Hogwarts School: A Harry Potter RPG

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CHARACTER INFORMATION
Character name: Gwydion Mayberry

Previous and/or Current Character(s) if applicable: Danae Dryden, Yolanda Ndiaye and others

Character age: 47

Character education: 1936, Sept: Started Hogwarts. Sorted into Hufflepuff.
Did all sorts of stuff during his Hogwarts career, the least notable of which was studying. Editor of the school paper (got fired), founder of a multitude of clubs and societies, mediocre Quidditch player, fantastically unsuccessful duelist; in turns extremely popular due to his sunny nature and deeply loathed for, well, much the same reason.

1943 Graduation

1943, Okt - Dec: Internship with the Ministry of Magic (dept. Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office)

1943, Dec: abrupt termination of internship with the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office

1944 - 1950: various apprenticeships/internships: wandlore, potioneering, herbology et al.

1955, Feb: sold one of his inventions (a semi-magical, semi-mechanical device similar to a musical box that does not only play music, but also makes up new tunes on its own) to a big company, making a small fortune with it. Deposited the gold at Gringotts and basically forgot about it.

1955, June: Severe misunderstanding with the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office. Barely escaped a prison sentence.

1955 – 1958 travels around West Africa

1958, March – Aug: journalist/researcher for Gambian wizarding tabloid The Howler

1959 – 1960 Visit to his home country England, with the full intent to set up a business and become a respectable man; abrupt departure after yet another misunderstanding with the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office

1960 – 1964 travels around Australia, New Zealand, North America and Japan; jobs during this stretch of time include wizarding photographer, circus artiste (with a muggle circus), detective and insurance salesman (success rate: zero sold insurance policies).

1964, Dec: brief stint in England. Hasty departure after realizing that during his absence, some misunderstanding with the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office seemed to have occurred.

1965 – 1969 Travels around North and South America, China, Russia and Mongolia

1969, Sept: Return to England. Bored. Considered alerting the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office to his recurrence. However, in his absence his nephew Leoman had somehow managed to lose a good portion of Gwydion´s money. Hence, Gwydion sets up shop in Diagon Alley and sells his toys there in order to make a living.

1969, Dec: Gwydion abandons his shop, claiming that it´s “tying him down” and “blocking his creativity”. Goes off travelling around the country with a travelling troupe as a troll tamer.

1970 Large portions of this year are spent in St. Mungo´s in recovery from a troll attack, then he´s released into the care of his elder sister and her husband. After a week there he comes to the conclusion that in comparison, the troll wasn´t so bad after all.

1971 Back in London and playing his old games with the MoMAO. Restless and looking for something new to do.

 

Strength and weaknesses (details please): Gwydion is open-minded, curious and eager to learn new things and make new experiences. On the other hand, he´s restless and gets fidgety when forced to remain in one place for too long. Consequently, he hasn´t had a relationship which lasted longer than a couple of years (and that was when he was still in school and basically had to stay put); the relationship broke off not long after graduation, and all following relationships lasted no longer than a few months at the most.
In terms of magical skills, his strength is Charms and his weakness Divination.

Physical description: A full head of hair, grey and curly, is Gwydion Mayberry´s most prominent feature. He is currently trying to get used to the fact that grey has replaced his natural auburn colour, and has once tried to transfigure it back, but it was a halfhearted attempt since he doesn´t really care that much. Gwydion also always forgets to shave and tends to consider himself clean-shaven even if he´s already sporting a beard of several days.
At average height, Gwydion is slim and well-proportioned; this mostly to the fact that he often forgets to eat and is constantly in motion – not doing sports of any kind, but working on all sorts of projects.
The most remarkable thing about him though (apart from the hair) is his smile. He´s almost always wearing one, if not on his lips then in his green-brown eyes, his face changing expression completely when he´s serious, to the extent that people do not recognize him when he´s glum – which he rarely is.

Personality (nice, rude, funny etc. Paragraph please.) Open-minded, liberal, tolerant, optimistic, good-natured, sees the good in people, creative; a libertine and a bohemian, Gwydion doesn´t care much about rules and regulations unless they´re made for the benefit of people (which, he finds, is almost never true of rules and regulations). He gets by due to his charm and the fact that he doesn´t need much; he doesn´t care much for possessions and values the fact that he is able to travel the world as he pleases above all material things. He had several job offers, but declined even the best ones because he loathes being tied to a place. Gwydion does keep a tiny flat in London, but he rarely stays there, preferring to travel around and crash wherever someone offers him a couch, or a bunk, or a spot on the floor really.

Hopes and dreams. Why are you teaching at Hogwarts?: Gwydion is a born teacher. He is very enthusiastic about his subject (and anything that peaks his interest), and enthusiasm paired with a certain degree of skill usually translates to children easily. He´s been playing with the thought of teaching ever since his return to England, but somehow never got round to submitting his application. Also, he´s curious as to how his old Alma Mater has changed since his graduation 30 years ago.

Biography (500 words minimum. There is never such a thing as too much.):

Gwydion Mayberry was born into a magical family with the occasional halfblood or muggleborn (and even, never confirmed rumours say, a squib) somewhere in the family tree. He was the younger of two children, his sister Angela being 13 years older than him.

Gwydion was always a sunny child, curious in more than one sense. As soon as he started talking (and he learnt it faster than most children) he did not stop asking questions. His parents found him to be intelligent, but very demanding to look after; he was never where he was supposed to be, he drove his mother nuts at a very young age by constantly disappearing from her side whenever he saw something interesting that caught his eye - and practically everything did.

They were quite relieved when he was old enough to be sent to Hogwarts, where he was sorted into Hufflepuff. Being a social person, he made friends easily; he ran the school paper for half a term, until a caricature that showed the loathed Arithmancy teacher in a none-too-favourable light got him removed. They stripped him of his editor post for printing the incriminated caricature - had they known that he was the artist too, they might have expelled him altogether.

As a student, Gwydion was torn between brilliance and failure. If he found something interesting, he would plunge fully into it and devote his whole time to that particular subject; most often that would happen in Charms and Muggle Studies. But if he found that something was beside the point, or boring, he made no effort at all, barely managing to scrape a passing grade in those subjects - most notably, Summoning and Divination.

After graduation, his father arranged an internship with the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office. Although Gwydion was not enthusiastic about it, he succumbed to his father´s wishes. It was painfully clear from moment one on that Gwydion and the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office were not compatible in the least. They were a law enforcement unit, and he was a person who did not think much of the legal system in the first place. After a few weeks, following some minor episodes, he was kicked out for possession of an enchanted muggle item, a wristwatch that he had bewitched to tell not only the time, but also the exact age of anyone who came closer than two metres to the bearer. Not only had he enchanted the muggle item, he was also caught red-handed trying to hand it over to a muggle antiques seller. The only thing that saved him from being actually prosecuted was the fact that he hadn´t intended to sell the watch - he had given it to the muggle as a gift, because the man showed genuine interest in it.

That was only the first in a row of unpleasant encounters that Gwydion would have with the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office; after a while, they put him on the list of top suspects who are likely to commit a misdemeanour, and they pay him regular visits to this day. However, rather than regard him as a criminal, they have pegged him for an unguided missile type of person - which is, in their eyes, probably worse, because it makes him less predictable.

After that episode, Gwydion went on to have several internships and apprenticeships - wandlore, potioneering, herbology amongst them; but nothing appealed to him so much that he could imagine doing it professionally for the rest of his life. Until he had an apprenticeship with a maker of magical toys. Gwydion stayed with him until the old man died; the toymaker had not been rich by all means, his shop had to be sold in order to pay off the debts, but he left all his tools to his apprentice, and Gwydion put them to good use, inventing all sorts of new toys and useful (or simply pretty) items. He never opened up a shop of his own though, preferring to offer his goods on the road all over the world. Often, he would take orders for toys and manufacture them on request, but sometimes, if he decided he did not like the customer, he would refuse to hand the item out and keep it to himself.

Gwydion does not make only toys however - he likes to fabricate all sorts of things; among others, he has experience in broom manufacturing, has built astronomy devices and created a special alloy that is used in cauldron-making (specifically for cauldrons used for highly acidic concoctions).

As for his parents, they have accepted his choice of lifestyle, although they still wish he´d finally settle down and find a “real” job, as they put it. His older sister Angela likewise doesn´t approve of Gwydion´s profession, but she liked to have him around for a while because he seemed to be the only one who could, at times, talk sense into her son Leoman. Being only eight years older than his nephew, Gwydion tended to see him as a younger brother rather than a nephew; and therefore, being protective of him, he sometimes infuriated Angela by taking Leo´s side instead of his sister´s.

Gwydion does not keep a shop, but he has built up a solid reputation over the years that has secured him a basic stock of clients. He supplies them with his goods on demand or visits them regularly to present his new collection. And he works all the time on new projects, regardless of whether anyone sent in an offer for that particular item to be produced or not - most of the time, he just does what he pleases, and if someone wants to buy it, all the better. An open mind, a vivid imagination and the desire to explore the limits of the possible lie at the core of Gwydion´s talent for inventing new things. He was never a very powerful wizard (his dueling record is appalling, he was probably the only member of the Hogwarts dueling club who never won a single duel. There is even an entry in his yearbook referring to this fact. Needless to say, he was never fazed by his defeats and participated in duel club year after year - for the sheer fun of it, as he said); however, he is very meticulous and his wandwork is spot on. With Muggle Studies being one of his favourite subjects at school, he is well acquainted with the mechanical side of his trade.

ROLEPLAYING
(Please respond to this in third person past tense. Do not write the other characters' reactions. Only your own.)

The Headmaster of Hogwarts was typically a firm, but reasonable man in most regards. His years as an educator had taught him no small amount of tolerance and patience in dealing with the turbulent teenage years of the most hot-headed, rebellious witch or wizard to grace the castle halls. He was quite scholarly and knowledgeable, albeit a bit eccentric on surface appearances, and his laid back manner usually had an effect on even the most savage beast… err student. In fact, for all intents and purposes, he was the voice of reason in a sea of calamity.

…Except in one very particular regard.

Today was the day he was scheduled to hold conference with the new professor who had just been hired. Normally, such trivial things like appointments didn’'t hold much sway over his daily activities as he marched to his own drummer - sometimes literally when the house elves were feeling musically inclined. However, nothing delighted him more than to engage in conversation with a fellow educator, espousing the virtues of their shared profession along with the rewards of learning in general. And in preparation for a most delightful chat, the tea tray had been polished to glistening radiance while a separate pot of his own beloved kaffe was set off to the side.

To top things off, as no detail was left unattended thanks to his ever faithful caretakers, all sorts of tasty treats had been arranged to curb the hunger of even the most finicky of faculty members. The centerpiece to all of this was a bowl of scrumptious, salty licorice treats to which the Norseman had been looking forward all throughout the morning.

Alas, as luck would have it, just before the start of the meeting Einar had been called away from the office due to reports of excessive owl droppings being sighted in the corridors. It had been a dreadful mess to square away, causing his return to be delayed. Yet upon his arrival, he stepped into the room with a smile to offer his greetings and apologies when suddenly it caught his notice that things were entirely amiss upon his desk. Someone had started the festivities without him!

His glance straying back and forth between the empty bowl and his new employee, a dark scowl is visible on his features as he asks, “"First, it was McStingy and now this! What in the name of Odin happened to my lakrits?"”

By the expression on his features, it is quite clear who he suspects to be the culprit of this dastardly crime. After all, who doesn'’t like salty licorice?

So… how exactly does one handle an irate Headmaster?

Roleplaying Response: Gwydion found it quite remarkable that neither wizards with all their magical power nor muggles with their technology had ever succeeded in building a time machine. Oh, there were timeturners, but they weren´t the same – and a Pensieve could only take you back into someone´s memories, which limited the possibilities of, for example, travelling back to King Arthur´s time and asking Merlin all the questions you´d always wanted to ask him. Although, according to a particular theory, you might have not so bad a chance of encountering Merlin in today´s time… but in this case, of course, Merlin would just be one of many promising young wizards indistinguishable from his contemporaries save for the fact that he only grew younger as the others grew older…
Gwydion shook his head, both to silence his meandering thoughts and in awe of the huge castle looming in front of him. Hogwarts was a time machine in itself, it looked just like he remembered it, as if he´d left it just yesterday and not thirty-one years ago. Rather impressive.
As he was led into the Headmaster´s office, he was relieved to find the man gone on a mission; he had forgotten the principal´s name, perchance he would find a clue to it in this room…

Unabashedly, he went through the man´s desk – which was surprisingly well kept, considering how large a school he had to run – but didn´t find anything, not even a letter with a signature. Shrugging, Gwydion proceeded to scan the books in the room – some of them, he noted with interest, written in Norse, a language he did not speak but could at least recognize, then looked out of the window, taking in the splendid view upon the grounds, and ultimately took note of the bowl with sweets and the drinks set up on the table. Well, that made sense. If the Headmaster always kept his visitors waiting for so long, it was the least he could do to offer them some refreshments to while the time away.

A short while later, Gwydion was just licking the last drops of delicious coffee from his upper lip when a tall man entered the room. Setting the coffee cup back on the table, Gwydion quickly brushed his somewhat sticky hand off on the lapel of his suit jacket (canary yellow, in honour of his old house) and was just about to extend the same hand in greeting towards the man, when he noted the scowl on the other wizard´s face.

“"First, it was McStingy and now this! What in the name of Odin happened to my lakrits?"

Gwydion´s eyebrows shot up at the eccentric welcome. He let his hand sink, as it was becoming apparent that it would not be shaken right now, and followed the Headmaster´s glance to the empty bowl. A smile, almost loving, then bloomed upon the toymaker´s lips, and he turned back to the man with an expression akin to admiration in his hazel eyes, nodding solemnly.

“Exceptionally tasty, my friend. I apologize for having eaten all of them, but I´m sure you understand that I just could not resist. It´s been such a long time since I´ve had any lakrits. Tell me, which kind do you like the most? For me, it´s the black loops… Oh, and the coffee was very good as well, thank you. I think there´s still some left…” Gwydion eyed the coffeepot dubiously; it hadn´t been very full to begin with, and he´d had two cups. But when he lifted it, its weight assured him that there was at least another cup´s worth in there.

“Would you like some?”, he asked cheerfully, completely oblivious to the weirdness of him offering the Headmaster his own coffee… in his own office.

OOC: Will pm lesson plans to Prof. Tibble shortly.