Basic Info
Name: Lyle Beltane Brightham
Age: 15
Gender: Male
House: Ferre
Pet: Two ferrets named Skip and Scamp
Birthplace: Born in Surrey, England, currently Baltimore, MD
Astrological Sign: Gemini
Wand: 10 inches, elm & unicorn tail hair, brittle
Patronus: Unable to produce a corporeal Patronus
Likes
- Attention
- Causes
- Care for Magical Creatures
- Quodpot (though he prefers Quidditch)
- The Scrivener
Dislikes
- Homework/Tests
- Prejudice
- People who call football “soccer”
- Being called stupid
- Potions/Professor Chambers
Personality
Lyle can be a bit hard to keep up with sometimes. He transferred to Magus Grex from Hogwarts during his second year, after his mother died. He was quite unhappy and withdrawn at first, but once he made some friends, returned to his spunky self. The boy is a tireless ball of energy, given to talking really fast, and sometimes his accent makes it hard to understand what he’s saying.
Lyle can come off… a bit dim. He’s the first to admit that he’s pretty hopeless at magic, “practically a Squib”, in his own words, but his problem has less to do with intelligence and more to do with focus. He’s very easily distracted, and really has trouble keeping up with his magical schoolwork. He loves magical creatures, though, and Caring for them is his favorite class by far.
He’s a boy of a thousand causes. He wants to liberate the house-elves, save the unicorns, free all captive dragons, and get legislation enacted to grant half-humans protections, among other things. He’s never without some petition or another to sign, and in spite of his relatively small stature and lack of magical prowess, he stands up stridently for the ideals and people he believes in, revealing the reason he was sorted into first Gryffindor and then Ferres rather than Hufflepuff or Cervus.
During his fourth year, he started a monthy school newspaper called The Scrivener which he produces himself with the help of a small staff of volunteers. His dream is to either become an ace reporter for The Daily Prophet someday, or else start up his own paper in the States if he doesn’t return home.
He’s a first class goofball, though not really one for pranks. He more the type to take really weird dares or mess around with his food at the breakfast table. He’s also a bit of a conspiracy theorist, and retains a subscription to The Quibbler even overseas.
Lyle’s never really had a reason to figure out romance, and he doesn’t mind at all if it stays that way. He’s a bit immature in that regard, preferring male friends’ company, pretending he knows everything there is to know about snogging, and the like. He sometimes wonders if he might be bi, but is usually too busy to really care about that stuff.
History
Lyle grew up in England, born in Surrey and raised in London. Both of his parents were magical, though no one of any real repute. His mother was more or less a housewife, and his father had a minor job at the Ministry.
When he went to Hogwarts, he was a little surprised to find himself Sorted into Gryffindor. He’d never thought of himself as particularly brave. Back then, he’d been even smaller, and never really a fan of conflict. He got on well enough with his housemates, but found himself striving to prove himself in their eyes. That was when he developed a habit for childish antics, learning to perceive laughter as acceptance.
His mother passed away during the holidays of his second year. Both Lyle and his father were devastated by her death, but his father really took it hard. He was lost without her, and wound up losing his job. He had no choice but to return to the United States and live with family there while he pulled himself together.
Lyle had just finally managed to establish himself a bit at Hogwarts, and so pulling up the stakes and going somewhere strange and new only compounded his grief. He hardly spoke a word through the end of his second year, but after the summer, returned determined to make a better time of it.
He fell into his old pratfalls, and learned to rely on his Britishness. His American peers were often curious about the way things were “across the pond”, and so he hammed it up a bit. He gradually started to realize that people liked him better when he was being himself; the problem was figuring out exactly who himself was.
His activist tendencies began when classes started getting tougher. The more and more he fell behind, the more he loved Care for Magical Creatures, and that led him to discover shocking things, like the fact that some companies tested magic on animals, or that unicorns had been hunted to endangerment. He started getting involved, joining letter-chains and movements, reading all sorts of publications, and gradually moved on to wizarding rights and more widespread concerns as well.
He knew full well he could never get into government, not with grades like his, so he decided that he’d become a great journalist, shining the light of truth in the dark recesses of the social order. When someone suggested he start a school newspaper, he lept at the opportunity. At first it was small and very much slanted with his political beliefs, but gradually others joined the project, and he began running gossip columns, advice columns, and even publishing literary and art pieces that were submitted.
Now in his fifth year, he’s positively dreading the O.W.L.s. He has a few friends, and is generally quite happy. He finally managed to get past his aversion to Quodpot, which he considers quite substandard compared to Quidditch, and intends to try out for the team this year.
OOC
Do you know much about the Harry Potter Universe?: DUMBLEDORE IS GAY, SNAPE KILLED DUMBLEDORE
How often do you get online?: The real question is when I ever get offline.
How often can we expect you to be able to post?: Hahaha.
Password: Copper Cauldron