About You, the Writer:
We will never ask any member to disclose any personal information.
Your Nickname: (A moniker to identify you, the writer.
 Can be your first name or a nickname.) Nat (Note: English isn't my native language, so I'm sorry if at times my writing is a little off…)
Have you read and do you agree to the Code of Conduct?: Yes I have and I agree.
How did you find us and decide to write with us? Through a friend.
If you have written other characters here, list them all:

Full Character Name: Rain Alistair Miller
Character Birthday & Age: September 5th 1992
City & Country of Birth: Uppingham, Rutland, England.
Pureblood, Halfblood or Muggleborn: Possibly Halfblood (see history)
House & Year: Gryffindor, 5th

Wand:12 inches, Ivy, Unicorn Tailhair

Physical Description:
(Optional list)
Build/Body type: Broad shoulders and long arms, a strong yet flexible build of someone who has spent most of their waking hours climbing trees. While there's no denying it that he's tall, he can still move with silent ease and often is hunched over rather than sticking his chest out proudly. His legs are long and his knees are too prominent, as well as his elbows. He holds every sign of a boy whose body grew too fast for his muscles to follow and is as clumsy as an over-sized puppy.

Estimated Height/Weight: He's quite probably over 6 feet tall, and it's plainly obvious that he weighs less than he should.

Hair color: Blond, he always forgets to cut it on purpose and it reaches his collar.

Eye color: Brown, like chocolate, or mud..... or poop?

Skin color: White, had he lived anywhere other than England where the sun tended to show her face more often, he would have had a nice golden tan.

First Impression: Wild-child, always a mess, nothing's in place, uniform always crumpled, even right after the wash, hair always in disarray. He's always getting dirty somehow too.

Any odd/outstanding features?: Oh yes, his smile. His smile is certainly outstanding. There aren't many people capable of producing a smile that lacks any sort of burden. His smile is the symbol of thoughtlessness and freedom, it really wouldn't matter what he looks like with a smile like that.

Personality Description:  Rain is in constant pursuit of something. What that something is, he does not know, nor does he seem to care. He sometimes acts as if he doesn't have a care in the world. He's always jumping from one thing to the other, always doing something, always occupied with the next thing he'll do.

Around other people his restlessness grows and it gets worse in classes in which he's required to sit still and listen to the teacher drone on. He dislikes reading and writing or doing anything academic, he's more of a practical sort, preferring to try the spell before learning about it. While he's certainly a very active person, he's not big on talking, always saying less than he seems to. He prefers sharp remarks and clever puns over conducting an actual conversation.

Rain has an unusual sense of humor which often happens at the expense of others. When bored, he begins planning something funny, and usually the result is a prank of some kind. Pranking earned him many enemies, which was how he learned how to run very very fast.

Rain is a nature boy, feeling most at ease while outdoors. He communicates well with animals and to the great dismay of his dorm-mates tends to adopt unsightly creatures as his pets (geckos, cockroaches and centipedes...). He has no regard for other people's personal space. He is very much capable of lifting anyone who is smaller than him, licking, biting or sitting upon anyone without warning or reason. It is highly difficult to predict this boy's actions.

Rain likes high up places and is fearless of most things normal people fear, finding extreme situations exciting rather than frightening. He is usually cheerful, yet he could occasionally get extremely melancholy for no reason at all.

History:
"Raaaaain! Raaaain!"

Sally Miller ran through garden, checking under the bushes, her large hips bending the shrubs as she passed through. She was huffing, her round face red and shining with perspiration. She stopped every few steps and called out his name, but the boy never came when called, it was as if he didn't know his own name. He worried her, he was always off in a dream, he was always doing something unpredictable.

Like climbing onto the roof of the house.

"Rain Alistair Miller! You get down here this second!"

As a child, he had been such a sweet thing, golden-capped with chocolate-brown eyes and a lopsided grin that never left his face. Even now, when he showed her his dimples, she folded up. She loved him so, as if he were her real son. But the bigger he got, the harder to was having him around. He waved at her from his perch next to the TV antenna.

How did he get up there in the first place? she wondered. Did he deliberately wish for her to lose her health? It hurt her heart whenever he got into trouble. What devil-spirit was in that boy? He was attracted to danger like a moth to a light-bulb. What on God's earth motivated her son to push the boundaries so? Why was he always standing there, looking Death in the eye?

"What are you doing! Not that way! For pity's sake! No!" with horror she watched as he, with a running start, leaped off the roof.

And landed with a bushy sound on the top of the big oak tree. Sally Miller burst into tears and plopped her humongous bottom down on the floor. She a pulled a kitchen towel from her apron pocket and began dabbing her eyes with it. "I swear to God, boy. I swear to God. One day you'll make me poor heart explode. Don't you even care about your poor old mother?"

"You're not old, mum." He said, as he lightly leaped down to the ground from the lowest branch of the oak, almost cat-like. "I'm sorry, I just had to think and Jimmy was making such a racket with his guitars in the shed that I had to go somewhere quiet."

"You best be getting to church boy." She said, as he helped her, with some heaving, to get back onto her pudgy legs. She eyes him, "but good Lord, look at your shirt. That's your best one and you've got mud all over it! How did you manage to-"

"It's all Mandy's fault; she's having a bad morning. She threw me off and now she's not speaking to me."

"Mandy's… why were you even near that bloody beast when you were supposed to be getting ready for church."

"I told you, I had to think."

"Think? Think? You thinking is like Fanny bringing home a man! Since when do you think, boy?"

"Since…" the boy lapsed into silence and looked away from his mother. Sally knew when Rain was lying, or keeping a secret. He was a handful, but at least he was honest about most things, and a terrible liar. She narrowed her eyes.

"What's that you've got there in your pocket?" his hand dug deeply into his pocket and he took a step away from her.

"N-nothing."

"Rain Alistair." She said, glaring fiercely at him, "what did you do?"

"I didn't do anything, mum, swear." He said defensively.

"You'd best just be out with it, boy."

"But I didn't… it's just… it's a letter I got mum. With the morning mail. It was addressed to me, to my and Vinnie's room, even."

"Show it to me."

The hand Rain had in his pocket closed into a fist and he took a step back. "No." he said.

"Rain, come back here! Stop! Rain!"

But Rain was gone, and oh, could that boy run. He was always running, never resting, never stopping. He was a boy without peace, a boy who couldn't find himself, it was as if the devil was chasing him. Sally went back into the house worried. But she knew, he'd show up eventually, when he was hungry and sick of eating apples which he nicked off the neighbor's trees, and when he did, they'd get to the bottom of this.

*

Nearly all of the Miller family was sitting round the kitchen table that night, the smudged and crumpled letter in the center of the sphere-shaped table-top. Even though mistreated, it was clear that the paper on which the letter was written was of the highest quality, and the neat and bold writing was beautiful. Such a strange artifact, as if it came from a past world, an old England. The Miller family had ten biological children and one adopted child, everyone was there except Sean, who was married and moved to Oakham and Lily, who was ill and was in bed. But Daniel Miller, the father was there, along with Sally. Fanny, Peter and Harriet had come, even Jimmy left his music and so were Vinnie and Tommy and Jamie and Micheal present.

"It's a crack." Said Fanny, who was the most religious of the family, of the lowest spirits and ugliest face. She was already 30 and still living as close to her mother's bosom as she could possibly get.

"Yeah right, who would waste such good paper on a joke?" asked Peter

"And what kind of joker has nice handwriting." Added Jimmy in an uninterested way, because the only thing that interested Jimmy were his guitars.

"Maybe it's from Rain's birth-parents." Said Harriet and then everyone began talking at once. The Millers were loud and very different from one another, each one going in a different direction. They were like messy weeds that popped out of the ground. And each one was more stubborn than the other. Fanny said that this was clearly blasphemy and that the letter was sent by the devil and had to be burnt. That was when Rain, in tears and desperation, snatched the letter and like a wild bobcat, leaped out the back door and into the night.

He didn't appear for three days and three nights. He wasn't even around the neighbor's yard, where he usually loitered when he was avoiding his family. The local police searched for him, Sally couldn't sleep and the rest of the Millers wandered to all corners of town but came up with nothing. When Rain didn't want to be found, no one could find him.

But he showed up. He got hungry. Sally heard the sound of hooves clopping down the street and knew it was Mandy, who had gone missing along with Rain. She ran downstairs, the floorboards creaking under her unquestionable weight and swung the front door open. Mare and boy were both tired and disheveled. Rain was dirtier than Sally had ever seen him, and he was always getting himself dirty somehow. He said nothing, with his head hanging, and led  Mandy down the side of the house and into the stables.

Sally waited in the kitchen for him, warming up a bowl of soup, she left the back door opened a crack; she knew he didn't like making sound when he was sad. He silently slipped in, a shadow of a boy, and sat down as she placed the bowl before him. He lifted the spoon and let steam rise up into his nostrils before sipping it with a heavy sigh.

Sally sat across from him and let him eat in silence. She had often wondered about Rain, he had been left on her doorstep one night, with a letter that said only a few words:

[/i]

It wasn't signed. She had always wondered, who was he really? Someone had been watching them; someone had known here Rain would be loved, no matter how peculiar he was. He would be their treasure, he was God-sent. But it sometimes pinched her poor heart to see how little she knew about Rain, how much the little boy she raised so adoringly was a mystery to her.

"Nathan Dean is visiting London next week." She finally broke the silence. "I asked him, and he said you could come with him. There was an address in the letter, aye? Of some man who would help you buy your school supplies? Your Da and I will take you to King's Cross on the 1st of September. And we'll find a way to pay for the school. I don't understand this, boy, but there are so many things about you I can never understand, this is probably for the best."
And so, that is the story of how Rain Alistair Miller got to Hogwarts. What happened after that is quite a different story, a very long and different story.


How Do You Fit Into Your House?:
Rain would be the sort of Gryffindor who'd always lose house points, but he'd also stupidly, fearlessly jump in the face of danger. He's bold enough and rarely embarrassed, and lastly, he fits in Gryffindor because he certainly doesn't fit in any of the other houses, he's not loyal, ambitious or smart.

Writing Sample:
Show your character in a scene that illustrates the
 best and worst aspects of their personality. Include action, dialog and thought.
When Rain Alistair Miller had been a wee lad of 11… well, he had never been a wee lad, he had always been a big lad made up of mostly elbows and knees, but when he had, nonetheless, been 11 or so and had ultimately arrived at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the first things he learned was this:

You had to tickle the pear to get into the kitchen.

How he had learned this was unclear, it seemed as if he had picked it up off the air, or had followed his nose and simply knew what to do, but within thirty minutes of his first day at school, he had invaded the kitchens.

And had lived there ever since. Because Rain's body consumed energy, it wasn't his choice, really, it just happened like sunshine happened, and Rain's body needed food to turn into energy. The boy, taller than the rest of the boys his year, hardly slept and spent most of his time outdoors, where he climbed trees and did other un-wizardly things that required strong arms and strong legs, he needed to sustain this life with something.

And even when he had a five-course meal, eating all five courses at the same time, he was still hungry. The elves no longer minded him, they had, upon first witnessing the vast amount of food the lean youth consumed, been thoroughly surprised, but now they let him eat in a corner and didn't ask any questions. He'd eat anything they gave him, always preferred meat over sweets and was a good way to dispose of leftovers. Secretly, the elves called his 'the garbage bin', not that Rain Alistair would have minded if he heard that name being called to his face.
He had been in the kitchen when the Ravenclaw girl with her demanding blue eyes came rushing in, and in a frenzy of bread and fillings, had built herself a sandwich so pretty he wished he could photograph it, and then she came to matter of the pickles, or lack of them and she was raising havoc over the poor elves.
He had seen a girl behave that way before, Martha Denwin, from five houses down the street; she was, on ordinary days, a very nice woman who made the best shepherd's pie in the world. She'd always leave one on her windowsill for Rain to eat. It was when she was nine months pregnant with Ted that she had lost it in quite the same way, not over pickles, but over green peas which weren't in season and poor Howard Denwin got a good thrashing from her.
Pregnant women weren't a rare sight in Rain's part of England, but none of them were quite as temperamental as Martha had been. He looked at his nearly empty plate.
Mum always sent Rain food, it was not a simple task because, being a muggle family, they didn't have any owls. But the wizarding community had solutions for such situations, mum's care packages would always show up, being carried by a weary owl. She couldn't send her famous goulash or her kidney pie, but she did send cookies, and honeycakes and of course, her world famous (well, not world famous, but famous down their street) homemade pickled cucumbers.
One of those sat on his plate; they were fat and juicy cucumbers with just the right amount of crunch. He grabbed a hold of it and bit into it as he watched the scene before him as if it were the telly.
Crunch, Crunch, Crunch.
When the elf scuttled away, he rose from his seat in the corner with the bitten cucumber in his hand. He examined the girl with an inquiring expression, doing what Rain always did and invaded her private space, his nose getting within inches of her face and then, he circled her and even touched her left elbow slightly before he ended his circuit facing her again.
He pointed the cucumber at her, "You aren't pregnant!" he informed with a sunny, dimpled Rain smile.

Sum up your character in one paragraph:

Rain is cheerful, loud, and wild. Always getting into trouble, always getting on people's nerves. Detention and punishment are probably part of his daily routine, and he never seems to learn. He's too unaware of other people's personal space, too dirty, and doesn't get the concept of authority. Yet, even if people roll their eyes and claim that he's hopeless, he's also the sort of boy who would receive a "…but his heart is in the right place…"