Your Nickname: Nutella
Have you read and do you agree to the Code of Conduct?: Yes
Are you over thirteen? Yes
How did you find us and decide to write with us? Other
If you have written other characters here: Yes
If Yes, list them all: Over a year and a half ago my member name was Nat. I would like to either have that cleaned up or kept inactive now and start afresh. I've emailed a curator with this note already.
Is this a Primary or Secondary Character?: Primary

Full Character Name: Leopold Argent Halpfinger
Character Birthday & Age: October 12, 1994
City & Country of Birth: Darley, Nidderdale, North Yorkshire
Pureblood, Halfblood or Muggleborn: Muggleborn
House & Year: Gryffindor, 6th year

Wand: 12 1/3 inches, maple, dragon heartstring, inflexible and spiraled shaft.

Physical Description: Leopold had grown very fast as a boy. When he was fifteen, he had nearly reached six feet, at sixteen had had passed that by six inches. Now though it seems that his growing has subsided. He has a slightly gangly all-knesss-and-elbows look about him, though his healthy appetite and tendency to move around a lot is aiding to the fact that he is slowly filling out. He loves the little dusting of stubble that has begun to sprout on his chin and intends to support it until he could achieve the much coveted "ragged" look. His wavy dark blond hair he keeps slightly longer than necessary so that when he isn't attending class and doesn't have to look presentable, he could allow it to go wild. Leopold has blue eyes to match his blond hair, and a rather strong jawline. Despite the fact that he is still boyishly lean, he has full potential to becoming a very masculine man. As is apparent, Leopold cares a great deal about the way he looks. He cannot call himself an artist if he isn't a walking work of art himself, now can he?

Personality Description: Leopold is a self-proclaimed poet and artist. He loves to agonize over the hardships of adolescents and exaggerates in his tendencies to suffer. He loves drama, whether it is a tragic story of broken hearts, or a comedy or even a thriller - he's in for the ride. Sometimes creating a scene just for the kicks, sometimes butting in where he doesn't belong. Where there is outcry is where he will blossom.

As far as he is concerned, he is a perfect being that cannot be run down. He believes that he is both intelligent, witty and beautiful. In short, he is a narcissist.  However, in practice, he is not quite what he believes he is and while he isn't exactly stupid, there are people who are smarter than him.
Though while his ego is inflated, taking a fall is not something that he won't enjoy -  sometimes he tends to challenge people that are bigger and better than him just so he could lose dramatically. If he discovers people's buttons, he can't resist to press on them, if he has something funny to say, even if it's less than politically correct, he'll go ahead and say it. In conclusion, Leopold flirts shamelessly with life (and girls), adores using sarcasm and is probably the world's biggest idiot. He is not a wimp though.

History:
   Alice Ruegen was a painter of moderate success. Her works had been featured in galleries in Berlin and London, she was doing well enough to live from her art, although the main source of income to her family was due to her husband, Samuel Kent Halfinger, working in a successful international real-estate investment company.
 
   Sadly, it’s sometimes tragedy that shapes an artist’s life and in Alice Ruegen’s case, her success. During an exhibition in a gallery in Frankfurt, at the age of 30, she collapsed with a stroke that was caused by a blood-clotting abnormality. After rehabilitation, Alice managed to return to normal life, although the doctor strongly advised her to avoid stress and under no circumstances should she have anymore children.

   The Halpfinger family moved from their busy London life to Alice’s great aunt’s home in north Yorkshire. Her dramatic fall in Frankfurt created an onslaught of interest in her work and one of her paintings was featured in a museum in Milan. Two years later, however, at the very hight of her career, Alice discovered she was pregnant. Knowing that due to her health she would have to abort the baby, she stopped taking the anti blood clotting medication and hid the truth from her husband until it was too late.

   Leopold was born in the autumn when the rain was hammering violently outside. It was a sad birth, a long and frightening one. The first stroke happened three months later, the next one just a day after Leopold’s first birthday and the last one another five months after that. Following these strokes, for four years Alice remained conscious, but was capable of moving only her eyes. She finally died when Leopold was five.

   He grew up this way, without being able to feel his mother’s love yet bearing the blame for her death. There was an ever-present rapture between his two older siblings and himself, one that their father could not mend. He was the odd one out, the outsider of their family. As a boy, even when he tried to be good, he was bad. Bad to the bone.

   At least he had his loves. From the very first moment a crayon fell into his pudgy infant hands, art burned in his soul. He gravitated towards it, towards discovering himself through it, towards coming closer to the mother that never had the arms to hold him. He was the first in many years to disturb the dust in her old studio, the first to discover her old oils, to understand the materials and the only one who saw and appreciated her unfinished works.

   Nidderdale had very few options when it came to education after primary school. It was clear that Leopold would study the arts in a boarding school. He had been counting the days, the minutes, the seconds till he would go away. It had been unexpected, a shock and almost a disappointment when he discovered that the world had more in store for him than merely art. But the numerous advantages that being a wizard could offer soon became apparent to him. And it wasn’t like he could simply ignore the discovery of another world without the normal mundane world. He left for Hogwarts though his family never found out about that.

****

Entries Out of Leopold’s Life:

1994
-Sob.
-"Alice, what's wrong?"
-"I… I'm pregnant."
-"How…?" Pause. "That's… unfortunate."
-Silence.
-Sigh. "Come here. Let me give you a hug." A long silence. Whisper: "I'll make an appointment…"
-"It's too late, Sam. It's too late to take him out."
-"What do you mean too late? Isn't it clear to you that with your health you can't have another -"
-"Seventeen weeks too late, Sam."
-"But the doctor said you can't…"
-Sob
-Exhale. "I'm sure it will be alright, Alice. We'll be fine…"

1999
Black umbrellas against the rain. It feels like night in the daytime. It feels like there are spirits and ghosts everywhere. Scary.
The wooden box is lowered into the muddy ground as Father Daniels says a prayer. Mummy who always slept in her bedroom will sleep in the ground now. It would have been nice if she didn't sleep so much.

2002
Nobody wanted them. Nobody was using them. Why can't I? Francis told me today that it was all my fault, that I killed mummy and that now I even wanted to kill her memory. I didn't. I would have remembered killing someone. But I want her paints. Daddy only bought me watercolors, mommy has oils. Some of them have spoilt, and it isn't my fault. No one was using them for so long. They became all runny. The color went one way, and the oil went the other.

Francis is an idiot anyway. Mummy died because her brain was ill. I'm going to make daddy punish him for what he said. Daddy always gets upset when someone says mummy died because of me. He protects me from Francis and Maggie who hate me.

2009
So this is the house of my youth. It would have made a perfect wizarding house, out here, in the middle of nowhere. The nearest village is Darley, five miles away. We always called it "the old house" because it's been in my mum's family for centuries. It belongs to my great aunt, but since there are eighteen rooms and Auntie is about 500 years old, she doesn't mind us living here.

My parents moved here after my mother's first stroke. Did I tell you that I was born guilty? She suffered several strokes right after giving birth to me and lived five years in a locked-in state. The mother I knew only talked with her eyes.

The old house was once magnificent back in the time, I'm sure of it. But now it's a dump. Mrs. Chevalier has been the housekeeper forever, she's seventy-three and eighteen rooms is no child's play.  Her husband, John, was the gardener. But now that he's dead no one replaced him, so what was once a beautiful English garden is nothing but a yellowing expanse of weeds and wild ivy.

The house is a thorn in the otherwise extraordinary scenery. This is Nidderdale, the most beautiful place in England.

Through the creaking, dusty halls I walk now. It's so disappointing that I still spend my summer vacations here. When I'll finish school, I'll leave Yorkshire and rent a place in London. Maybe a basement, or an attic of some industrial building. The gloomier, the better. Art thrives on a tormented soul.

"Leopold, is that you?" Auntie Syd, my great aunt calls out to me. She's very old and confused; she hardly ever makes sense when she talks. She usually calls me Franklin – I was told that was the name of her son.

"Yes Auntie, it's me." I put on a smile and walk through the open door of one of the rooms. It's the second floor study. Everything is covered in dust sheets, no one uses it. She's sitting on a stiff wooden chair by the dusty window. I guess she wandered in here by accident.

"Why aren't you at school, love?"

"It's summer break, Auntie."

"Is that so? Oh! How the time flies. Summer already?" Her lips move up in what is most likely a grin in her prune-like face. "I am so proud of my dear Leopold, going to a prestigious school for gifted artists. But, why don't they make you an exhibition, duckie? Didn't you say they will? I am anxious to see how lovely your paintings are. Just like your mummy!"

Nobody knows the true nature of my school, not even father. They all think I attend an exclusive establishment for art. Father never wondered why he was never invited to visit the school campus for a parent-teacher conference. I guess he's relieved, he's works in international real-estate investments and is always abroad looking at some building or another, searching for new deals. He wouldn't have had the time anyway.

I smile at Aunt Syd and pat her balding head, "don't you remember, Auntie? There was already one last Christmas. You wore your best blue blouse and said that the exhibition was marvellous."

Auntie knew she was demented, so she played along whenever I made up a memory for her. "Oh yes! Right! It was marvellous. Absolutely gorgeous! My dear Franklin is such a gifted boy!"


Classes:

Core Classes No Charms Defense Against the Dark Arts Herbology No Potions Transfiguration No

Electives No No No No No

How Do You Fit Into Your House?: Five year ago, when eleven year old Leopold sat on the stool and placed the moldy old hat on his head, there was a certain whisper in his mind about the house of Slytherin. Leopold is not an excellent loyal friend, he is not wise and he is also a muggleborn. While doubtlessly, if one disregards his muggle heritage, he could have fitted quite well into Slytherin, the sorting hat had eventually decided that his other qualities, such as boldness and love of adventure, would be a better match for Gryffindor. As the years passed, he became more fitted into the house he was placed in. While back then he had wanted to be better than the rest just for the sake of being better, now his ambitions lie solely in being the most outstanding artist of the magical world.

Writing Sample:
She had long slender legs and long auburn hair. Her tie was striped with yellow and even through the unappealing school robes you could tell that she had a fabulous waist. Leopold's eyes misted over when she pushed a stray lock behind her ear, her gaze focused on the book she was skimming through as she studied.

A truly spectacular specimen, where had she suddenly come from?

He let his quill fall, and aided by a whispered boost from the wand he held underneath the table, it came to land at her feet. He sauntered over, "excuse me?"

She looked up. Oh, how exquisite, she had hazel eyes. "Yes?"

"My quill has – " he paused abruptly, his eyes widening. He stared at her as if forgetting how to speak, "I'm sorry, this may sound strange, but has anyone ever told you that you have the perfect face for a painting?"

"Yes, someone already has."

Surprised. "What?"

She sighed, "you already did, Leopold."

He blinked, "when?"

"When you were a fourth year and I was a third. I'm Agatha Blackwell, don't you remember? You said I'd make a perfect portrait of a piglet."

He remembered an Agatha Blackwell, everyone did. She had been fat, which at the time had been hilarious. "Myyyy…"
He cleared his throat and put on a smile, "well now, didn't you lose weight? You look spectacular."

"Go to hell, Leopold."

She turned back to her books; the library was filled with sniggering. He scratched the back of his head and turned on his heel. His eyes glared out to the room in general, until he found the nearest sniggering student and placed his palms on their desk, leaning forward in a threateningly close manner. "That was funny now, wasn't it?"

There was absolutely no humor in his voice. 

Sum up your character in one paragraph:
An artist, a poet, an actor, a professional sufferer. Leopold is something of a dandy, and loves drama. He is bold, and sometimes a jerk. Although he isn't extremely clever, he does use sarcasm on a regular basis. He has a group of friends that have stuck with him throughout the years despite his poor personality. What he wants most out of life, besides to experience angst in every possible form is to be the magical world's greatest painter.