

Residence:
Type your response here - where does your character live? London

Occupation
Potter, Portkey Creator, Smuggler of Illicit Potions Ingredients

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?
Galloway & Sons Pottery
Requested Magic Levels:
Adult characters have 32 starting levels to distribute across these four categories (less levels can be used if you so desire, but no more than 32). The number of levels on the lowest ability must be at least half of the highest ability.

If you want levels above the usual 32 total, or a significantly uneven distribution of starting levels, please fill out and submit the Special Request form here.
I will be putting in a special levels request

• Charms: 15
• Divination: 15
• Transfiguration: 20
• Summoning: 8

Do you wish to be approved as a group with any other characters? If so who and for what IC reason?
Type your response here.

Please list any other characters you already have at the site:
Withersnap, Fortnum, Lamont, et al.

Biography: (300 words minimum.)

The Crimes of Naoise Rion Galloway

Age 8: Petty theft
Reasoning: food for the table, for Ma and baby Saoirse; the general store could make more money in sales anyways
Result: Discharged

Naoise wiped beads of sweat from his forehead with bruised knuckles, leaning against the rough brick wall of the alleyway. Ma wouldn’t be home from the mill for hours yet, and Saoirse was home by herself in spite of being only 5. And she was hungry, so hungry.

Every cabinet in the house was bare, and he couldn’t stomach the pitiful cries of his sister, even as his own growled with the same pangs.

The rapid sound of running footsteps approached, battering the dusty ground. Naoise pressed himself into the wall, willing himself into invisibility as his eyes turned to the alleyway. He could almost swear that a shimmer of a wall appeared in the alleyway opening, shielding him from view. His breath felt tight in his lungs as the men ran by.

The boy exhaled, sliding down the wall and ignoring the way his clothes caught on the coarse surface. In his pocket, the wad of cash he’d taken from behind the general store’s counter felt flush. It was more money than they’d had in months.

And tonight, he’d go talk to O'Shaughnessy about the prize matches at the boxing ring. Stick thin or not, he was determined. Surely that would take him further than brawn. O’Shaughnessy would give him the benefit of the doubt, he sure. Odds were good the man was his father--surely that would work in his favor.

Ma couldn’t care for two of them on a mill’s salary. Naoise knew he had to take it into his own hands.


Age 10: Illegal Boxing
Reasoning: electric bill 3 months in arrears
Result: Dismissed

Sweat rolled down his brow from the heat of the forge, metal melting and transforming in controlled red-hot chaos. O’Shaughnessy hammered away, soot smeared across his cheek, and Naoise watched from his three-legged stool with waning interest.

He knew he should be paying attention to the man who had agreed to apprentice him, but metal on metal held little interest.

“Why ‘a need ta work when I can make nicker milling, then?”

The older man rolled his eyes, bringing the hammer down again on the red-hot steel. “Ye canny scrap, lad. Ye need a trade. Somethin’ honest.”

But Naoise had little interest in honest if it meant sweating over molten metal all day, leaving Saoirse at home to fend for herself when she was far too young. Only one of them needed to be trouble, and that would be him. Saoirse, she could do better. Would do better.

Age 13: Petty theft, clay and carving tools
Reasoning: unable to procure initial materials
Results: Charges dropped

“Ye don’t need to steal from me, lad. If ye wanted to apprentice, just ask.” The man crossed his arms, looking down at where Naoise sat on the floor in the corner of the throwing studio. Naoise spit, glowering. The man had dropped the charges, at least, so he couldn’t be all bad.

But Naoise was used to muscling and pickpocketing his way through problems, never asking for help.

The man shook his head. “Yer O'Shaughnessy's apprentice?” Naoise nodded, dark hair falling into his eyes. “Don’t blame ye for not wanting to work in the forge. Miserable work, that lot is.”

A smile nearly pierced Naoise’s stony demeanor. It was miserable work. Pottery was messy too, but it was...better. Better than hours spent hunched over anvils, the sound of metal on metal ringing in the ears for hours afterward. It was more delicate, more refined. It was something akin to art, the thing he’d never allowed himself to explore even though part of his heart longed to trap the distant hills and rolling sea in any form that he could tuck into his pocket and admire in safety.

“So, de ye want to apprentice with me, then? Ye can keep what ye nicked, earn it back once yer up ta snuff.”

He considered for a moment before nodding, maintaining his silence.

“Ye can start now, then.”

Age 17: Illegal boxing, gambling
Reason: funeral costs to pay for death of younger sister
Result: six months imprisonment

Every single muscle screamed, louder than the crowd that surrounded the ring. He couldn’t hear them, though. Not over the sound of the blood pumping through his veins, his heart hammering. Naoise tried to keep his focus there, on the sound of his living breathing body and the blinding lights and the charge of winning this blasted match. This had been the day from hell.

In the ring, he could tape his knuckles and channel that anger.

And there was so much, so much, to channel.

His morning coffee had been disrupted by an accursed flying owl dropping another blasted letter in his lap for that wizarding school he still had no intention of attending. He’d found a teacher there, a cadre of wizards and witches, who taught him everything he needed to know. How to manipulate objects to look like something else so he could buy them at a lower price. A potion for a broken bone. A spell to make his sister’s clothes look new.

His sister.

Saoirse. Eternally fourteen.

At least she’d looked proper angelic in that small coffin, which had been lowered into the ground before noon. The letter he’d received that same morning by owl was buried with her. A life of magic, of skills better honed, of a wand made for him and not stolen, all buried too. After all, his reason for avoiding the school had been here--he couldn’t leave her there alone. Now both Saoirse and his hopes of a life somewhere else, somewhere better, were buried.

The funeral had been spare. A pine box. Some flowers cut from the side of the road, their lives ended early too. After the dirt had been shoveled into the grave, Ma had gone back to the mill to finish out her shift. Death or not, the work didn’t end.

He should have protected her better. The thought ended there, though, as a fist connected with eye socket and the world went dark.

Age 24: Smuggling Illegal Potions Ingredients
Reasoning: None
Result: Charges dismissed

It was his first time getting caught. In all the years he’d been smuggling potions ingredients in his vessels, never once had the Ministry sniffed him out. The spells used down the line by some novice criminal had failed, and he had been the one to pay for it.

Naoise gritted his teeth, leaning against the wall of his pottery studio. The place was trashed, pots and jars smashed to bits. Bisque and earthenware in shards, glazes that had once been  enchanted to change colors and hues now upended and dumped, lumps of raw clay ruined by prolonged contact with the air.

His contacts had let him down on this one.

He wouldn’t let that happen again.

Age 27: Smuggling Illegal Potions Ingredients, Evading the Law
Reasoning: Unknown
Result: Subject still at large

England would do.

It would have to do.

That damned Marcus had, once again, tried to set him up to take the fall for a weak concealment spell. That was a lesson, though, that Naoise had learned long ago and one he had vowed not to repeat again. It had been calculated risk; cooperate with the bugger and potentially take the fall if the job didn’t go well, or risk keeping the potions ingredients for himself and getting into blows with Marcus when the buyer realized the good weren’t there.

He’d chosen the latter. He could take on Marcus in his sleep.

His intuition had been spot on, of course. Marcus had proven his weaknesses, and Naoise had exploited them. If it meant he couldn’t stay in Ireland, then that was that. Fate had other plans for him. At least he had landed in London with a cache of dragon’s teeth, pixie wings, mummy powder, and other rare ingredients for potions. It would be enough to set him up proper once he sold them in Knockturn, get himself back to making portkeys and other above-board goods.

There was nothing to keep him in Ireland anyways.

Snuffing his cigarette on the street, he stepped on the smouldering end of it and stuffed his hands into his worn coat.

England would do. And he would too, as he always had.


Roleplay: 
You come across one of these posts on the site. Please select one & reply as your character:
Option Two -
The snow had been falling steadily all morning and it didn't look like it was going to stop any time soon. Joshua Campbell scrunched his face up in a frown as he lifted his gaze to look to the sky. Snow. It really was quite a bother.
And it certainly didn't make it better that Diagon Alley seemed to be getting more and more crowded. Joshua sighed and pointed his wand at the large box that was currently placed on the doorstep of his shop. He had to get going. He had an order to deliver.
"Wingardium Leviosa!" The elderly man muttered and watched the box hover in the air for a moment. Honestly, did St. Mungo's really need that much tinsel? And with glitter of all things? He sighed again. If it hadn't been for the rather convincing stamp on the order, he would have been likely to believe it had been a prank by one of those orphaned rascals living up there.
Oh well, there was no point in waiting. Joshua deftly stirred the box down the doorstep and out onto the street, carefully levitating it above the heads of the crowd.
"Coming through! Coming through!" His voice sounded over the chatter of the crowd. "Keep out! Move ahead! Go on!" This was going way too slow. People were in the way and walking like they had all day! He huffed. Luckily the road was down hill.
"Coming through! Coming th--- arrrgh!" Joshua let out a loud shout as his feet suddenly slipped in the snow and sent him, the box, and several long strands of tinsel tumbling into the person who had been walking in front of him.
"For Merlin's sake!" Joshua muttered angrily as he hurried to his feet again, red and gold tinsel now decorating his black coat. "I am so sorry! This blasted snow!" He looked apologetic at the person he had crashed into.

Roleplay Response:
The cold was bitter, as was Naoise

The chill made his knuckles sore, joints worn beyond their years from boxing and manual labor, and it made throwing on the wheel of his pottery more painful than he cared to admit. The only thing that made the discomfort more tolerable was the proper lass at Mungo’s who had tended to his tender hands with a wink and an agreement to get a pint with him after her shift.

Even that was cold comfort, though, given that Naoise had a portkey to turn out, an urn to make, an enchanted vessel to store more water than its volume, and a pottery class coming up all within the next week. It was too much, and for not the last time he wondered why he bothered at all with any of the above-board work.

Potions smuggling was so much simpler in some regards.

The line of thought was interrupted by a bumbling figure, a man tottering on a collision course with him and a box of unruly tinsel in a losing fight against the ice. Briefly Naoise wondered how the tinsel would react with hot bisque, if it would leave behind ashen lines to show where it had once burned bright and shining.

Better to burn out, bright and blazing, if it meant leaving an impression.

He let the man run into him, bracing himself against the impact. Core tight, he stood as steady as a stone while the man fell to the ground along with his box. Eyes narrowed, assessing the pitiful figure and his apologies.

“Ye always apologize for nature, mate?”

Naoise didn’t. His or anyone else’s.