Lukas Altair
 | ||
| Altair | ||
| Biographical Information | ||
| Full name | Lukas Altair, formerly known as Marcus Antares Vega | |
|---|---|---|
| Born | 11 December 1914 | |
| Birthplace | London, England | |
| Deceased | -- | |
| Residence | Muspell, Knockturn Alley | |
| Nationality | English-Norwegian | |
| Blood Status | Pureblood | |
| Education | 1926-29: Gokstad Academy
1929-33: Hogwarts, Ravenclaw | |
| Class | 1933 | |
| Physical Information | ||
| Gender | Male | |
| Hair colour | Dark brown | |
| Eye colour | Blue | |
| Family Information | ||
| Spouse | None | |
| Children | None | |
| Parents | Marcus Rigel Vega, Tiril Eir Vega | |
| Siblings | Catharina Vega | |
| Magical Characteristics | ||
| Wand | Wandless | |
| Patronus | Cannot produce | |
| Special Ability | Wandless, Legilimens (ability lost), Occlumens, Seer | |
| Affiliation | ||
| Occupation | 1947-: Book man, owner of Muspell | |
| Former Occupation(s) | 1935-36: Professor in the Art of Dueling, with Francis Turin, Hogwarts
Lead Researcher, with Esme Faracy, Supra Mortalitas | |
| Loyalty | The Order (1931-), Supra Mortalitas | |
THIS IS CURRENTLY A WORK IN PROGRESS.
All information given here has been roleplayed in the forum. Links are provided at request.
Contents
CV
Teaching
1935-36: Professor in the Art of Dueling, with Francis Turin, Hogwarts
1938-39, 1949-54: Duelling referee, Hogwarts
1939-40: Professor in Theory of the Dark Arts, Beauxbatons
1941-42: C/S Professor, Hogwarts
1949-51: Alchemy Professor, Hogwarts
1952-54: Librarian, Hogwarts
Fall 1957: C/S Professor, Hogwarts
Other
Lead Researcher, with Esme Faracy, Supra Mortalitas
1943-45: Captain, Merlin's Order of Defense
1947 - present: Psychometrist, researcher, and owner of Muspell
(1958 - present: Seer)
Published works
Altair has published a number of books on the topics of Alchemy, Divination and Soul Magic. All of these have been published under pseudonyms.
General description
Altair was born on 11 December 1914 by name of Marcus Antares Vega, as the first child and only son of Marcus Rigel Vega (The Vega Family), a journalist of the Daily Prophet, and Seer Tiril Eir Vega (The Eir Family). Altair spent the first fourteen years of his life living in Norway, and transferred from Gokstad Academy to Hogwarts in 1929. Despite expecting to end up in Slytherin, he was sorted into Ravenclaw, a decision he later came to understand as more right. He has a little sister by name of Catharina Vega, now married to Frank Viggano Jr.
The time warp had Altair experience the skip from 1974 to 1937.
Appearance
Altair is a tall and long-limbed man of 6'2. In his youth, he was an active and outdoorsy sort of student, being muscluar, but never burly. As he grew older, the magical alterations that have been done to his body and soul caused him to become very thin, and as such he is often described as skeletal.
His hair is dark brown, now with streaks of grey, and his eyes bright blue. In late 1957, he aquired the Sight by means of trading his eye with a spirit of the Otherworlds. As such, his left eye changed appearance to a cloudy grey, as though struck by cataract.
Magical strengths
Since the day that he entered Hogwarts, Charms (alongside Potions) was Altair's weakest subject. He has argued that he found Charms too much like a shortcut approach with little room for creativity. While his skill at Transfiguration has remained higher than his Charms level, most of his work since graduation has been focused on developing his main skill of Conjuring/Summoning (C/S) and Divination, which he has since combined in his work on spirits and Alchemy.
Together with the inner circle of the Supra Mortalitas (SM), Altair entered through a ritual of soul alchemy at age eighteen, as lead by Spencer Malthus. At this point, part of his soul was split away to make room for raw magic. As a consequence, Altair also aquired wandless casting. Unlike others of the SM, Altair had little interest in pretending to need a wand, and has never carried one since the day that his old wand burned (which happened in the incident of his faked death, see section on the SM).
By lead of his SM mentor, Francis Turin, Altair was trained as an Occlumens and Legilimens. His affinity for divination was utilised in psychometry as part of the SMs program of aquiring magical artefacts, as lead by Esme Faracy. Altair has since lost his power of Legilimency, which was forcefully taken from him in an exchange with a spirit that brought him his mother's gift of the Sight.
Dark Magic and Politics
Altair was always drawn to the darker forces of magic. The reasons are many and complicated, and linked to his views on politics. A main reason has been Altair's interest in dipping into the unknown in untangling the web that came with his natural, and his aquired, skills of divination.
Key to understanding Altair's approach to dark magic is his understanding of dark and light forces, or good and bad in general. Altair does not believe in the existence of good or bad outside of context, and is highly critical to people's unwillingness to give and make sacrifice.
Part of his understanding come from his dwelling into his Norwegian heritage and his mother's skill at the old art of seiðr. He learnt about the treatment of good and bad in Norse mythology - or, as he sees it, the lack thereof. Like many pre-Abrahamic religions, he found that Norse mythology did not romanticise or aggrandise its deities, but treated them as complex figures of mixed morality. Furthermore, the Old Norse system has been suggested to being one of giving and receiving, making it possible to interact directly with the forces.
As such, Altair argues that the concept of dark magic can be applied randomly to spells and magical subjects (such as divination, necromancy, or the three unforgivable curses, the latter of which are heavily applied by the violence monopoly of the Ministry of Magic), as dependent on the assumed intentions of the caster. This also means that the rules for dark magic can be argued and manipulated according to what seems most fit to the powers at the present moment.
Based on the above, Altair believes the power to define what counts as dark and light magic is one of the most dangerous tools of politics. He finds that the fact that Magical society has always been segregated by blood purity, and that power has always remained with the pure - who, paradoxically, also hold the most interest in dark magic - confirms this idea. Furthermore, by giving the population the impression that they are participating in a democracy, it is lulled into a false sense of autonomy.
Altair identifies politically as anarchist, under its banner of "total liberation". In a political climate where anarchists have been hunted down, alongside f.ex. communists and other socialist political factions, as demonised as both violent and chaotic, this is not something that he often speaks of. Altair understands the Muggle world's way of playing at democracy as a way of keeping the power with the ogliarcs, as a parallel to purity politics in the magical world. However, the magical world carries with it the structural problem of blood purity, on top of the other systematic oppressions of the Muggle world.
While Altair's political understanding has developed a lot in the past twenty years, it was his sympathy for political anarchism that landed him in the lap of its magical equivant of the Order for the Return of All Rights already at the age of sixteen.
Altair uses the original term of maleficia (harmful magic), as applied in the middle ages by an oppressive religious system, to underscore the fact that dark magic is an absurd term that can be applied to any magic that may do harm. The core of his reserach into magic is built on self-experimentation, and he strongly believes in his right to alter his own body and soul in any way that he seems fit. Yet, he has repeatedly stepped out from his own framework of morality to get his goals met, such as in his meddlings with the Supra Mortalitas, in the 1952 incident of performing blood summoning magic in the classroom, and in training Calypso Ross for Occlumency and Legilimency. This sense of the ends justifying the means could be influenced by the raging need to feed the hunger as resultant from the tear in his soul (see section on the Supra Mortalitas).
Altair is known to regularly perform blood magic, which is key to his dealings in the spirit world (see below).
Muspell
Carried by his high skill of divination, Altair set out to combining his C/S skills with divination, and in explore the otherworlds, in particular after the downfall of the SM. Resultingly, he started to make contact with spirits in this world and in others. However, as summoning spirits is a dangerous practice, and the inability to be sure of what would turn up, this practice lead to a series of bad summonings.
Over time, Altair has figured out that certain spirits are receptible to gifts, most commonly that of blood sacrifice (most commonly from his own body). Together with building his skill and a constant use of protective wards, this became key to his gaining control of the spirits that are with him now.
His practice of calling on, and forging alliances with, volative spirits, and of the impossibility of controlling them completely, also lead to the establishment of Muspell. On the surface level, Muspell serves as a library and shop for rare and dubious books, but it is key to the construction of Muspell that it has several levels underground. These are part of a magical seal to lock books, artefacts and spirits in a place where they cannot do any harm.
Altair has a series of magically sealed chambers underground, which is the only place that he can sleep without risking his own spirits trying to attack him. While awake, his magical powers are usually enough to keep them at bay, in addition to the spirits that guard him as a result of their deals.
The Supra Mortalitas
The SRC and the assassination of Turin
Relationships
In his school years, Altair's best friends included Damien Andrada (Gryffindor), Bruce Havard (Ravenclaw), Penelope Wynovain (Ravenclaw) and Edward Howard (Slytherin). He always found it most stimulating to surrounding himself with people that were different from each other, as well as different from himself.
Altair mostly cut his ties to The Vega Family upon renaming himself after his faked death in 1933. His close relationship to Damien Andrada was severed when Altair threw him under the bus following the 1932 attack on Hogwarts school, where Andrada was framed for the alleged murders of Altair's peers from the Supra Mortalitas (SM). Andrada was later released, and they made several attempts to repair the relationship, but the shame was too much to handle for Altair.
Altair's first serious romantic relationship was with his Hogwarts sweetheart, Belicose Razi (Slytherin), at the age of fourteen and through to their graduation. The relationship entered a turbulent phase when Razi got engaged to someone else, on account of Altair allegedly not being considered "pure enough" by The Razi Family (although it is unclear whether he would have agreed to an engagement at this point anyway). In the end, it was him that cut off her, as he went with the SM.
During the SM years, Altair had an affair with Esme Faracy (Ravenclaw). This was mainly based on an intense emotional need for closeness during hard times in long days and nights spent working for the SM. It ended with the resurfacing of Faracy's boyfriend, and later husband, Timothy Vartan (Gryffindor).
Altair's second romantic relationship was with Lieutenant Arminia Meadows (Gryffindor), as they were introduced while serving in the army during the Second World War (WW2). Meadows had photographic memory, which turned out to mix badly with Altair's conscious and unconscious application of Legilimency, and the relationship ended badly after Meadows found out that he had been using his powers on her.
His third romantic relationship was with Ignis Fides Rivers (Ravenclaw). They were first introduced when Altair was a professor at Hogwarts and Rivers a student. Many years later, they met again in Muspell. Their relationship was at first turbulent, as Altair was subject to extreme moods and moments of being outright cruel. After a break of a year, they tried anew, and the relationship turned into something quite beautiful. However, Altair was - for the sake of his own survival - forced to hide his being subjected to the extreme stress that came with the resurfacing of Francis Turin and his project of The Social Reconstruction Committee after WW2. In a conspiracy with the then Minister for Magic, Pryce Hir, they agreed that Altair was the only person powerful enough to end the former SM-leader turned megalomaniac. After the assassination, when Altair was finally free to tell Rivers, she left him on account of moral issues. Until this day, Altair considers Rivers the love of his life.
It has been said that Altair may have some problems with the feeling of being tied down. Although it may be worth noting that he may also have had a strike of bad luck over the years.
Symbolism
BIOGRAPHY
Marcus
Biblical - "Polite, shining." Markus; the Norwegian equivalent of Mark the Evangelist.
His mother had known he'd be a thinker even before he was born, the darkhaired boy that she'd seen in her dreams. His eyes would look up at her, bright and lively, but veiled, intelligence conceiled yet visible in little moments. He had been shy back then, hungrily taking in worldly impressions to construct his own universal interior, the architect of his own dreams and beliefs. Blue eyes looked to the sky and when he was up there it was hard to pull him down. She told him of the stars and the myths connected to them, she told him of worlds beyond, and he'd listen, pointing out cracks in her stories that she'd never questioned and she knew he had the potential to look far.
She knew that she would die before the time came to her, and when she entered the waters it had been because of her own curious stupidity. They'd been the rocks of the family - Tiril Eir and Marcus Antares - and with her gone the heavy responsibility would lie upon the shoulders of a father crumbling underneath its weigh. Marcus would critisize him, never forgive him for it, but always love him, silently.
Latin - Marcus: "Hammer. Mars - the Roman god of war."
The boy had been energetic, participating enthusiastically in the sport of Quidditch from age seven and thriving in it until his last year at Hogwarts School. For the over active mind it was exhilarating to empty one's head for the time being and concentrate only on immediate actions and surroundings as a Chaser and a tactician. The Captaining role fell to him naturally once he started to gather a name in this new place, once he managed to push away the insecurities and portray that confident young man destined to get him further in life faster than he'd expected, and more deeply than he'd known he wanted.
But the wind was only his element as much as it fed his fires. And Marcus was a hungry boy.
Class became a slow business, for the world would never move fast enough, and most of his failures were due to his impatience, for his need to skip ahead even while his friends tried to keep his feet on the ground. His talent for Divination flourished, despite his dislike for the class - he disagreed with the way in which it was taught and the philosophy upon which it was based. Charms and Transfiguration tended to drag behind because their ideas were dry and less stimulating, while the concept of creating something from nothing was endlessly fascinating. But the Ravenclaw also held an interest in everything that was unusual, and books became best friends whenever there were new subjects to explore.
Anything to ensnare the mind of the opportunist.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus - Last of the Five Good Emperors, considered one of the most important Stoic philosophers.
Antares
Red supergiant star in the Milky Way galaxy and the sixteenth brightest star in the nighttime sky. The Cor Scorpii, "heart of the Scorpion", the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius.
He could have been kind, like his father, but the boy was talented, and he was caught by all the little disruptions, all the tiny details that were good, but could have been better. As a leader he shone bright, as was quickly recognized - Captain, Prefect, Head Boy - but while he tried to give them all a chance, to encourage, in his heart he judged them. Still he judged himself the most, the dangerous critic that would always push and push again, until he found himself exhausted - there was always some moutain to climb, some crowd to conquer, some competition to win. And he had to win.
As a student he was always surrounded by friends, people as different as the shades of the earth, and sometimes very poorly matched. It took different personalities in order for the world not to become boring, in order to keep the stream of ideas constant. Ironically, he ended up driving them all away in the mission of finding himself, grinding upon his own insecurities. He was a person of extremeties - his smirks and witty remarks drew them to him, yet the shadows of his hidden pessimism would force him to retreat.
In many ways one could said that in the end he proved himself right, that in the end we're all alone. We cannot rely upon other people, cannot blame them for our mistakes, for we carry the full responsibility of our own lives.
Idividuality became his Law. And perhaps, even among friends, he always felt alone.
Greek - Antares: "anti-Ares" ("anti-Mars").
Vega
The brightest star in the constellation Lyra, the fifth brightest star in the night sky and the second brightest star in the northern celestial hemisphere.
Already in his sixth year came trouble, in the form of the engagement of his purist girlfriend, Belicose Razi. While the Vegas were pureblood, the English branch of a family derived from Spain, spread and dwindled over Europe, it held impurities and had stepped away from elitist pasts. The two chose to stay together for a while, but it was, perhaps, his need to own her that that finally separated them. Once fiercely loyal, he received a blow to his ego that proved hard to repair and again he disappeared into himself and the philosophies that he cradled so carefully. Few were the bonds that could not be broken.
Irony made him less fond of the people around him the more popular he got, yet he was sick for the knowledge, sick for the power. And perhaps he chose his own suffering, for he saw its value, he saw that he would never gain the experience that he wished for if he did not seek out the very things that he feared.
Knowledge would always have its price.
In his seventh year had he already found his crowd of likeminded and developed the strength, or the coldness, to watch his own school be attacked, without lifting a finger to protect them, while he played out a mock fight with his future tutor, Francis Turin.
Upon his graduation in 1933 his death was faked - as he burned down his childhood home and set fire to a name he'd never carry again (for individuality, for independency) - following the deaths of Esme Faracy, of Orion Crow and Sebastian Petrocci. Out of the four three should return, stronger, yet never more damaged.
Arabic - Vega: Loosely translated to "falling" or "landing", via the phrase "the falling eagle/vulture." The constellation was represented as a vulture in ancient Egypt, and as an eagle or vulture in ancient India.
Lukas
Biblical - "Light." Lukas; the Norwegian equivantent of Luke the Evangelist.
Symbolism always stayed strong with the divination talent, he'd always been interested in history, in ancient objects, in everything that was conceiled yet open in the light to see for all who wanted and all who dared. He stayed in the darkness for a year, before he came back out, and the light burned him like the flames that had engulfed him and scarred his soul and his body. And perhaps had been always been shy, but he'd always been greedy, desperate as he realized his own meaninglessness, the way that he was forgotten, the way in which they lived on. He was changed and he was ever the same, but pursuing a game now, a purpose. Yet it was to disappear through his fingers like wisps of smoke - he could not catch the light within his hands and he could not give it back to those that he'd taken it from.
Betrayal came to be connected with his person, shame with his mind. The cold walls of Azkaban prison would stand between blood brothers, while he chose his own name. Reborn, renewed, but never satisfied.
He wanted to pay his price to humanity, but humanity turned away.
The madmen burned their own purpose, and those who didn't go down with the ship would flee.
There was nothing left to lose.
Latin - Lukas: "Light."
Altair
The brightest star in the constellation Aquila [the Eagle] and the twelfth brightest star in the night sky. Is one of the verticles of the Summer Triangle, together with Deneb and Vega.
[November 1974, in RP with Eve Hallows]
"Thirty degrees South of Vega, and one hour and fourteen minutes apart on ascension, you'll find the star called Altair," he said, and why he said it didn't matter. She could call him a nerd. And he could call her one back.
"But I'm all the way down here." Marcus looked at his shoes, blue and white sneakers where black jeans ended, at the muddy ground beneath.
Why did it all matter so much?
"Join me?" It was a request and not a demand. He'd grant her the opportunity to turn him down.
Arabic - Altair: An abbreviation of the phrase "the flying eagle".
He'd always been there, never left - Esme would know, for she could still see him as the child he had been, could probably still conjure the image of him dancing on top of the Ravenclaw Table as they announced him as Head Boy.
And it had always been him, for there was no way that he could imagine himself choosing differently. The world moved one part at a time, and the patterns would be readable, if you had the patience to wait for the appearing picture. Marcus Vega had never been patient though, diving into things as they appeared before him. But his falls had never been graceful, crashing against the ground where he thought there'd be water always bloody and painful.
He liked the shadows, and he needed them.
But the shadows could be frightening, and peace could turn into danger. For he had always loved being the centre of attention, no matter how much he tried to deny it. Maybe if Lukas was the anxious part of him in fear of too much light, then Marcus was the one who would bask out in the sun, all confident and full of himself.
He didn't regret it though. And there were certain things that he wasn't going to quit, no matter how many walls life decided to toss him into.
In the end it was his freedom to be himself that mattered.
"Does it really matter?"
He looked up again, smirking evidently, for she was reading his mind, not only once, but twice. And her question could be put into whichever context he wanted to choose.
He chose them all.
"Of course it matters," he replied, for he would always challenge what seemed obvious, and most of all would he challenge himself. He protested more because he wanted to agree with people than that he wanted to disagree with them. Somehow he thought that Eve would understand that pattern of reasoning, however illogical it might seem to others.
Smirking still, he turned, taking a few steps back into grimy leaves. There was no fun to following paths that other people had created.
He stopped, looking back over his shoulder.
"Are you coming?"
As if they'd been friends forever.
Chinese - Altair is known as the Cowherder Star, known from the legendary love story in which the Herder [Altair] is separated from the Weaver Girl [Vega] by the Milky Way. They are only permitted to meet once a year, when the Milky Way is crossed by a bridge of magpies.
Star Eater
[1938, in RP with Hero Savage]
Fate had always been cruel, unpredictable, pulling a long finger into people's matters to stir up their lives - their deaths, and everything inbetween. He'd been aboard the rollercoaster for as long as he remembered, then he'd reached out his own hand to grab it, separating himself from everybody else in a stunt that in the end left him feeling desparate more than anything. Slipping his palm around that wild wagon hadn't granted him control, only consciousness about the little details that could be moved and arranged - luckily he was good with strategy, with tactics, but this only left him addicted, always, wanting more.
It had been a circus, him and Esme grasping for the only thing seemingly somewhat stable, ironically turning them against themselves and each other. Francis had been a bomb waiting to happen, thrown out once he was showing any sign of wanting to explode. Spencer had never been stable, only cold, and in that way able to keep calm, until that moment he sat fire to everything and ran away. Everyone that ever mattered had stopped caring, and the girls that he'd once had - Belicose was gone, most likely because she didn't want to see him - Esme... Esme had never been his and in a way he had never wanted her.
That was his problem, he never wanted any of them - nor Damien, nor his family. Not enough that he wasn't willing to sacrifice them, always for something greater.
Marcus wasn't willing to sell his freedom for stability.
He might be unhappy, he might be lost, but he had never stepped away from himself, and it was up to others to judge whether that was extremely courageous or just incredibly selfish.
And then, of course, he had to run into people like Hero Savage. Her name implied she should be some sort of Pocahontas figure, the noble barbarian, but she was nothing more but a girl he'd once gone to school with.
He didn't want to see her.
Looking in a different direction, towards a large, steaming machine, he was reminded of how very little he liked places like these, and he missed her stunted reply. The Vegas had never been elitist, but they were ugly these muggles, these people, although no more ugly than the witches and wizard surrounding him every day, if he dared stepping outside of his dark cave.
"You were meant to be dead."
Blue eyes flicked back to her, and she might as well have spat him in the face. There was little comfort in the fact that he'd brought this on himself, for this was exactly why he kept avoiding them, their constantly judging eyes, manners, body languages. People never saw deeper than just beneath their own skin - they were concerned only with what was just in front of their noses, or more importantly, missing from there.
Then again, no matter how much he told himself he'd done it for them all, he knew he'd done it first and foremost for himself.
He wanted to punch walls, but he'd gathered a huge amount of self control in the years of training that Francis had put him under. Still, Marcus had never been a good liar, perhaps because he'd rather see people facing the truth, and there was a fragile layer of poison on top of his words as he spoke.
"You were meant to be alive."
