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Player's Name: Ros
Are you over 16? yes
Characters Played Here: Rex, Marty, Pan

Character: Sciurus "Squirrely" Typhus Thatch
Series/Canon: Harry Potter OC
From When? Late 1981, after Voldemort is defeated by a baby.
Previous Game(s): N/A

History: Once upon a time, long ago, the Thatches were a prominent pureblood family. However, generations of inbreeding resulted in a high prevalence of "eccentricities" in Thatches. This, combined with poor spending habits, resulted in hard times for the family. In the mid 19th century, the Thatches fell out of prominence and into disgrace. Insanity and eccentricity marked members of the family until they began branching out and breeding with Halfbloods and Muggleborns to survive. Nowadays, most Thatches are Halfbloods, with some exceptions, such as Sciurus’s line. His father had managed to find a Pureblooded witch who wasn’t too closely related to him. Each generation of Thatches has a “theme” to their names; numbers, emperors, colors, animals, instruments, spells (poor Cruciatus Thatch XI had an awful life that ended too quickly, and Genghis Thatch always had a difficult time making any friends due to the fear his name produced). These themed names do little more than ensure that any Thatch child will be teased mercilessly. It is theorized that the Thatches do this to build character, but it’s more likely some sick form of revenge for having terrible names themselves.

Sciurus is the second-youngest of a brood of ten children. His father Octavius was a professional scholar who followed the Thatch family tradition wherein the men would marry a woman of moderate to extravagant wealth and waste away their days trying to discover something to shake the wizarding world (this wasn’t really much of a tradition. Only a few Thatches have ever succeeded in doing this. Sciurus, alas, was not one of them). Octavius’s attempts were for naught, unfortunately, as his discoveries had all been discovered. “Octavius Thatch’s Myriad of Flavour Legumes” turned out to be a grand failure that sank a significant chunk of galleons, but luckily, Sciurus’s mother was well-off, so the failures of his father didn’t take any huge financial toll on the family. They did eat a lot of tinned meat that month, however. Eventually, Octavius settled into earning some small income by becoming a private tutor to wizard children.

The early years of Sciurus’s life were fairly typical for a semi-wealthy pureblood growing up in a semi-secluded home. At one point, his mother had tried to integrate a healthy amount of Muggle technology into the house for the sake of them being able to pass in both worlds; however, the children didn’t take well to that, and electronic devices had a tendency to clash with the rest of the house, and it was soon gotten rid of. Sciurus, for the life of him, couldn’t grasp the necessity of these devices that his mother tried to show him, such the music playing device or the voice relaying device. To her, a pureblood like himself, the inventions were “quaint” and charming, but to Sciurus they were an annoyance. In any case, that phase had only lasted for about a year, and when his eldest brother Xiphias ended up nearly electrocuting himself with the telephone while performing one of his “experiments,” it was decided that the Muggle contraptions had to go.

Growing up in a house with so many other people was always hectic, and it was hard for the few house elves to keep up with the inquisitive Thatch children. Sciurus wasn’t that close with many of his siblings, since they were significantly older than him. Xiphias always treated Sciurus with a vague sort of condescension, insisting that Sciurus would never amount to anything, since he was so “like his namesake.” There were many instances in which his eldest brother would lecture him for hours on end on all sorts of things, particularly basic facts of life. Camelopardalis, however, took to wowing Sciurus with stories of his travels, and would often give his brother scarves. He gave everybody scarves. The brother that he got along best with, however, was Vulpes, who liked to take his brother under his wing and offer him such tips as “If you see a pretty woman, always offer to buy her a drink. To accomplish this, you must always keep a canteen on your person.” Whenever Vulpes had to vanish for months on end to hide from Hit Wizards for some offense or another, it’d always upset Sciurus.

Being the two youngest, Sciurus and his sister Harpsichord often had wacky misadventures together wherein the house elves usually suffered some minor annoyance or pain for the kids’ amusement. While the elves nursed their injuries, it was quite common for the children to sit around and laugh at them. Ahh, good times! Unfortunately, Sciurus and Harpsichord (who was normally called “Harpy,” how cute!) became too attached to each other. Harpy was a viciously jealous girl, and she would purposefully sabotage any friendships her brother attempted to forge with other children.

At the age of eleven, Sciurus followed in the rest of his siblings’ footsteps and received his letter from Hogwarts. Despite his family’s modest wealth, he was treated to hand-me-downs from his brothers and sisters, oftentimes giving him a shabby appearance. When he got to Hogwarts, he had no expectations for which House he’d be sorted into, since the Thatch family had a tendency to be somewhat erratic when it came to sorting. Although most of them wound up in Ravenclaw, there was also a number of Slytherins and Gryffindors in the Thatch family tree. Sciurus was a special case, however, and the Sorting Hat deemed it necessary to place him in Hufflepuff. Nobody really bothered asking him why he was in Hufflepuff; they just assumed that he was weird, even for a Thatch. This upset Sciurus, who felt that being sorted into Hufflepuff was some sort of rejection, that he wasn’t as smart or ambitious or brave as his siblings. This was sort of a self-fulfilling prophesy, as he was simply rubbish during his first two years at school. He was disengaged and disinterested in the learning process, and would struggle to learn anything. During the summer after his second year, however, his father forced Sciurus to sit down with whichever sibling would have him and catch up on his lessons. Because it was family helping him and not some professor, Sciurus felt more engaged in learning, and he caught on quickly. From then on, he performed much better at most of his classes, with the exception of Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures.

During his years at Hogwarts, the forcible separation from his sister (first, by arriving a year before her, and then by the two of them being Sorted into separate Houses) helped Sciurus develop his own independence from her. He made some superficial friends, although he had no friendships that he would consider lasting and deep, due to his inability to forge real bonds with others. Plus, he was frequently teased for his silly name. As a student, Sciurus had a very well hidden vicious streak. While friendly and smiling on the outside, he had a tendency to commit violent and manipulative acts without actually feeling the emotions (such as guilt or disgust) commonly associated with them. During these years, however, Sciurus never actually hurt anybody outside of the occasional hapless underclassman who knew better than to run off tattling and a few unlucky animals. While at school, Sciurus was pretty unlucky with the opposite sex. His first attempt at asking a girl on a date was during a trip to Hogsmeade in his 5th year, when he offered to get a drink for a Slytherin girl who was surrounded by friends. This resulted in her laughing, since she already had a drink. At that time, Sciurus never understood that rejection, quite simply, was a standard part of the game of romance.

Upon graduating from Hogwarts with mostly average to high marks, he got himself an internship at the Daily Prophet. A few years later, upon being promoted to a real journalist, he met Helen Stuart, a halfblood witch with an interest in dragon wrangling, who ended up working as a photographer after she’d had a violent accident that left her with a permanent limp. It took Sciurus several years before he worked up the nerve to ask her on a date. While honest with her when it came to most subjects, Sciurus never let on his disdain for Muggles, nor his inability to establish real connections with most people. Sciurus adored Helen as a companion, although he was very frigid in the bedroom. Her vivacious personality was infectious, and he couldn’t help but feel happy around her. Yes, things were looking up for Sciurus Thatch!

While he was courting and eventually marrying Helen (the mid-1970s), Sciurus had, in secret, been serving Lord Voldemort and writing pro-Voldemort propaganda under a pseudonym. However, he was not in the Dark Lord’s inner-circle, and was a bit more expendable than the other Death Eaters. He had always been intrigued by such fringe groups, and it was his Uncle Septimus, a Death Eater, who got him involved with the Dark Lord. Septimus, a crotchety old man with very vocal anti-Muggle and Mudblood sentiments, had never been identified or caught by the Aurors, and he utilized his Ministry position to work favors for the Death Eaters, during their first reign. However, about a year after Sciurus was inducted into the Death Eaters, Septimus dropped dead from poisoned tea, which had been prepared by his son (who now, also, resides in Azkaban). Prior to his death, however, Septimus and Sciurus spent much time together, discussing current wizarding affairs. As a Death Eater, Sciurus loved the idea of being able to use his abilities to place himself where he felt Wizards belonged on the evolutionary scale, so to speak. And he truly believed that Voldemort’s new world order can provide a better environment for any future Thatch children to grow up and flourish in.

In 1977, Sciurus and Helen ended up having a daughter, Julia Drusilla, and Sciurus found himself quite taken with the tiny, screaming lump of flesh. He was more than happy to be a doting father and had a tendency to spoil the child. Of course, good things rarely last. In 1980, his dear wife died of mysterious circumstances, leaving Sciurus a single father. Although his cheerful demeanor hasn't been shaken (some described his behavior at her funeral as "flippant"), Sciurus hasn’t really coped with the death of his wife. He has moved on and forged new relationships, but he doesn’t talk about Helen; in fact, he acts as if she never existed.

On October 31, 1981, the Dark Lord fell, and soon after that, the Death Eaters were either arrested, claiming to be under the Imperious curse, or slinking back into the shadows to avoid capture. Once things started to fall apart, Sciurus took Eli's offer to go to New Dodge.

Personality: Sciurus tends to come across as somebody to be underestimated. He’s cheerful, excitable, forgetful, flaky, and (seems to be) slow to understand things. At least, that’s how he behaves in public, which can lead people to believe he’s simple and harmless—in actuality, Sciurus is quite two-faced. Publicly, Sciurus is nice to just about everybody who crosses his path; always eager to start up conversation and listen to their problems, see how they’re doing, etc. He’s just a pleasant ball of sunshine! Sciurus is pretty much always smiling, and he’s a very chatty sort. Even when he’s torturing somebody for the Dark Lord, he’ll strike up pleasant conversation while doing so. Because he can’t establish genuine connections with most people, he doesn’t really understand the emotions of others—and so, it doesn’t really occur to him most of the time that people don’t want to hear about how adorable his baby girl is when he’s setting their feet on fire. He genuinely enjoys his work for the Dark Lord, and takes great pleasure and excitement from it.

Behind the cheerful facade, Sciurus is more of a tempestuous, moody sort. He’s a deeply insecure, neurotic individual. As a not-so-well-to-do pureblood living amongst Muggles in London (although he came from a decently wealthy family, he doesn't have any of his parents' galleons, himself), he’s incredibly insecure about his status in Wizard society, particularly amongst other Death Eaters, as most of them comprise the elite. It doesn’t help that he was also a Hufflepuff, while the great majority of his peers were Slytherin. Nor does it help that he really struggled during his first few years of school, which has led him to wonder if he really is as simple as he comes across. And he has a stupid name, which as resulted in him getting teased for pretty much his entire life (and, since his middle name basically means “disease that causes laziness,” it’s not a very viable option to go by). Being the youngest boy in his family has also caused some issues, since his significantly elder brothers insist on treating him like a dumb child, while his father forgets his name half the time and his mum babies him. On top of that, he detests intimacy, particularly of the sexual kind. This, coupled with his emotionally distant behavior (which he tries to hide behind his cheery demeanor), has caused some strain on his interpersonal relationships-- a strain that Sciurus tends to ignore.

Because he’s rarely been on his own (having gone from living with his billions of siblings, to going to school, to living with his wife, to living with his daughter), Sciurus isn't terribly accustomed to being alone, and he prefers being in the company of others. Oh, he can handle loneliness just fine if he’s, say, at his flat by himself, but after a while, he'll grow restless and frustrated. It's a characteristic that's at odds with his inability to forge true connections with people, but then, Sciurus has always been a somewhat contradictory sort. Speaking of connections, he is, in a sense, in love with his late wife, Helen, and not-so-late child, Julia Drusilla, but not really in a conventional way. He loved (or was at least fond of) Helen as his best friend and close companion, but not as a lover. Julia Drusilla, meanwhile, is seen more as a fun pet and also a friend, but not necessarily a daughter. He loves playing with her, reading her stories, baby-talking, all that. But once Julia becomes older and develops emotional needs that must be satisfied by a father, rather than a friend, he won’t know what to do.

It’s a bit odd for a Hufflepuff to support Lord Voldemort, but Sciurus has his own (quite Hufflepuff-ish) reasons for doing so. Sciurus is something of an idealist. However, his ideals aren’t really in-line with things like… human rights. He hates Muggles, not really for who they are, but for what they represent. He thinks it’s ludicrous that wizards have to hide their society, so as to not “startle” Muggles. As far as he’s concerned, the entire Ministry should be abolished, Azkaban should be torn down, and wizards should be allowed to do what they want, Muggles be damned. Muggles and wizards who promote hiding in darkness like rats, he feels, are the greatest hindrances to the progress of society. How can they ever achieve their full potential if they have to willfully hold themselves back? Although he has no real, specific problem with Muggleborns, he’s quite willing to throw them under the bus with the Muggles. There is a part of him that's jealous of Muggleborns-- well, those who are successful at integrating into wizard society, at any rate. Muggleborns who waltz into Wizard society and are able to take great jobs and make things work out swimmingly for themselves have Sciurus's ire, largely because his own family's a laughingstock, and he's struggling financially. As such, he finds the Dark Lord’s ideals to be more in-line with his ideology than anything else. Although he, quite honestly, believes “blood purity” is nonsense, he nevertheless is deeply loyal and committed to Lord Voldemort. He really, truly believes that Lord Voldemort will bring about the restriction-free utopia he craves, and as such, he’ll swallow his own feelings about other Death Eaters (namely, his annoyance with them for having what he feels are flimsy ideals at best) and do anything to further the cause. He does feel, though, that most Death Eaters are mediocre individuals who coast by on their last names, and so he doesn't hold the highest opinions of them. One on one with his fellow Death Eaters, he may let that friendly mask slip into one of eye-rolling rudeness.

Does your character have any close ties to existing canon characters? As a Death Eater during the first war with Voldemort, Sciurus would be aware of and loosely acquainted with a young Severus Snape. I HAVE RECEIVED PERMISSION FOR THIS. He's also tied to Voldemort, as a Death Eater, but was not in the inner circle, and thus wouldn't be closely associated with the main Death Eaters from the books.

Why do you think your character would work in this setting? Sciurus would've accepted Eli's, offer for two reasons: 1) he needs to escape the authorities after Voldemort's fall and 2) the idea of escaping to a world where he doesn't have to hide his magic is extra appealing to Sciurus's ideals of restriction-free wizarding. He wouldn't be too thrilled with all the Muggles in New Dodge, but as long as they don't get in his way, he'll likely leave them alone. As he's unorganized and a bit off in the head, Sciurus isn't well suited to any job that requires a load of responsibility, but he's capable of getting by on his own, and can likely learn any job he picks up, provided it's not a highly specialized career like working in the research center.

Inventory:
+ A YOUNG CHILD NAMED JULIA DRUSILLA (age 4)
+ Clothes
+ Clothes for a small child
+ Wand (Rowan, dragon heartstring, 12 inches, inflexible. Fuck if I remember what any of this means)
+ Toys for a small child
+ Books
+ BALLPOINT PENS. He refuses to use quills.
+ Notebooks, also parchments. Scrolls. Whatever. He has a lot of paper products.

Samples: And now for the hard part! If you need a prompt for your samples, refer back to the Applications Page.

Third-Person Sample: [From another game, after a mishap with a Time Turner:]

Funny how things could change so much in the span of one month. Well, one month and thirty-odd years. And “funny” in this case, meant “horrifying and depressing.” Today, while he was on his lunch break, he had seen his Julia Drusilla for the first time in, well, thirty years. His darling little girl, all grown up. Oh, she was still lovely, but now she looked so much like her mother that it pained him to see her. Plus, she with some oaf that Sciurus supposed was her, ugh, husband, and she had several children with her. Children! Sciurus was a grandfather at thirty-three! That was just too much for him to wrap his mind around. Thankfully, she didn't seem to notice him gawking at her. Much as it hurt him to leave without speaking to his daughter, Sciurus didn't know what, if anything, he could say to her. “Daddy's home! Give us a kiss!” That'd probably get him knocked in the teeth by her dimwitted husband.

The incident had shaken him, and it'd made the rest of his workday even more unbearable than usual. The monotony, the disgrace of having to answer to twerps he should've been in charge of-- argh! It was enough to drive him to drink. And drink. And drink. But Sciurus had kept his cool; he had other things in mind. No longer would he sit around and resign himself to this horrible future! No, he would get the remains of the Time Turner fixed and return to his own time, the good times! And then he'd warn the Dark Lord about the Potter boy and remind him that “No, you can be defeated by 'love' twice”! And then Potter would die and the Dark Lord would win!

And I'll live happily ever after! That was what Sciurus had thought. The reality of the situation was far more disappointing. After work, he'd Apparated over to Hogsmeade and paid a visit to Dervish & Banges, hoping they could help him fix his “family heirloom.” But no, apparently, Time Turners were just too difficult for the incompetents running the shop. Required “special” work and permission from the Ministry. And the last thing he needed was for the Ministry to get involved. That was what got him into this mess in the first place! So, it was back to “Square One.” It was time to drink and drink and drink! Sciurus had always shunned alcohol before, thinking that it lowered his inhibitions too much, left him open to exposing himself to do-gooding Aurors. However, what did he have to worry about now? Inhibitions be damned! He was going to have some fun!

Unfortunately, it was this line of thinking that had gotten Sciurus kicked out of the pub. Apparently, he'd been too “drunk and disorderly” for the Three Broomsticks. All he'd done was start a fight with a nasty little goblin and throw his pint at intervening individuals. So, here he was. Drunk and standing out in the cold, shivering rather pathetically. Sciurus hated everything. And he wanted more to drink. Hm. He stared out in the distance, appraising the Hog's Head. He wouldn't be too drunk and disorderly for them. Nobody was too drunk and disorderly for the Hog's Head!

Sciurus nodded to himself and started trudging over to the disreputable tavern, then stopped, swaying miserably. It was too far to walk. He didn't want to walk. His legs were untrustworthy. He'd just... Apparate. Yes. And so, he did just that and found himself standing before the heavy doors of the Hog's Head.

”Ha! I can still drink and Apparate!” he declared victoriously, before he was promptly smacked in the face by the opening door and knocked flat onto his bony ass. He rubbed his nose, which certainly hurt, but it wasn't broken (which was good, since it was already big enough).

Well, that was painful. Sciurus let out a weak snarl (had he been sober, it would have been mighty and fearsome. Alas, he was not, so it wasn't) and adjusted his position so that he wasn't sprawling on the ground. He was half-tempted to continue sitting, blocking the entrance, in some sort of drunken act of defiance, but that would've accomplished nothing. And, being a Hufflepuff, Sciurus wouldn't stand for accomplishing nothing! Or... sit... for... Okay, he was losing his train of thought. With a glare, he grabbed the bottom of the offending person's shirt and yanked, in hopes of making them fall to the ground, too. If he had to suffer, so did they!

First-Person Sample: Test Drive Meme! There aren't too many responses in the threads yet, but I believe the top comment meets the required length.