Your Nickname: sparky
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? RPG Directory
If you have written other characters here: Yes
If Yes, list them all: Jonas, Kurby, Noriko, Gwenna, Aviad, and others.
Is this a Primary or Secondary Character?: Secondary
Full Character Name: Leo Ophiuchus Gamp
Character Birthday & Age: June 6, 1971; 40
City & Country of Birth: Godric's Hollow, United Kingdom
Blood Purity: Pureblood
Alma Mater: Hogwarts, Slytherin; graduated in 1990
Job/Position: Azkaban Prisoner
Wand: Leo's original wand was 13 and a quarter inches, made out of redwood with a unicorn tail hair. It was snapped when he was sentenced to Azkaban.
Physical Description:
In his Hogwarts days, Leo Gamp was known for his good looks. With sharp green eyes, scruffy brown hair, lightly tanned skin, and a winning smile that could make hearts melt, he enjoyed turning heads and basking in admiring attention. He stood an even six feet and maintained the physique of a Quidditch player even when he was putting in long hours on Level Two during the worst of the Second War.
These days, Leo isn’t catching anyone’s eye. Once chiseled and tan, his handsome features are now sharp and angular, emaciated by hunger and harsh conditions. Too many days spent under Azkaban’s torchlight have left him looking gaunt and sickly pale. His hair has grown out too long and his unkempt, ragged beard is peppered with gray. His voice, once deep, sounds cracked and hoarse, hardened by so many years in the prison’s harsh conditions. When he moves, his shoulders are stooped, and there is a jerkiness to his movements that wasn’t there before: a sense that too many emotions are bottled up inside him, right on the verge of exploding.
Personality Description:
Growing up, Leo was bright, smart, and charismatic. His friends at Hogwarts would have described him as charming and confident; his other classmates might have labeled him as cocky or needlessly cruel, but he was never phased by unnecessary opinions. He had something of a magnetizing air about him, a way of making someone feel like his attention was wholly focused on them, and that they were the only one in the whole world who mattered. Bold and self-assured, he had a devil-may-care attitude about rules while growing up, and yet somehow never seemed to suffer any serious consequences for breaking them.
Today, years of imprisonment have seared themselves into Leo. He is bitterly angry – towards the system that locked him up, the society that left him behind, and the wife who abandoned him. Leo clings to grudges and old wrongs like they are a life raft, keeping him afloat through his many years of imprisonment. He has a harder time controlling his impulses now, and often lashes out. After so many long years in Azkaban, the thought of being confined in small spaces makes him feel sick.
Despite what he’s been through, Leo still maintains traces of his old sense of self, but it’s shared with very few – Enid Jingleberry, his lawyer, is one of the few who is still treated to a semblance of the old Leo.
History:
Leo came into the world born on a sunny day in June in 1971. The first and only child of Percival and Clea Gamp, his childhood were relatively pleasant and unremarkable. As the oldest, privileged scion of a well-known pureblood family, Leo’s early life was barely impacted by Voldemort’s first rise to power, although his father was forced to work longer and longer hours at the Ministry. Clea, vexed at having to take care of her home and young son alone, sent Leo to the care of her sister-in-law, Lyra, who had taken up teaching magical children who were too young for Hogwarts.
In 1981, Leo started at Hogwarts. Even as a first year, he seemed to fit right in with his housemates in Slytherin. Bright and competitive, Leo excelled in his classes, and his natural charisma with his professors helped to hide his caustic behavior towards other students. He was known for being charming with his friends and ruthlessly cutting to those who were deemed not to be worth his time, which largely consisted of Gryffindors and Muggleborns belonging to other houses. In his fourth year, he joined the Slytherin Quidditch team as a chaser. He also began hanging out with a group of older housemates who were notorious for their interest in dark magic. Leo seemed to bask in his reputation as a bad boy, picking on Muggleborn students, winning and breaking girls’ hearts, and dancing around school rules while never quite going far enough to truly get caught.
In his sixth year, he encountered a younger Ravenclaw student named Genevieve Garcia. The fiery brunette wasn’t intimidated by him or his friends, and she had him instantly smitten. Bold as ever, Leo asked her to be his date for a Hogsmeade weekend. From then on, the two were nigh inseparable.
Leo worked hard enough during his seventh year to earn himself a place in Auror training – a prestigious enough position that his parents would stop bothering him about his future. He also earned himself a shadow after graduation, as Genevieve was determined to follow her boyfriend into the adult world. Leo and Gen had a tremendous row over her seemingly impulsive decision to leave Hogwarts. It wasn’t until her parents kicked her out and Leo’s parents threatened to cut him off entirely, giving them new forces to unite against, that he fully gave in to Genevieve’s decision.
With one set of NEWTs between them and only an Auror trainee’s salary to live on, the best that they could afford was a half-moldy flat in Knockturn Alley. The years that followed weren’t easy, with plenty of worries over money and fights that seemed to rock their tiny flat so hard that the rickety walls were left trembling, but somehow the couple made it work and came out the stronger for it. Leo made it through Auror training and became a full-fledged member of the Corps.
In 1995, Leo and Genevieve got married. Less than three months later, a boy was murdered at Hogwarts and rumors began to fly that Voldemort had returned. The situation at the Ministry quickly became strained. Leo’s work as an Auror demanded longer and longer hours, and he saw Genevieve less and less. During the little time they had together, he rarely liked to talk about work. His patience with his wife seemed to have grown short, and his temper had quickened.
On May 2, 1998, he apparated home unexpectedly early to tell Gen that he was off to join a battle brewing at Hogwarts. A call had come, and he was grimly determined to answer it. None of his wife’s begging or pleading could deter him from what he saw as his duty.
By the time the sun had risen, Hogwarts was still standing and Voldemort was gone. Leo, exhausted, apparated home to Genevieve.
For a few weeks, it seemed as if everything might return to normal. The Ministry had weathered the storm, and even if Leo continued to work long hours for the moment, there was the promise that It would get better, that his burden would be lifted as society began to get back to normal.
But then one day, he didn’t come home at all.
He’d been arrested. And it didn’t take long for the charges to come out.
Kidnapping.
Torture.
Murder.
No one had thought that Leo could have turned so dark. But then, looking back, his family and friends had to begin to wonder. He’d always seemed to have a chip on his shoulder with Muggleborns. He’d run with the wrong crowd in Slytherin. He hadn’t left the Ministry when the government had fallen.
One by one, during his trial, Leo’s loved ones began to disappear from his side. Even Genevieve, despite his pleading, didn’t seem to believe him. His parents were the only ones who remained convinced of his innocence, but even they mostly seemed concern with saving face rather than fighting for their son.
At age 27, Leo Gamp stood alone as he was sentenced to Azkaban, without any hope of ever getting released.
The years passed slowly. Left alone with nothing except his anger and bitterness, Leo stewed for over a decade. For the most part, the outside world forgot about him. Occasionally, his mother would write or his father would visit, but their mundane gossip and family stories just made him more angry. When his wife came to seek his consent to a divorce, he raged and vindictively refused to cooperate. Even that reprisal brought him only the tiniest bit of spiteful satisfaction. He spent ten years demanding she visit so that he could rage at her some more, but Genny steadfastly refused.
But even that sort of rage could only sustain him so long. Finally, he’d given up, exhausted and bitterly resigned to his fate.
When he’d first gotten the letter from his mother, he hadn’t believed it. Enid Jingleberry sounded like the name of a bad fictional character from an afternoon soap opera on the Wizarding Wireless Network. But then his new lawyer had written to him herself, and the flood gates were flung open.
Now, more than thirteen years after he was sentenced to Azkaban, Leo stands on the verge of having his conviction overturned.
Describe your job duties and how you go about them:
Once an Auror, Leo Gamp is currently a prisoner at Azkaban. His case is due to be heard before the Wizengamot in December 2011.
If he is released, he will have to see where the world takes him. If his conviction is truly overturned, he will likely fight to be reinstated at his former position on Level Two, if only to rub as much salt as possible in still-open wounds. But whether or not that happens will be up to the Powers-That-Be at the Ministry.
Elaborate on your expertise in your field:
A conviction for several counts of kidnapping, torture, and murder during the Second War.
Writing Sample:
Sum up your character in one paragraph:
Since his conviction as a Death Eater in 1998, Leo Gamp has spent the past thirteen years in Azkaban. Bitter and angry, he is now waiting impatiently to see if his conviction will be overturned, allowing him to be released.
Leo Gamp: Azkaban Prisoner