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All About Johann

Full Character Name: Johann Felix Spectre (né Storm)
Character Birthday & Age: January 28th, 1976, turned 36 years old January 2012
City & Country of Birth: Hanover, Germany, but grew up in Frankfurt with his parents, moving back to Hanover for a few years as an adult.
Blood Purity: Halfblood (magical parents and grandparents either side)
Alma Mater: Durmstrang, graduated 1994

Current Job/Position:

Lead linguist to the British Ministry of Magic's Department of International Magical Co-operation. The role is pretty wide, face to face meetings with those who need help to understand English arriving at the Ministry, translating and checking the understanding of documents, records, supervising interns, helping other departments keep track of foreign visitors.

He was appointed by Department Head, Gabrielle Murray, in January 2009.

"I'd be more than pleased to have you, Joh! Mind you, I would need some paperwork from Hannover & well, I can only put you on part time until the new budget year. It seems Madame Raynor & I are getting more people lately; would you be interested as well in having interns? Like one or two?"

During summer 2010, following the retirement of Augustus Bellingham from the Department, Johann picks up his post as Acting Head of the team, though his frequent disappearances from July until October, and his move to part time for seven or so weeks until November mean that the role is not made official.

While Gabrielle Pepper (formerly Murray) took maternity leave, she assigned Johann as advisor to her Deputy Head of Department, Hester Iravani. The pairing caused plenty of friction. Johann found she was unwilling to take advice, and any attempt to overrule or undermine her further eroded the atmosphere.

Johann supplements his income from this job by working for others on ad-hoc basis. In 2009 he set up an arrangement with Vedir Prideaux to take on his business translation, which kept Johann very busy. By late 2009 it had increased to translating research on dark magic with Landis Morgan, which Johann found particularly stressful.

Reaching the lifts, he caught sight of the time and realised he'd get an earful from someone self-righteous like Kaydn Hamilton for being late - but he didn't give a hippogriff's backside. He'd potentially got a lucrative deal in progress with Vedir Prideaux. It took all his self restraint not to skip through the open golden lift grille.

By mid 2010 the work from Prideaux was waning, and Johann had instead acquired a number of more run of the mill, regular clients including a self-assembling furniture manufacturer. His involvement with the wizengamot and his father's death disrupted his private client work to the point he was down to almost just the furniture manufacturer by September 2010 and his income was waning.

In October 2010, Ira Almasy elected to contract Johann on a more regular basis, citing a favour she owed to Wolfgang. Johann had worked for her briefly before on recommendation from Vedir Prideaux, and jumped at the chance.

"Would the nature of the work be similar to that I have conducted for you before?" He asked politely, perching on the front edge of the armchair, quill between his fingertips. "Only I am now quite well versed in gobbledegook, these days, should you require it." He managed a gentle smile, more to put himself at ease, as if this was any ordinary contract.

"Translations, minor forgeries. The odd trade documentation." she drifted over the seating area and lowered herself into a matching armchair as the contract was proffered. "I might have use for your Goblin tongue if circumstances are fortuitous."

Wand: 12 inches, ebony, dragon heartstring core.

His first, and only wand, bought in Germany in preparation for attending Durmstrang. Often it is joked by friends and colleagues that Johann doesn't use his wand, because it's fairly rare to see him using it. He would agree that he knows more spells in theory than he's ever used, and has rather a habit of doing things by hand than using magic. This has only become more of a habit when living with Colin Downer, where magic was not used because of Colin's love of Muggle technology. Since moving out and into wizarding accommodation his wand makes more common appearances.

Patronus: Starling (European variety)

Cast perhaps twice in his adult life. Johann thinks back on happy childhood memories with his parents and on travelling memories with friends in his early twenties. In more recent months he's had a variety of more romantic memories to draw upon.

Boggart: Throughout childhood and his twenties it was himself, stood blank faced, surrounded by books with empty pages, staring into oblivion - to represent loss of memory. Met once in his life, he was too busy gaping at it trying to work out what it was to remember to cast riddikulus.

Though he had not met a boggart as an adult, it has changed to represent his love for Balfour.

Erised: Was to be loved. Not known to him, he's never met the mirror of Erised. But now it would show a very busy reflection of an older Johann and Balfour with children.




Physical Description:

Johann is 6ft1in in height, and is usually an inch or two above the height of most of his friends. His build is lean, mostly due to historically appalling dietary habits. He would often forget to eat, due to being absorbed in what he was doing, emotional stress, or out of sheer laziness. Since moving in with Balfour he's filled out a bit, and his health is much improved.

In proportion with his height, Johann has long fingers, and long feet. He dresses somewhat formally, especially when working in London, though does not favour ties with his shirts and suits. He doesn't mind the British climate, as he has pale skin, which burns with terrific redness in sunlight. It is somewhat unusual to see him in short sleeves or shorts.

His hair which used to be short and trimmed regularly has lengthened in recent years, and has been longer for four years or so. Arriving in Britain in early 2009, his dark brown hair loosely curled about his face, flopping now and again into his eyes which he has become accustomed to. Eventually, as things began to settle again, he had his hair cut, returning to a far shorter style - with big dark curls upon his head, but not past his ears. It still grows without him really noticing.

Johann's dark blue eyes are keen, and well focused. He prides himself on not needing glasses, and having good, accurate eyesight, and takes care of it. In discussion with others, they focus intently on a speaker, though it can appear there are thoughts swirling behind them, rather than actually being so intently focused on the general topic. They are known to wander in busy social situations when conversation is general and just between friends, which appears rude to the person speaking to him. He is more conscious of this habit in recent years, and will purposely choose a seat facing a wall so as to better concentrate on his social companion - especially if they are discussing business. Friends have become accustomed to it, knowing that often Johann is often still listening and has an uncanny knack of flicking back at the right moment to ask a serious question.

He walks rigidly, with his shoulders back - not particularly out of pride - but from childhood nagging to keep good posture which has become habit. He rarely slouches when sitting, even when sat cross-legged on the floor. On armchairs, when sat without shoes on, Johann prefers to sit cross-legged and keep his feet off the floor.

Johann's most striking feature is his facial structure, with its high and prominent cheekbones. It gives him a slightly old world look about him. His smile is broad, bright and 'boyish'. When embarrassed his cheek colour and the drop of his head are instant, for despite his arrogance in intelligence, over matters of friends, superiors he seeks to please and lovers, Johann can be shy, awkward and lack confidence. His relationship with Balfour in late 2010 has considerably brought up his confidence with this respect.

His voice is tinged with his native accent, but in the years he's been in Britain he's worked hard to neutralise the accent as far as possible as part of his linguist studies. It's generally upbeat, not overly deep and he speaks swiftly, but clearly, never dropping letters.

She had suspected time to time suspected, and more or less confirmed through owl and offbeat chances to talk, that Johann was much like she: his faithfulness was to his work, and everything else mounted into a fabulous reluctance to settle down in any manner of the word. He was not the least bit intimidating, not to Juliette, and could not be described as "wild" by even the most polished of pens, but he had a escape artist quality about him, even if it was rooted in intellect and dedication to his craft.
- Juliette Vaillancourt, Réunion au Trois Balais

Personality Description:

To an employer and friend on first thought, Johann seems an upstanding, very polite wizard. He is resourceful - the one in a group to find the nearest pub or give accurate directions to strangers when they are lost, even in places he barely knows himself. He has a knack for instinctively knowing where things might be in a room - whether it be where the teaspoons are kept for tea in a stranger's house, or where someone keeps their wand, due to their natural twitches.

A frightfully intelligent chap, due to his upbringing, and genetics, he is knowledgeable on eclectic topics, though hopeless when asked the rules of Quidditch, or popular music. In a pub quiz, he'd be far better with wizarding history and geography. He prefers wizard chess than Quidditch, though hasn't played so many games of late. Since the time he lived with Colin Downer and from spending time with Adelia Delacroix his understanding of Muggle culture has rapidly increased, with an appreciation for the television - though he still regards it with a little apprehension.

To an employer, Johann demonstrates admirable and useful traits. His professional manner, combined with his eloquent speaking and quick thinking in crisis situations make him very appealing to employ. He puts on a commendable interview performance, dresses smartly and is punctual. It's only after a while that they discover the less desirable traits and quirks...

Johann is often highly absorbed in studying or researching, and will ignore others on purpose due to this - and forget to eat. In contrast, if he does hold conversation, he can be easily distracted by something said earlier in the conversation, or by nearby situations, which means he may abandon the conversation quite impolitely to pursue them. His conversant partner if often left wondering why they bothered, or calling after him asking what - left without the conclusion of his thoughts.

"I hear Johann is still lodging with you, so I suppose I was wrong to insinuate you would throw him out soon enough." Ignan changed the subject. "You must have enough room to lose him in the building, and not keep falling over him." His eyes raised as he recalled a memory. "He mentioned he was playing estate agent for you last weekend? We correspond by short letters, keeps him from turning up at the castle unannounced. Only Johann doesn't do short notes some nights, does he actually sleep, because he penned the most elegant and thoughtful essay on crowd decision making the other evening, based on how he observes traffic in the Ministry atrium. It really is something, I should have brought it to show you." - Ignan Storm to Gabrielle Murray-Harker

When he translates for others, particularly in professional environments, he is far too nosy about what is being discussed, and will add in his own opinions, quips and jokes once he has built a rapport with the host and the guest parties. Such as: "Mr Chang agrees, but he's having real trouble looking at you beside those dreadful curtains." when Mr Chang had not made a comment about the curtains verbally, but has been staring distractedly at them at several points during the conversation.

Worse, is when he turns it round and makes jokes about said curtains to the guest, which the host cannot understand, and feels humiliated and belittled by.

Arrogance is unfortunately a result of intelligence for Johann, and he cannot resist taking advantage of those slower or seemingly less intelligent than him. He has tricked or confounded quite a number of people, and in 2008 it landed him in hot water in Germany, causing a sudden decision to move overseas to avoid the results.

He has historically been baffled by how to be polite on more sensitive emotional matters such as death, romance, often choosing to discuss other topics at those crisis times with friends to try and put the situation back in an area he can control. This is something he's worked on considerably since arriving in Britain. He's able to deal with a crisis if he has to - only by adopting a more cold, calculated and detached nature than others might, otherwise he tends to run away. He's not keen on dealing with the emotional fallout. Generally however, he's a massive coward, fleeing rather than fighting unless he feels it is on an academic basis he can reason.

Around friends, and those he is most comfortable with, Johann is surprisingly chatty and his dialogue rambles. This is due to him feeling at ease to reveal more of the internal dialogue which plagues his head. He finds long silences awkward when socialising, because he anticipates that isn't the general idea of being 'social'. In stressful, or emotional situations he can struggle to accurately read facial expressions in tandem with words - he's able to interpret it all better if he's emotionally distant, and with close friends and family this is more difficult than with strangers.

Since discovering Sasha is a closer relative, he feels incredibly responsible for the circumstances, and is going to greater lengths than normal to ensure the young man is involved and feels welcome. Although this is appreciated by his younger relative, older relatives such as Ignan suspect this will burn out should the wider family be informed. The behaviour is partly because Johann would have preferred a younger brother - but is an only child instead.




Sleeping Potion and Health:

Working for the Ministry and private clients on an evening worsened an addiction and reliance on sleeping potions to turn his brain off and get any sleep. In late November into early December 2009, this resulted in hospitalisation. Johann was able to stay off the potions for the most of Christmas 2009, due to plenty of distractions and the possibility of being drunk, but the addiction fast returned by January 2010, when he had no access to the St Mungo's apothecary. During Spring 2010 he fought to control it with help from Arcturus Hollingbury. Moving into Ignan's home in April 2010 in Godric's Hollow coincided with the best control he's had, hardly taking any potion, and sleeping almost regular hours.

The events of Summer 2010 and Arcturus being over in Malaysia contributed to Johann rapidly losing control of things again and by Autumn 2010, his addiction and abuse returned full force. Manic symptoms, insomnia brought on by the werewolf games investigations and his family situation. In early November, Healer and friend Arcturus Hollingbury stepped in to help, triggered by Johann attempting to resign from the Ministry. By late November, his mother is appraised of the matter, and by early December, the potion contamination of London apothecaries results in Johann's lover, Balfour Spectre, finding out.

Johann is an awful patient, believing he is a fraud, and not worthy of a healer's time or attention. Whereas he can be fascinated by watching a healer at work treating another, being treated himself is an experience he actively avoids. Because he has no real visible ailment, he easily dismisses and devalues his case, worsened by the times when he is manic, and believes he needs to no help.

The last time he'd slit his own hand open on a broken glass while living alone in Germany he'd had to kneel beside the bath to wash his hand before he'd clumsily managed to heal it enough to stop it.

Apart from his treatment in late November, early December 2009, Johann's time with healers has generally been confined to quick checks for employment terms, mostly proving he can see further than his nose and is alive and breathing. He could probably benefit from looking after himself better, or heeding advice for once.


Romantic Life:

From January 2010, Johann finally discovered romantic feelings, and accepted they're not as scary as he thought they were going to be. After false starts with Hannah and the confusion over the engagement which is more an interpretation of their friendship, he struck up a relationship with Arcturus Hollingbury, which quickly spiralled from friendship to a more physical attraction. Both of them were a little surprised - but Johann found a certain amount of peace and companionship. He felt protective and proud of Arcturus, even as the relationship returned awkwardly to being friends only.

Unfortunately the pair parted within months, a combination of insecurity and anxiety about their own expectations of a relationship, the complication that Arcturus was Johann's healer, and Arcturus' indecision over engaging in a relationship stopped things progressing early on. Hollingbury's decision to study potions abroad in Malaysia and take a sabbatical from the hospital parted them officially. It left Johann very frustrated, and the anger resurfaced when Arcturus returned to Britain.

During summer 2010, Johann was more aware that he was missing something. He and Arcturus were never intimate, but the interactions did confirm to Johann that the strange emotions for some months were indeed romantic attraction and the wish to be intimate. The search for a new partner did not progress at all until September 2010, where Johann chanced upon Balfour Spectre at Le Masque. A far more bold and brave lover, Johann, although anxious, was keen to pursue. Balfour quickly kept Johann on his toes in all aspects of his life outside of work, and in turn entered Johann's life during the turbulence of Wolfgang Storm's trial (Johann's father). As such, they got to know and trust each other far more quickly than anticipated.

Both of them lived under Ira Almasy's roof, unknowing what the other meant to her. As Almasy's dramatic and utterly insane acts worsened, the two of them got more and more caught up. Falling victim to a poisoning he had masterminded for Almasy, Johann's closely guarded secret of his dependency on sleeping potion was revealed to Balfour. While Johann improved, Almasy crumbled, and the wizards fled Atreus just in time to continue the front they were nothing more than tenants and social friends with Ira by the time her work was uncovered.

Once able to breathe a sigh of relief in the wake of her demise, Johann and Balfour moved into the Spectre's Edinburgh estate, and began to plan a life together. But Almasy's parting gift was not only their freedom, but also a son of Balfour's - Feliks. Overnight the wizards became parents. It seemed only natural to propose marriage at the year anniversary of their first encounter at La Masque in September 2011.

When they are apart, Johann misses Balfour terribly. He is often found haunting Level Four with every opportunity.




History:

Johann was half his age, and although was blessed with good brains, could be bored easily as a child, and had turned them to less constructive productions.
- Ignan Storm

Wolfgang and Camille met working for a wizarding bank - Chrysopoeia, managing the goblins. When they met, they both were with former partners, but a mutual attraction led to them both parting company with the other parties to settle down together. They married in 1975. When Johann was born, Camille decided wisely he was probably enough for them both.

Johann was born in Hanover, Germany, 1976. The family moved to Frankfurt not long after to allow Johann's parents to be close to their employers, Chrysopoeia, as his mother, Camille, finds travelling by floo nauseating.

The Storm family (the name is originally British) was already established in Germany with offshoots and cousins, though Johann did not collect any brothers and sisters.

His father, Wolfgang, is the son of Medgar Storm, a senior healer, and the nephew of the well respected Merik Storm, former Headmaster of Durmstrangs, who passed away in December 2009. Merik was the father of Ignan Storm - Johann's first cousin, once removed. Wolfgang's wife, Johann's mother, Camille, is a half-blood, and from Belgium. She attended Beauxbatons in favour of Durmstrang, as the extended family there were French, and she wished to attend with them.

Johann's childhood was a happy one. He was close to both his parents, and he enjoyed the times he got to meet his family when they returned to Hanover for gatherings. He wasn't the most confident child, always thin, with curls and pale skin. He'd be ushered inside on hot days to stop tearing around with other children to ensure he didn't turn tomato red.

His behaviour was always a little restrained in that being an only child he didn't have other children at home to make mischief with, and he spent most of his time learning from adults. He spent his days as a child in wizarding robes of one sort or another, only really becoming accustomed to more of a Muggle sense of fashion as he left Durmstrang as a teenager. His parents would take him to most places rather than leave him home with someone. He has memories of being sat in the corner of his father's office, or boardrooms at the bank, hidden behind one large book or another, normally on arithmancy - Wolfgang was hoping his son would turn out to be a terrific banker.

Engagement rings were meant to be pretty, weren't they? His own mother wore her rings, but they were passed down from the Storm family rather than the Duerrs. Johann had a memory of sitting at a family wedding as a child, holding his mother's hand while the ceremony went on, staring at the two rings on her long, slender finger, as he sat between his mother and father. He had been four or five at the most, dressed in a simple black robe which itched. The sun had shone brightly, or that could be his memories glossing over the grey, but he remembered being very warm.

I give you this ring as a sign of the marriage which has been promised between us, provided your father gives with you a marriage portion… Yes, there had been some sort of agreement back then still lingering in the pure families about dowries. All in all, Johann's experience of how marriage worked was warped...

... a lot calmer than he had been when he'd spoken to his wife-to-be in the kitchen. Getting away from everyone at the Ministry and the gossiping, and being sat close to his mother had ebbed away it all. Strange how the scent of her perfume, although barely there through all the travelling today, still made him think of the times she read him bedtime stories and kissed him goodnight. He'd had less trouble sleeping when she did.

Johann would have liked a younger brother, though he was content with being the only child with all he added attention he received. Both parents were keen to develop his non magical talents, and spent hours teaching him mathematics, geography, languages, and history, which put him in good stead for when he finally did attend Durmstrang. Wolfgang instilled the rigours of finance and an appreciation of the laws of wizarding-kind. As a child, Johann would ask a lot of questions.

Spending time with just his mother reminded Johann of his childhood again when his father would go abroad on business. Of the two, his mother was always the more accommodating, the more fun to be with. She would tell him stories in Dutch which his father couldn't understand, and ask him grown up questions about morals and decisions. Their common tongues, which she had begun to teach him alongside his native German, made planning his December birthdays and Christmas presents for his father all the easier as Johann's vocabulary widened. When Wolfgang left the house, not a word of German was ever spoken, and it was glorious.

Her lessons ahead of Durmstrang took them to all manner of niches, from attempts to cook dinners, to art galleries, obscure shops where dialects twisted his understanding of language and context, visits to distant relations on stopovers. Johann would find his heart no longer sank when his father announced he would be away again on business over a weekend, as it had heralded such excursions he did not approve. He even relished the days where he snuck into work with his mother to sit quietly at the back of someone's office pouring over books and newspapers, eavesdropping on personal account clients. His mother's colleagues so accommodating in explaining mortgages, pensions rather than have him suffer tedious days with neighbours or the odd family friend.

Between them they took hundreds of photographs while escaping, documenting an increasingly gangly Johann awkwardly attempting to smile at the camera while life swirled around him. It was his mother who had induced the deep love of language and travel, and his father who had instilled the accuracy of business to him to compliment it. He was quite sure each parent had an entirely different vision in the outcome of their son, but he was not displeased at their extreme dedication to furthering him. He would not be where he was today without it.

He was generally in good health as a child, though often had trouble sleeping. Camille would resort to reading aloud to her son with her arm around him for an hour or more some nights to try and settle him. She put down the fact she would hear him talking to himself at length when he was on his own to play as nothing unusual, given he was an only child. Sometimes he would mention 'we' rather than 'I' though she was not concerned. Johann never complained, though looking back as an adult, he reckoned he would have enjoyed a little more company before he went to school, he's a fairly sociable person and enjoys interactions.

At age seven, he suffered from a particularly bad bout of influenza, and his grandfather advised Camille to take him to a healer nearby to see why it was prolonged.

He lay back, expression looking rather like an apprehensive child. It reminded him momentarily of a visit to the healer back home as a child - he'd caught the flu, and it had been the sort to knock him off his feet for a couple of weeks, which for wizard-kind was fairly unusual. His mother had taken him to a healer convinced he was either at death's door or had something exotic, being her only child she'd been perhaps needlessly worried. But either way, Johann, seven at the time, had refused to speak a word, all hundred and two of his usual inquisitive questions had been trapped in his throat for the duration of the visit. At almost thirty four, he had the opposite problem, but he still felt like he was an impostor to require a healer's attention in any professional form.

The healer didn't have the time to reassure him or deal with the sudden muteness of his child patient before dismissing Camille's worries and prescribing stronger pepper potion that misted up the windows of Johann's bedroom when he took it, due to the steam rising from his ears.

He decided then that healers were only for really sick or injured people, and he wouldn't be needing them again if he could possibly help it.

The following year, he encountered a serious obliviation while spending a day at the bank with his father while his parents both worked. The fact that magic could remove memories so easily was frightening and continued to haunt him as he grew up, becoming his deepest seated fear, reflected in his boggart.

He had first met it when he had been at work with his father at the bank before coming to school. Wolfgang had insisted that Johann visiting the place, even as a child, would be beneficial. He could teach him about the world of finance - which he and Camille, Johann's mother, both thought he would easily take up as a profession, given they both had. He would spend the majority of his time tucked in a corner of the office, quiet as a mouse, with a book on mathematics or world history, which his father would test him on each evening when they got home, before his mother. He relished learning, adored the attention he received as an only child, from the languages they taught him to their almost untiring wish to answer his long list of questions about subjects.

"Parchment, and a quill, now, work out the compound interest at-." His feet had just about reached the floor when he sat in the visitor's chair opposite his father's desk, but it was still a bit of a reach to write upon the desk with one of the dark green quills that sat in the pot on the desk. He hadn't discovered the rate of interest his father wanted him to calculate the repayments at on their theoretical bank account. The door had burst open, revealing three figures. Dropping the quill in fright, Johann had shot round the furthest side of the desk.

A torrent of confused and rapid conversation had followed, until a fellow familiar to Johann from his days shadowing his father was bundled into the recently vacated visitor's chair. He looked winded, as if he had been knocked out by coming off a broom, but he didn't look physically hurt. The other adults were all employees of the bank, one wearing the rather imposing robes of the team of rather muscular wizards who dealt with customers who did not behave. He appeared to be doing the majority of the explanation.

"Just drew her wand and hit him full force. He was out cold until we brought him round."
"You idiot, that could have made it worse!"

He remembered the unfocused gaze of the man in the chair, the questions they fired at him, patting his hand, shaking his shoulders.
"What is your name? How old are you? What day is it? Who is our Minister?"

Before his eyes, a fifty year old wizard replied with his name, as a juvenile nickname, his age to be that of Johann's at the time - eight, and no clear indication of the day. The name of the Minister, Johann did identify with, from history books, but most certainly not the current leader of the country by a long shot. A while later when healers arrived to take the wizard away, they interrupted the father of three, far-eastern business expert explaining to Johann that he was off to school soon, and they'd probably be classmates. All matters of compound interest were forgotten.

"Aunt Aloisia's face is a picture. What was I doing?" Camille pushed her glasses up her nose to better examine the indicated photograph.
"Folding paper hats out of newspaper." The explanation was terribly straightforward.
"Oh, I see!" Johann replied, suddenly the scene made sense, "She didn't know you taught me." The family photo album rested on the armchair arms pressed together. Johann's fingertips went gently to his mouth, studying a photograph of himself aged about eight or nine with his aunt, his late father's sister, sat at the dining table in their old home in Frankfurt. His aunt was merrily folding simple paper hats while he had folded an origami crane, and her mouth hung open in surprise. The framing of the shot suggested his father had taken it.
"You used to spend hours folding those." His mother recalled, and the rest of the menagerie. It had been their thing while practicing conversation in different languages. She had learned as a child, was able to fold complex flowers to decorate for cards, presents and seasonal decorations. When he was knee high, Johann had tried to imitate her, so she had begun to teach him.
"I still do sometimes. It helps.[1]" Johann admitted with a shrug of his slight shoulders.

1.	18 Sept, To You, Halfway Across the World

Durmstrang

At school, he despised anything to do with Quidditch, and anything that required deduction by an inner eye. Always a little cautious of those with one, he considered he could tell enough about someone without needing to see their aura, just by the way they held themselves, or dressed. He instead enjoyed it most by his third year when he could study the intangibles - research subjects like history. He pushed his favourite professors to speak with him on broader subjects, and of foreign cultures, and particularly enjoyed studying foreign languages.

Johann was an oberteil from the start, given his family history with a former headmaster. He wasn't the most popular socially, but kept his status by staying out of trouble. He never fantastically shone at wandwork, although he could perform anything necessary to pass his exams, he never took great pleasure out of intricate magic, other than in duplication, misdirection and attempts at forgery. His quill was more likely to reach his hand, than his wand.

His mother placed a hand gently on his right arm over his jacket sleeve, just enough weight to make him look up and round at her.
"You told me you wanted to be a Zufreiden."
"Why?"
"Because you thought the other Oberteils were cruel, and that many of the Zufreiden outshone you in spellworks." His mother gave a gentle shrug, as if she had mildly agreed with Johann's thinking at that age. Never one to raise his wand in anger usually, his magical vocabulary followed more docile bands of practical spells, binding documents, obscuring, duplication, seals and wards.
"Misplaced sense of responsibility." He shook his head. "Much as I disliked many of the other Oberteils, not being amongst them was a far worse prospect."

During the first summer, Johann travelled to Italy to visit his mother's extended family and met his third cousin, Elixa Mordent, who had arrived at Durmstrang the same year but been classified a dreg. The two set up a deal, encouraged by Johann's mother, to try and elevate Elixa, which meant appealing to her professors with good academic records. They became friends at school, and Johann's efforts helped her escape that strata in a matter of years.

He turned the page of the album, only to be presented with a photo of himself in new Durmstrang Uniform, a bright red for the oberteils. It was all slightly too long in the arm for him, ready for the impending growth-spurt. His mother, almost twenty-five years younger in the photograph, stooped to throw her arms around his shoulders and kiss his curls. Narrow eyes closed upon an angular face that he grew into as an adult, and a genuine grin broke out beneath them, they very same boyish grin that slipped out now.
"I forget how short I was once." He remarked, eyes fixed on himself, trying to remember how it had been. These days he and his mother were equals with height, but at eleven, (or had it been twelve?), although tall for his age, he had a considerable amount of growing to do. "I forget a lot of things about me back then."
 
"I remember it like yesterday." Camille replied, smiling. Her fingers gently ran over the edges of the photograph, bringing back the memory of Wolfgang hunched over the camera, berating them both to smile at look his way, to be happy. "Summer before your second year there, August 1988. Your father wanted a photograph of you in the sunshine in your uniform. He was very proud of you being an Oberteil. As was I." Johann smiled, recalling the letters to him at school on his success in the entrance exams. He had it somewhere back at Atreus. A happy memory that had once formed his attempts to cast a patronus.

Johann followed the Intangibles discipline - he and his classmates focused on the study of intellectual magic, or observational topics. History, Mythology, Magical Politics, Magical Culture, Arithmancy, Runish Studies, Muggle Studies. He was not an hugely outgoing child, enjoying academic conversation with fellow intangibles and Tangibles rather than the Spellworks students who tended to be happier to raise a wand and hex someone for an alternative opinion. When in a fix, Johann would often use a hex to put a pig snout on his assailant.

"We used to exchange a lot of letters when I was at school, didn't we?"
"Gosh, yes, my friends would envy me for the fact I heard from you regularly. Most boys don't write to their mother. It is a pity you didn't keep it up as an adult, but well, you grew up." They shared a sad smile, Johann sorry that he had disappointed his mother by growing distant, she sad that her little boy was no longer hers.
"Goodness knows when you had the time to write them."

Johann didn't answer, but recalled many a sleepless night in the Durmstrang dormitories, bundled in a blanket by the stove writing letters by the light of the flames. All his memories of those nights at school were that they were bitterly cold and rather lonely. Writing letters home had been of some comfort, as had been staring out for hours on newly fallen snow under moonlight, becoming acquainted with the now all too familiar voices.

This study and lessening of wandwork in his teenage years formed a tendency for Johann to do most things by hand than wave his wand. As an adult, some of his friends often remark that they rarely, if ever, see him use magic.

In the summer of 1993, Elixa Mordent stayed with Johann and his family to undertaken an internship at the bank.

Towards the end of his years at Durmstrang, Johann began to become more accustomed to the chatter he'd always had in his head since he was a child. He'd used to talk aloud as a child, as if others were with him, but as a teenager, he began to identify particular voices inside his head. It didn't startle him - they'd always been there. They were company, and often useful subconscious observers. In these easier days they were nothing to fear.

Post 1994

After his studies, he travelled awhile, affording from generous allowances he had carefully saved throughout his teenage years from his parents and generous extended family. The Storm family see travel after studies, or at some point in the twenties as a right of passage to furthering one's mind. Not all of them travel, but its seen as a very usual route. He travelled almost five years in one stint before settling back home just before Christmas in 1999. During the first few months Elixa travelled with him but quickly ran out of funds and returned home.

Christmas 1996 - spent island hopping in the Caribbean. More burnt than tanned, no snow, hideously drunk on rum for a lot of it, and the rest. I hardly slept for a fortnight and many strange photographs taken. Helped someone paint their house with a bit of magic (whoops), enjoyed a breakfast of boiled bananas, fruit juice, breadfruit, saltish, and then curried goat for Christmas dinner. Posted home a Christmas cake to his parents. Carols on steel drums, like you do, and nearly drowned trying to apparate between islands (double whoops). Well recommended. - J

"You did all round the outside of where I went. I've done Europe to death, well, some days it feels like it, but I did Japan, and a while in China, and a few months doing the likes of Singapore, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia… not seeing enough of any of them really." It had been those countries where his insomnia and underlying issues had started to become rather more difficult, and he'd turned to sleeping potions with more regularity. His memories of it all were slightly hazy as if viewed through a poorly focused camera.

[Bai Li Yang] had always moved a lot quicker than him with regards to travelling, but they had spent a while together until he'd had to come to a halt in Paris. Running out of money happened periodically and Johann had opted to stay and get a job for at least a month, which is how he'd ended up working for the potioneers where he met Juliette Vaillancourt. He'd caught Bai up a little over a month later before they headed out of Europe, but again, Johann had always been the one wanting to stay a little longer to immerse himself in language, magic and culture.

I worked for a month at a top potioneer in Paris translating all the contracts into different languages once they were revised. This was cheaper for the potioneer, and helped me earn some money for an extended stay in Paris. Juliette [Vaillancourt] worked there as a proper potioneer, and I would greet her every morning I saw her before going to work in the office, just to see how she'd react out of curiosity, and because a wizard in the office with me had an almighty crush on her and couldn't speak to her for it.

Eventually we got past single greetings, though neither of us expected to see the other again once the month was up, as I didn't plan to hang around Paris longer.

"Trouble, me, oh no." He uttered, an edge of sarcasm to his voice. "I've never been arrested, which is fortunate, I can normally talk my way out." Or, a woman intervenes on my behalf, he thought, considering a certain museum curator who helped him out when he tried to fleece some men at cards.
"Tame stuff in comparison to both of you I'm sure, I traveled my own - mischief takes two brains to really execute well." Raising his eyes automatically as he thought back, he considered the first tale to bubble to the surface.

"There was the time when a guy in Denmark asked me to tail his wife to find out who she was cheating on him with, because she refused to make an unbreakable vow that she wouldn't ever stray. Despite the moral issues behind his request, I needed the money, I tailed her." Johann shrugged.

"... Only turns out I'm rubbish at it, and she leads me in a merry route around the town until I lose her, and she pops up beside me, wraps her arms around my neck and kisses me on the lips. Not just a peck either - full on as if we were in lust. I was rather startled to say the least - moreso when her husband turned up and witnessed the whole thing." He blushed thinking about it, and he put his head in his hands, fingertips pulling at his black hair, the shame bubbling back to the surface.

"He got me by the neck, nearly throttled me in the street. Thought I was the one who his wife was cheating with, and figured that was why I was so keen to help him - not because I thought it was easy money. Luckily people intervened and I managed to apparate away. Needless to say, I didn't get paid, and I think she escaped that rather loveless and controlling relationship shortly after. At least I hope... but she wasn't exactly dim with her ploy to get at me."

In 2001, Johann spent 10 months in Austria immersing himself in the German dialects, keen to understand the different variations and hone his skills.

In times of stress, and worry, the voices that had been friendly in his head would speak more angrily. Insomnia would set in, paranoia. Being away from home, in foreign countries, taking in his surroundings, culture, new companions was all exciting but rather stimulating and he began to use sleeping potions to seek better rest intermittently. Occasionally there were worse things to try, but he wasn't much into a 'natural high' but more sedatives.

Throughout those travels, Johann honed his love of languages, and returned to be a consulting linguist for one magical hospital and then the next as he grew bored. He grew a collection of tradesmen who he helped on a regular or ad-hoc basis with documents and eventually began to consult for the German Ministry.

Johann earned considerable amounts for accurately translating legal documents and contracts, documents that tradesmen were reluctant to draw up by magic as they could be tampered with. He landed a lucrative deal with Drammes Apotheke with help from his old school friend, Elixa Mordent who was managing one of their branches in Sweden.

"One of the largest importers of apothecary produce to Germany have used my services for several years now. Unfortunately my recent move to England has meant my duties are reduced, which has meant I have passed the valuable work on to colleagues over there I admire and trust. The owner," the German name tripped off Johann's tongue "had been caught out by a false translation of documents to import Jobberknoll feathers, locked into a contract of ten years without reducing the price even when the market grew and the price per hundred-feather dropped. Neat little deception, and also proved you cannot rely entirely on translation charms for documents, nor translators you can't look in the eye."

Johann smirked, and in the back of his head thought of another client that had looked him in the eye, but had discovered Johann had grown a moral conscience over importing hallucinogenics, and now probably wanted to pull his eyes out.
"I traveled with him, they were unable to outwit with their own language difference with me there, and agreed to rewrite the contract, or be blacklisted in the European region. Subsequently the price dropped below their market value, and they couldn't so much as sneeze about a shipment without my employer's say so." Johann forgot to mention the part where they also took with them three ex-auror types who were built like houses and had put three of the traders in painful positions before the agreement was done. It was all on an intellectual level really.

"There have been others - gentlemen of social circles requesting contracts with their mistresses to ensure their silence using unbreakable vows. It takes quite some time to adequately explain the concept to some of those ladies, there's a great social taboo against using it for such means in the far East. Spent a fair few months in and out of the magical hospital in Germany - the doctors needed someone to accurately explain to foreign patients what needed to be done to heal them. Learned an awful lot in doing that - you can be far more easily accurate in written translation because the full sentence is there before you, and you can revise it - but verbal translation is a one shot - has to be exact first time to prevent misunderstanding."
When You're Curious You'll Find Lots of Interesting Things to Do

Not content to be at a loose end, Johann also received regular income by teaching young and old the languages, at least enough to get by and understand when one could be fleeced. He became a regular in The Crescent Moon, a wizarding pub in Hanover, and from there would frequently be approached by people to help with a diverse number of matters. Despite no formal legal training, they trusted him enough for a straight word on a shoddy contract.

Leaving Germany in a Hurry, 2009

In June 2008, he was approached by a man there who sought his audience for over half an hour. He was recognised for less than noble business by the other patrons, but Johann gave the man the benefit of the doubt - his moral compass never quite the same as others. He began to teach the man Mandarin, but after a few weeks, the man offered him the chance of more work. Accepting, Johann began to translate shipment instructions for the illegal import or hallucinogenics.

When the arrangement began to sour - a combination of unreasonable client demands, late payment and missed appointments, Johann deceived him, and led him straight into the hands of the Ministry, without being asked by the authorities. This dangerous move backfired - in that the Ministry could not fully charge the wizard, so he came for Johann.

Fleeing his quarters minutes before the door came in, he decided to flee countries to somewhere he might be protected by established and strong magical law - and where family were who might not have heard of his foolish attempts to outwit the local criminal factions.

Arriving unannounced in Hogsmeade on January 11th 2009 in desperation of hiding - despite himself - very scared, he entrusted the help of that first cousin, Ignan, whom he found was teaching at that most famous school. The first few weeks of his time in Britain Johann had to establish some employment at the Ministry, money and then somewhere to live - eventually moving in with Gabrielle by late January.

The move to Britain was stressful. Johann's occasional sleeping potion use begun in his early twenties had moved on and he was now used to doing long stints awake followed by knocking himself out with one potion or another. During seemingly manic days he could produce some of his most detailed, fantastic work, but the days that followed could be vicious. The behaviour quickly wore down some of his closer friends - and his host.

By early April, Johann left Gabrielle's house, stayed a few days with Sasha and then flew to France with Vedir to visit family. His living situation was tricky until June when he moves in with Colin Downer, one of his best friends. The arrangement at Colin's was profitable for Downer, Johann was generous with his contributions. He became accustomed to living with Colin's dog, and would walk and feed it when Colin was close to full moon or recovering.

The lack of space can be a difficulty, but Johann manages, having left the majority of his accumulated belongings back in Germany with no haste to retrieve them. He leaves things behind at the drop of a hat if it means he can travel lightly.

Summer & Autumn 2009, Tetra Wizard and Department of International Magical Co-Operation

As summer drew on, he became fully involved in the Tetra-wizard Tournament and dealing with the unwanted interest of his father, Wolfgang, who is involved from Durmstrang. He is also the unwitting victim of occlumency from his cousin, Ignan, who is seeking information.

Late summer 2009 while supervising one of his interns there is an odd revelation that Sasha is related to him which Johann promises to follow up, finding no ties with Jacoba. In October he attends Hogwarts with the permission of Tapendra Trishna to be there when Sasha confronts Ignan, and Ignan is revealed as Sasha's father.

The changes to the family and a feeling that he is responsible for upset, an increasing workload and grief from his father all begin to eat away at Johann, who looks increasingly ill through Autumn. Through his connection with Vedir he witnesses a werewolf tear a Muggle apart, and this disturbs him enough to check on his close friend and werewolf, Hannah Bombay.

His ragged mental state and the disappearance of his former intern's husband to be finds Johann volunteering to go to the Black Forest, although he is turned down, unsuitable.

St Mungo's, Winter 2009

By late November, Johann's addiction to sleeping potion put him in St Mungo's under the care of Joy Torret and Arcturus Hollingbury. The Ministry were informed enough of the incident, and although the anonymous samaritan who brought Johann to the hospital (his colleague and enemy, Hamilton) is not discovered, they are displeased. An undersecretary makes the observation he is unreliable and Johann takes this as a deep insult.

Returning to work in early December, Johann successfully avoided sleeping potion through to Christmas.  He informs close friends, Hannah and Colin of the nature of his stay, and a paraphrased version to Gabrielle, as she is his boss as well as his relative. Just before Christmas Johann attended the Yule Ball with Hannah, ahead of her court hearing to see if she can get her original sentence overturned. Meanwhile, Vedir assigns him to work with Landis Morgan on experimental magic, revealing that without sleeping potions, Johann occasionally grows a moral conscience.

Engagement to Hannah, December 2009, January 2010

On Christmas Day Johann proposed to Hannah in a muddle, and with surprise, she accepts. The arrangement was kept quiet, Johann's concepts of romance and relationships anything but clear.

Having avoided returning home to his family over Christmas 2009, Johann is somewhat forced to when his great uncle Merik Storm passes away suddenly. Travelling with Ignan he endured a vicious argument with his father over dinner, and fled. The incident caused him to return to drinking sleeping potions to deal with reality.

Hannah's parents leaked the information about the engagement to the Daily Prophet in January. The action caused an unexpected visit from his mother, and an engagement ring. Unfortunately his father made his thoughts clear by sending a severed dog's head to the couple.

Hannah later made her opinion clear by physically attacking Wolfgang in his own home. Johann was forced to take physical action against his close friend, and the two struggled to work out matters in the hours that followed. Hannah noted Johann's return to sleeping potion abuse when he fell asleep beside her in bed, after being asked to stay.

Johann's chances of acquiring more of the potent blue potion are further diminished with the reunion of his old school friend Elixa who joined the hospital as an apothecary in January 2010.

The farce of the engagement continued until Johann and Hannah mutually called matters off, because they are not in love, but broaching this news with others is difficult, and caused further uncomfortable meetings with Hannah's parents for Johann.

Badger, January 2010 onwards

Following on from his stay in St Mungo's the previous year, Johann confides much of his battle with his addiction to sleeping potion to Healer Arcturus Hollingbury. Seeking an alternative solution, the two set up an unconventional treatment.

With Johann's increasing awareness that his abuse of potions has been suppressing certain emotional states including romantic interest, he finds courage to pursue his new interests in people - particularly Arcturus - in this nature. Confirming before long that he is exactly as his father horrifically suspected - but since being cast aside for his dealings with Hannah, this issue does not hold back Johann pursuing a relationship with Hollingbury, who he has dubbed Badger.

Unfortunately come Valentines Day Johann is Jane Hunter's unlikely blind date for charity, which makes for an uneasy afternoon.

Friendships and Work

Now full time at the Ministry, Johann is cast into increasing numbers of cases - reunited with Bergen, a Dutch architect, making acquaintance with cursebreakers, who later come in handy with hungry bags, and gracing courtrooms in Russia to discuss carnivorous plants sent by eccentric expats. At least there is his birthday to celebrate amongst it.

At least with finding focus for his head he is able to reestablish important friendships, such as his sibling-like friendship with Adelia Delacroix, leading to them bonding further over Doctor Who. Relations with Aisling Knight from the third floor also take a leap, bonding over discussions of travel and chess.

With the networking he has been doing over past months, some new private clients begin to come forward. 


..... TBC


Describe your job duties and how you go about them:

Originally unemployed (see history for past employment) Johann sought employment within the British Ministry in some form within the Department for International Magical Co-operation.

He was hired on a part time basis to begin with by the Department, as a linguist.

Johann had been translating documentation for the trading standards office yesterday afternoon, about the layers of incantations on a new self-preparing teapot. It grew legs and arms, opened the tea container to set itself up, and also climbed into the sink at the end to wash itself. Only there'd been some reports that several teapots had not been opening tea to make their brews, but were rather partial to anything of value they could stuff in their pots, before waddling to the nearest open door.

As part of his role, he has also been asked to take a potential new recruit under his wing, Adelia Delacroix. He seeks her out normally on Hogsmeade weekends with permission of her parents, the Ministry and the Hogwarts headmistress and is trying to engage her in understanding and enjoying the diversity of the international wizarding community, until she can join the department properly following her NEWT examinations.

Sooner than expecting, Johann is also given Sasha Schlagenweit to look after too. Sasha, having been asked to step away from Hogwarts for a while, given all the trouble with a student murder, has joined the department as an intern. They get off to a shaky start, given that Johann had not been informed of his arrival by a colleague on purpose, and set out on a day of showing Dutch businessman, Maarten Bergen around four wizarding properties in the hope he will invest in Britain.

"And yes, you're quite correct. The Ministry are keen for Bergen to invest, but they're greedy to milk him for it in the meantime. We're visiting four places tomorrow, two in London, two outside, and they're keen for him to buy that one. I'm afraid its my job to convince him its t

A Curious Interview:

Describe the content of your bathroom cabinet:

Seven types of sleeping potion. Sometimes I do want dreams at sleep. I generally dislike scryers and seers, but occasionally one does get a bright idea in one's sleep, where the mind mulls over the day and turns up what the conscious mind has overlooked. Sometimes I don't, and after a while one gets tolerant. I'm one for not sleeping for up to 72 hours, and then sleeping 24 hours straight when I feel extraordinarily inspired. Bad for me, yes, I know, countless women have said. Do I care? No, but its sweet they do.

Besides potions, headache tablets, shampoo, toothbrush, washing items. Pretty sparse, pack of plasters for the occasional mishap.

If you were to have grandchildren, what stories would you tell them about your life:

A mix of truth and gross exaggeration and downright lies. That's what grandparents and older relatives do. It was one place I honed my nose for judging when people were lying. I pride myself on having an above average success rate on predicting correctly, but that's besides the point of the question. I'd paint myself as a dashing chap and an inspiration in their minds, not the one who probably won't end up having grandchildren because he wouldn't realise a woman liked him until she got down on one knee and proposed.

Worst Christmas or Birthday gift ever received:

Beginner's guide to Dutch, a language I'd been fluent in for several years by the time it was gifted. Rubbish attempt by a female admirer to get my attention, well - I hadn't realised at the time she was an admirer, until someone with more emotional knowledge and perception pointed out why she'd run away sobbing from my terse response and ranting in Dutch. I was probably a bit harsh on her, I think she got the entire wrong end of the stick. To her credit, she kept the book, and tried her best to learn secretly, I took pity and taught her. We held down a closer relationship for a while, though regrettably I made for an irritating partner when she moved in, but it was good to have someone to ensure I ate, and did usual human things, with a routine. Eugh, routines. We parted company four years ago, for the best.

"No, not a husband, not that sort of material I've been told. I'd like to grow old eventually, with my mind intact, anything more is just luck. I believe it was 'inattentive', 'untidy' and 'distant' that was used to describe me last," He recalled the only woman in the last decade to go as far as deciding to move in with him, rather more her interest in him, than vice versa, he just enjoyed someone to manage domestic matters and theorise to (even when she was asleep), "I believe the correct terms for setting up such a partnership are 'loving', 'caring' and 'supportive'." Johann raised an eyebrow. "Plenty of time for that when life gets boring, hmm?"

Favourite word:

Magniloquent, adj. using high-flown language. From the Latin magnus, great and loquī,  to speak.

Tea, coffee and how do you take it:

Strong. Show it the milk by all means. I'm fond of coffee, though in Britain I always seek out a good cup of tea, of the type with milk. None of that fruit nonsense. A cup of tea can sustain a man for hours.

Accepted! ~Elle

Character Name: Johann Storm
Link to Accepted Biography: http://absitomen.com/index.php?topic=5448
Previous Job/Position: Unemployed
Position Applying For: Linguist/Translator with the Dept. Int. Mag. Co-Operation

Why have you chosen to change careers?: Not change careers as such, just acquire a post in Britain. Johann was completing similar work while in Germany, though not directly employed by the Ministry, he was occasionally employed ad-hoc by them. In Britain, the Ministry is a stable, secure environment, which is what he needs to set himself up in Britain, where he's unknown.

Elaborate on your expertise in this new field: Fluent: German, English, French, Dutch (and the language of Durmstrang if different)
Passable: Russian, Mandarin - the change in alphabet were the main wish to learn, but he doesn't use them enough to keep up
Travels, ten years of translating an teaching in his languages.

Describe your new job and how you go about doing it: Johann is engaged in translation of both documents (rewriting contracts, translating Ministry documents into multiple languages) and also verbal, in person translation in Ministry meetings with foreign delegates. Occasionally he gets seconded to other departments to help identify the language a criminal is ranting in, and translate for them, or offer advice and experience in cross-cultural matters.

ENTJ

Of the four aspects of strategic analysis and definition it is the marshalling or situational organising role that reaches the highest development in the Field-marshal.

Hardly more than two percent of the total population, Fieldmarshals are bound to lead others, and from an early age they can be observed taking command of groups. In some cases, they simply find themselves in charge of groups, and are mystified as to how this happened.

They cannot not build organisations, and cannot not push to implement their goals. When in charge of an organisation, Field-marshals more than any other type desire (and generally have the ability) to visualise where the organisation is going, and they seem able to communicate that vision to others. Their organisational and coordinating skills tends to be highly developed, which means that they are likely to be good at systematising, ordering priorities, generalising, summarising, marshalling evidence, and at demonstrating their ideas.

Field-marshals will usually rise to positions of responsibility and enjoy being executives. They are tireless in their devotion to their jobs and can easily block out other areas of life for the sake of their work.

Superb administrators in any field Field-marshals organise their units into smooth-functioning systems, planning in advance, keeping both short-term and long-range objectives well in mind.

For the Field-marshal, there must always be a goal-directed reason for doing anything, and people's feelings usually are not sufficient reason. They prefer decisions to be based on impersonal data, want to work from well thought-out plans, like to use engineered operations - and they expect others to follow suit. They are ever intent on reducing bureaucratic red tape, task redundancy, and aimless confusion in the workplace, and they are willing to dismiss employees who cannot get with the program and increase their efficiency.

Although Field-marshals are tolerant of established procedures, they can and will abandon any procedure when it can be shown to be ineffective in accomplishing its goal. Field-marshals root out and reject ineffectiveness and inefficiency, and are impatient with repetition of error.

1: What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Just one? Hmm, well, if I had been a Muggle and attended a university, I’m sure I probably would have considered an academic achievement, but wizards don’t go to university (unless they’re Muggleborn or fortunate). Instead my academic achievements have been constant study of languages. No, that’s far too fluffy an achievement.

I’ll say my greatest achievement was in business, in landing a lucrative translating deal with Drammes Apoteke a few years back. It greatly increased my income, and my workload. I’ve passed it on now, as I’m now working for the Ministry, and not just working privately.

2: What is your idea of perfect happiness?

A quiet enough head to function, friends, family, good food, good wine. New Years celebrations are often close, at least at home with people I enjoy spending time with. I’m not one to lay on beaches (look at me, do you think I wouldn’t be bright red in minutes?) and however much I love travel, I actually find most happiness in my companions.

Perhaps one day I will be able to say my perfect happiness is found in one person, and be able to define that relationship as love, but for now, perfect happiness is a full stomach, topped up wine glass and a room full of people putting the world to rights.

3: What is your current state of mind?

As ever, rather a mix, but for the moment the worst of the mania is in check with routine. My day job at the Ministry is ranging from monotony through to brand new challenges, with my first significant assignment with my new gobbledegook skills being for the Minister herself, no less. Other days I feel rather under-stretched, and my mind wanders. I am fortunate my private clients are providing a steady stream of work, with the occasional special project, which is keeping me busy out of hours and filling evenings.

I’m a bit fidgety at home with Colin, however well I now share the space with him, I can’t help but feel he’d like it back to himself and the dog. I can’t help but wonder if its always been like that between us, but I’ve never noticed when my head wasn’t quite so clear. The worry churns itself in circles and I’ve taken to night-time walking when the place seems suffocating. I should be sleeping, but it’s one way to tire myself out.

A good part of my mind is preoccupied with a rather curious development that I have now identified as romantic attraction. It would manifest itself to a person I least suspected, but I trust this is what it does best. I forget myself, and forget that there is another person involved and the whole process is not research and experiment, and that my enthusiasm can be suffocating. But at least in those times I am content as a base, and excited in many moments.

A very small, dark corner is still very much full of self doubt and harsh criticism for everything I do. It’s been a bit of a strange couple of months to say the least.

4: What is your favourite occupation?

I adore to be immersed in work. I lose track of time, become completely focused. It’s beautiful, everything upstairs comes together and I’m not off at tangents or trying to think of too many things at once. If it is  tricky translation, perhaps a dialect I’m less familiar with, it gives me an opportunity to learn, which really improves my day.

To create a beautifully translated document, or write a report attempting to analyse the personality of an author based on their use of language are tasks I quite happily indulge in. Even the trickiest of legal documents bring some queer happiness to my workaholic mind.

Don’t get me wrong, I can get lost in other ways, but they are not quite as productive occupations…

5: What is your most treasured possession?

Other than my mind, I think it is my wand. I’ve had the same one all my life, and I look after it well. Others might say it has lasted so long because I am not in a habit of frequently drawing it, which in comparison to some of my more practical friends, is entirely true.

Twelve inches, ebony with dragon heartstring core. The wood and core is quite common in the family. We’ve either got sharp and scathing minds, or quick hands to fight with, rubbish at divining and our artistic talent would make you compare us to a small child’s scribbling. I will be very upset to lose or break this wand.

6: What or who is the greatest love of your life?

Up until recently the only person in my life I could even dare to define ‘love’ for, was my mother. In that dark, dark week at St Mungo’s I wished many a time that she were there by my bedside, as if I were a small child. I realised bitterly how little credit I gave to the woman who played such a large role in my childhood and showed me unconditional affection and love. Then again, I was in quite the state back then. Either way, if we consider the only definable ‘love’ I have to date is this parent and child type, then that I suppose is the answer. I hope this changes.

7: What is your favourite journey?

I love to take night trains when I travel. Apparition is all well and good over short journeys or where you know where you are going, and floo isn’t bad too if you’re in a hurry, but if you want to see a country and mix among the locals, I find none better. Even if I don’t sleep, I can watch the world go by or roam the train and find conversation with others amongst the swaying carriages. Dinner’s normally whatever is sold when the train stops in stations and the sellers with their baskets get on board.

8: What is your most marked characteristic?

Told very often that they are my cheekbones. Both my parents have fairly angular faces, so I have inherited the best of both. I’ve never considered myself to be conventionally attractive, but I think the current combination of them with a mop of hair and a grin works well enough for many people.

9: When and where were you the happiest?

In more distant memories, as a child. Time with my extended family playing, or spending time with my mother being read to when I was very small. When I catch the hint of her perfume I can be taken straight back there, mixed with fresh linen, curled up against her in bed, her arm around me, and a book propped up between us. She started my languages straight away from before I could string a word together, so bedtime stories also varied from language to language. I never used to have trouble sleeping on those nights.

More recently, one or more of the evenings I spend in the pub with friends and strangers, the warm haze of alcohol making everything a bit rosy. Perhaps more specifically a new friendship, which has an altogether new twist to it, and it seems that alcohol is not essential to induce the warm fuzzy feeling. It’s fantastic.

10: What is it that you most dislike?

Being called an idiot, or being told I am stupid. Second only to the phrase ‘unreliable’ being added to my Ministry file since my stay in St Mungo’s last year. This irritates me thoroughly, I’m very proud of my work and my efficiency, and I hate criticism towards it - especially to imply that I do a bad job. Those people are ignorant to the point of being ridiculous.

11: What is your greatest fear?

Obliviation. When I was too young to attend Durmstrang, my parents would leave me in the care of extended family during the day, but occasionally my father would be able to take me with him to the bank where he works. He has his own office, and has always managed a team in my living memory, and even met my mother there, though they managed goblins back then.

Anyhow, it was one of those days where he was teaching me to calculate compound interest on mortgages in a quieter moment that we were interrupted. An employee of the bank had been obliviated by a customer, and I saw before me a wizard with children transformed into the shell of a man containing the memories and thoughts of a child of about the same age as me at the time.

For someone to have such power over another person’s thoughts - not imperio or legilimency, but to wipe the slate clean, was horrific. I had nightmares about it for weeks, even though the fellow seemed very calm about matters.

This fear has appeared to me as a boggart while at school, and as an adult I will actually raise my wand and curse anyone who attempts to obliviate or modify my memory. I gave Hannah’s mother a pig snout, and I forbid St Mungo’s healers to even try and bottle my memories temporarily. To forget all I’ve learned, to lose those memories of travels and people and places would break my heart.

12: What is your greatest extravagance?

Fine quills, ink and writing paper. I can spend an obscene amount on those, and beautiful books in languages or codes, far too many to have the hours to decode. There is always something special about starting a new notebook or the first press of a quill nib to write that I can’t resist once in a while. It’s enough to turn a bad mood on its head.

13: Which living person do you most despise?

Kaydn Hamilton. He works in Trading Standards on the fifth floor and goes out of his way to try and make my life difficult. He’s unpopular through the department, but we clashed the very first time I went there before I had achieved a post there. I think he dislikes my academic capability, but I dislike his professionalism (which is lacking), his attitude (which is poor) and that he intentionally tries to sabotage me. In return, he gets as good as he gives, and I can forge his signature to a high standard which is rather handy indeed.

When I’m having one of my more delicate days, he has unfortunately managed to work out how to touch nerves, and the last time he did I removed myself to the Ministry’s library to prevent Gabrielle threatening me with a disciplinary again. Antlers, which were given to Hamilton by Azize not me, would be the least of the man’s worries had I not.

14: What is your greatest regret?

Getting so reliant on sleeping potion. Hindsight does give you perfect vision, but there were quite a number of times I could have stopped, or found other avenues. I am only thankful it wasn’t anything more than sleeping potion that I turned to. I’d be lying if I claimed I hadn’t tried things, but either they made me feel sick or I ended up down some frightening mental avenue as my anxieties and chorus of voices up in my head whipped into a frenzy.

15: Which talent would you most like to have?

Enough co-ordination to ice skate! I’ve always wanted to, but put skates on me and my legs go in more directions than I ever thought they were capable of. I’m pretty awful at being co-ordinated or anything remotely sporting, so this hasn’t surprised me. However, it would be nice to just be able to stand up on ice and not fall on my backside or look like a spider in the bath.

16: Where would you like to live?

So many places in the world, I wouldn’t be able to pick one. I’m pretty happy here in rainy old Britain, but I know one day I will move on before it is too late. Some moments to be alone amongst a vast and empty landscape seems the most appealing prospect on a busy day, and the next, that seems far too lonely. Those moments I’d prefer to be in the hubbub of a city, where it never sleeps, where I would never sleep. I’d always shift, always move, always explore.

17: What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?

About Monday 30th November 2009, or near enough.

18: What is the quality you most like in a man?

A keen interest in something other than Quidditch. Preferably, intellectual for better conversation. What, do you mean, romantically? I’ve not got that far as to make lists yet, nor am I still absolutely sure if that is the correct definition of my more recent interest! Patience, perhaps to cope with my habits, or good humour to be able to laugh when things go wrong and lift our spirits.

19: What is the quality you most like in a woman?

The ability to just be a friend. I’ve run into a few female friendships in my years that were hoping for more (not that I realised until later when things were pointed out to me by third parties). I get on very well with quite a number of intelligent, voracious ladies who excel in all professions and outlets, and I wouldn’t want to define the quality I most liked about them, for fear they would all claim they did not possess it.

20: What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?

That to those I am closest to, I often pay least close attention to. It should be the opposite, but truth is I find strangers infinitely interesting, owing to the fact I no nothing of their stories. The more I get to know someone the less interest in those ticks I take, though I don’t become entirely oblivious, I just don’t acknowledge them. I should pay more attention, friends and family are meant to be people I care for.  I am making a conscious effort, but it’s difficult to know quite how to react.

21: What is the trait you most deplore in others?

Intellectual ignorance. People who dispense advice without being asked, and without any real experience or authority in a subject. Purveyors of gross misinformation, I want to curse them so their mouths vanish, preventing them from spouting any more dreadful drivel.

22: What do you most value in your friends?

Their ability to put up with me. I’m told it can be quite difficult.

23: Who is your favourite hero of fiction?

Call me sentimental but it’s a childhood work of fiction that springs to mind. My mother is Belgian, and when I was very young, I was taught and spoken to in many languages at home which put me in good stead for later life. I always remember family gifting me comics - The Adventures of Tintin. Although they were comics, which my father did not wholeheartedly approve of, they were fantastic yarns of a young Belgian reporter and his dog Milou which I adored. Tintin would solve mysteries and travel all over the world in search of answers, and I suppose in my later years I rather fancied impersonating him as I went off on my travels. I wonder if I’d enjoy them quite the same now I’m in my 30s?

24: Who are your heroes in real life?

Healers and Aurors. These people change the course of history for individuals each day, and it’s their career, what gets them out of the bed each morning. Healers are carry scythes as they stand between who lives and dies each day, and Aurors carry scales, judging right from wrong in a split second, and how to contain things. 

25: Which living person do you most admire?

Locally he’d hate me for naming, as he asks me over and over what I could possibly see in him, but he is owed my respect, and admiration.

26: What do you consider the most overrated virtue?

Abstinence, in several forms. Everything is worth trying once, twice, a few times. Well, almost everything. Well, perhaps not almost everything either the more I think about it. But holding back on simple pleasures and desires are really not worth the effort. Have a drink. Kiss someone. Fall into bed with them.

27: On what occasions do you lie?

When the truth makes me gain little. Rather than outright lie, I am more likely to give a selective or moderated truth. I won’t make others concerned on my behalf, they don’t need to know. Or perhaps I’m lying now… you’ll never know.

28: Which words or phrases do you most overuse?

"I see."
"Of course."

Me? Overuse a phrase? Of course not.

.. I see.

29: If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

My backbone. It’s made of rubber some days and I regret it later. For all my arrogance, I can’t find it in myself to stand up to some people. I’d rather run away.

30: What are your favourite names?

Any name of a friend, of a demon, of family. I gather this is probably favourite names of a potential spouse or child, neither of which I have any particular wish to pre-order or define a name for.

31: How would you like to die?

In my sleep. I’d hope it would be without pain, that I’d just go to sleep one night and not wake up. I fear dying in pain or for violent reasons, a coward at heart, I’d hope I would not be in such a situation for that to happen. Besides, more than one person has told me that I will die from potion, and in my heart I’d prefer it that way.

32: If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what do you think it would be?

I’d hope it was something wise like an owl! Not that I’d like ferrying around people’s post, but something associated with wisdom would suit me. After all I’m a wise old soul in this life, why not the next? Not my deepest of considerations, but as I’m not going to come back to my knowledge, I’ve not ever given it a thought.

33: What is your motto?

Curiosity killed the cat, but perseverance brought it back.

Johann’s theme song

Out of my lot, it’s rare I’ve assigned a ‘theme’, so like I did for Edwin, I’ve had to have a think about this.

I’ll most often listen to Placebo when writing Johann. It induces a melancholy and I steal lines or titles from the songs for threads. The songs often discuss substance abuse, mental illness and other problems in society. A bag of laughs really, but seems to work!

There’s two that probably I would associate with him most:

Meds [Listen on Youtube]

I was alone, falling free,
trying my best not to forget,
what happened to us, what happened to me,
what happened as i let it slip.

I was confused by the powers that be,
forgetting names and faces,
Passers by, were looking at me,
as if they could erase it.

Baby…did you forget to take your meds?

I was alone, staring over the ledge,
Trying my best not to forget,
all manner of joy, all manner of glee,
and our one heroic pledge.

How it mattered to us, how it mattered to me,
and the consequences.
I was confused, by the birds and the bees,
forgetting if i meant it.

Baby..did you forget to take your meds?

And the sex and the drugs, and the complications.

Baby..did you forget to take you meds?

I was alone, falling free, trying my best not to forget.

In the Cold Light of Morning [Youtube to listen]

In cold light of morning while, everyone is yawning,
You’re high,
In the cold light of morning the party gets boring, you’re high.
As your skin starts to scratch and wave yesterdays action goodbye..

Forget past indiscretions,
And stolen possessions,
You’re high,
In the cold light.

In the cold light of morning, while everyone’s yawning,
You’re high.
In the cold light of morning ,
You’re drunk sick from wh... and high,
Staring back from the mirrors,
A face that you don’t recognise..
It’s a loser, a sinner, a .... disguise,
In the cold light.

Tomorrow,
As your skin starts to scratch,
And wave yesterdays action goodbye.

Forget past indiscretions,
And stolen possessions,
You’re high.
In the cold light of day..

Tomorrow is only a kettle
Whistle,
Away ..

In the cold light of day.

Why I love Johann

He is a joy to write as he’s so easy to slip into such a variety of situations and settings. His role in the Ministry gives him a generous job description, and his private work even more so.

He is one of my characters that steps either side of the legal path without needing to be too involved. He is an asset in both worlds, and doesn’t have any particular morality about it all, well, at least he didn’t originally. Beginning to get his head a little less numb has brought it into perspective, and brought out he coward in him (sorry Landis). He gets a kick out of pleasing others with his intellect as it swells his head.

In the year or so in the timeline I’ve had the chance to write him, he’s moved from shaky starts to bloom into his own person. I never expected him to be one of my more widely written characters, but some days he feels more in touch than Ignan - possibly because he won’t shut up.

The flexibility, being able to explore his progression, recovery, undoubted slide back, his poor choices, make for enjoyable writing. Then again, I’m always a sucker in RP for the ‘what if they chose the wrong thing’ plot, because to me it is more human.

Who does Johann misunderstand and misjudge the most? Why?

Hannah. He is fairly unique in being classified as a friend by her, but still finds her utterly perplexing. She hates hugs, yet once got sloshed and kissed him passionately. He took her home and to bed, but worked all night, and the fled, relieved to hear that nothing had happened. She puts up with him despite his frequent misjudgements - family and friends believing they are an item, right up to Christmas day in 2009 where he misguidedly proposed to her, believing that was what she wanted, and it was the right thing to do.

Unwittingly, this opened a new chapter between them, in that suddenly Johann was aware that the witch who normally cut his oversized ego down with her tongue, was actually capable of physical violence. That and the fact he became acutely aware of the persecution she had been facing on a daily basis for being a werewolf.

He misjudges her because she is a complex personality as is, but also because the closer he is to friends, the less acute attention he pays to their ticks and unspoken language, as he relaxes. Really he needs to pay full attention, because the whole friendship has been a comedy of errors since they first met over a tattooed corpse.

2: Does Johann have any daily rituals?
Asked by Zira

Reading the newspapers. He's almost always got one rolled up in his bag and he'll read then in a variety of languages to keep abreast of international news.

When he was living with Colin he had a ritual of walking to and from work as far as he could without having to apparate to get some fresh air and gawp at Muggles.

His routine outside of work is changeable, so his daily rituals are more towards his regular meetings and the way he prepares for the day, sifting through his in-tray.

8: Johann’s favourite indulgence and feelings surrounding indulging
Asked by Armiece

Somewhat similar to ‘greatest extravagance’ answered in the past.

Fine quills, ink and writing paper. He can spend an obscene amount on those, and beautiful books in languages or codes, far too many to have the hours to decode. There is always something special about starting a new notebook or the first press of a quill nib to write that he can’t resist once in a while. It’s enough to turn a bad mood on its head.

What - better than sleeping potion, and still early days on new romantic indulgences.

13: Johann's Sexual Orientation? And, regardless of own orientation, thoughts on sexual orientation in general?
Asked by Zira

He had no idea up until recently that it even bothered him. He was thinking less about what he felt and more about what society expected. His orientation is a family joke - the have a bet on it, and when the family heard he was engaged to Hannah, however briefly, they cashed in on it. His father's fiercely against anything but a marriage with a nice young witch, which hasn't helped.

In his earlier days he had a 'relationship' with a woman but it was more that he perceived her as a flatmate, good friend and was completely oblivious to her real intent. He doesn't feel attracted to women, though his approach to being polite and friendly to the point of appearing to flirt has led a few to believe he was interested. He certainly keeps a number of female friends and is at ease with it.

The sleeping potion addiction did not help matters, and only deadened his emotions over matters. If he looks back objectively he would recognise that he felt somewhat attracted to Colin, and that what he perceived as being ill in Vedir's presence was because he has a crush, which is thankfully subsiding now that Vedir isn't fanning the flames for his own amusement. He didn't feel any motivation to act.

For the timebeing, he certainly is attracted to the same gender, so probably falls neatly into homosexual. He doesn't consciously consider this, only that he doesn't want to disclose it to friends and family, as he's been raised to believe it is shameful, though doesn't discriminate against others for the same.

17: Johann’s preferred mode of dress and rituals surrounding dress
Asked by Armiece

Johann’s one to dress in proper suit trousers and a shirt. T-shirts, blue jeans, trainers and such informal items don’t exist in his wardrobe. He’ll own smart dark blue or black jeans, but only more recently.

Despite wearing a shirt, he dislikes wearing ties. A jacket is rarely without at least one self inking quill tucked in a pocket.

There is one exception, that he’s ‘borrowed’ one of Arc’s hoodies while staying over. Partly out of curiosity at why Arc likes to wear them, and partly because wearing something of Arc’s felt rather nice.

21: Johann's turn-ons? Turn-offs?
Asked by Zira

Somewhat unexplored at the moment! Touch is a big one. He's perceived by friends to be quite awkward, but with people he feels 'fond' of, he's more inclined to use touch to interact with them. Being touched by someone else especially softly, is one way to get his complete attention.

Loud, brash, poorly educated and ignorant people are huge turn-offs. Being interrupted while he's working, or criticism during a private moment are firm ways to induce a bad mood.

25: How does Johann see himself 5 years from today?
Asked by Zira

He suspects he'll still be with the British Ministry, but hopes he might be perceived as a senior person in the Department by that point. If he's not, then he'll have turned consultant, and be charging them double what he's paid now while working with his own clients, and possibly employing a couple of other people under a critical eye. Enough flexibility to travel when he gets an itch, and preferably not in a position where he's got to run for his life.

40: How misanthropic is Johann?
Asked by Armiece

Overall, Johann finds he finds he can tolerate the vast majority of people he meets. There are a few exceptions and depending on how that party reacts, or whether he is stuck interacting with them despite finding them a bane, he will seek revenge. He has never actively willed harm on another, but inconvenienced them, nitpicked, dropped them in it for a mistake, definitely.

48: If Johann were to get into a fist fight, what is his fighting style like?
Asked by Armiece

He would run the hell out of there, hide or failing that, curl into a ball and beg for mercy. Johann is an enormous coward and forgets he’s a wizard when it comes to actual fights. He’ll vanish or hide behind anyone, even if its a child.

14. Is there anything Johann is too optimistic about?
Asked by Nuri

That work is all good work. Johann is rarely happier than when he is gainfully employed with something that captures all of his attention and allows him to prove how clever he is. He is always optimistic that helping or carrying out a task will end up benefitting someone, and does’t think that anyone could get hurt. 

19. Is there anything Johann refuses to budge on? What is he stubborn about?
Asked by Nuri

Johann hates to be told he’s wrong - he’ll grit his teeth sometimes, but if he’s told he’s wrong and he’s sure he’s right, he’ll find a way to even the score later through one means or another. He’s never wrong, never inexact in his professional life.
In his personal life things are more borderline, and he’s more appreciative of the differences and respectful of those he’s close to. He’s not an expert in everything outside of his professional life, so he approaches criticism as part of learning.

Above all, call him an idiot and you’re on his blacklist for the rest of your life.

2B, House of Atreus
October 2010 onwards


2B House of Atreus is above ground level, reached to the right from the lift at the end of the hallway.

Behind the doorway is a hallway, with four doors on the left, one ahead and a long line of bookcases on the right. By the door to the right are a line of hooks for coats and a shoe rack that seems to contain mostly similar pairs of formal shoes. The bottom shelves of the bookcases contain tall atlases. The shelves above contain books but there are a lot of spaces. This space declines as the months progress. There are some rolled up maps tucked between the end of the bookcase and the wall beside the kitchen door.

The first door on the left opens outwards and leads to a narrow bathroom, with bath immediately on the left on entering. There is a small window at the far end. The room is not particularly remarkable, though does boast the collection of seven types of sleeping potions in the cupboard.

The second door on the left also opens outwards and is the linen cupboard. It also houses half a dozen cardboard boxes of paperwork stacked on the floor.

The third door on the left leads into the guest bedroom, which is as yet, unfurnished. Instead the floor is spread with open books and a large map pinned down at the corners by more books. The window is dressed by a simple set of green curtains that only shade the sunlight.

The fourth door on the left leads into the master bedroom. Furnished with a double bed, wardrobe full of clothes, and a chest of drawers. All looks neat apart from a teetering set of books beside the heat of the bed which are currently serving as a bedside table. There are heavy curtains at the window, in the hope of blacking out all the light.

The door at the end of the hallway opens into the hallway to reveal the galley kitchen. The sink and stove are on the right, and another surface to the left with cupboards mostly stores crockery and food. There is more paperwork piled here, but mostly correspondence for the flat, bills and invoices for furniture.

The kitchen opens out into a wider living space with three windows. A modest wine red sofa to the left which is quite clearly second hand, and brown leather armchair sit before a window with mismatched cushions. One end of the sofa sports a pile of foreign newspapers.

The far corner is dominated by a wide desk and shelves on the wall filled with document boxes. The desk is set below a window and it is clear the owner prefer to sit at one end to better look out while working. There are more piles of paper and books beside it. A calendar hangs open at eye-height, and a cluttered noticeboard is propped against the floor, having come off the wall. A number of more social photographs of friends and work are tucked around the frame.

Before the third window, pushed almost up against the wall is a long dining table, able to seat six. There are neat stacks of paper here, work clearly set out to be returned in folders and the odd box. Above it hang a set of photographs of different foreign locations, none of them contain anyone recognisable, but are from years of travels.

2: Describe or illustrate their childhood room
Asked by Nuri here

A single bed beneath a window overlooking the street, best to observe all the comings and the goings of the neighbours and the traffic. The windowsill just wide enough to accommodate a lanky frame in grey robes. A bare foot trails down to rest on his pillow below.

Bookcases, constantly rearranged, line one wall and piles of more books sit on the floor. Not just his own, but collected from about the house, from his parents, or books leant by friends that vanished from sitting room tables. Invariably library books are overdue once found.

The bare floorboards are covered by a great navy blue rug interwoven with runes, fading beneath the sunlight. A great oversized puzzle book lays open, on the floor beside the bed to the right of the potential occupant. Quills and ink are scattered beside it, drawings and workings litter the floor, a problem as yet unsolved, deposited beside the bed to be resumed by candlelight instead of sleep.

On the wall opposite the foot of the bed, reflecting sunshine and the silhouette of the pale boy a year away from Durmstrang is a tall mirror with simple frame beside a wardrobe kept tidy by the house elf, filled with robes and wizard tunics, far too stuffy for the average nine year old. He wishes it might contain something simpler, something along the lines that the Muggle boys wear, but Father does not approve.

The room is on the corner of the house and to the left of the bed, opposite to the side the puzzles sprawl, facing the bookcases is another smaller window, not suited for sitting at all for how high it is set in the wall and for only being a foot or so in height. Swirling tree leaves fill the view through the glass, and an owl sleeps quietly in the branches taking a rest between parcel deliveries. It is ajar, cool Spring air seeping into the room.

The walls around the window are covered without gaps with maps - mostly a large map of the world with pins and string, and postcards all around the edges. The other maps that overlap each other are of city streets and labyrinth buildings. Places he’s been or places he wants to go. Plans that form the basis of travels a decade away. A calendar hangs haphazardly within reach of the desk. Three sets of handwriting label the dates, birthdays, gatherings, visits to museums, family anniversaries, significant historical dates cram the month.

Beneath it all is a desk, buried in three layers. Yet more books, three new maps rolled and bound ready to be pinned as soon as he has space. On the corner perch a stack of journals each dated on the spine in fading quill ink, the handwriting steadily improving. Beneath, at the foot of the desk an open box waits patiently for their return and the door of the wardrobe hangs open ready to receive the box in turn, memories of a little boy stowed away to be rediscovered one merry evening as an adult. At the back of the desk, submerged so only the top inch or so can be seen is a wireless set, visible enough to turn the dials. It lovingly tuned late at night to try and reach the faint signals from France, or those from Scandinavia.

The door hangs half open, the back of it filled with winter cloaks. Out the bottom beneath the hems can just be spied a family tree in his father’s hand, the edges of the parchment adhered to the door are tatty from the traffic over it. Then up the doorframe are notches, every birthday since he was two, made by his father to record his height. He disbelieves the notion he will ever grow to reach nearly the top despite how his parents both tower over him.

Faintly in the house below, there is the sound of the fireplace floo. With a sigh, he retreats swiftly and as nimbly as he can down from the windowsill to sit cross-legged on the pale blue sheets of the bed. At the foot, mathematics problems are folded away into a text book, left there for him to do that afternoon, but discarded in the quiet house for the far more interesting scenes of the street.



6: Tell you their favourite bedtime story
Asked by Nuri here

Camille would read Grimm’s Fairytales at length to Johann in different languages to help him learn. From there to poetry and even in desperation, stories from her own childhood about the family. He has reflected back on Godfather Death once for costume.

But a story that he remembers from his youngest days that was retold often, is The Cat That Walked By Himself for the clever cat and for the magic.

10: Detail a most gruesome tale of when they were ill
Asked by Neon here

The most gruesome to date has been the syrup of hellebore poisoning and the glowing vomit, but we know that story.

The only other time that Johann can keenly remember being ill on any ‘gruesome’ scale and not related to potions was when he simply came down with a proper stomach bug while travelling. It began triumphantly on a bus, where he threw up over a few locals. A scuffle ensued, finished by yet more puke. He and his travel companions managed to get him back to the hostel and he didn’t leave the bathroom. He had to barricade himself in much to the irritation of his travelling partners who left him to it the following day. It kept both ends busy overnight while they tried to sleep next door. Eventually he managed to fitfully sleep it off alone in the day and sweat out an accompanying fever in terrific heat, complete with his usual hallucinations. To their credit, his companions did bring back some possible remedies by mid afternoon, and arrange to stay an extra couple of days to let him recover.

13: List you their five most used words or phrases
Asked by Neon here

1. I see
2. Of course
3. I’m fine
4. Balfour
5. Don’t you see?

Morning
Headcanons-on-a-train series post: here

Dependent on the sleep the night before, but often gets up to prowl, active, fidgety, would rather go to work early. However with deeper sleep and a bed companion, can doze, laze and consider bed the most comfortable place in the world.

Weekday Lunch
Headcanons-on-a-train series post: here

Only taken when he has company, official or social. Always an air of rushing off and something more important to do, cannot snap out of ‘work mode’ easily. May take it in the building with the odd closer colleague, for instance to test Pinn on her conversational skills in new languages. If very lucky manages to catch it with Balfour.

Travel
Headcanons-on-a-train series post: here

Floo, particular love of the international floo. Apparates and walks very long distances around London. Can fly a broom but doesn’t own one and is a novice. Can’t drive, but has a pact with Balfour to learn up in Scotland some time. Can ride a bicycle quite well.

Colleague Approaching Desk
Headcanons-on-a-train series post: here

Greeted with a broad smile and enthusiastic conversation. Usually very wiling to help. If working hard you might be ignored accidentally due to immersion.

Drunk
Headcanons-on-a-train series post: here

Very friendly, enthusiastic and very physical. Loud, giggly, hauls people to dance. Boundless energy. Occasionally face plants somewhere inconvenient if exhausted. If drinking alone/small gathering can get melancholy, and ask searching questions.

Pets
Headcanons-on-a-train series post: here

Never kept pets. Since moving to Britain he is better acquainted with dogs than cats. Convinced the Fates (Balfour’s cats) hate him yet adores Whiskey. Gets on well with Arc’s kneazle, Rustle, probably more a dog person. Yet to have one of his own.

Aspirations
Headcanons-on-a-train series post: here

Grow old and grey with Bal and have children in some sense or the other. Pack in the criminal work, especially once children arrive. Perhaps work privately or entirely work for the ministry and seek dept head status. Depending on how grounded life feels. Stop running away. Stick two fingers up at the old family.

How do they prepare to go out for dinner with friends?
Headcanons-on-a-trainplane series post: here

Likely dashed in late. May have trouble prising self from Balfour. Shower, fresh shirt, no tie unless strictly necessary. Polishes shoes and may mentally rehearse suitable dinner topics.

How would they cope with an unexpected, anonymous valentines gift?
Headcanons-on-a-trainplane series post: here

Quiz Balfour carefully for signs it was him who sent it and if not him, enlist his help in opening it safely should it be from Ira.

What is an Airplane?
Headcanons-on-a-trainplane series post: here

“A giant metal bird Muggles use instead of brooms to fly long distances around the world. More expensive and time consuming than international floo.”

Where is the furthest they have been abroad?
Headcanons-on-a-trainplane series post: here

Japan. Hasn’t made it to Australia or America yet.

What was their first job?
Headcanons-on-a-trainplane series post: here

Correcting and proofing classmate’s work in his final year, and the odd bit of admin/office work at Chrysopoeia when he was little, though he wasn’t paid, he was just bored enough to do it for his mother’s colleagues. His father preferred to give him things to study.

First romance?
Headcanons-on-a-trainplane series post: here

Plenty of strange crushes, not realising what they were, but his first proper kiss on his terms was Arcturus Hollingbury. Balfour stole the crown for everything else after.

Thoughts on having children
Headcanons-on-a-train series post: here

Hadn’t really considered in great detail as he wasn’t settling down. Quite adores his younger cousins growing up but was not the most natural of babysitters. Since meeting Balfour his opinion has changed more for the fact he loves to watch him with his young relations. Isn’t sure of how they would go about it and is very open to adoption.

What would happen if they bumped into a celebrity in an unusual situation?
Headcanons-on-a-trainplane series post: here

Wouldn’t hesitate to strike up conversation if he held any respect for them. If he disagreed with them, one would hope he’d just ignore the fact they were there or treat them no differently to the rest of the population, but with a drink or if feeling particularly arrogant he might make a comment. Conversation would be well mannered otherwise, and he might even ask for an autograph if it went well. Might have to shut himself up if he’s really into them, out of excitement.

50. If they could only take one bag of stuff somewhere with them: what would they pack? What do they consider their essentials?
Asked by Nuri on Tumblr

Balfour is clearly an essential, but he probably doesn’t fit in a bag. So, toothbrush, money (potentially multiple currencies), change of clothes, identity documents, wand, address book. Pretty much the usual contents of his bag, though probably a couple of headache remedies, sleeping potions and a ton of paperwork too.

The character’s ability to read directions
Asked by Nuri on Tumblr

Johann has an uncanny knack for navigation in unfamiliar places. He easily recalls written directions, and can make sense of all but the worst verbal directions. He would make for a perfect driving partner armed with a map, or travel companion in any sense really. Bad directions will receive corrections, and in the worst cases, be sent back ridiculed.

If your character’s lover offered to take them out on a dream date, what would they want to do?
Asked by Nuri on Tumblr

It would be a whistlestop adventure! Up before breakfast to somewhere new in a different culture. Navigating new tastes, places, language. Johann’s dream date would be to share adventure with Balfour, to see something new for both of them. To share firsts. Perhaps an element of chance or game in that they make decisions based on the toss of a coin or a dice to see where they end up. To end up exhausted but content, together under the stars of a new sky.