Physical Description:
Tall and thin, Yavin Morgenthau is easy to pick out in a crowd if you're looking for him. He has a sharp, thoughtful countenance given to brooding - and yet it mostly surrenders itself to great animation or laughter. His dark hair is peppered through with white and grey, neatly styled. He wears dark, thick-framed spectacles and sports a white scruff (if not a full-fledged beard at other times).

Yavin dresses immaculately in black, white and grey robes if he must present himself in a professional context. Otherwise he is fond of colourful sweaters, odd patterns, and good looking corduroy shirts.

He tends to look quite put together, which is a contrast to his erratic mannerisms and style of speaking. Yavin enjoys velour bathrobes, fuzzy bed slippers, and silk eye masks.


Personality Description:
A friendly, neurotic sort of man. Yavin has always loved to talk but has a halting, eccentric speaking style that resembles his sprawling thought process. He tends to be politely quiet (with exceptions) on subjects outside his realm of interest - otherwise it’s very easy to engage him in conversation. The wizard leans towards being amiable but will respond to bluntness commensurately. He is a difficult person to walk over.

He loves his work and his passion for it shows. Yavin’s busy mind moves from project to project, with little to distract him from it since his wife passed away. He keeps two owls (as he is always corresponding) and an old Crup.

In spite of his intellectual obsessions, Yavin is a social creature at heart. He believes that growth is incited by meeting new people, and having one’s ideas challenged or reshaped. He enjoys a good, talkative dinner party.

His esoteric tastes can make it difficult for him to make intimate friends. Being a known Legilimens, many acquaintances are often self-conscious about their thoughts around him. Yavin, of course, only uses his skills in a strictly professional setting. Even so... he does enjoy bewildering people.

Yavin is good at playing pretend with children and gets along better with them than with some adults. Outside of his work, he enjoys music and art but doesn’t profess to being particularly cultured on either of them. He has strong moral values and is quite up-to-date on social movements, though he occasionally loses patience where work is concerned.


History:
CHILDHOOD (1941 - 1952)

Yavin Morgenthau was born the youngest son of a wealthy family who lived in a remote area in upstate New York. His father, Marus, was a diplomat at CAWW, holding a high position in their Department for  International Magical Cooperation. His mother, Zsuszanna, was a Head Healer of the floor which was essentially the New York equivalent of St.Mungo’s Janus Thickey ward. Yavin had two twin sisters, who alternately doted on him or bossed him around. With such busy parents, they were free to play games and pursue their interests as children.

Zsuszanna was a strict mother: she instilled a sense of discipline in her family and encouraged intellectual hobbies. Before Yavin left to attend wizarding school, she suggested that he should attempt to read into Occlumency, a skill she had learned in her later years. She acquired it as protection from a mentally ill Legilimens patient, and wanted to spark an interest in her bright son.

ILVERMORNY (1952 - 1959)

Yavin enjoyed his years at Ilvermorny. Being sorted into the house of Horned Serpent came as a surprise to those who already knew him - he was a playful and weird child, hardly the hallmarks of scholarship in spite of his intelligence. It wouldn’t be the first time they were surprised by him. Yavin grew at a startling rate: tall and thin and ostentatiously expressive in mannerisms. He had a quick mind and generally excelled at all his subjects, earning the most praise in Charmwork and Potions.

His summers at home saw him spending a great deal of time with his mother, and, in later years, his maternal grandmother, who was a muggleborn survivor of the second world war from Austria, where Yavin’s family is from. Marus was rarely seen at home and Yavin maintained a friendly but stilted relationship with him. They simply didn’t have the same sense of humour. He graduated from Ilvermony with an excellent record, and no specific ambitions in mind.

HEALER TRAINING + ELDRITCH & PROFANE (1959 - 1974)

Having by now acquired the base elements of Legilimency and Occlumency, Yavin chose to train as a Healer so that he might join his mother at the hospital. Like other trainees he took his turn working on different floors and in different wards. Even after his initial training, he would change floors every few years when he had gotten bored. In his time outside of the hospital, Yavin expressed an interest in experimental magic. He began to consider a change in career but it was at the hospital that he met his future wife - a British witch named Indira, thirty years his senior. She worked on poisonings in particular but they kept on seeing one another even after Yavin left to work for one of the research groups under Eldritch & Profane. He was twenty five years old.

At the age of thirty-two, a fixture at the mind magic research group Cerebrum, Yavin married Indira. They were not conventionally romantic lovers... and yet it was easy to see that they were the best of friends. Her maturity helped to reign in Yavin's ambitions:  even as an Unspeakable in Cerebrum, he had meddled in the work and business of other research groups. He wanted to go in several directions at once but she advised him to take things one step at a time.

So he did, slowly acclimatizing to his focus mind magic. Yavin sought other Legilimens to recruit in his research, trying to understand and lay out a theoretical system that went beyond simply acquiring the ability. He despaired at archaic texts. He wanted to know what else it was possible to do once wixes were able to access one another's most private realms.

TRAVELLING (1974 - 1991)

Eventually, it became apparent that he would have to travel in order to further his research. The Legilimens of the world could hardly be expected to come to America - so he went in search of them instead. Indira, by now in her early sixties, abandoned her Healer post to join her husband in these adventures. They first visited Great Britain, where she grew up, to finally introduce him to her family. It didn't go over well but Yavin did use this time to converse with the one or two British wixes interested in his work.

The years that followed were spent in various other countries. Gujarat, India was home to a temple of locals who specialised in  Dream Magic. Yavin lived in this place for seven years, although he would come and go to visit other communities in the area - or in neighbouring Pakistan. He did not take up residence in the temple itself but lived amongst expatriate wixes in a separate community, due to language barriers as well as the temple's unwillingness to completely accept him into their fold. They viewed their magic as a spiritual extension of themselves. To Yavin, it was an aspect of Legilimency and Occlumency that he was keen to master before exploring.

Post-India, some of his travels led him back to the United States; usually if he had heard word of reclusive communities who dabbled in mind magic. These were only fruitful half of the time but Yavin picked up all sorts of other things along the way. He and his wife became avid players of Wizarding Chess. They dabbled in Runes, clumsily. Were held hostage by a caravan of wizards who didn't like the colour of Indira's skin (or the cut of Yavin's robes).

Other travels brought the couple to South East Asia (an Orangutan Sanctuary that claimed they could read the thoughts of great apes), China (a very old witch whose Occlumency had never been infilitrated), New Zealand and east Europe. But all adventures have to come to an end.

BOOK PUBLICATION & DEATH (1991 - 1996)

Indira passed away at eighty years of age, as a result of illness and a general history of experimental potions. They had returned and settled down in Great Britain, where she spent the last months of her life in St.Mungo's Hospital. Yavin stayed with her until the very end. After Indira drew her last breath, he began working on pulling together a book for publication.

"A Handbook for Legilimency and Occlumency" by Y. Morgernthau also included a succinct world history of the subject, when it was published in 1995. Circulation was limited and there was not a great deal of interest outside of a small group of wixes. It would not be until the early 2000s that the Handbook garnered critical acclaim, with a second edition publication.

O AMERICA (1996 - 1999)

The return of Voldermort. Yavin, still in mourning for his wife and exhausted by work, left the UK alongside many muggleborns. He joined his sister and her family in the US whilst assuming the position of Head at Eldritch & Profane. The change of scenery was good for him. America was full of memories with Indira - but different memories. Younger, sweeter ones. Yavin was an efficient Deputy. He fared better at paperwork than when he had been a young wizard, and the breadth of his travels lent the Agency new energy.

Even so, it did not take long for him to realise that this country no longer felt like home. Once it looked like the political climate in Great Britain had fully stabilised, Yavin wished his family goodbye so that he could permanently settle down in London. 

UNSUSPECTING TUTOR (1999 - 2004)

On returning to England, Yavin's Handbook was beginning to make its rounds in the papers as well as in other studies on Legilimency and Occlumency. He experienced mild celebrity in academic circles, amongst scholars or philosophers, and secured a place in Moonstone Mews. Shorty after he was awarded an Order of Merlin, First Class, for his work in the field of mind magic. His sisters had travelled from America to attend the award ceremony. Awards have never been high on his list of goals but he was honoured nonetheless.

At the height of this mild fame, Yavin became acquainted with Solomon Carstairs at a fundraiser. They were nothing like each other and - in fact - didn't quite like one another. But when Edgar Carstairs mentioned to Solomon that he was looking for a Legilimens to base his new musical on, an introduction was made between the two wizards.

This was how Yavin found himself invited to dinner at the playwright's home, where he realised that the musical was only a pretence. Edgar had wanted advisement and tutorship pertaining to his son, whose sensitive talent for Legilimency was a source of grief. A previous tutor had proven to be an unprincipled man. Yavin was sympathetic to Edgar's plight, although Virgil's unusual abilities was more than enough for him to agree to tutor the boy.

Over the course of the next few years, Yavin would visit their little house in Maida Vale on an almost daily basis. The sessions lasted anywhere from five minutes to three hours long. It was asserted to others that he had become a great family friend (Witch Weekly theorised an intimate friend to Edgar and Angela). To help maintain this image, he developed a public interest in Stardust Theatre. Lessons became less frequent once Virgil grew adept and the two wizards had formed a close bond by the time Hogwarts was on the horizon.

FURTHER TRAVELLING & LONDON (2004 - PRESENT)

With his pupil gone to school in the colder months, Yavin resumed his travels. He decided that he would begin research on yet another book. These trips came in less adventurous forms as those in his youth. During the summers, Yavin returned to ensure Virgil was keeping up with his Legilimency and Occlumency. They officially parted ways in 2006, when he was confident in the young man's skills; he made it clear that his door was always open if Virgil wanted to expand on his gifts. They still exchange cards at the holidays and Yavin attends summer plays at Stardust.

He wasn't as busy, after this, as he had been in his youth. Yavin undertook one to two large projects each year. This could be anything from hard-wearing anthropological investigations, to hosting sojourns for like-minded academics in peaceful holiday homes. Yavin published some of his findings in academic journals but reserved most of his research for his book. What he called a Work-in-Progress.

In August of 2011 he bumped into his old acquaintance Solomon Carstairs once more. This time, instead of unwittingly landing Yavin a student, Solomon drew his attention to the state of the British Ministry's Department of Mysteries. The previous head had been convicted of a terrible crime (one that actually involved Yavin's sole pupil) and the position was temporarily held by Mortimer Gamp's former deputy. Yavin made official inquiries to the Ministry of Magic, expressing his interest in the department.

After years and years of running about, perhaps it was time for him to do some official work and make a change where it could count. He would begin as Head of the Department of Mysteries on the 1st of September 2011.


Describe your job duties and how you go about them:
Yavin is the Head of the Department of Mysteries. He is in charge of overseeing and approving the many different projects/committees on level nine.

At the start of every week, he meets with the heads of different committees or experiments, to go over weekly objectives. They are left to their own doings until the next briefing. Yavin likes to give his Unspeakables a healthy amount of freedom to perform their research. At the end of the week, he meets with his administrative secretary to ensure that all paperwork is in order: budgeting, grants, cover stories.

Yavin's work days are spent monitoring different projects or going over proposals for new ones. He is also actively interested in starting his own experiments and allowing floor-wide participation in them. Yavin encourages playfulness and expressive curiosity in the work environment.

In spite of level nine's traditional secrecy, Yavin believes that it is important for the department to open itself to other floors in the Ministry. He thinks that by closing off Unspeakables, they might be stifling creativity (or worse: stagnating). It is his goal to promote healthy relations with other departments.

Elaborate on your expertise in your field:
Yavin studied and travelled as a scholar, for 37 years. He worked as a Healer before that, and has experience working in research under Eldritch & Profane at two different periods of his life, including as Deputy Head and then Head of the Agency itself.

In the past four years, these are some of the projects he has undertaken:

2010 - Collectively rented a villa in Provence and housed eight other scholarly wixes for six straight months. Various other wixes came and went. He called the gathering both a retreat and intellectual symposium. Witch Weekly called it scandalously Bohemian but it was considered productive by many researchers.
2009 - Three months living in a settlement carved into the Alps, where a majority of the locals are always asleep and cared for by the other inhabitants. The comatose wixes are said to have had their consciousness connected through some form of Mind Magic.
2008  - Joined two other Legilimency scholars in Vienna, where they rented an isolated house and proceeded to test one another’s Occlumency at regular intervals for five consecutive months. They also worked on their own independent projects/experiments in this time.
2007  - Three months spent in a Cambodian fishing village, where many of the locals claim they can ‘understand’ the thoughts of sea life.

Writing Sample:

Sum up your character in one paragraph:
Yavin Morgenthau is the eccentric brain of a wizard who heads the Department of Mysteries. He has lived a long and eventful life, and continues to do so by shaking things up wherever he goes. Although he might seem friendly and forward and well-meaning, Yav isn't a wizard to be underestimated. He is a master Legilimen/Occlumens, with a strong personality and an Order of Merlin under his belt. He is not afraid of risks. Nor is he particularly proud or conceited. If there is an air of creepiness about him, it is only natural of any wix who plays with serious forces in lighthearted ways.

What level is this ability at?: Master

At what age did your character gain this ability?: 16 years old

How did they learn or hone this ability?:
Tutored by his mother in Occlumency, which he achieved at 16 years old. Later, whilst training as a Healer, acquired Legilimency at around 21 years old. He continued to hone it in practice with other Legilimens or by seeking out places in which mind magic has a special focus. See History.

Describe how the Special Ability influences their life.  What do they use it for?:
Legilimency and Occlumency in itself are arts that Yavin studies. He uses these abilities to understand the different ways in which wixes may communicate with mind magic, and how it effects the well being, their individual lives, or their community.

Write a description of what happens when your character is exhibiting this Special Ability: Yavin's use of Legilimency and Occlumency is second nature, at this point. He has become adept at creating mental 'traps' that suffice as safeguards for his thoughts, and he is stealthy when it comes to infiltrating the minds of others. He does not need to use the incantation 'Legilimens' and is capable of reading thoughts without eye contact.

However, Yavin has encountered wixes who are more gifted or experienced than himself. His experience with these people may leave him physically exhausted.

The last Five Years...

Character History 2013 - 2017:
As head of the Department of Mysteries this past five years, Yavin has used his position to encourage innovation and bold experimentation in Unspeakable research. He continues to meddle open the department up to cooperation, by occasionally allowing Mysteries personnel to be borrowed for the projects and investigations of other floors. At times he will also request personnel to join Mysteries, at their discretion.

Starting in 2014, the Unspeakable exchange program[1] has been both a source of excitement and concern for the old wizard. This influx of information from around the world has greatly benefited Mysteries' own research. However: he has found himself having to strike a balance between sharing knowledge and maintaining the department's code of secrecy.

This has been especially trying where the pushy powers of Eldritch & Profane, their American counterparts, are concerned. Events in 2016 and 2017 have given Yavin cause to believe his former employers in the US may have ulterior motives through the exchange program.

In terms of his career in mind magic, Yav often lectures at Knareswick - where he has also been organising a mind magic symposia every year since 2015.

His personal research in Legilimency and Occlumency has turned to Dream Magic. It is delicate work, in which he has taken Virgil Carstairs, his protégé, as a partner. Preliminary research began in 2016 and case studies are due to begin at St.Mungo's in the summer of 2018. The aim of their research is to weave a shared Dreamscape amongst comatose patients, as a way of giving them socialised consciousness. A second chance at different kind of life. It is controversial in certain circles.

Little has disturbed Yavin's social life in these last few years. He has grown closer to Edgar and Angela Carstairs, as their third player. On the whole he is uninterested in marrying again and enjoys his comfortable corner of Moonstone Mews. He hosts the odd dinner for friends, attends the theatre, goes on the odd holiday and meddles in the odd drama.

1.	Plotting thread here