BIOGRAPHY

Full Character Name: Archibald Jacob Hughes
Character Birthday & Age: 34, December 3, 1975
City & Country of Birth: London, UK
Blood Purity: Halfblood
Alma Mater: Hogwarts, Gryffindor
Job/Position: Cursebreaker/Magi-Anthropologist at the Wizarding Museum of History

Wand: 11 5/7 inch Pine wood with Phoenix Feather, Bendy

Appearance

In general, Archie is tall (about 6'3'' or 190.5 cm) and has an average build, if not a tad on the paunchy side. He has tousled brown curls that range from barely contained to an outright mess, and is generally in some state of unshaven (He prefers a full beard but has been known to shave down now and again). His round face and full lips would give him a baby face except that his droopy blue (sometimes green depending on what he is wearing) eyes and often haggard appearance, thanks to sleepless nights of research, leave him looking older than his years. He will dress up in a simple black suit and tie when he is needed to be professional or formal, but generally lives in jeans and tee-shirts.

Personality

On the surface, many people assume the worst of Archie. Thanks to his general distaste for fashion or grooming, apparent laid-back and lazy demeanor, and pointed, often sarcastic, humor, he is often considered a bit of a loser, especially since his goals in life don't include a big house, lots of money or fame. People often find him a bit strange, perhaps even creepy, when they see that he is rather reclusive and has some pretty strange hobbies. After all, his home is filled with bugs, reptiles, bones, and what looks like creepy medical supplies. It wouldn't surprise many if he turned out to be a serial killer.


But those that know Archie, or at least bother to look past surface appearances, realize that he is none of these. While it is true that he is routinely late, often procrastinates doing things he finds boring and doesn't care much for looking particularly well groomed, he is not lazy. In fact, when he has a task to work on, he is so focused that he loses track of everything around him, and works long and hard with little concern for his own well being. Often times, his haggard appearance is because he hasn't eaten or slept in days, much less put effort into his grooming or clothing. He is actually pretty intelligent, creative and observant, but since he  doesn't feel the need for others approval, he rarely shows these sides of himself. The closest most people get is his sense of humor, which is definitely pointed and usually sarcastic, but always with a little love mixed in. Since he only really teases those he loves enough to observe, this can actually be considered a compliment.


Archie doesn't do 'emotion' exceedingly well, though he tries, and often comes across as heartless at worst and socially awkward at best. Those who know him best know that he is actually quite loving, open and accepting to all walks of life, and actually finds humans fascinating (More on that below). It is just that he doesn't know how to show these emotions well. The only people he has successfully been able to show emotion with is his family, and even then it is difficult for him to maintain it for longer than short bursts. He is reclusive and secretive, and if he isn't allowed to have bouts of peace and quiet to explore his interests, he can be surprisingly surly. Very few have ever seen him lose his temper, but those who have claim it is not a sight they wish to revisit.


Despite his lack of social skills and understanding of the psychological side of others, Archie is very interested in people in an anthropological standpoint. There is little more exhilarating to him than holding a skull of someone who died 1000 years ago and puzzling out this persons daily life from their remains. The fact that he feels more at home with the dead than the living is usually disarming, and a bit creepy, to others but to Archie it's like a spiritual puzzle. He has a similar affection for other creatures that are considered scary or otherwise discriminated against, hence his affection for the reptilian and Arachnoid family.


It surprises many that he is a cursebreaker and a former Gryffindor, neither of which fit his outward appearance and personality. They often can't imagine that he courageous or adventurous enough to brave the dangers of ancient tombs and guardian monsters, and in some regards they are correct (Just not in the way they expect). Archie is not particularly fond of the more dangerous or exciting aspects of cursebreaking (like the aforementioned tomb robbing or monster fighting), but rather prefers the part that comes afterwards, when he gets to puzzle over the remains and loot. However, he is not a coward nor incapable of taking care of himself if he is in these situations. In fact, he can be very stubborn and protective of those ideals, people and things he cares about, and while he doesn't enjoy or look for fights, he doesn't back down from them either. He is also a huge supporter of underdogs and the misunderstood of the world, and doesn't mind being ridiculed for standing up for them. It is these traits that more than likely landed him in Gryffindor as opposed to Ravenclaw.

History

If you ask Archie, he would tell you that he had a pretty typical upbringing, at least in wizarding terms. On a brisk December day in London, he was born to Rhiannon and Tobias Hughes, a muggleborn and half-blood respectively. For the first few years of his life, he was the only child and was subjected to his parents coddling and spoiling. Contrary to most kids, he felt uncomfortable with being in the spotlight and even at the tender age of three, he preferred to be left to his own devices. Thankfully, three years after his entrance into the world, he was joined by twin siblings, Adelbert and Gertrude, and then a few years after them, a third brother named Alfred. These three combined forces with their cousins, Flynn and Audrey, and finally Archie was no longer expected to perform adorable feats for adults to coo at. Unfortunately, as the eldest of them all, he was expected to protect and teach his younger siblings/cousins. This was irritating for a while until he discovered that Bertie was an excellent test subject for some of the more disgusting experiments he conducted, like if dish soap tasted like lemons or if sheep droppings tasted like the raisins they resembled. After that, his relationship with his siblings improved dramatically.

There was some trepidation in Rhiannon and Tobias when Archie entered school in 1987. Both had been in Gryffindor and Tobias came from a long line of Gryffindors. For Archie to be anything but a Gryffie, well, it would be shocking and even a bit shameful. However, their eldest son was not what most people considered Gryffindor material. He didn't seem particularly brave or active, and while he was noble, he was so interested in puzzles and learning that they were sure that he would be in Ravenclaw. Therefore it came as an absolute surprise to them when they learned that he had indeed followed in their footsteps and would be donning red and gold. Though proud, they assumed he simply begged the hat to be put into Gryffindor, in hopes to please them. Archie knew better but didn't bother to correct them. If he did, they might have made him try out for Quidditch or be more social.

Life at Hogwarts was mostly uneventful for the eldest Hughes child. Archie wasn't exceedingly social and didn't like sports, so he didn't have much interaction with his housemates. Instead, he spent most of his time exploring the castle and the many, many tomes in the library. He was in his 5th year when Harry Potter made his appearance, and for the most part, Archie had little interest in the Boy Who Lived besides him being a housemate. Thanks to his fathers bloodline and his general wallflowerishness, Archie wasn't much of a target and spent his time generally hassle free. He does regret having not been there to protect the school during the final battle, but he was in South America on a dig at the time. Thankfully, he had been able to harbor his muggleborn mother during the worst of it, so he felt that he had been at least a little helpful.


After finishing at Hogwarts in 1994, Archie decided to intern at Gringotts in hopes of becoming a Cursebreaker, a dream he had since his first year. He impressed his supervisors early on thanks to the knowledge he had gained after all of those years losing himself in the Hogwarts library and became a full-fledged Cursebreaker before his 20th birthday. His dreams of exploring exotic locals and learning about lost cultures were soon destroyed, however, by the crushing reality of the job. He didn't mind the back-breaking and tedious work, often in hot, dangerous tombs, but he hated the fact that he wasn't sent to learn or to discover a culture as much as locate its valuables and bring them back like some kind of magical repo-man. However, he was a loyal employee who respected his employers way too much to abandon them after what they had taught him. It took him nearly 8 years before he decided to leave and at that point, it had more to do with his personal life than the job.

It was also shortly after Hogwarts that Archie met and fell in love with his first girlfriend, Maureen Dempsey, a fellow cursebreaker. The two were alike in so many aspects that, as impulsive as it was, no one was really surprised when the couple decided to get married six months into their relationship. He was 21 and she was 19 at the time and they had their whole lives ahead of them. Unfortunately, their dreams of exploring the world were waylaid by an unexpected surprise in the form of a baby just a few years later. Tobias Matthew Hughes was born late in 1999 to modest fanfare. Although this meant they couldn't run off to some exotic locale for months at a time, which put a pretty decent crimp in their plans, the Hughes were generally happy with their more stationary and mundane life. At least, they tried to be.

For Archie, Rhiannon and Tobias' divorce a few years later was quite the unexpected, and life changing, blow. It had nothing to do with his father coming out of the closet, as the Hughes children had been taught tolerance for all paths of life early on, but the fact that his parents were not truly in love. It contradicted everything he had come to believe about love and family, and left him so angry and embittered that he made some surprisingly impulsive changes in his own life. Now 28, Archie denounced his parents in a fit of embittered rage, quit his job and dragged his family off to America so he could attend Leavenstrome. There he was placed in Eurditen and studied History, Archaeology and Anthropology.

His time at the institute gave him a new lease on life and opened his eyes to new possibilities. Unfortunately, it also put a serious strain on his marriage. Not only was the move impulsive and rather selfish on his part, since it forced Maureen to quit her job at Gringotts as well, a job she was far more satisfied at than Archie, but she got pregnant again shortly after the move. Gwendolyn Rhiannon Hughes, named for both of their mothers, came screaming into the world in 2004. Since Archie was in school, she had to take care of the kids and work full time, which left her exhausted and desperate for more satisfaction. In all fairness, she held on for nearly three more years before she couldn't deal with having to give up her dreams to take care of not two, but three children (Archie was included).

Archie was heartbroken when Maureen asked for a divorce. He had been regrettably oblivious to her unhappiness and thought that because they were so much alike, their relationship could handle anything. Unfortunately, that was exactly the problem. She wanted the freedom to live the way she wanted and to explore the world, just like he did. His selfishness had forced her into a position where she felt trapped and while Archie promised to do better, it was too late. The damage was done and in 2007, the two officially divorced. They attempted to remain amicable, for the children, and she agreed to stay in the States until he finished school, taking the kids on the weekends so he could study. Unfortunately, she was given a chance to move to Africa and run her own dig, so this negated everything. Archie found himself both a student and a father of two children. Needless to say, it left him with a sour taste in his mouth towards his ex, though he does his best not to badmouth her in front of the children. The following couple of years were exceedingly rough and Archie was surprised he made it through.

If there was one good thing to come from this unfortunate tragedy, it was that Archie finally understood why his parents divorced. People had different interests, dreams and goals, and sometimes, when one person was forced to give up theirs for the other, it caused them to grow apart. His mother loved his father and his father loved his mother (albeit not in the way Archie had always thought), but his father had been forced to live a lie in fear of the consequences. His mother had understood this and that was why the two were still friends, something that Archie and Maureen couldn't seem to work out. Filled with shame at his selfishness, both in his marriage and towards his parents, Archie decided to reconnect and hopefully make amends. So in late 2009, Archie finished what amounted to a Masters degree in Magi-Anthropology and moved back to England. There he reunited with his family, who forgave him with a readiness that made him almost weep with gratitude and shame, and spent the first Christmas with his parents and siblings in nearly 8 years.

Since his return, he has opted out of returning to Gringotts, both because he didn't want to just pillage for gold and because Maureen might also return to her position there. Instead, he got a job at the Wizarding Museum of history, where both his skills in cursebreaking and newfound knowledge of Magi-anthropology could be put to use uncovering exhibits for the museum. Though still hurt and broken hearted over Maureen, Archie has found a satisfying niche in life and is, for all intents and purposes, there to stay.

Career

Describe your job duties and how you go about them:
Cursebreaking is basically the wizarding equivalent of Archaeologists. They break the curses on tombs to discover the treasures within and then break the curses/hexes and other protections on the treasures themselves. Anthropologists study the remains of the deceased to discover their life styles, so a Magi-anthrologist basically studies the remains of wizards for the same purpose. Archie basically takes both the treasures, mundane objects and human remains found in wizarding tombs in order to have a better understanding of the habits and lifestyles of ancient wizards.

Elaborate on your expertise in your field:
Aside from years of studying and generally EE/O's in HoM, Charms, Arithmancy, DADA and Transfiguration, Archie also went and got a degree in Anthropology from Cambridge. Granted it is in muggle Anthropology, but he has been able to use what he learnt there and what he learnt in Hogwarts to create the field of Magi-Anthropology.