History The circumstances of Leopold's birth were quite relevant for him. Kenneth Glass was the only son to Amelia Glass, a woman who married into the Muggle branch of Glass family. Kenneth was a poor man trying to turn his life around when he met Rose, who was his waitress at a diner. The two had a brief fling and she turned up on his doorstep some weeks later, pregnant. They decided neither of them could afford the child and once Rose had him, he was sent straight to the orphanage with only his name: Leopold Tiberius. His mother, apparently, had been an avid Trekkie (Star Trek fan) when she had him, thus burdened him with the name "Tiberius". No one ever figured out why someone would name a child Leopold, but the name was stuck to him and he couldn't get out of it.
He was in and out of foster homes in the Muggle society with no clue that he had come from a lineage that was known to produce witches and wizards. Unlike his name, a family never seemed to like him much. He had no real dreams of his own except to find a family that would love his quirks. Leopold was innovative from the very get-go: he liked to cook, as it involved mixing together odd tastes and ingredients, and some families greatly appreciated this. He even started experimenting with their reactions, doing things to test his boundaries and determine what kind of people they really were. They did not like him poking and prodding into their darker secrets and what he found more often than not was something that rubbed against his nature; coming to a mutual agreement, the family would return him to the orphanage. It was not always the system at fault for him being there so long because once he found out the truth about a foster family, he no longer wanted to be under their care.
Around the age of seven, the Hobbs family, took him in and after much prowling around their files and journals, he was satisfied to discover that there were no shameful secrets. The Hobbs were lenient with his inquisitive nature and were ready to adopt him...until they came home one afternoon and found the furniture floating around the living room! They promptly returned him to the orphanage, scared out of their wits. He received a visit from the wizarding world later that week. The witch was very kind and explained to him (and the head of the orphanage, the matron) what was happening and that he would not be able to control it until he went to school. She informed him that he would be sent a letter around his eleventh birthday and made pre-arrangements with his matron for another visit when he received his letter.
Shortly after his ninth birthday, Leopold found a forever home in the Eldridge family. Like the Hobbs, they had no skeletons in their closets and were upfront with him about everything, just as he was with them...except about being a wizard. They told the matron about their decision to adopt him and on the day they all went to sign the papers, they met the helpful witch. She warned them about his actual heritage. Leopold was certain they wouldn't want to adopt him after learning what he was, but was utterly surprised when they signed the papers anyway.
John and Mary Eldridge were now his parents. He took on their last name, since he didn't have one, and his dad decided to call him "Leo" for short. The family stuck just like his new name! He was given his own room and furnished it with odd trinkets and assorted furniture he'd found at yard sales, allowed to cook as many meals as he liked, and they gave him full freedom to wear what he pleased (they were big believers in "self-expression). Leo was tutored at home until his Hogwarts acceptance letter arrived, delivered by a pesky owl around the time of his eleventh birthday.
The witch showed up at their doorstep only a day later to collect the family for shopping in Diagon Alley and again to lead them to King's Cross Station. Saying good-bye to his parents, Leo boarded the Hogwarts Express to attend school for the first time in his life.
(His hair before the accident...)Leo was a Hat-stall, to say the least. He was an ideal Ravenclaw, but the Sorting Hat saw in him something that no one else could. The Hat hinted that he would be great in Slytherin and Leopold became highly enthusiastic at the idea. Thus, the Sorting Hat placed him in the noble house of Slytherin.
He caught on to Charms and Potions quickly and almost immediately began experimenting. His inquisitive nature had kicked in to overdrive and he became obsessed. He found a Charms book lying around the common room that may or may not have been too advanced for his age and attempted to make his cauldron change colors periodically. Whether it truly was because the spell was too advanced or because of his absolute rubbish luck with magic, no one will ever know. Whatever it was that happened took place in a matter of seconds: there was a loud explosion, spurts of liquid in all colors of the rainbow firing off at random from his wand, and a blinding flash of light that erupted from the shaft of his wand, up his arm, and around him. His entire person started changing colors: his robes, his skin, his hair, all of it! He was rushed to St. Mungo's where he spent nearly a month, his work being delivered via owl post. Leo returned to school after the Christmas holidays, his skin slightly tinged with a pale blue color (which eventually faded), but his hair retained permanent damage: it would forever remain white with the possibility of changing colors.
He did not stop his experiments, however. Having been assigned a simple Sleeping Draught over Easter Holidays, he "accidentally" decided to add an ingredient to his potion. The effect was only slightly less disastrous than his hair and melted his cauldron. Staff was involved, there was a lot of shouting, and for some reason the common room smelled like burnt chocolate for a week. Dreading more experiments, an older student tried to give him books to preoccupy his mind, but Leo wasn't deterred for long. Another charm backfired, but the only side-effect this had was that a nearby cat's fur had been fully removed. Exams came and he had little time for experiments during that stressful time because he was too busy studying. Once exams were over, however, he was found on the lake trying to get a piece of skin off the Giant Squid to add to yet another experimental potion. Sensing danger, the older students hid his boiling cauldron and he only found it (empty) on the last day of school.
Second Year (2007 - 2008)His second year back did not improve his housemates' spirits and this year, it wasn't just his experiments that had become more strange. For three weeks straight, his fellow dorm-mates woke up in the middle of the night to see him scribbling madly in a journal but when they sneaked a peek the next morning, they found that the journal was full of LITERAL scribbles with some rune-like symbols. They searched every rune reference possible in search of what he had written; it drove them to the point of exhaustion. He finally caught up with them in the library with his journal and when they asked him what he'd written, he simply said, "Those are letters upside down. Can't you see them?" And, indeed, upon closer inspection, they were upside down and sideways letters, some written one over another. After that experience, they gave up trying to figure him out.
The older students from the year before that had prevented numerous disasters were back on duty. This year, they would provide him with books on potions experiments in the past in hopes it would better advise him against making horrible decisions. What they did not expect, however, were for him to find loopholes. Throughout his second year, Leo caught the chandelier on fire; cauldrons melted or erupted like volcanoes; a girl's hair became so frizzy that she could shock people five feet away; and his History book read aloud to him. A single success with his experiments spurred him on to continue trying.
Third Year (2008-2009)He was not entirely successful during this year, either, but he did manage to get on a broomstick for a Quidditch try-out (pressured by his peers, no doubt). He was so dreadful that the Quidditch Captain had to ban him from ever trying out again (which was fine by him, honestly!). But Leo didn't stay away from the broomstick. In fact, he was rather curious about the charms that made brooms fly and buried his nose into books concerning the matter. Having only taken Muggle Studies and Care of Magical Creatures, he had plenty of time to obsess and besides lessons, he did not come out of his corner. Finally, Leo emerged around Halloween being completely knowledgeable on the subject (or so he thought. He might have missed a few crucial books...) and was determined to help the Quidditch team win the Cup by applying new charms to their brooms.
They begged him not to! They bribed him, hid the brooms, hid his wand (which they had to give back so he could do lessons, ordered by [regretful] staff members), everything they could to prevent him from tampering with the brooms. But they had forgotten one and he placed a simple charm on it that temporarily gave them a short burst of speed when they said a code word. He demonstrated, using himself as the guinea pig to test-fly it. They were all excited and had almost used it in a Quidditch match until, one afternoon at practice, the broom got out of control and shrank by an inch per minute until the person was forced to land and showed him the match-sized broom in their hand at lunch. He was forbidden from helping the Quidditch team that year.
So he went back to his experiments and this time he got two out of three: a potion that turned your hair silver for an hour, a successful transfiguration of a goblet into a rather silvery rat, and a backfired charm that made excess hair on his body disappear (he was bald, browless, and had no eyelashes or leg or arm hair for a month).
Fourth Year (2009-2010)In his fourth year, Leopold returned with fully regrown hair--though it was still white. The older students that had been supervising Leopold had graduated the previous year which meant very few people could prevent nasty disasters. Fortunately for them, the Tetrawizard Tournament had come to Hogwarts and he was far too preoccupied to do any real experiments. He saved a Durmstrang boy's life and the pair became friends. His social skills improved (just a smidge) and he became better friends with his housemates; they got to know him as a person, rather than as a walking disaster. This only showed them how bizarre he truly was because he would eat all of his food mixed together one afternoon and two days later, not a piece of meat would be allowed to touch his peas or any other foods.
The Durmstrang boy saved his life in return when he had extremely offended a Beauxbatons girl while trying to ask her to the Yule Ball; Leopold narrowly avoided having a Hellaciously-Scolded Female Crises. In the end, he didn't get to do any experiments, but he made quite a few friends and even had a girlfriend...briefly. Like, for a day. Then he dumped her and was hated by several of her friends. ("She wouldn't let me use a charm to turn her hair colors. Can't imagine why...") He was a bit disappointed that he wasn't able to experiment, but he would resume next year.
Summary
"Eccentric", "barking mad", "Successor of Ulric the Oddball", "The Walking Disaster" - all nicknames for Leopold. He does a number of experiments on potions, charms, even magical creatures throughout each year, always trying to get to the root of...something. He has terrible luck with magic and this gets in the way of his talent for it. He is a friendly person that enjoys sharing his experiments and advice (without being boastful or annoying), he has no sense of personal space, and he has an unconventional fashion sense.
Leopold Tiberius Eldridge: Slytherin 5th Year