Your Nickname: Zayzie
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How did you find us and decide to write with us? Friend
If you have written other characters here: No
If Yes, list them all: Is this a Primary or Secondary Character?: Primary
Full Character Name: Torquil Foley
Character Birthday & Age: March 17 1948 : 61 years
City & Country of Birth: County Waterford, Ireland
Blood Purity: Pureblood
Alma Mater: Ravenclaw
Job/Position: Research Correspondent for the Daily Prophet
Wand: Ebony wood, Ashwinder Ash , Smooth, Pliable, 9 ¾”
Physical Description: Torquil is a short (5’4”,) brawny man, dwarfed by his wife, in height. He keeps in shape, exercising and running when he doesn’t have a physically demanding assignment.
He is a desaturated red-head, with matted red hair mixed in with locks of grey. He dons short thick eyebrows and a large beak-shaped nose that hovers over a rough and wire-y mustache invading his upper upper lip, and a similar beard patted with patches of white, lining his large chin. Crow’s feet pick at the edges of his eyes and wrinkles and worn lines mark his face, and crease together when he smiles.
He wears sweaters and jeans, or jeans and a nice medium-length trenchcoat, with a hooded sweatshirt underneath. He carries either a scout or canvas rucksack with him and goes into work or social events wearing wizard robes. And wears prescription sunglasses (magical), or enchanted goggles (depending on what he’s doing) to help him see, because of his waning eyesight in his old age.
Personality Description: Personality Description: Accident prone, lucky enough to get out of most of his encounters without bodily injury. As seen with information gathering or during his travels as he studied dangerous creatures, he is known for unorthodox or risky methods to obtain the information he wants. The fact that his methods work, and that he never seems to die in the process, has always amazed the Daily Prophet reporters. He is fit in his old age, claiming it’s probably the only thing keeping him out of trouble and death’s grasp, as well as his faithful falcon familiar, Kaz.
He is a little socially inept, only going so far as to understand social cues, despite his being a very good investigator. Therefore, he often makes awkward jokes or just strange company to have around, because he doesn’t concern himself with reading too deeply into a person, or letting himself be affected by a first impression. However he does enjoy a good, intellectual conversation, even with people he isn’t very fond of, and isn’t terribly interested in shallow gossip.
He cares about his family, what little he has left, and is very proud of all of them, and strives to get their approval, including his cousins Liadán and Declan, even though he was disowned by his mother and father. While he does try to impress them, he isn’t willing to wander out of his comfort zone to do it, but he never lets them know that. He has a close relationship with his children, and encourages their independent personality, and does so with other young people he meets. He also loves his wife and is loyal to her, enjoying her company far more than anyone he has ever met.
History: 
In 1929, Brídín Ó Móráin was born a squib into the Ó Móráin family, much to their dismay. They sent her off to attempt and integrate with muggle society, but she managed to butt in to the wizarding world, every now and then. At the age of 17, upon visiting a bar & inn, Brídín was lovestruck by a pureblood, only interested in her figure, and they had a very short fling, before he left her hanging out to dry. This saddened Brídín, and she became a recluse, spending her spare time working and attending school in the muggle world. However, as she neared her 18th year of life, she developed a plump stomach, which alarmed her until she was informed she was pregnant. Despite the broken heart she received by the pureblood, she took his name for his son, and Torquil Foley entered her life on March 17th of 1947, and considered her son to be a gift of luck.
Despite her efforts, her family did not take an interest in the boy, until his mother attempted to feed him brussel sprouts, which just brought on a temper tantrum, and his brussel sprouts turning into a large bowl of chocolate pudding. Once her son displayed magical abilities and informed her family, who decided to offer their assistance by watching the boy from time to time and financed his years at Hogwarts. However, they informed him that if he didn’t keep high marks in all his classes, they would remove him from the school because he was clearly a waste of time.
When Torquil turned 7, Cáel Ó Móráin was born, and Torquil and Brídín were very kind to the boy. With a male heir to their lineage, the Ó Móráins were much more tolerant towards Torquil, and he was allowed to treat Cáel like a younger brother. However, they still stood by their strict rules about him.
Torquil wasn’t sure if he was up to the task, and approached Hogwarts with a very critical eye, and studied many of his books, and practiced simple magic, before arriving at the school. The sorting hat recognized his cleverness as a Ravenclaw trait, and his willing to learn ultimately landed him a spot in the house, where he exceeded all expectations of him.
His nervousness and hesitation about the school quickly turned himself into a curious and quizzical person. He wanted to know about the origins of just about everything from the origins of spells and potions to some of the most strange or dangerous creatures. He often went above and beyond the requirements of his work to learn more and to completely understand everything involved with his assignment, which caused him to excel in all subjects in his school, and become a model student of Ravenclaw. He was a prefect of Ravenclaw his fifth and sixth years, and head boy during his seventh year at Hogwarts, winning over the recognition and praise of the Ó Móráins, who began to press their pureblood ways upon the boy. Continuing in his efforts to please his family, he followed their orders.
Not knowing what he quite wanted to do with his life, he proceeded to travel with archeologists, and researchers, primarily with his friend Charisma Aldridge. He became notorious for getting caught up in accidents, especially with Charisma, but being lucky enough to escape them. He eventually made a habit of building things, as well, and took it upon himself to be mentored as an Artificer while he traveled and participated in research expeditions, and used the skill as a means of making money among various colleagues.
During his prolonged travels, he attempted to win over pureblood witches, but he wasn’t just satisfied with continuing a pureblood lineage and wanted a significant relationship with another woman. However, he wasn’t particular charming, often absent-minded, quirky, and awkward to be around. He did manage to have one marriage, but due to his financial status, there was a divorce within a year. In a strange turn of luck, shortly after, the Daily Prophet hired him on as their personal research correspondence, which provided a much more steady flow of earnings. He sent owls back to his family to inform them of his mixed luck, emphasizing his failure at acquiring a pureblood wife, especially to Cáel , who now owned the farm and was married.
Cáel , having a fondness for his sister and subsequently, his son, wouldn’t stand for this. He suggested Torquil try and marry into his wife’s family, the d’Aubigne’s, and attempted to introduce him to his wife’s relatives. Torquil attracted another wife, however ended in a divorce after a miscarriage, and again, his financial status. At the age of thirty-seven, he fell into a bought of depression, and almost quit his job altogether. At the suggestion of his superiors, he took up a small series of articles about an obscure legend about a wizard, named Afamdi the Thief, shipped to Jamaica because of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade during the 1970’s. He was offered to receive small payments for any information he had on the legends, while attempting to spend some vacation time in the Caribbean.
During the course of his researching and interviews, he met a dark, young, tall Jamaican woman, a doctor named Delilah Steele, who was the current owner of the closed plantation where Afamdi had been shipped. He immediately fell in love with her. Without the pressure of his family dictating his love life, he put off his retirement plans in one final attempt to have a meaningful relationship. It was a long and complicated relationship, as she often pushed him away, once she found out his feelings. Although, she did have a sort of fondness for Torquil, and before she allowed him to start living with her, she first had a boy by him, named Adric.
Toquil began to take his research seriously, and even traced the roots of the Jamaican slave-trade, back to Nigeria to the Igbo people, but also took up being an Artificer on the side. When his superiors informed him that he needed a faster method to transport his research, or return to Ireland, so that they could make the articles a more frequent edition to the Daily Prophet, the Irishman went out and bought the fastest bird he could fine, a falcon, a mix between a gyrfalcon and a peregrine. The bird allowed him to continue his work in Jamaica and to pursue his love. However, the researcher was haunted by guilt, believed he let down his family by falling for a muggle, and felt too embarrassed to continue contact with Cáel .
Soon, Torquil began to notice his son’s showing signs of being a wizard. He attempted to hide it from Elizabeth—determined to keep his secret as long as he could, but his son was of talking age, and made a few suspicious comments about magic. Upon further investigations, he found charms and curses littered through the house, hiding magic from him or anyone who happened to visit the plantation. Slightly confused, Delilah turned on him with her wand, in a panicked rage, and they had a short exchange of curses. After an awkward discussion, she revealed Afamdi’s stolen heritage. Amadi was a metamorph, who killed the original owner, a Steele, took his life, and proceeded to ship African wizards and witches to Jamaica. They were promised preservation and purity for their lineage, in return for keeping the plantation running, and their magic secret. After the plantation closed, many of the families on the farm took up different surnames, and the Afamdi family kept the name Steele, and went to great lengths to hide this history from muggles.
Shortly afterwards, Torquil was engulfed into the traditions of Delilah's family, having to learn to wield a machete and a staff in order to go through various trials to win Delilah's hand in marriage. Of course, even after they married, any exhausting magical or physical trials put on him by her family only seemed to be continued, tenfold, by his new wife.
He also provided research for a very popular series of articles and stories about Amadi Afamdi and the Afamdi family ways. They had two more boys after their wedding, Booker and Cavin, and lived with them in the Caribbean for a few more years, before informing Cáel of his change of luck. After Delilah and Torquil had troubles supporting their family, they returned to Ireland where Torquil could get more work, take on more crafting jobs, and even took up toy-making to make money, and his wife got a job at St. Mungo’s.
When Delilah knew of Torquil’s being a pureblood, she informed him of her wanting about three or more children, as it was customary in her family to have about two or three boys and she also wanted a girl. Within the course of ten years they had five children, giving birth to two more in Ireland: Demont and Naomi. The Foleys began to take on a heavier workload to support their brood, and did not make a lot of time for their children, who, in their parents absence, had begun to raise themselves. This worked out well, and they were loving to each other, but to solve their disagreements, they often broke out into fist fights. When Naomi and Demont made their way into the rowdy fights of their older siblings, they quickly learned that they were no match for their three older brothers, and since they were not forced to live in the Afamdi ways of hiding their magic, they quickly resorted to hexes, curses, and spells to win fights. Eventually, Adric learned defensive spells to keep his siblings in line, but their endeavors to beat each other just escalated until their fights usually consisted of dueling and messy physical fights. They were so out-of-control during these arguments that their parents couldn’t stop them before they trashed the house and backyard, and they usually had to run their kids to St. Mungos, afterwards.
They offered an outlet by purchasing Quidditch equipment, for the siblings to play with all summer. As the children grew to love the game, their fights settled for a while, until everyone decided they would forget about the quaffle and try to knock each other off their brooms with the bludgers. The miniature, abused, and possessed cannons were usually confiscated for weeks at a time, after this, until they played the game properly. The children eventually found other ways to break out into mid-air fights, and had to be grounded from the game altogether. But his kids were persistent, and learned to summon their brooms, wands, and to find their other Quidditch gear, to continue playing the game.
It wasn’t long after this when Torquil learned his falcon was a familiar. Upon getting more jobs, he focused on a few articles having to deal with dangerous creatures, and proceeded to take on falconry so that he may have an extra set of eyes on his trips. During one instance, when studying dragons, he seemed to have tested the patience of a Hungarian Horntail. His falcon intervened, and distracted the beast to chase it into the sky. The Dragonologists that accompanied Torquil, thought his bird was either noble or suicidal, and considered him dead as they began to leave the area. But they looked back and witnessed the daring bird’s 320km/h version of a Wronksi Feint, outwitting the dragon into crashing into the ground. Henceforth he was aptly named Kamikaze which later became kaz (“kahz”) for short, courtesy of his children, who were often divebombed off their brooms while fighting in the middle of their quidditch games, or lost the snitch or beater’s bat to the speedy peregrine. Because of the Bird’s haphazard nature, mimicking Torquil’s behavior, the bird became his permanent friend and partner.
The research correspondent for the Daily Prophet was convinced his life had settled down, and that, due to his old age and abundance of luck, nothing else in his life could go wrong. His presumptions were shattered when Cáel was put into Azkaban for his illegal breeding of dangerous dragons, and his son, Declan, shouldered the blame.
The son was disowned, and began to live with his aunt, Torquil’s mother. Despite his carelessness in the situation, Torquil didn’t consider it the boy’s fault, and he visited Declan often, supporting his mother in raising the boy, and trying to mend the broken ties between his sister and mother, but to no avail. Eventually, Cáel died in Azkaban, Brídín came down with an illness, and died and was followed by Torquil’s sister-in-law, Adelaide.
Torquil tried and build ties between his cousins again, but Liadán took no interest in her brother, and so only managed to invite Declan to pureblood gatherings and outings, never succeeding in his attempts to reunite his broken family.
During the second war, Torquil’s work for the Prophet slowly dwindled and came to a hault, as most articles took a negative tone towards muggleborn wizards and witches, and took no part in gathering research for the articles, detatched himself from the paper, and hoped to wait it out. In the meantime, he took up some odd freelance work for other authors, and even the Quibbler for a while.
His lack of work mirrored his oldest son’s first years at Hogwarts, with grades that were less than stellar, however he soon learned this was because of Hogwarts strict regime under Umbridge, and that he taught himself in his own time. He didn’t consider it too much of a loss, until Adric’s third year.
During Adric's third year and Booker’s first year, mainly after Christmas, Torquil didn’t receive any owls. He didn’t think too hard on this, until the Battle at Hogwarts broke out, and he feared for his son’s lives. He gathered up a camera and some other materials, and headed to the school, arriving after the aftermath of the battle. He took many pictures of the castle, the wounded, and many heroes as he searched for his sons. He was then informed that his children had been hiding in the outskirts of Hogsmeade, mostly playing with bludgers and stealing food, and that they were rounded up by the students and professors after they released a few stolen bludgers and crashed into the Hog’s Head. His sons suffered some injuries, fixable, and he was relieved. The Daily Prophet also hired him again for his work.
His two youngest sons took on Quidditch their next year at Hogwarts, and went onto play professional Quidditch after they graduated. With his children slowly leaving the house, Delilah and Torquil’s life slowed down, and they spent more time with each other and their remaining children.
Once he reached the ripe old age of 61, Torquil wasn’t interested in retiring, and kept himself fit and ready for any jobs given to him by the Daily Prophet. Due to his expertise, and the recent popularity on the topic of werewolves, the Daily Prophet has recently assigned Torquil the duty of researching werewolves, but due to the slowness of the work, he has also been working a lot on his Artificer skills as a means for money and for various favors, due to already having a strong network of clients.
Describe your job duties and how you go about them: He is a research correspondent for the Daily Prophet. They give him an assignment dealing with one or several topics, that go beyond the scope of simply interviewing people, eavesdropping, or sitting through a hearing. For them, he’s the one willing to get step in the mud and get chased by ghastly creatures to get the job done.
Elaborate on your expertise in your field: After receiving high marks in school, at the suggestion of his proffesors, he proceeded to travel with text-book authors or those who write research in an attempt to discover their methods of how they gather information. Then, to make money, he proceeded to do freelance correspondence for journalists and many authors, until the Daily Prophet decided to hire him as their personal correspondent
Writing Sample: A short man, wearing a black straw fedora and wrapped in a scarf, stood outside the old doors of The Three Broomsticks Inn. The cold air numbed away at his large nose, as he looked around. His leather canvas rucksack bag hung off one of his broad shoulders, held in place by his arms squeezing his sides, and hands digging into his trenchcoat pockets. A soft rhythmic beat against the chilly air drew the man’s attention to one of the wooden beams, where a black winged and a dark blotchy chested falcon wrapped his talons around the wood and perched itself. The short man sniffed and muffled “Good boy,” while turning to the doors and pushing them open.
He felt the heat wash over him and pulled at his scarf, revealing the hard fuzz of his red mustache and beard to be sprinkled with flecks of snow and ice. He listened to the large fire crackle as he looked towards the stairs of the inn, and then walked under them into a dark and dingy corner of the inn, where a young man with dark circles hanging under his eyes, sat drinking butterbeer. He looked up at the short man, squinting an eye in criticism of the short man.
“Foley?” he said with sickly criticism.
Torquil rolled back on his heels, and looked on with a blank unsure expression, “Yee-yup.”
“ You think,’I’m some uncontrollable monster, like the rest of ‘em?”
Scratching under his hat, Torquil grimaced, not at the old remark but the questioning of his character, “I don’t know, do you?”
The young man glared at the elder and dropped his jaw in to voice an objection. Then he stopped looked at his beer and took another sip, “It just happened. I just feel so different… grumpy, everythin’ hurts. I jus’ want to be normal—an’ I don’t mean I want to change back or nuthin’—just want to be treated normal. I don’t want to be a monster.” A silent pause settled as the young man hesitated and looked towards the short elder, still looking on blankly and nervously. “You think I’m one of em?”
Torquil wasn’t really thinking about that. He was staring on blankly because he was trying to figure out how to go about his research, what clues to follow, what details to hang onto, where he would go after this interview. He was also scratching the ice off his scruffy beard because it just made his face feel funny. “Have you ever been around kids, boy?”
“Yeah.”
“You ever had any?”
“No.”
“Well, honestly,” He grunted swabbed around his words, “Anyone who thinks werewolves are potentially more dangerous than children, has obviously never had the honor of rearing five of them at once.” He garnered a quizzical look from the younger wizard which caused him to think about what he said, drawing his mouth into a fine line, and then contently smiled into the wrinkles of his old face, realizing he had just said something rather humorous. The younger wizard snorted at him, and stood up from the table.
“Ready?” Torquil said, as he looked up at the boy.
“Yeah, lead the way Mr. Foley.”
Sum up your character in one paragraph: socially awkward, generally means no ill-intent, quirky, but can carry on an interesting conversation. Fairly objective about anything and not easily offended, unless his family is involved, then he’s a bit biased. Tries and get a job done completely and thoroughly to the best of his abilities. He is accident prone, and tends to get himself caught up in trouble, but others believe that his Irish luck tends to keep him alive. Torquil also believes he’s lucky, but he’s tries his best to be prepared for any situation, keeping his wand and research handy and keeping himself physically fit. During his old age, he’s afraid of being physically incapable of carrying out of task, so that is why staying fit is important to him and it is purely done for self-satisfaction.
Torquil Foley: Artificer/Explorer